Pepped Up and Ready (Pepper Jones #3)

by Ali Dean

  Pepped Up and Ready

  (Pepper Jones Series, Book #3)

  By Ali Dean

  Editor: Leanne Rabesa

  http://editingjuggernaut.wordpress.com

  Cover: Sarah Foster

  http://sprinklesontopstudios.com

  Proof Reader: Nicole Bailey

  http://proofbeforeyoupublish.com

  Chapter 1

  There’s nothing like sprinting up a hill as fast as you can. Leaning forward and digging your feet into the dirt as you push your body to a point where all conscious thoughts escape your brain. You can’t focus on anything except the burning in your chest and the urgency to reach the top.

  It was still dark when I started jogging this morning, and the sky begins to turn from a hazy purple to a blend of red and orange as I reach the sign indicating the highest point on Duncan Peak. I burst past it with a final surge of energy before letting myself fall dramatically to the ground. I roll onto my back and grin, knowing there’s no one in sight to witness my ridiculousness. It’s just me and the mountain.

  As my breathing settles and the sky colors change with the rising sun, a heaviness I’m growing accustomed to eases over me, pinning me to the ground. I don’t want to get back up and face it. The weight of impending change.

  The boy I’ve grown up with is going to college tomorrow. Jace Wilder is my boyfriend now, but saying “my boyfriend is going to college” just sounds so… trivial. Lots of girls experience that. Two of my best friends, Zoe Burton and Charlie Owens, have been dating for even longer than Jace and I. Yet Charlie heading to college hours away from Brockton simply isn’t as heart-wrenching for them. And I haven’t confided my anxieties to Zoe or Charlie anyway. They wouldn’t understand. Jace is going to the University of Colorado, a ten-minute walk from the apartment I share with my Gran.

  Here’s the thing. Jace Wilder is, like, a celebrity in Brockton. He’s expected to be the starting quarterback on the UC football team – yes, as a freshman – and the whole state is looking to him to turn the team’s dismal record around. Now, if Jace was boring or shy or just – not Jace – he might not attract quite as much attention. But he’s not only a leader on the football team; he’s always been the kind of guy other guys – and girls, too – look up to. People want his attention and his approval. I can’t explain it. But I want it too.

  Then there’s his physical appearance. Even if that boy had the personality of a rock and the athleticism of – I don’t know, a worm? – even then, heads would turn.

  There’s no question that the comfortable relationship we’ve settled into is going to be jostled big time when Jace goes to college. If I thought going from friends to boyfriend-girlfriend was a big change, well, it was somehow way less significant than what we’re now facing.

  Rolling back my shoulders and stretching my legs, I stand up to jog back to the campsite. My stomach growls in hopes that breakfast will already be cooking by the time I get there. It’s still early, but odds are that Jace and Wes are awake. Wesley Jamison is Jace’s half-brother – they share a father – but hardly anyone knows this secret family relation. The three of us have been camping with their dad since we were five years old. I learned early on that sleeping in was not an option when camping.

  My legs are wobbly when I finally get to the dirt road leading to the campsite. Cars line the road for a quarter mile. The camping trip was meant to be an intimate gathering with a few friends, but it takes a lot of effort to keep any social affair small when Jace Wilder is involved. He doesn’t actually invite people himself. He doesn’t have to. How word spreads so fast about where he’ll be on any particular night is beyond me. But I’ve come to expect it. And it doesn’t bother me like it used to. Jace has proven that when it comes to him and me, the crowds don’t really matter.

  “Morning, Pepper Jones,” a familiar voice greets me.

  I turn to see Ryan Harding jogging up behind me, a wide grin spread across his face. He’s let his light brown hair grow out a bit, and the tousled strands curl under his ears. As the top male high school distance runner in the country, Ryan’s confident and easy stride indicates he’s more than ready to take on the college running scene this fall.

  “I thought I might see you out this morning,” he comments as he syncs his pace with mine.

