LOVE TO HATE YOU

Horizontal running...

The early morning knock on the door sent me flying out of my bed. The first few knocks had somehow incorporated themselves into my dreams, but the fourth and fifth had me jumping. It was freezing, still dark, and I had no idea who the hell was at the door. I was exhausted from my night at the restaurant and JJ and Bruce were probably unconscious. I opened the door and peered out.

"Morning." It was Ben. It was a perky, enthusiastic version of him dressed in...he was wearing...

What the hell was he wearing?

He was dressed head-to-toe in a sporty purple, polyester Adidas tracksuit-of all things decent in this world. The whole outfit seemed totally incongruous to what I was used to. He was also jogging up and down on the spot and looking wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. I wondered if I was still sleeping.

"What the hell?" I said in a sleepy voice, yawning in between words. I was too tired and shocked to care that my boss-ex-one-night stand-was seeing me in my pajamas with my sleepy, puffy no make-up face on.

He looked at his watch. "It's five; aren't you going jogging this morning?

"Huh? Jog-" I knew this was going to come back to bite me. "Oh. Jogging. Um... "

"Great morning for it!" He sounded fired up and enthusiastic, with his brand new bright orange sneakers and matching headband-Who wears a headband? That is so Wimbeldon 1987! The sight of him in those clothes was almost more shocking than the fact he was at my house at 5 in the morning.

"Ben, seriously, what are you doing here?"

He feigned a look of shock. "Look, I know you don't want to go out with me, but there's no rule against being friends right? And you jog, and I need to do some exercise. You'd be doing me a favor, actually."

"Um..." I was still semi-conscious and had no idea what to say to him, and when I opened the door further, he came jogging straight in with a spring in his step as if he was some kind of frigging gazelle.

I couldn't believe Mr. Overly Enthused was actually jogging in circles in my living room. All he needed were some pom-poms and a cheesy war cry to complete the look. This was a far, far cry from the guy with a cigarette behind his ear and his perfect vintage suits.

And then he did something disturbing; he actually gave the air a fist pump.

"Whoa!" He whooped. "I am fired up!" He continued to jog in circles. Surely he wasn't serious? It was hard to know what to do. I had to find a way out of this.

"Look. I lied. I'm not going jogging this morning, or any morning."

"You're just saying that because you don't want me to come with you."

"I'm not."

"Are you scared I'll hold you back, keep you from cracking those 20k's?" He said it with a smile on his face.

"Ben. I'm not going jogging with you."

He suddenly swung himself up and put his arms in the air, moving his hands in large circles-he was clearly making this shit up as he went. "But I went out and bought the whole outfit," he complained "I even downloaded a running app and it's hooked up to this watch. Look." He stuck his arm out in front of my nose. "It counts steps, calories, kilometers, the whole bang shoot."

I sighed, Ben was just about the most persistent person I'd ever met and he was now bending his knees and doing what I suppose was meant to be a hamstring stretch of sorts.

"I'm serious. I lied to you. I don't jog. Ever."

His demeanor changed somewhat. He stopped stretching and looked up at me. "You lied? To me? Your Boss?"