Page 1 of Your Pace or Mine (Running for the Romance #1)
Darius
I t wasn’t that Darius felt he was above pandering to the selection committee. It was more… Okay, it was exactly that.
“You have to do it,” Jackson said, his voice breaking the silence that had hung over the track since Coach Ellison floated his ridiculous idea.
Even the usual hum of the city around them felt muted as Darius stared down his friend and coach.
Ellison wanted Darius and Jackson to help coach at a clinic that Eric Anders, the newly appointed Head Coach for the Olympic marathon team, was organising for London Marathon runners with charity bibs.
Anders running something like this smacked of performative activism.
It was just the kind of virtue signalling bollocks that Darius hated.
The chill in the air, typical of January in London, matched the one crawling up Darius’s spine as they finished their cooldown. He knew Jackson was right. If he didn’t do something to improve his image, there was a real chance he wouldn’t make the Olympic marathon team this year.
Still.
“I don’t have to do shit ,“ Darius snapped. He ran a hand over his hair. The close-cropped coils were still beading with sweat as the cold air rasped at his fingertips. “Selection’s meant to be based on accumulated points and competition results. It’s the one thing about this sport that makes bloody sense. ”
“You know I’d never argue that Olympic selection shouldn’t be based on merit, Darius,” Coach Ellison sighed. “But Anders is pushing for team cohesion, and discretionary selection has always been on the table. The rest of the committee may come to bat for you, but you can’t rely on that.”
Discretionary selection . The two words that had been plaguing Darius since he first learned that Anders had been selected as Head Coach.
Theoretically, the selectors, which unfortunately included Anders now, could use their discretion to select between the athletes who met the Olympic standard, considering things like team dynamics or even more subjective things like reliability or rapport— as if there were any real metric to judge those by.
It’s just that in previous years, that had all been very much theoretical, with the fastest runners always being put forward to give Great Britain the best shot at a medal in the marathon.
Darius was, without question, the fastest marathon runner in the UK.
Yet, it still seemed it wouldn’t be enough.
First-round selections were just over a month away, and Darius wasn’t feeling as confident as he should.
Four years ago, he had narrowly missed the Olympic standard.
Since then, he’d doubled down on his training.
Even his father had commented on his dedication, which was the closest thing to a compliment he’d received from the man in years.
Now, no one in the country could rival Darius, and he knew it.
Anders knew it too. He just didn’t care.
Anders had never hidden his feelings about the Hewitt family, and they weren’t flattering.
Darius could hardly blame him. His grandfather’s fierce backing of Section 28 in the ’80s, the law that effectively erased queer lives from classrooms and libraries across the country, coupled with his father’s political passivity and eventual retreat from public life, had created a certain image of their family.
It was an image that Darius desperately wanted to tear down, but he was terrified of the repercussions of being the one to do it.
For Anders, one of the only openly queer coaches in elite athletics, that history was personal. Now that he had the committee’s ear, he was using it, raising doubts about Darius’s character and politics, and how those might reflect on both the organisation and the country.
Complete and utter rubbish.
Ellison clasped a hand to his shoulder in a fatherly manner. “Think about it, Darius. This could be a good thing for you.”
With a parting wave to them both, Ellison jogged off towards the tube, likely heading home to his wife.
Darius knew she had been on him about retiring and spending more time together.
In some ways, it felt like Anders getting the Head Coach job was the first signal of Ellison winding down his career.
Darius and Jackson were just waiting now for the day he’d announce they needed to find a new coach.
Finishing his last stretch and sinking down onto the damp grass next to Jackson, Darius was silent for a moment, contemplating the proposition.
“You really think this would be enough to convince the committee?” he asked.
Jackson shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt.”
Darius arched an eyebrow at Jackson. “The second the other runners hear my name, they’ll expect me to sponsor their charities.”
“Not everyone expects you to bankroll them, Darius.”
That earned him a loud scoff from Darius.
“What? It’s true. Anyone who expects that isn’t worth your time,” Jackson insisted.
“Virtually everyone expects that, Jax. They hear Hewitt, and their eyes light up with pound signs. Or worse, they start daydreaming about being titled.”
“Ok, yeah, that’s gross,” Jackson agreed. “Real talk, though? How do you expect people to see beyond your name when you don’t give even a tiny inkling of who you are?” Jackson asked. “You need to let people in.”
“I let people in,” Darius replied.
“Really, who?” Jackson crossed his arms as he waited for Darius to respond.
“Well, you, for starters. And Ellison and Selena.”
Jackson snorted. “So your sister doesn’t count, and Ellison’s known you since you were in nappies,” he argued. “And you know I just won you over with obnoxious persistence and good head.”
