John C Pelkey
Shy Jon Perone is just getting by when an incident introduces him to the world of running. When he meets pretty Jennifer Carling, a new student in his school, he falls for her, hard. Overcoming his fear of everyone and everything to be in her life, he joins the track team and excels. Jennifer rewards his effort when she asks him to teach her how to run.
However, a web of deceit and neglect rules Jennifer’s life and snares Jon, ill equipped to handle both his emotions and the downward spiraling situation. Can Jon overcome the barriers of innocence, youth, and fear to succeed in life and find happiness with Jennifer? You’ll have to read RUNNERS to find out.
John Pelkey is in his twenty-sixth year as a fiscal person for Washington State. Although not the expected background for a coming-of-age romance writer, his degree from The Evergreen State College includes extensive creative writing. John began writing short stories as a child and decided to revive his writing when the kids grew up and someone invented the personal computer. RUNNERS Book Two is his third book, following CATCHING THE WIND, published in 2002 and RUNNERS Book One, published in 2005. It is the second book of a trilogy, with RUNNERS Book Three to follow. He lives in West Puget Sound with Cheryl, his wife of thirty-seven years, five Pomeranians, and one very patient Siamese cat.
We split up at the entrance, not waiting for seating, and headed for the rest rooms. I took my time, but found Dad waiting when I finally came out of the stall I’d been hiding in.
“What?” I asked, not angrily, or in any way offensive, so I hoped.
“Stop trying to be an adult.”
He must have noticed my blank and clueless stare, as he softened almost immediately.
“You slept with Jen again last night in the barn.” He waved his hands at me before I even thought of anything to say. “I know, you didn’t do anything except sleep.”
He stopped, as if giving me a chance to respond in some way. My response was not to think, say, or do anything.
Everything you think, say, and do will be held against you in a court of Dad, kept running though my mind. I outlasted him and he started in again.
“Jon, I know you and Jenni have made an agreement not to have sex, no matter how tempting the concept is.”
Concept?
“But you also have made an agreement, not likely verbal, but still an agreement, to be very intimate with each other. You sleep together all cuddled up, you walk around touching each other. Jenni holds on to your pants and you don’t even react, like it is normal.” He stopped again, obviously struggling with something.
“Dad, what are you trying to say?”
“You aren’t arguing with anything I’ve said so far?”
“Dad, you haven’t said anything so far.”
It was probably a mistake, but we weren’t getting anywhere, and I didn’t even know where the anywhere was we were supposed to be getting to.
“Jon, I didn’t sleep with your mother when I was your age. She didn’t put her hand under my shirt or touch me below the belt. We weren’t casually intimate in public as you and Jenni are, probably not until well after we were married. We didn’t know each other well enough.”
“Jen and I don’t finish each other’s sentences.”
Not yet, anyway.
“That’s because Jenni never says anything.”
“She says lots of stuff. I always know what she thinks about things going on around us. And she doesn’t have to talk to me to communicate it. She says it with her eyes, her movements, her smiles and frowns, and her fingers. I’ve learned to read what is going on without her having to tell me. Jen is nervous about being around people, especially when she can’t hear everything. And touching my pants provides her reassurance, and gives us a communication link when the other things are happening. The deaf woman at the parade did it, too, with her partner. When you lose a sense, you have to rely more on the other ones. And, it doesn’t matter if you’re gay or not.”
Dad actually looked stunned. His silence and look of shock gave me the courage to continue.
“Dad, when I’m not with Jen, I have you, and Mom, and Dave, and Beth, and Cindy, and even Rex. When Jen is not with me, she is alone. She doesn’t have anybody. Anybody. And she doesn’t get to relax, to rest. She lives with a level of anxiety way beyond anything you or I can imagine. When she is with me, I give her a break because she can trust me, can relax, and can rest. So we sleep together occasionally, the just-sleeping kind. It’s something I can do for her. Not for me. For her. And if trying to act like an adult is what it takes for her, than it’s what I’ll do. I love her, Dad.”
If he was stunned before, I had no idea how to describe what he was now. He looked at me as if I had just punched him as hard as I could. He didn’t even mutter some closing platitude, but spun on his feet and walked out of the restroom. I didn’t follow.
