by Nana Malone
She stared at him. “But…my family.”
“All due respect…fuck ’em. This is your life.”
They reached the hotel and he took her up to her room. Both of them hesitated.
She looked up to see Cole’s intense gaze on hers. It was the same look he’d given her in the bar and in the bathroom. Heat crept up her neck as she flushed deep.
“You should go and, uh, take a shower. Are you strong enough to stand?” As thick as his voice was, Echo couldn’t help but think of the bathroom. What they’d done. Or, rather, what she’d done to him. And the way he’d kissed her.
“Uh,” she said, and let go of his shoulder. “Yeah. I’m…fine, thanks. See you later.”
His lips twisted into a wry, self-deprecating smirk. “Of course. Well done today, Echo.” He turned and headed back toward the elevators.
She let herself in and groaned. Partly from pain. Partly from fatigue. And partly from frustration. They hadn’t had a real moment to talk in days. He’d given her legs a two-day rest, and then it had been training, and yesterday was all about prep. She’d had a race to focus on. And last night they’d spoken, but it was hardly the time. Not with her parents next door. She was amazed she was able to get to sleep. Thankfully, she’d taken a sleeping pill. And just now he’d seemed like he wanted to say something. But he hadn’t. And she didn’t have the courage to go down to his room and demand he talk to her. Or…other things. So many other things. He drove her nuts. And she was caught between wanting him and knowing she couldn’t really have him.
She couldn’t get him out of her already overcrowded head. There wasn’t room for him anywhere but as her coach, so it was useless to dwell on it… No matter how much she might think about him.
Despite his appearance of anger, he’d shown that he was in her corner. And after everything, she needed someone like that. He wanted the best for her. He also wanted to win. But he’d been sincere when he encouraged her to pursue her own dreams. And he was right. She liked to run. And she was good at it. But she didn’t love it. And right now, with all the cramping and pain, she hated it. Not to mention everything else crowding her head.
That was what she’d spent so much of her race thinking about. What could be wrong with her father, and why weren’t they saying anything more? When would they tell the others? Was their silence a good sign? A bad one? Were they afraid that telling her would be a distraction now that she was so deep into training? The qualifiers were just around the corner. If something were seriously wrong would they wait until after those to say something about it, or would they put it off until after the Olympics were behind her?
And just like that, all thoughts of Cole vanished, as concern for her father constricted her chest and overwhelmed her. She made it to the bathroom before she began dry heaving into the toilet, but there was nothing in her stomach to bring up.
Twenty
Cole watched Echo closely. His brain tried to separate his concern and emotion between coach and…whatever else they were. They still hadn't had any time to talk. Gramps was making himself a real nuisance, and gave them no time together alone. Boston was three weeks ago, and he was warned that pressing it would distract her. So they sat in limbo.
Echo’s family couldn’t see her when it came to the qualifiers. They were relegated to the stands with everyone else. He was the only one allowed anywhere near her or her fellow competitors. And he preferred it that way. He’d had enough of Rory to last a lifetime.
He milled about at the edge of things along with the other coaches, his eyes glued to Echo as she limbered up. There was something off about her movements, and that shit worried him. Something was going on with her. She always stretched each leg three times before doing fifteen toe touches. It was almost ritualistic. But he watched her stretch the right leg four times before she shook her head as though dazed, and then moved on to her toe touches. She only did thirteen of those.
Something was on her mind. He wished she’d just talk to him. She kept closing her eyes, and he could make out her lips moving but had no idea what she was saying. It was clear that she knew how distracted she was, and was struggling to get herself back under control.
Cole could only fidget where he stood. The competitors were lining up for the first heat in the 800-meter race. Echo had done respectably through the heats for the 400-meter race, placing just high enough to keep advancing. Much as he anticipated she would for the 1500-meter races later that day. But the 800-meter was the one where she should place at the top. Not just merely qualifying, but dominating. But she looked like she couldn’t get into the right headspace.
He sighed and shook his head. He couldn’t do anything to help her now. That shit sucked. She needed to start talking to him, or they were both going to fail.
The runners lined up and set their feet on the starting blocks, waiting for the signal. When the gun fired, Cole watched Echo’s toe catch the ground as she pushed off. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
It wasn’t enough to send her sprawling to the ground and out of the race, but it messed with her balance and put her behind by several crucial seconds. She had to fight hard to make up the distance on the first lap, but she managed to place just high enough to make it to the next round. As she ran, his heart hammered and his breathing accelerated, as if he were the one running. The adrenaline surge was the same. The anxiousness.
Cole and the other coaches moved away from the sideline in a wave to greet their runners and congratulate or console them. Echo shook her head and rolled her eyes as he came over to her. She thought she knew what he was going to say.
