Page 20 of Meet Me in a Mile

Twenty

Luke

T he moment Luke spotted Lydia hurrying down the sidewalk toward the youth center, he stood up from the steps and dusted off his pants, feeling oddly nervous as she drew closer.

These past few days had cemented things in his mind that he’d been wondering about. After the night in her apartment, he knew, at least as far as he was concerned, that this was more than just accidentally falling into bed together. It was more than just reaching out for comfort after a bad day. What existed between him and Lydia went beyond physical. There was a strength in the way they understood and supported each other, and real genuine concern for one another. He cared about her goals, her dreams, her desires. He wanted to see her succeed and be happy. He wanted more than casual let’s-never-mention-it-again sex. He wanted something real with Lydia, and judging by the way she was smiling at him, maybe if he ever came clean about the way he felt, Lydia would laugh and tell him she felt that way too.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets as she jogged up the steps toward him. The best thing to do right now was just focus on the running. Everything else would sort itself out.

“Hope you came prepared to sweat.”

She patted the bag strung over her shoulder. “Of course I did. But you still haven’t told me what we’re doing here.”

“What? You’re not ready to show me your moves on the basketball court?” Luke said, waving her up the steps.

“You and I both know how badly that’ll end.”

He flashed her a smile. “I know. I forgot I actually promised to run youth fitness night. Since we also had training booked, I figured I could combine the two.”

“You’re saying you want me to embarrass myself in front of the children.” Inside, Lydia showed her ID and got her visitor’s badge. She strung it around her neck.

“Just try not to fall down too much,” Luke said.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Luke turned around, shooting her a grin. “It’ll be fun. I promise.”

“I don’t know if I trust your idea of fun.”

“Oh, come on,” he said. “I’m not even gonna make you do any burpees.”

He led her into the gym, where the kids were already assembled. According to Miranda, fitness nights had been a big draw since he started organizing them. He always took that as a huge compliment. If only redoing his business plan could be as easy as coming up with fitness programming at the center or plotting out a training plan.

Most of the kids were seated in the bleachers, but a group of middle schoolers had gotten ahold of the bucket of palm-sized beanbags and started hurling them at each other.

Luke picked up the whistle around his neck and gave it a short, sharp trill. Kids laughed and groaned, plugging their ears. “Drop the beanbags,” he called, and the kids took off running up the bleachers.

He turned around. Lydia was frozen on the edge of the gym floor, staring out at the massive obstacle course he’d spent the last two hours constructing. “What do you think?”

“I thought there was going to be more...running.”

“Oh, trust me, you’ll be running.”

“With Hula-Hoops and beanbags balanced on my head. Do you want me to break my leg right before the marathon?”

“Go get changed already before the kids mutiny.” While she hurried off to the changeroom, Luke addressed the room. “All right. Welcome to Fitness Night. Who’s excited to be here?” A bunch of kids drummed their feet against the bleachers. Some teasingly booed him. Luke pointed in their direction, locking eyes with Marcus, who’d shown up with a bunch of his friends. “I’m not above making you run laps.”

The kids laughed.

“What you see behind me is the Super Mega Obstacle Course Extreme. The first team to get all their members through the course together will be crowned the winners.” He picked up a clipboard. “I’ve got you divided into teams here.”

“We want to pick our own teams!” Marcus called.

“You’re not picking your own teams,” Luke called back. “Or else it won’t be fair.”

The kids fell silent, eagerly awaiting their names to be called. “When you hear your name, line up in front of one of the colored flags taped to the wall.” He gestured to the far wall where he’d taped up blue, red, yellow and green flags.

“Those are supposed to be flags?” Marcus jeered. “They’re just cardboard rectangles.”

“Do I look like an artist?” Luke said, lifting the clipboard to read off the first name. “Kinsley. Team red.” A little girl popped up from the crowd and ran over to the wall. “Jerome. Team yellow.”

Lydia joined him about halfway through reading off the names, smiling as the kids ran to their positions.

“Okay,” Luke announced. “That’s everyone.”

“We’re short one person!” Marcus called, having taken charge of the red team.

“So are we!” said the blues.

Luke checked his list. “Just have one person run twice.”

“That’s not fair!” Marcus shouted. “They’ll be tired. We get Lydia!”

“No, we get Lydia!” said the kids from the blue team.

“No one gets Lydia,” Luke explained. “Because Lydia is on my team.”

Marcus did the math quickly. “That means you both have to run the course like five times.”

“Bingo.”

“Oh, come on,” Lydia said under her breath.

“Did you forget this was a training session?” he laughed. “Better go get on that starting line.”

Lydia waltzed over to join the kids, who giggled at her antics.

