Pepped Up Forever

by Ali Dean

  The party grows as the night goes on, and pretty soon it’s not just the cross team but the track and field team too, and plenty of faces I don’t recognize. When someone snakes their arm around my shoulder, I jump involuntarily, and I’m about to shake free when the welcome smell of Jace Wilder hits me. I’m trying to hide my smile and pretend like I wasn’t secretly hoping all night he’d show up. And yeah, that’s probably why I let Gina convince me to wear this dress. The heat between us is instantaneous, and I haven’t even made eye contact with him yet. I’ve taken a step back so my back is pressed to his chest, and I’d know those sculpted planes anywhere.

  I’ve only had the one shot, but I blame it on the alcohol making me forget all the reasons he’s a bad idea. My body molds to his and he sucks in a breath, moving his hand to rest on my hip. He tenses though, and for an instant, I wonder if I’m reading him all wrong. Maybe he doesn’t want me again. Maybe he doesn’t think the breakup was a mistake, even though, if he hasn’t outright said so, he’s acted like he regrets everything. But before I can pull away, he whispers in my ear, “Don’t start second-guessing yourself now,” and moves his hips forward, showing me that yes, he does want me.

  Before I know it I’m leading him through the party and up the stairs, and suddenly, we’re alone in my dark bedroom, and Jace doesn’t hold back. He presses me against the wall, lifting my entire body before locking his lips on mine.

  There’s absolutely no stopping what’s going to happen, even if I wanted to, because every touch feels inevitable. We’re a tangle of limbs as he moves us to the bed, and as he does, I realize he’s mumbling words of reassurance and love to me between kisses. It’s not his usual style, talking through it all, but I think he wants me to know that, at least for him, this isn’t just a moment of craziness, that this is something he’s been hoping for and waiting for, and that begins to sink in when he joins me, until I can’t think of anything at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Jace

  “How’d you sleep?” She’d finally opened her eyes, and I was determined that she wouldn’t regret what had happened last night.

  I was sitting up in her bed, my confidence from last night totally out the window. Would she be angry? Upset? I had to fight the urge to wrap her in my arms; first, I had to find out where her head was at.

  She rubbed her eyes and looked around the room. “Good, actually. Really good.” She sounded surprised, and I couldn’t help smiling with satisfaction. “I haven’t really been sleeping great,” she admitted with a glance in my direction. Her gaze lingered on my bare chest, but she remained a little closed off and I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

  “Yeah, I found out about that in the middle of the night when Gina was trying to drag her mattress through your door,” I said with a chuckle.

  “Huh?” She scrunched up her face in that adorable way. “Oh,” she said in realization. “Right, I forgot she wanted to try sleeping in here with me to see if it helped. I couldn’t talk her out of it. Sorry.”

  “So, you hadn’t really planned on having company last night?” The question was out before I could think it through. I wanted to explore this insomnia business, which I was angry I hadn’t figured out on my own, but for now, I was not going to be a coward and avoid talking about us.

  “Company? Seriously, Jace?” Shit, she was angry. She swung her legs over the bed and stood up, hands on hips. “I don’t have guys over all the time, okay? Just because I went out with Clayton doesn’t make me…” She threw her hands around. “Someone you don’t even know. That meant something to me last night, and I thought it did to you too, and…”

  I was reaching for her and tugging her down to me before she could continue. “Whoa, whoa, easy there, baby,” I said, the endearment rolling off my tongue, and she melted with it. “That’s not what I meant. I just wanted to talk about last night, and I was only asking if you had thought about doing something like that with me beforehand or if it was, you know, impromptu, spur of the moment, or whatever.”

  “Impromptu,” she grumbled, apparently realizing she’d overreacted a bit. Wow, this Pepper was feisty.

  * * *

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, trying a different approach.

  * * *

  “Not yet,” she said quietly, and my heart sunk a little.

  “Yeah, okay.”

  She leaned back though and tilted her head, asking for a kiss, and I happily complied. Before it could go any farther I put some space between us. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Pepper

  “They found Rex,” he says.

  I jerk up. “What? When? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “Last night, and the detective will call you today; I’m not even supposed to know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know a guy,” he says with a shrug.

  Right. Of course.

  “What else do you know?”

  “Rex was lying low, staying with a friend in Colorado Springs. He wasn’t saying anything to the cops when they arrested him, and then he asked for a lawyer, so now the chances of him saying anything are even lower. I was going to tell you last night, but, um, got distracted.”

  “Yeah.” I’m struck with sudden and acute embarrassment. Who was that girl last night? What came over me?

  “Look, Pepper, I really want to talk to you about everything. Everything between us, and all the things I did.”

  Standing up from the bed, I walk away to my closet and throw on running clothes. “Now’s not a good time, Jace.” I don’t elaborate, because the truth is, I’ve got no easily available excuse. Today is our first day off from a team workout since preseason started, which is why we had the party last night. I’m not even sure who might be up yet and if anyone will want to go on a run with me, so there’s nowhere I need to be. But he doesn’t pry.

