Physical exertion was probably the furthest thing from Shae's mind at the moment. Ever since Kami's pregnancy scare nearly two weeks prior, he'd done a fair job of avoiding most kinds of physical contact (sudden tryst with the pretty Asian kid on the fourth floor notwithstanding.) It was as though his sex drive had suddenly gone into RED ALERT, and for the first time in his life, he was actually beginning to entertain the notion of celibacy.
Those thoughts never got very far. In fact, that was usually around the time he'd start to feel a nagging drive to consume as much nicotine as humanly possible. And occasionally liquor. Followed inevitably by the desire to screw something.
Today was most definitely one of his more reflective days. Apart from the potentially looming burden of parenthood, there was something else tickling at the back of his mind; some strange, repressed reservoir of self-doubt that had left him questioning every decision he'd ever made in his life. The whole situation reeked of an existential crisis.
Shae had always been a master of distraction; it was one of his most successful coping mechanisms to date. Since moving into his apartment, he'd rarely made time to enjoy the simple pleasures of the surrounding environment, so he was making an effort to change this by loping barefoot down the beach, boots dangling from one hand. He'd already chain-smoked his way through three cigarettes, and the unyielding urge to light up just once more had left him squatting in the sand, using his own thigh as a surface for rolling up a fragrant new cancer stick.
He was in the process of sliding his thumb over the dampened edge of the newly created seam, when all of a sudden a slim figure clad in neoprene suddenly emerged from the choppy waves about twenty yards down the shoreline. She seemed to notice him a little belatedly, and as he slipped the cigarette between his lips and reached for the lighter in his pocket, he gave a friendly wave in her direction.