“Keep it down.” Darius’s heart raced as he checked to make sure no one had overheard.
He and Jackson had teetered on that strange edge of best friends with benefits for a while.
They’d trained together for years and had easily fallen into an arrangement when Darius had finally worked up the nerve to come out to him.
Jackson had put a stop to that aspect of their relationship towards the end of the previous year, though.
He had been determined to start the new year fresh and ready to look for love.
It was fine. Darius wasn’t upset about it, really.
It had been nice to have a sure thing, obviously, but if Jackson wanted to be delusional and romantic, then that was his prerogative.
It was better this way. He’d been living in constant fear that someone would realise what they were up to one day, and the media storm would have been unbearable.
Just friends was safer, or at least it would be if Jackson would stop bloody bringing it up.
The track was deserted, and the chance of a rogue reporter popping up out of nowhere was unlikely, but you could never know for sure, not with Darius’s background.
“Oh, my wounded pride. My best mate, ladies and gentlemen.”
Darius threw a clump of grass at Jackson. “Fuck off. You know I don’t like talking about that in public.”
It wasn’t that Darius was in the closet, per se.
Everyone in his life, everyone that mattered, knew.
Which, fine, amounted to like three people he actually liked, and his father.
He just firmly believed that his personal life shouldn’t have any bearing on his professional life, and he knew it would if he came out.
It was different for Darius. He didn’t just have the usual sporting press to deal with like his contemporaries. His title and sliver of Ethiopian heritage made him the aristocracy’s favourite piece of diversity window dressing.
He wasn’t famous in the traditional sense, but he was known—far more approachable than his father, and therefore easier to parade out when appearances demanded it.
That made his life easy prey for the tabloids.
And British tabloids could be fucking vicious.
One minute, they loved you; the next they would tear you apart for clicks.
The pressure to be the perfect representative of not only the Hewitts but also of a culture he’d never truly been allowed to claim—one he wasn’t even sure would accept him if he tried—weighed on him.
His father had taught him early that survival meant keeping everything under wraps.
Safer to keep his private life, well, private.
Liking dick didn’t make him a better or worse runner, so why the fuck should it matter, anyway?
Jackson didn’t understand what it was like to be under the level of scrutiny Darius was under. To carry the weight of expectations Darius had on his shoulders.
Jackson rolled his eyes. “Oh no, someone might realise you’re not an aristocratic clone and have actual human feelings and desires.”
“You’re a terrible friend.”
“I’m a great friend,” Jackson replied. “Which is why I’m going to drag you kicking and screaming to that training clinic.”
“I don’t need to do it. I have the fastest times of anyone. I’m not going to be the one who gets cut. Anders could never justify it.”
Jackson’s grin fell. “Thanks for the reminder, mate.”
“Fuck. You know I didn’t mean to imply…”
“It is what it is. I know I’m at risk, right? Especially with Elliot Owens in contention,” Jackson shrugged.
Darius grimaced. “Yeah, but Owens is a dick.”
“A dick that’s been training with Anders for nearly three years now and can pretty much match me stride-for-stride,” Jackson replied. “I had that DNF too, in Boston,” Jackson reminded him glumly.
Darius winced. He wasn’t wrong. “A DNF just means you’re a smart runner—you know what they say DNF stands for…”
“Did Nothing Foolish,” Jackson finished the sentence in unison with Darius, reciting a line Ellison had drilled into their heads.
“You’ve never had one, though,” Jackson groused.
“Yes, but I’m a robot, remember?” Darius laughed. “Or sorry, an aristocratic clone.”
Silence fell between them as Darius contemplated how to reassure his friend.
The problem was that Jackson was right. British marathoning had seen massive improvements in the past few years, and more and more athletes were hitting the Olympic qualifying times.
Jackson was definitely a top contender, but he wasn’t as fast as Darius, and he didn’t have the training—or the relationship with the Head Coach that Owens did.
Jackson interrupted his thoughts. “Enough about me. I know a thing or two about endearing yourself to a selection committee. I’ve been working on it for years. Control the controllables and all that.”
“Ugh, cut the therapy speak, I get enough of that from Selena.”
Jackson rolled his eyes at Darius. “Seriously, I know my stuff, ok? And this coaching thing, this is something you should do.”
“It’ll cut into my training schedule,” Darius complained again.
Jackson rolled his eyes. “That’s a weak argument, and you know it. Your training schedule isn’t any more intense than mine. And besides, it won’t mean shit if you’re not even in consideration for the team.”
Darius pushed himself up off the ground, then extended a hand to Jackson to pull him up.
Dusting himself off, he replied. “Fine. But I want it noted I am participating in this under extreme duress.”
Jackson grinned. “I’ll let Ellison know. You won’t regret this, mate.”