  “Yeah, okay. Um, do you want me to go?” What a loaded question.

  Sighing, I glace over my shoulder. He looks lost. “Do you want to go on a five-mile run with me? It’s a recovery day and we don’t have anything scheduled.” I’m surprised when he agrees, because he probably has football commitments, but ten minutes later, after he’s gone home to change, we’re hitting the trail by our neighborhood.

  He doesn’t try to talk about “us” again, which I’m grateful for, and we run in silence. I don’t want to hear his apology, because it’s not going to fix anything. I know what he wants to do. He wants to explain his actions from two years ago, and there are only a couple of ways that can go. One, he’ll admit that he’s a real asshole capable of being heartless and cruel. Even if that’s the truth, I don’t want to hear it. Or maybe he’ll say he wasn’t ready for a serious commitment, and he handled it poorly. Either way, what he’s really saying is that I wasn’t enough for him. And no matter what it boils down to, I don’t want to rip open that wound. I’ve accepted it, forgiven him, and we’re at a good place. If I can just avoid jumping him…

  I’ve brought my cell with me and it rings as we’re jogging back on campus. It’s Detective Marshall, and he reports the same news Jace told me this morning. They found Rex, who claims he doesn’t know where Wolfe is. But there’s more. Rex has given a statement. He says he didn’t know what Wolfe was intending to do. Wolfe asked him and the other guy, who they are hoping Rex will give more information about, to meet him by that alley with the car and help him with a “job.” That’s it. Rex won’t say more, because clarifying what he means by “job” entails exposing more of his criminal history. Detective Marshall doesn’t tell me that last part, but it’s clear Rex is in a tough position. He wants to claim as small a role as possible in what happened to me, but he can’t explain himself in a believable way without showing his cards.

  So we’re left waiting, again.

  When Jace and I part ways after the run, I’m reluctant to admit that I want to ask him when I’ll see him again. But I’ve
got too much pride to let him know just how happy it makes me he’s back in my life.

  In lieu of a team workout, we have individual meetings with Coach Harding and the women’s assistant coach, Susan. Gina’s meeting was earlier in the day and as I’m leaving purple house for Coach’s office, I see her coming inside. Her eyes are red and raw, and it’s clear she’s been crying.

  “Gina, what’s going on?” I try to convey patience and comfort, but I never know if I’m doing it right. Taking her in a hug, I lead her over to the couches.

  “It’s stupid,” she says, but the tears threatening to spill over tell me a different story.

  “Tell me anyway. All my problems are stupid too.”

  “I just had my meeting with Coach Harding and Susan,” she begins. “I mean, they were perfectly nice, didn’t say anything mean or whatever, it’s just, they didn’t really talk to me about running, or my season.”

  “Okay, what did they talk to you about?”

  “Staying healthy. They said that my only goal should be staying healthy.” Her voice trembles and I reach to take her hand, even though I’m not exactly sure why their words were so upsetting.

  “You didn’t expect them to say that?” I prompt.

  She sighs and wipes her eyes with the back of her other hand. “No. I thought I proved myself last spring. I thought I showed everyone that I can run with the team and train with you guys without relapsing. I want, more than anything, Pepper,” she says, looking me in the eye, “I want you guys to believe I’m strong. That I’m not some fragile girl who’s going to snap and break. I want the coaches to treat me like a real athlete.”

  I swallow, unsure what to say. In some ways, I find her incredibly strong. She battled hard over the past two years to get to where she is, and she’s in a good place. A lot of women would never be able to run collegiately again for physical and emotional reasons after experiencing a severe eating disorder like she did.

  So that’s what I tell her. “You are strong, Gina, and the coaches wanting your health over everything else isn’t them saying otherwise. They know how determined you are to stay healthy, and they want to support that. Maybe as the season progresses they’ll talk to you more about your running goals, but you have to admit that running goals shouldn’t be your priority right now.” I hope I’m not screwing this up. “If doing what you love and competing helps you stay healthy, then we want you running by our side, but to keep it a healthy thing, you might not want to worry so much about your results.”

  She nods, but I can tell she doesn’t want to hear it. Still, I think she’s trying to understand. “Yeah,” she says after a moment. “My times and places at workouts and meets are numbers and statistics which always make me think of the other numbers and statistics I’m not supposed to think about,” she admits. “You’re right, and the coaches are right too. This is about my health, not whether or not I’m in the top seven going into the Championship season.”

  I nod. “Right.” But when we part with a hug and I make my way to the offices, I know it will be a tough season for Gina, regardless. There’s joy in being part of the top seven – the varsity – with the women at UC. Pushing ourselves as a team in those final meets against some of the best in the nation, and even the world, is an indescribable feeling. It’s better than individual glory, and I think in the past that’s all that Gina focused on. Now she wants to experience all of it. And it’s her senior year, so it’s her last shot. I hope she knows that she’s a part of the team whether she competes in the final meets or not, and that I’m not the only one who feels that way.

