Evening was Alec’s least favorite time of day. During the day, he had patients to distract him. But during the evening, his house was much too quiet. His mind often started to wander, and that was dangerous.

He’d told himself for years that he was too busy to take on any new hobbies or socialize much. When he tried, he never seemed to stick with it, and he didn’t even know why.

Sometimes he headed out to bars, but even when he’d been just twenty-one and up to his neck in anatomy homework, escapism had never appealed to him. The older he got, the less he wanted to waste his time getting drunk and making a fool of himself.

The problem was, there didn’t seem to be much alternative if he wanted friends—or even a lover.

Alec fought back the tide of bitterness that threatened to swamp him once again. Every now and then, it felt like he’d outed himself—and lost half his life in the process—for nothing.

What did it matter if he was gay, if he now had no family and no boyfriend to commiserate with?

“Okay, I gotta get out of the house,” he grumbled. When this mood took him, he was better off outside, anywhere at all, than home alone.

Alec tugged on his running shoes. It was a Tuesday evening, which meant the Knoxville gay men’s running group was out for a gentle run in Lakeshore Park. But if he got seen running with a gay group…

It was a bittersweet irony. He was just out enough to lose the support around him, but not out enough to take pride in who he was. If he wanted to keep his business, he couldn’t dance on any floats. Hell, he couldn’t even casually mention his personal life like his clients and colleagues did.

He told himself he wasn’t ashamed, but where was his pride?

Carried away by his thoughts, Alec strode out the door and jogged down to the sidewalk, then broke into a run.

The first mile was always the hardest. It took time to find a rhythm—time to figure out the smooth connection—even interplay—between his heartbeat and his legs.

He found himself steering for Lakeshore Park before he knew it, pushing aside all his fears. If he got a move on, he could make it in time. Worst came to worst, he could say he was there to do research for a client.

“Come on. You can do it,” Alec panted between steps, ignoring the pedestrians who edged further away from him. “You can fucking make friends.”

He arrived just in time—it looked like the guys in the group had just finished stretching.

“Ah, hello.” A long, lean fellow with the classic runner build stretched out a hand to shake. “Welcome.”

That’s it? No questioning me? Alec was a little taken aback. He’d expected to be interrogated on… on what, he didn’t know. His gay credentials? But the group was just waving slightly to him, some guys nodding and others waving. Everyone seemed busy contemplating the trail they were about to run.

This kind of worked for Alec. The less asked, the better. He jerked his chin in nods to everyone who nodded to him as he stretched.

They took off en masse, quickly splitting into groups of three or four. His thighs burned at first, but the group quickly settled into a gentle pace. He was tempted to push himself to join a group near the front, but he had to get back home after this.

Alec found himself with a couple who were more interested in chatting to each other than him, which worked just fine for him.

There was a strange, new-to-him sense of community from being among other gay guys without having to talk about himself or justify his choices.

Alec’s spirits lifted. Only slightly, but even a slight lift beat his last few months. Something had shifted so subtly, almost imperceptibly, in his mind.

Instead of worrying about where he’d find his eventual boyfriend or even life partner, and how he was going to navigate that, why not see what came as it came? He couldn’t stop the right man from walking into his life—or his office, perhaps—and he didn’t want to.

When that happened… well, he wasn’t going to avoid or hide the person who was worth it. That would be choosing the closet, far more so than he did even right now.

The rhythmic slapping of his feet on the ground drew him through the worst of his thoughts, especially when he wondered if that would even ever be a problem. The guys he seemed to attract never seemed to want him long-term.

Maybe he’d meet someone like Tyler, only… out and available, and not one of his clients.

Alec had heard of the ideas of drawing his ideal man closer to him. Visualization and all that shit. He was way too busy to try that, but it wasn’t a bad idea to figure out what exactly it was that drew him to a man, so he could keep an eye out for that kind of guy in the future.

Cheeky, definitely. Willing to push back and hold his ground. He definitely had to be as stubborn as Alec. Alec had to be stubborn on the job all too often, and he could run roughshod over a meek, quiet guy. Someone with a big heart but a joking sense of humor. Alec didn’t see the point in being grim and solemn all the time, like life was all about who could be the most serious.

Someone who was driven and passionate, though, was important. Alec didn’t mind what they were passionate about, so long as they had a passion. Like his own fascination with the human body, but perhaps in another field.

Shut up, he told his brain when it tried to hint at the obvious. There were, after all, plenty of guys who came into the office fitting that description. So why pick one guy—one random guy, of the many—to crush on?

No. That wouldn’t do.

Alec sped his pace up, nodding at his companions as he left the couple to be coupley and joined the front runners.

One of them jerked his chin at Alec, but that was all the acknowledgment he got—or wanted. He was here to run and forget himself. The front runners all seemed to agree.

All that mattered was his sweat. Measured breaths. Footsteps on the path.

His heart rate.

It was hammering almost as fast as when Tyler Joseph had walked into his office.

Goddamn it. Rosie had been right—Tyler was exactly his type. She was getting scarily good at assessing who was. She never said a word. She didn’t have to. She could just wink, and Alec would get all flustered and she would laugh in his wake as he hurried off to treat them like a professional.

After his experience with Gordon, Alec had been trying to take it easy. Trying not to fall all over the first guy who looked at him the right way. That wasn’t the path to true happiness, he was pretty sure.

His body remembered it without warning: warmth, pressure on the back of his lips. The sneaky smile that Tyler had worn when he kissed his hand, like he’d known damn well what effect it would have on Alec, and was willing to push his luck.

The little asshole. He was probably going to try to leverage that into permission to do some dumbass stunt like take part in the next race.

Not a chance. Alec was going to have to push back against him, he could already tell.

If only that weren’t so damn appealing.

Goddamn. He was running out of energy to run from the simple truth: he was attracted to Tyler, and so long as Tyler was on extra-strength painkillers and making eyes at him, he was going to have to ignore it for everyone’s good.

He would have sighed, if he’d had breath to spare. Sometimes, being a professional fucking sucked.

Not that Tyler was his type, normally. He looked like the boy next door, but he acted like the guy who’d taken several poles and first-place finishes and collected a lot of points for his age.

Tyler wasn’t the biggest household name yet, but given enough time? If he kept it up? He would be smack dab in the center of the spotlight.

Exactly where Alec didn’t want to be. He had too much to lose—and so did Tyler.

Keep your distance. That’s the only way this will end well.