I look up without stopping, my hair falling across my forehead and into my eyes. Blinking, I exhale upwards to blow it out of the way, keeping count in my head instead of aloud. Pepper's presence alone is another distraction, splintering my attention away from the one thing it seems to gravitate towards no matter what, and I find myself, in the moment, grateful.

"In a bit?" I reply, managing an increasingly rare apologetic expression. "I'm a little..." Changing my mind halfway through sixty-five, I let my knees drop to the ground, and push myself up to kneeling. I'm flushed, but not breathless. "You know what? Sure."