  But my meeting doesn’t exactly go as planned either. Coach Harding has been pretty laid-back about his goals for me in the past. He’s usually vague and doesn’t get down to the specifics. But this time, Coach says it straight. “It’s your year to make All-American, Pepper.”

  That’s his opener. From there, he tells me I’ve got a shot at the record on our home course, and a chance to win the individual title at our conference championship. I think my jaw is on the ground when he finishes.

  “Why do you look so surprised?” he asks with no trace of humor.

  “Well,” I say after a second to recover myself. “Those are the goals I’ve had in my head all summer for myself, but I wasn’t planning on vocalizing them.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I wasn’t sure if they were realistic, and I didn’t know if I was being stupid.”

  “You’re not being stupid, Pepper,” Susan tells me. “You’ve been capable of all these things since you were a freshman.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask, my eyes narrowing defensively.

  “You haven’t reached your potential,” she says simply. My heart sinks. The words are hard to hear, even though I knew that would be her answer. I’ve known it all along.

  “I know,” I murmur.

  “Don’t be hard on yourself,” Coach Harding says. “You’ve had some great seasons and you’ve been right in there on the national scene both in cross and track. Consistency as a college runner, especially for women, is definitely an important characteristic for a successful long-term running career.”

  “And, in terms of getting sponsorship deals later, it’s more important to be consistent than to have that one awesome season and never do it again,” Susan adds. She pauses, and I wonder if she’s thinking of Gina, like I am. In a way, losing weight fast is a shortcut, but it comes with consequences. Hopefully if she stays healthy, she can get back on track.

  “Do you think you want to run professionally after college?” Coach Harding asks.

  When I say “yes” with a fervent nod, I realize I haven’t told anyone this.

  “You’ve got the talent and the personality to do it,” Susan encourages me. But then we all go quiet, probably realizing we’re getting ahead of ourselves. “Well, Sienna can tell you about it when the time comes. She’s living it, right?”

  Sienna Darling was my captain freshman year, and she’s been living up in the mountains, training with her now-fiancé, who is also her coach. She recently qualified for the marathon Olympic trials.

  “Right,” I agree. A life of running, setting goals and chasing after them, would be a dream, and one I need to begin working toward this season.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Jace

  The girl was giving me whiplash. Emotional and mental whiplash. I didn’t know what she wanted from me but I was trying damn hard to give it to her. One minute she was looking at me like she used to, like we were totally okay, and the next she was kind of cold-shouldering me, at least Pepper-style. The girl didn’t really have a cold bone in her body, so her version of being standoffish was simply not being as open as she usually was. And even though she’d let me in so much farther than I’d imagined she would just a year ago, I wanted more.

  The night after we’d slept together, she’d texted and asked if I wouldn’t mind sleeping over for a few nights until her insomnia went away. Wouldn’t mind? Was she kidding? She didn’t make a move, and didn’t reach for me until she was fast asleep. At least, I was pretty sure she was sound asleep when she turned over and snuggled up. And that had been the routine now for weeks. I’d come over right before she went to bed, we’d fall asleep on opposite ends of the bed, and then she’d burrow into me in the middle of the night. Aside from that, there was no other touching involved.

  My roommate, Frankie, wanted to know what was going on and he thought I was being my old evasive self, when I told him I had no clue. But it was the truth. Tonight I was determined to get some dialogue going between us. My, how the roles had reversed themselves. There was a time when she’d begged me for communication, and now I knew how frustrated she must have been when I’d avoided it.

  We were lying in her bed, and she’d just turned off the light.

  “You know, I’ve never actually hooked up with anyone else since you and I first got together your junior year in high school,” I said. It was an odd place to start, but if w
e could clear up some of the facts, maybe we could get to the rest later.

  She was silent for a long time and I was worried she wasn’t going to respond. “You kissed Madeline Brescoll,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah.” My voice was hoarse from emotion. “But that was it. I knew you were watching and as soon as we were in the other room I shoved her off me. I used her.”

  “Used her? For what? You’d already dumped me.”

  Just hearing her remind me of what I’d done made me cringe. I’d dumped her.

  “I knew you didn’t think I was for real. I thought I could convince you that I meant it, that we were really over, and I didn’t want you in my life, if I did something outrageous and unforgiveable. And maybe I wanted you to hate me. I thought it would help me stay away.”

  “It did,” she stated blandly.

  “Yeah, I know,” I agreed.

  “You weren’t very subtle about it,” she said quietly, but rolled over so she was looking at me. We were face to face, and my pulse quickened.

  “I know. And I think you knew, all along, exactly what I was doing, didn’t you?” I asked.

  “No,” she answered, actually laughing at the idea. “I definitely did not know exactly what you were doing.”

  “You did, though,” I protested. “But that didn’t make it okay. That’s not what I’m saying. It’s just, I know you wouldn’t be able to forgive me now if you didn’t understand, if you didn’t know me like you do.” Shit, all this time waiting to talk to her, and I was totally screwing it up. This was way harder than I’d thought. There was so much I wanted to convey to her, and I sucked at words. I was trying to get better at translating it into sentences, but it didn’t come easily to me.