Free Sick Day by Morgan Parker Page A

was that if Riley came downstairs, I would have to pull my stare away from Hope. And I also knew that once I broke this stare between us, she would disappear.
    Again.
    “Hurry up!” Riley shouted. “I’m already wet, and I’m gonna get started without you! Damn, I’m fucking horny tonight!”
    “Uh huh,” I mumbled, raising my hand to Hope again. Except this time I gave her the “one minute” sign, which probably looked like the “this is my pointer finger” sign as well.
    Backing away from the front window, I hurried to the front door, taking my eyes off her for less than five seconds as I searched for my shoes, then decided to bypass any footwear because it would take too long to tie the laces. Then I ran outside to find exactly what I had expected.
    She was gone.
    Our exclusive, executive community had our row of townhomes facing another row, with a common laneway between us. It led to a mound of pretty landscaping and a gazebo that apparently justified the $500 per month in common fees. I searched that laneway, looked up and down. On the down search, I caught sight of Hope running away. Not toward the gazebo, which would’ve been the easiest thing.
    “Hope!” I yelled, then launched into a sprint after her. I pumped my legs harder than I had in the past few weeks because I had been too busy at Harris to even see the gym, let alone start any kind of workout. But I was quick, and I was gaining on her as she steered off the grounds and onto the busy four-lane street.
    “Hope!” I begged
    “No!” she yelled, glancing back to see how close I was getting.
    “Stop for a minute! Please! I’m gonna fucking die here!”
    “Then fuck off and die, Cameron!” she screamed.
    Once I was close enough, I lunged at her and tackled her to the drenched grass next to the community center. The lights from the indoor pool where old people did water-cise activities flooded onto us. I glanced inside the pool area, but nobody seemed to notice the shoeless young man who had just taken down the soaking wet young woman outside their group exercise class.
    “Hope, stop!” I begged her.
    But she didn’t stop; she kept squirming and fighting in my arms, even as I held her in this tight spooning position.
    “Shit, will you just stop already?” I screamed, then kissed the side of her face because I missed her. Oh, fuck, did I ever miss her, the taste of her face on my lips, but I also didn’t know what else to do.
    That kiss did it. The ferocity of her squirming and fighting lightened.
    I kissed her again and again and again, until she turned her lips to mine and rotated her body so that she lay underneath my weight on the spongy grass. The rain pelted my back as we made out like two rabid teenagers whose parents wouldn’t lend them their cars so they could screw in the dry privacy of a backseat.
    When I pulled back from Hope’s reciprocated kisses, I realized that I was pinning her wrists above her head, and she had wrapped her legs around my waist.
    “Look at us,” I said, and we both burst into crazy laughter.
    “I missed you, Cameron,” she panted. “Shit.”
    “Hope, what are you doing here?”
    She sighed, turning her face toward the swimming pool window and aiming her stare on the activity inside like it offered the answer to the meaning of life.
    “Not this.”
     
    } i {

Chapter 19
     
    R eturning to the townhouse, drenched and barefoot, I didn’t exactly know what to expect from Riley. I stood on the front porch for a few moments, wondering for a second if Riley had managed to get off before the timer buzzed on the oven, then turned the doorknob and stepped inside. I braced myself for the worst, but was surprised when she stepped into the foyer, wearing a bathrobe and carrying a glass of wine. She simply looked me up and down with a questioning look on her face.
    “Where the fuck were you?” she asked with a hiss, opening her bathrobe just enough to reveal that she wore nothing underneath. For the first