Page 22 of Racing Hearts

I nod. That tracks.

“So,” Adrian says, sinking into a crouch in front of me, possibly so I don’t have to get up from my makeshift seat, but putting himself firmly at my eye level again. “Can we talk quickly? There were a couple of things I was hoping to go over alone.”

“Sure,” I say.

He glances around at the guys who seem to be a safe distance away or at least too preoccupied with their equipment to be listening in. Then he says, “I know Carla has mentioned that I applied for the junior national team, but I’d rather you don’t share that with anyone else. The kids, specifically.”

“Won’t they find out eventually, anyway? If you get it?”

“Unlikely,” he says with a terse finality. “Can I have your word?”

I nod slowly. “Okay, sure. I won’t say anything.”

His expression softens. “Excellent, thank you. And the second thing. Are you feeling okay about everything? Now that you know who I am, too. Comfortable? We can also talk about this later if you need time to collect your thoughts.”

I blink with surprise and search his expression for a hint of insincerity. In my experience, coaches barely acknowledge the existence of emotions, let alone ones directed at them. I don’t remember the last time a coach asked me if I was comfortable with them, even though there are unique circumstances here.

“I’m fine,” I say when Adrian still hasn’t given any indication he’s anything but serious. “But I do want to talk to you about that loaner boat. I’m not sure if your delay was about all this”—I wave my hand around vaguely—“but I don’t have time to waste here.”

Adrian tilts his head and studies me with an expression that suggests he’s doing long division in his head. “You’re ready to get back to it. Just like that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

He lifts an eyebrow. “I hate to be crude about it, but you did experience an unfortunate series of losses.”

“I bombed, you mean.”

“Right.”

I shrug. “Doesn’t matter. I can’t change that. All I can control is what I do today, tomorrow. That’s why I’m here.”

Emotion passes over his face like the roll of wake across the edge of a dock. He holds my gaze for long enough that a breeze kicks up around us, swirling the light morning mist over my skin. Goose bumps race down my arms.

“Well, that’s something else, Parker,” Adrian says, voice low. Then he stands, putting distance between us. “But still. You’ll need to wait. I didn’t tell you that because of anything to do with us. I said it because you’ve just spent the last month racing and you need a physical and mental break.”

“I’m rested. It’s been, like, three days of resting.”

“You mean while you took a transatlantic flight and then packed up all your belongings and then took another flight across the state?” he asks.

“Exactly.”

He shakes his head, another smile caressing his lips. “It’s not enough. You’re overtrained.”

I cross my arms. Overtraining is real, but it’s a feeling more than a diagnosable condition. Carla flags it for me when she sees my split times worsen, but without a metric like that, it’s hard for someone else to identify it.

“How can you tell?” I challenge.

Adrian’s eyes trace my face, my shoulders, and dip down my torso to my toes. I feel warmth prickle each body part his gaze touches, like he’s extracting something from my exposed skin. “Your complexion is pale. When you talk, the ends of your sentences are clipped. Your feet drag when you walk and you’re sitting at every opportunity.”

I lurch to a stand. “Maybe that’s just how I am.”

“We’ve met three times,” he says. From this vantage, we’re suddenly close again. Too close. “I know how your face looked from the first and how you move from the second.”

More heat climbs up the back of my neck. I fight to inhale properly. I try to take a step back, but my thighs brush against the sling, trapping me. “Those are all just—just subjective measures.”

Adrian’s eyes flick to my watch. “I bet your resting heart rate is through the roof.”

As though on instinct, my wrist swivels to point my watch face upward. The numbers blink in yellow instead of green—more consistent with a light walk than standstill. The textbook would say that’s a signal of cardiovascular stress and a good indicator of overtraining.