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There was something in her tone that sobered me momentarily. “Are you mad she was friendly to me?”

“No,” she tossed her keys onto the dresser. “I expected nothing less. Kelsey’s a good person.” Even in my liquor-induced daze, I was aware of an uncommon tightness in her movements as she stopped to draw the curtains. After a brief silence, sheturned to catch my eye. “So in this friendly chat, did you learn anything new about me?”

“It wasn’t like that, Dillon. She was nice. She seems to really care about you.”

“Worry about me, you mean.”

“No.” I paused. “Okay, yes, that too. I think she’s just worried you put too much pressure on yourself.”

“Well, whatever she said, take it with a pinch of salt—no matter what she thinks, Kelsey Evans isn’t exactly the know-all authority on me.”

I watched her dexterous hands struggle with the straps on my shoes. “Dillon.” She didn’t look up. “You do know there’s more to life than winning, right?”

She tugged the buckle loose. “Another life message you learned from your new best friend?”

I let it go. I was drunk. She was irritable. The conversation was going nowhere. By the time she’d gone to shower, I’d passed out.

When I woke in the morning, my head celebrating the coming of dawn like a toddler who’d gotten hold of a bass drum, there was a note on her pillow.

Gone on a long run. Back this afternoon. Leeds, T-minus 23 days.Then, at the bottom, hastily scrawled as an afterthought,xoxo.

Apparently, she’d forgotten we were supposed to have breakfast with Sam.

Scene 34

“Well look you at that! You win, and it’s still my stunning mug that makes the headlines!”

Sam flashed her mobile around the table, displaying the photoBritish Triathlonhad posted on their Instagram. It was from the morning prior, when Sam had leapt the spectator fence and flung herself into Dillon’s arms as she crossed the Leeds finish line.

One GOAT to Anotherthe caption read.

“They got the goat part right,” Kyle quipped, thumbing through the laminated appetizer menu. “You both look like you belong in a barnyard.”

He let out a yelp as Sam gouged him with a strike of her toe. “Can it, ya gadgie!”

“Yeah,” joined Georgina, “it’s a bold statement coming from someone who put in the time of a tortoise!”

“Look—not all of us can pull off aSinclair Special. Some of us are only human.” He made a face at Dillon, who only rolled her eyes.

Yesterday, she’d set a new course record, smashing the previous one—also set by her—by more than a minute. The race commentator on BBC had referred to her ability to break her own leading times as aSinclair Special, earning her a lot of ribbing from her teammates.

Under different circumstances, she would have allowed herself a pat on the back for running an exceptional race. One that had been flawless in its execution. Her swim had been strong, her bike had been stellar, and she’d entered the run with a lead no other athlete on the field could conquer.

But she hadn’t beat Elyna.

Halfway through the swim, the Frenchwoman had pulled up with a shoulder injury and scratched as a contender. Dillon hadn’t known it until after she crossed the finish line, and at that point, the win failed to matter. She didn’t care that she’d broken another record. That she’d won, once again, in front of her fellow countrymen, on UK soil. It wasn’t even a consolation that Kam had made it there to watch her.

She hadn’t done what she needed to do—to prove to herself, to prove to Henrik, that she was still the stronger competitor.

But she’d done her best to put on a happy face, knowing no one else would understand her disappointment.

“All right—I’ll take first shout,” Harry said, sliding his bean-pole frame to his feet as he stretched off the stiffness of the weekend. “Who needs liquid courage?”

It was Sunday night, the day after the race, and the six of them had come down on the train from Leeds to London. Sam had dragged the small party to her favorite seedy nightclub, where Dillon had found herself entirely unenthused to discover it was Eighties’ Night karaoke.

“You may want to make it a double,” Sam tuned her voice to a stage whisper when Kam ordered a whiskey sour. “I know it’s impossible to believe, but Sinc actually sings worse than she dances.”

“I happen to love her shower singing,” Kam pertly defended, grazing her toe against Dillon’s calf underneath the table. Dillon would have preferred skipping the evening out and spending it alone with Kam instead. They’d hardly gotten to see one anothersince Kam flew in three days earlier, and already, it was their last night together. Tomorrow, Dillon would fly to Canada with her teammates to begin acclimating for the race in Montreal, and Kam would head back to Los Angeles. It would be months before they saw each other again.