The track crew finished setting up for the 110-meter hurdles and Weston lined up with nine other racers.
Connor leaned in close to me, his outstretched arm pointing to Weston in the outside lane, closest to us. The scent of his cologne filled my nose and his stubble brushed my cheek.
“Watch him,” Connor said, his voice low and gruff. “Most hurdlers take four steps between each hurdle, but a few can take only three. Wes takes three, which gives him an even bigger advantage.”
I turned my head slightly. Connor’s chin nearly touched mine, and our eyes met. This close, the green facets were stark and clear. His gaze moved from my eyes to my mouth. My heart pounded at his pure masculine perfection and my heartache for Mark suddenly seemed to belong to another person.
The moment broke apart by the announcer telling the racers to take their marks. Connor smiled faintly and we both turned our attention to the field.
“Let’s go, Wes!” he bellowed.
The racers lined up, crouched, and took off with the gun.
“You see it?” Connor said excitedly. “He takes three steps…”
I tried to count but Weston was so fast. His legs a windmill blur before unfolding to take the hurdle. Left leg stretched, the right tucked under him, landing each time with perfect grace into the next three steps. He never once broke rhythm. Other hurdlers knocked the fences down, but Weston cleared every one and won the race. I didn’t have to look at the time to know it was at least a half-second faster than the second-place finisher.
Ruby, Connor and I cheered, and then Connor leaned into me again.
“Three steps. He’s unbeatable.”
His smile was infectious and the way his eyes held mine…
Slow down. You just had your heart broken and you’re already climbing back onto the ledge, contemplating another jump.
I gave myself a shake. This was precisely why I should have stayed home. I couldn’t do casual. With his popularity and arsenal of moves, Connor probably didn’t want any kind of serious relationship.
And my romantic heart didn’t want anything less.
I returned Connor’s smile and faced forward. The rest of the afternoon, I did my best to keep our conversation floating along surface topics: music, majors, and college life. But with every one of Connor’s smiles, every laugh, every casual touch, I felt the pull that whispered for me to take the jump—that the fall was exhilarating. But I remembered all too well how hard and unforgiving the ground could be.
Weston
My third and final race was the 4x400-meter baton relay. Coach Braun always had me run anchor for the simple fact - I won races. Which also happened to be the only reason my teammates were still talking to me. Fine by me. I wasn’t there to make friends. I was there to win.
The 4x400 began, and as the baton was passed once, then twice, I took my place on the track for the last leg. We had about twenty seconds before our teammates rounded the curve for the final stretch, and a cloud of nervous tension hung over us. We all craned our necks to look over our shoulders, arms stretched back for the baton, reaching and ready, praying to the gods we wouldn’t drop it.
“Hey,” I said to the Tufts runner in the lane on my right, a guy I’d run against for two years. “Hey, Jacobs.”
Todd Jacobs—lanky and dark-haired—glanced at me quickly, scowled. “Fantastic. Another season with the Amherst Asshole. Just what I always wanted.”
“Do you like my uniform?” I asked.
The third-leg runners were rounding the curve. The anchors started taking half steps. Jacobs’ gaze darted to me, then back to his approaching teammate.
“Huh?”
“I said, do you like my uniform?”
“Ignore him,” said Hayes Jones, a runner from Wesleyan on my left, his dark eyes on the track behind him. “He’s just trying to rile you.”
“What about you, Jones?” I asked. “Do you like my uniform?”
“Fuck off, Turner.”
We were all jogging now, arms reaching as our teammates closed in, their own arms out long.
“It’s a great uniform,” I said, running faster now as my teammate, Doug Bonham, stretched to hand off the baton. “Hold on, I’ll show you what it looks like from behind.”