“Stupid me.”
“Second chances are a rare thing around here.” He inches closer on the grass. “When I was seven my parents got on Hera’s bad side. No one has seen them since.”
That makes me pause. That would have been about the same time Nicole’s parents got banished.
He’d said his folks weren’t around—and I remember thinking how vague he was. I hadn’t even considered they might be dead. I’d just thought they left him with his aunt while they traveled the world or something.
I never thought his parents being gone had anything to do with Nicole’s.
My heart melts. Just a little.
“Here I was, carrying you in my arms because I had to, and you were trying to get me to open up. You wanted to know me. Despite how horrible I had been to you.” He leans in and whispers, “That’s when the bet ended for me.”
Another few drops of ice melt away.
Not ready to get burned twice in one week, I tell myself not to fall for his lies. He could be making every last word of this up, too.
And even if my initial motives for meeting him that Sunday were barely better than his—though I think a deal is way less offensive than a bet—at least I admitted to myself early on that I was really going after Griffin for myself.
Rising, I start twisting at the waist to warm up my upper body.
Griffin scrambles to his feet.
“Last Saturday after your practice,” he says, pleading. “That was real. The rest doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
I stop moving long enough to meet his sad stare.
Clearly, he’s not sure what to say. Which is fine with me because I’ve heard enough lies to last a lifetime.
“Let’s just get this workout over with,” I snap, fed up and thinking of all the homework I have waiting for me.
Our first segment is a two mile run at moderate pace.
I walk toward the regular starting line, but Griffin has other ideas.
“Why don’t we run a different course today?”
I eye him suspiciously. Certain he has something underhanded up his sleeve—even if he’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt—I want to argue, but honestly it will be a relief to see anything other than that shrubby course.
“Fine,” I relent. “But if you try to pull anything I’m telling Coach Lenny about the shoelaces.”
He just rolls his eyes at me and says, “Come on.”
Griffin heads out of the stadium and circles around to the right. Not wanting to follow behind him like a second-place dog I settle in at his side, matching him step for step. He must be pulling his stride because his legs are like twice as long as mine.
Neither of us speaks or looks at the other while he leads us down a steep path behind the far stadium wall. It looks like just another wooded cross-country course until we break through the trees. We’re on the beach.
“I figured that with all your extra training,” he says, “you haven’t had time for many beach runs. Which I think you love as much as I do.”
I shrug, secretly loving the way the sand squishes beneath my feet. With every stride I have to work harder to push myself forward. This is my personal heaven.
Now, I love the L.A. beaches—especially when I get permission to drive up to Malibu and watch the surfers while I run—but nothing compares to the beach on Serfopoula. The sand is pristine. Gleaming white.
Glancing over my shoulder, I see the footprints we made disappearing as the sand pours back in on itself.
The sand in California is so full of gunk it keeps your footprint until the tides wash in.
“Was I right?” Griffin asks.
I scowl at him for interrupting my daydream. I’m still mad at him, after all. “About what?”
“The beach.”
“It’s okay,” I lie.
He grins with that cocky smile. “Considering how pissed you are at me, I’ll take that as a hell yes.”
“Whatever.” I roll my eyes.
But he’s right.
We run half a mile in silence. My eyes trained on the horizon, my mind trained on the rhythm. Step, step, step, breathe. Our footfalls are perfectly timed. Step, step, step, breathe. From the corner of my eye I see his chest rise and fall in time with my every breath. Step, step, step-
“You’ll get over being mad at me.”
“Not likely.”
Step, step, step—
“I promise not to gloat about it when you do.”
“I won’t.”
Step, step, step—
“Because I want to be with you so badly I don’t care if you’re screaming at me the whole time as long as I’m with you.”
I stop dead in my tracks.
Two steps later, Griffin notices I’ve stopped and jogs back to me.
“We have another mile to go,” he says, as if I’ve stopped because I think we’re done. Then his face wrinkles up in concern. “Did you hurt your ankle again? I thought you said it was completely . . .”
“Did you mean that?”
“. . . healed. What?”
“Did you mean what you just said?”
“Of course I did.” He kneels down and inspects my ankle. “Now tell me—”
I grab him by the arm and pull him back up. “My ankle is fine.”
He looks at me funny for a second before that cocky smile comes back. “Oh. Good.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Good.”