“Remember to tag out the next person on your team,” Luke said. “Runners take your marks. On my whistle. Three. Two. One!” He blew the whistle and the kids erupted in screams and cheers.

Luke turned on some music, then raced over to the starting line, taking his position. As Lydia made her way through the obstacle course, he could tell she was pacing herself, matching her speed to the younger kids participating. That was good, because after three laps of this, she was going to need that energy. She ran back the length of the gym, tagging him out.

“Go, go, go!” the kids screamed the moment he set foot on the course. They clearly no longer cared about beating each other, only him and Lydia. He hurried through the obstacles, whipping a Hula-Hoop around his waist, then ran back to tag out Lydia. She set off, faster this time as some of the older kids set foot on the floor.

Marcus’s team started throwing the extra beanbags at Luke as he waited for Lydia to return. “Interference!” Luke shouted. “You’re going down!”

Lydia was back faster than he’d expected, and they traded out another round. By the time Luke returned from his third lap, Lydia was laughing so hard at Marcus’s taunting that she had to wipe tears from her eyes for her entire lap, repeatedly dropping the Hula-Hoop at the end.

“Get it together,” Luke said as she tagged him out.

“Um, I think we’re winning, and I’m totally carrying this team.”

“Only because I let you,” Luke said, jogging backward to prove his point. By the time he’d almost completed his lap, he realized they were winning. Well, he was going to have to do something to even out the race. As he returned from his lap, he reached out to tag Lydia, but instead of high-fiving, he caught her hand, tugging her back as she tried to bolt.

“Luke!” she yelped, giggling as he caught her around the waist, lifting her off her feet. “What are you doing?” She twisted in his arms. “You’re sabotaging your own team!”

“We have to let them win,” he mumbled under his breath, watching her eyes dart out to track the other teams. The kids laughed and cheered, using the advantage to pull ahead. “Build their confidence and all that.”

“And what about my confidence?” she teased, her hands pressing against his chest. “Don’t you think they’ve beaten us badly enough yet?”

“Almost,” he said, keeping a firm grip around her waist. He was loath to let her go, even to finish the race. A desperate thrill ran through him like a shiver. The way she looked at him, Lydia must have been able to feel it too. When she didn’t push him away, his pulse jumped in his chest.

A thunderous cheer erupted through the gym. Luke finally released Lydia and looked up to see Marcus’s team celebrating.

“Cheaters!” some of the kids shouted. “We want a redo.”

Lydia plucked the whistle from where it rested on Luke’s chest and blew it so loud his ears rang. “Everybody versus Luke!” she announced.

The kids cheered, scrambling back into their lines.

By the end of the night, Luke was exhausted from chasing kids all over the gym. “You had fun?” he asked as Lydia helped him clean up the equipment.

She rolled a Hula-Hoop in his direction. “So much fun,” she said. “But why do I feel like these kids could run the marathon better than I could with no training?”

Luke laughed. “Because they have boundless energy.”

“You’re really good at it, you know.”

“What?”

“Encouraging them. Making things fun. Maybe if I’d had an influence in my life like that I wouldn’t have to learn how to run at almost thirty.”

“Then we never would have met.” And what a tragedy that would have been. Silence eclipsed them, and Luke cleared his throat. “Hey, so our last big training session is coming up.”

“Wait, already?” she said, frowning and staring off at the wall like she was doing mental math.

“In a couple weeks,” he clarified. “Twenty miles. After that, every run will be shorter, building up to a series of rest days before the marathon.”

She looked perplexed. “So twenty miles and then—”

“I’ll have taught you everything I know. If you can run twenty miles, then you have the endurance and stamina and skills to get you through twenty-six.”

“Oh, right,” she said, her brows drawing together. “Wow. Who’d have thought I’d get here, huh?”

“I did,” he said.

“Yeah, sure.”

“No, really,” he said. “You were so determined during that first meeting. I could tell you had the work ethic, you just needed the encouragement, the push to take the running seriously, to build up your confidence.”

Standing there in this place he’d grown up, watching the flush in her cheeks and the soft, pleased twist of her lips, his heart pounding like a fourteen-year-old who’d newly discovered hormones, Luke realized how far gone he was for Lydia. He knew he had to tell her how he felt. Not now. Not yet. The marathon was close, but until her last training session, until he’d given her all the tools she needed to cross the finish line, Luke knew he’d have to wait. He’d have to be satisfied with returning her brilliant smiles, with assuming they were moving in the same direction. But the moment she crossed that finish line, he would tell her. And if she wanted him the way he wanted her... He couldn’t even find the words.

And if she didn’t... He’d shove his feelings aside, knowing that he’d at least carried her through to the end of her training without completely screwing this up.