  “Nothing like a sunrise run in the mountains, you know?” He loves to run almost as much as I do.

  “It’s the best. I went a little longer than I planned and I’m starved now. Is that bacon I smell?”

  “It better be. I was dreaming of it the whole way down from DuncanPeak.”

  “You ran all the way up there?” Ryan asks, startled. “That’s, like, a two thousand foot elevation gain, Pepper! You must have been out for hours.”

  I glance at my watch. “Yeah, coming up on two hours here.”

  “Coach Tom increased your mileage this summer?” Ryan asks.

  “Nah, I went rogue this morning. I mean, I generally follow the training plan, but sometimes I just get carried away and need to keep running, you know?”

  “I know, but don’t get too carried away, you know my spiel on that,” the ever-practical Ryan warns me. He’s a big believer that too many high school runners over-train and burn out, or get injuries that ruin their future running careers. He might be right, but I know that most of the top high school runners are putting in way more mileage than Coach Tom currently has me doing. And it makes me nervous. Sure, I won Nationals last year by following his plan, but it seems only logical that I need to train more if I expect to keep improving, or win Nationals again.

  Just because Ryan’s dad, Mark Harding, is head coach of the UC cross country teams, doesn’t mean Ryan knows everything about how to train properly.

  We slow to a walk as we make our way toward the campfire. Tents are pitched throughout the woods, but the only sound is a low murmuring of voices. At seven AM, most people are still asleep. I could hear them partying from the tent I shared with Jace well into the early morning hours.

  I smile when I see Jace standing over a Coleman stove wearing a winter hat and hoodie. The sharp edges of his handsome face contrast with the soft smile he flashes me when he glances up from the stove. His eyes roam over my running clothes before darting to Ryan. His jaw tightens and he returns his attention to the stove.

  Ryan and Jace have a complicated relationship. I suppose they call each other friends. They shared the same circle of buddies at Brockton Public, but there’s a tension between them that may never dissipate. Ryan was my first boyfriend, and Jace isn’t happy that Ryan beat him to it. Jace knows it’s his own fault, and there’s not much you can hold against a guy like Ryan. Anyway, Ryan isn’t much of a jealous guy, but he knows I broke up with him because of my feelings for Jace. So yeah, the awkwardness is hard to avoid.

  I wrap my arms around Jace, and feel relieved when he turns around to face me, and pulls me close. He kisses me chastely on the lips and murmurs in my ear, “Don’t tell me I missed snuggling with you this morning so you could go for a run with Ryan.” His voice is light, but I sense the hurt beneath it.

  “I just caught up with him a minute ago, Jace. Now, I’m starving. What’d you make me?” I peek over his shoulder at the skillet.

  “Oh, you think these eggs are for you, do you?”

  “Not a chance, Pep,” Wes’s voice booms as he hip-checks me away from Jace and the warm, gooey scrambled eggs. He grins at me, a forkful of eggs already in his mouth.

  “Hey buddy, you didn’t just run up a mountain. What kind of a friend are you, anyway?” I tease Wes, hands on hips.

  “A hungover one. Now, where’s that delicious-smelling bacon that got me out of my sleeping ba
g at this obscene hour?”

  Jace hands me a plate of bacon. “You can have Pepper’s leftovers, man.”

  Wes shrugs before shoving another bite of eggs in his mouth.

  “I want cheese on my eggs anyway,” I say sweetly as I pick up a piece of bacon.

  “Well shit, if I knew cheese was an option…” Wes frowns in disappointment at his plain eggs. Jace chuckles beside me.

  Ryan has disappeared, and only a few others are up, warming themselves by the campfire and sipping mugs of what I assume is coffee.

  Jace pulls me onto his lap in a camp chair, telling me he’ll make me cheesy eggs in a minute, and grabbing a piece of bacon for himself. Sighing in contentment, I curl my exhausted body into him and rest my head on his chest. It’s safe here, in Jace’s arms. Sometimes I can forget it’s all about to change.

