Page 24 of Racing Heat

Chapter Nine

~JASE~

Running has become one of the highlights of my day. I know she’s supposed to be resting, but she’s running on her days off and keeping herself in tip-top shape. It’s great to see her outside and away from her friends. It’s just her, me, and the road.

I stretch my muscles while I wait for her yellow Jeep to show up. It appears in the distance, and my heart picks up at the sight of her. It’s like I thought of her, and she manifested. I kind of love that idea.

She pulls into the spot next to my Audi and hops out. The doors are gone. Apparently, she has no plans of putting them back on. Even though I’ve heard the teammates tell her on more than one occasion that it’s a hazard. They asked her what she’d do if she were in an accident, but she shrugged it off.

I can’t help myself. I tease her about it when she approaches, her bright running gear in place. This time it’s bright pink shorts with a black tank top. I love it.

“Are you worried I would lose you in a blur of speed if you weren’t wearing bright colors?” I tease her.

“Ha-ha, very funny. I like the bright colors,” she counters. “They put me in a good mood.”

“I hope so. When you get in an accident and are seriously hurt because your doors aren’t on, you’ll need that good mood.”

“Oh, fuck off. The jokes about the lack of doors are getting old.” Her smile is so big that it lights up her eyes.

I like to think she saves some of those big smiles for me. It’s idiotic to hope, but nonetheless, I do.

“Yeah, well, I’ll remember to say I told you so.”

“You and everyone else.” She grabs her leg and pulls it toward her ass, and the muscles in her leg flex. She’s got some of the strongest legs I’ve ever seen. She makes a great midfielder because of it.

“Are you about ready to run?” I ask her, changing the subject.

“You’ve stretched for all of two minutes. Are you sure you don’t need a bit more time? Because I do,” she says.

“Sure, I can keep stretching.” I make my way through some more stretches while she does the same. We don’t say a word to each other, but the silence is comfortable.

“Are you ready?” she finally asks me.

“Yeah, I am.” Truth be told, I was ready a few minutes ago, but I didn’t want to break her rhythm.

“How far today?” she asks me.

“Well, again, you’re running on a rest day, so I feel like we should keep this to a cool three miles,” I tease.

“We’ve been over this. I need it to keep myself sane. So yeah, let’s go with three. I love that you call it a cool three miles. Makes me think of you as a real runner.”

“I may not have run a lot of the field, but I am a real runner. I just happened to fall in love with runningafterI stopped being a goalie.”

She nods and we start out with a slow jog as a warmup.

“I’m impressed, though. I could never get Hendrix out here to run with me like this.”

I chuckle. “Don’t I know it. I have to seriously threaten her when it’s time for her to run the beep test.” The beep test is when they make players run between two lines that are about twenty yards apart, keeping pace with beeps that get faster and faster as the test goes on.

“What do you threaten her with?”

“More miles,” I say like it’s obvious, and I’m rewarded with a laugh. I love the sound of her laugh. It’s got a cute singsong quality to it. “But I also tell her that if she does well, I’ll buy her lunch. It usually works pretty well.”

“We soccer players are easily motivated by food.”

“You sure are.”

We run in silence for a bit. She’s the one setting the pace. Her stride lengthens and her pace picks up. I wonder if she’s testing me to see if I’m able to keep up with her. I don’t want to let her down, so I work hard. I’m breathing harder than she is. She slows down, then stops at a bench and begins stretching her quads.