Page 49 of Racing Hearts

As if on cue, my stomach growls. I wince.

“I could use another breakfast.” I pause. Adult, Kath. You’re an adult. “Also, we should talk about last night.”

Adrian nods, face inscrutable again. “I’d like that.”

. . .

Adrian takes me to a brunch place with mismatched vintage furniture and an open kitchen that’s soaking the air with the smell of freshly brewed coffee and sizzling bacon. I would have asked him to meet at my mom’s house to avoid the expense of eating out, but I wasn’t eager to return to the scene of our fiery make-out session. Plus, we need to have this conversation approximately a million miles away from Mom’s eardrums.

“The pancakes are top-notch,” he says, nudging me with an elbow as I scrutinize the handwritten menu on a chalkboard above the register. “The ones with apple butter have the power to make my knees weak.”

“Well,” I say, “since strong joints are quite important for rowing, I’ll stick with the eggs.”

Adrian laughs like I’m joking, but I blink back at him, not letting my expression crack. It’s not like I have a problem with apple pancakes. It’s just that they have no value to me. They’ll give me, what, a rush of pleasure? That doesn’t help me train harder or row faster, not compared to something more nutritionally dense. Besides, if I fill up on apple pancakes now, I’ll miss an opportunity to hit some of my nutritional benchmarks, and I really don’t want to be sitting up in bed eating deli meat tonight.

Adrian’s laugh fades to a wry smile as he evaluates my expression, like, somehow, he finds my obstinance more charming than irritating. And that smile—not to mention the tender look in his eyes—somehow does make my knees feel weak.

“Suit yourself,” he says and steps up to the counter.

We perch ourselves at a high-top table under the shade of a trellis dripping with jasmine. It’s quiet, with only a few other patrons back here—some students, earbuds jammed in their ears, furiously clicking away at laptops, and an older woman with sunglasses sipping a latte and reading on a tablet.

Across this very small patio table, Adrian eyes me steadily. For the first time since last night, we’re staring at each other head-on, and I have no distractions, no menus, no other people to buffer me against his presence. It’s already too much. His soft smile while I’m talking. The tilt of his head and hair whispering against his forehead. The way his forearm muscles tighten when he crosses his arms.

I grip my fingers around my steaming tea mug, trying to distract my hands from the memories of the way those arms felt under my fingertips.

“You ran away quickly last night,” Adrian says at nearly the same time that I say, “We can’t kiss again.”

Blast him for being a thousand times better at this adulting thing than I am.

He raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know what you think of me, Parker, but I wasn’t planning to toss this table aside and—”

“Don’t finish that sentence.” My heart beats like a furious bird trying to escape a too-small cage. “Let me try again. I’m supposed to be evaluating you for a job. My coach was very specific that I need to be unbiased. So, it would be inappropriate for us to get involved.”

Adrian presses his lips together, more serious. “That job and I…we aren’t going to work out.”

Why does he keep saying this? Does he not want it for some reason? If that’s the case, it’s slightly annoying I’ll have to spend so much time on Carla’s very extensive evaluation rubric. Then again, the evaluation is my ticket back to the training center, so I can’t complain too much. “Why not?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Who knows what will happen. But you and me?” He leans forward and his eyes don’t leave mine as he says, “I’m much more interested in what could happen with us.”

A tingle traces up my spine and into the back of my head. Like fingers softly drumming into my hair. Like the sparks I felt when he—

Pan Ams. The spot.

It’s all more important than the fluttering subsuming my body.

“You’re coaching me,” I say levelly.

“That’s true.” He leans back. “I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“Hold on, that’s not what I meant.” The words crack out of me. I want to put up boundaries, but I don’t want to make him feel that he’s taken advantage of me. “It’s like you said before—you’re not really my coach. This is a temporary arrangement and you don’t have any real power over me. I wasn’t trying to say I think there’s a consent issue.”

“Then what were you saying?”

I lift my mug and blow steam off the surface in a little riot of waves. “That coaches and athletes should be professional with one another.”

“Even when one of them isn’t really the other person’s coach?”

At that moment, our server arrives in a whirlwind of plates, giving me a chance to organize my thoughts. She sets the assortment of dishes on the mosaic tabletop, each one clicking definitively, before she whisks away.