  Wes is puttering around trying to make coffee, and asking Jace every other minute where to find something. Who knew making coffee was so complicated? Wes is a piece of work. He treats partying like I treat running. He loves it with a passion, and is always seeking a better, bigger time. The boy was always a social butterfly growing up, but it seems to have evolved into something else entirely during his high school years. It’s like he’s chasing after this blissful state he finds with girls and inebriation, or just the high from being surrounded by people. People who adore and worship him – almost like they do Jace. Wes is an enigma to me. Partying definitely doesn’t give me a sense of peace and happiness, and I find it hard to believe that’s what he gets from it.

  Wes seems to have it made – wealthy, athletic, good looking, and smart. He’s headed to his dad’s alma mater, Princeton, in a week, where he’ll play football. So I can’t figure out what he’s running from.

  A girl I’ve never seen before emerges from Wes’s tent, her long dark hair wrapped up in a bun on top of her head. Despite the cold morning air, she wears only a thin camisole and flannel pajama bottoms, which rest low on her hips, displaying her jutting hip bones. A sleeping bag is wrapped around her shoulders like a blanket and she approaches Wesley with a pout.

  “Baby, why didn’t you wake me up?” she whines while climbing up his body to whisper something in his ear.

  Jace isn’t paying attention. “I wanted to go on a hike with you today, but you were running for so long, will you be up for it?”

  “Of course,” I assure him. “That’s why I wanted to get my run in early, so we could get going on the hike.”

  “You can’t take a day off from running even if you go on a long hike? If we’re going to make it to the waterfall, it’s ten miles round trip.”

  “Nope, I’ll get behind on my mileage if I take a day off,” I tell him. “Long-distance runners are way more hard core than quarterbacks,” I tease.

  “You think so, huh?” Jace tickles me until I squirm. I try to suppress my giggles so that I don’t wake everyone up, but Jace is relentless and bursts of giggles inevitably erupt. When he finally backs down, I find Wes watching us before crawling into his tent, an unfathomable expression on his face. Before I can decipher the look, the girl’s arm pulls him inside, and he zips up the flap.

  Jace shuts down various invites to join others on activities, and we successfully manage to go on a hike with just the two of us. It’s rare to get Jace alone like this, and I savor the hours of comfortable silence beside him on the trail. Jace sets a brutal pace, and I imagine that’s the only reason we were able to dissuade others from joining us on the hike. By the time we hop in his Jeep to head back to Brockton, I’m beyond exhausted.

  I must have fallen asleep because I wake to Jace kissing me gently on the forehead. The Jeep is parked outside my apartment building on Shadow Lane, and it’s dark outside.

  Jace is leaning over to my side, and he cups my chin in his hand. “Hey, sleepy girl.”

  “Hey,” I say softly. I’ve managed to avoid thinking about it all day, but suddenly the weight of what is about to happen hits me with a force so strong, I can barely hold back the tears threatening to spill. Jace is moving into his dorm tomorrow for football preseason. He won’t live down the street anymore.

  Jace tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “I texted Buns, she’s expecting you for dinner.”

  “But not you?” I ask, confused. Jace always joins my Gran and me for dinner when he can. He lives with his dad, Jim, and while the two of them have breakfast down pat, their skills at cooking dinner are fairly pathetic. But that’s not the only reason Jace is always at our place. He’s family. He has his own spot at the table and it feels empty when he’s not there. My Gran, Bunny (Buns to Jace), has been helping take care of Jace since he was in diapers.

  Jace shakes his head. “Dad wanted to take me and Wes out for dinner one last time before Wes leaves for Princeton.” And you for college, I think. Sure, he won’t be far, but he’ll eat dinner with his team at a special cafeteria for athletes every night instead of with me and Gran.

  “Why does this feel like goodbye?” I ask to myself, realizing too late I’ve said it out loud. “Not to you,” I amend, “but to a chapter of our lives?”

  “The chapter of Pepper and Jace on Shadow Lane?” Jace asks with a smile.

  “Is it silly for me to be so sentimental about this?” I ask him, hoping he’ll tell me he feels sad too.

  “You’ve been worried about me starting college all summer, Pep. But things aren’t going to change so much. You’ll see,” Jace tells me. He’s so confident, I almost believe him. But I catch the fear lingering in his green eyes.

  I kiss him then, hard, hoping to solidify with my lips the faith I have in us. That we will continue to be us even as Jace leaves behind his life on Shadow Lane.

  Chapter 2

  A strange melancholy settles over me when I finally climb out of Jace’s Jeep. It follows me through dinner and into bed that night. When I wake up in the morning, a sense of loss is still draped over me like a heavy jacket. I’d take it off if I could, but I know it’s no use.

  My phone shows several missed texts and phone calls. Zoe dropped Charlie off at Mountain West yesterday and wants to go on a run with me today. Jace returned from dinner with his dad and brother late last night, and apparently stayed up most of the night packing. I have one voicemail I must have received while hiking yesterday that I never checked before going to sleep.

  I hold my breath as I hear the University of Oregon’s head coach introduce herself. Wow. The head coach from the reigning Division I National Champions. Most of the calls up until now were from assistant coaches. I’ve been hoping to get invited for a recruitment trip to Oregon, if only because my running idol, Elsa Blackwood, went there. After college, Elsa turned to marathons, and, now in her thirties, she’s still the best female American distance runner. Hands down.

  There’s no way I’ll actually go to Oregon for college though. My life is here, in Brockton, and I doubt I’ll ever leave. But I’m still flattered the coach called me, and I’m not against visiting the school for kicks.

  I know I should wait to run with Zoe, who surely wants to recap the goodbye with Charlie, but I need to be alone this morning. Zoe likes to chat away her emotions; I like to run mine away. Seriously, running somehow makes things better. Not all the way better, but enough.

  My loyal mutt, Dave, pants quietly beside me as we wind our way through the neighborhood and onto my favorite trail up the foothills. My legs are sore from the run and hike yesterday, and it takes a while before they loosen up. I’ve trained harder this summer than ever before. After winning Nationals last fall, I felt overwhelmed by the pressure during track season. Instead of embracing the challenge of living up to my title as the best female high school distance runner in the country, I completely shied away from it. I feared racing, and found myself more excited about my newfound social life as Jace’s girlfriend than I was about racing.

  Somehow, by facing my fears in my relationship with Jace head on – which entailed confronting the ultimate mean girl, Madeline Brescoll
, about trying to sabotage our relationship – I also gained the confidence to face my fears on the track.

  I know that if I want to be the National Champion again, I can’t coast my way through the summer. Normally, my summer training entails running five to six days a week, with at least one day off from working out each week. With the exception of one long run a week, the rest of the runs Coach Tom has me doing are at an easy pace and no more than five or six miles. I haven’t talked much with Coach this summer, probably because he figures I’m just doing the same base mileage routine I did last year. But I’m not. I’ve nearly doubled my weekly mileage, and I never take a day off. I also lift weights every other day. When I show up for our first practice, I’ll be in the best shape of my life.

  Ryan and Coach Tom both drilled into my head the importance of pacing myself – not just in a race, but in training over the course of a season. I get it, but I’ve never been injured before. I’ve never really tested myself. I’ve never trained so hard I thought I might break. Sure, I’ve raced like that, and occasionally I’ll have brutal workouts, but Coach always makes sure I get plenty of rest. Since I’ve started talking to college coaches, I’ve heard plenty about other high school training programs. Most college coaches are surprised, if not shocked, when they hear how low my weekly mileage has been with Coach Tom. If I don’t step it up on my own, I’ll never be ready for college training.