“It was a stupid… I can’t believe…” she sputtered as she fought to return her breathing to a normal rate. Tears glimmered in her eyes.
He took her hand. “Come with me,” he said, and led her away from the officials and other runners. They had a few more groups to go before the next round would start.
“I’ll do better in the next one,” Echo assured him. She sniffled deep. Hell. He hated to see her like this. She was killing herself, and couldn’t see how well she was doing.
There was no one around. And he watched her for a moment.
“Come. Cool down with me,” he said, before starting to jog down the path. He didn’t look back over his shoulder, but after a moment he heard the sound of her feet smacking the ground as she caught up to him and then slowed to match his easy pace. “Tell me what you see.”
“What?”
“What do you see?” There was a familiar twinge in his knee, but he pressed on at a snail’s pace to keep Echo from tiring.
“Green. Grass, trees, bushes…” she said, breathing still labored.
“And what do you hear? What do you smell?” he pressed.
She sighed as they jogged along. “I hear…birds, I guess. Someone laughing. Kids, I think. And it smells…like sweat.”
He laughed. “Okay, what else?”
“Oh, I just got a whiff of hot dogs from one of those lunch carts. And now I’m getting hungry.”
“You’re always hungry. I’ll buy you a hot dog as a treat when you’re through for the day,” he promised with a laugh. “How do you feel? Does anything hurt or…?”
“I feel…better,” she said, gradually coming to a stop. “Thank you. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t get out of my own head with everything going on.”
He took her hand again, ignoring the spike of awareness. “Don’t think about the other runners or anything else,” he said. “If it starts to feel like too much, try to decide what color the track is, or what the difference is between overcast and partly cloudy. Get everything else out and run when the shot goes off. Fill your head with little things. It’s all that matters. The right now. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Right here, you and me.”
Echo gave him a small smile, and they turned around to make the short jog back. He stayed a few paces behind her so he could watch her and gauge whether or not the little diversion had worked.
He knew from experie
nce how easily the pressure could get to you when you had to wait and watch your competitors run their heats before your turn came up again. Standing at the starting line in that tense position just waiting for the officials to get themselves together, waiting on a knife’s edge for the sound that would trigger your reflexes to act, and praying that your reflexes were faster than the runner next to you. In the sprints especially, the start was everything. She had to stay calm, loose.
There was a lighter air to her step as they approached the course where one of the subsequent heats was underway, and he prayed that those few minutes had been enough, that she wouldn’t slip back into whatever had distracted her enough to trip before the next heat. She couldn’t survive another slip like that. And while it was true that she had already qualified for one of the other races, the 800-meter was the one she actually wanted. And if she didn’t qualify for whatever reason, neither of them would hear the end of it from her grandfather, who still held a grudge about having been ignored in his recommendation that she race the marathon, or at the very least, the half.
Rory was such a pain in the ass that Cole had to put in a request at their training facility that Rory be barred admittance to the areas where Echo was training. A request the facility had been reluctant to enforce. Two or three times at least last week, they allowed their security forces to be bypassed.
They were too wary of losing his financial contributions to do more than make a show of explaining it was at Cole’s and Echo’s insistence that their training proceed uninterrupted. Eventually, Cole had given up and worked with one of the high schools downtown just to keep him from interrupting.
They slipped back into the mass of competitors and coaches. With a quick squeeze of her hand, Echo headed off in the direction of the other runners, while Cole resumed his place along the edge of the competitive area.
Echo was limbering up again, but there was less tension in her arms as she swung them about, or in her carriage as she did a few lunges. Her form was steady, and she was once more visibly in control of it.
“What the hell happened?” A voice grumbled from behind Cole.
Motherfucker. How had he fucking made it down here? Cole forced his shoulders to relax, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath before turning his head slightly to glance at the older man from the corner of his eye.
“Rory, it’s been taken care of,” he assured the older man. Though, he knew from the frustrated tone of the older man’s voice that the issue wouldn’t be resolved so easily.
“That’s not what I asked,” Rory bit out. “How the hell did she get such a slow start? This is supposed to be her best race, and she barely made it through her first heat.”
“It’s difficult to see from where you’re seated,” Cole said, infusing his voice with a calm he didn’t feel. “But she tripped on the starting block. If this weren’t her best race, I don’t know that she’d have been able to recover at all. Now you’ll need to return to your seat, or you’ll risk security and the officials getting involved. I doubt I need to remind you how detrimental any allegations of interference can be.”
He used enough authoritative words to give Rory Coulter pause. In truth, Cole doubted it would make much difference to anyone whether the Coulter patriarch stood at the fence bitching to his granddaughter’s coach about things neither of them had any control over. But the last thing he wanted was for the old man to pick up on his own nerves and badger him for the rest of the day.
His bluff worked as Rory grumbled, “Full of shit…and just where did you head off to with her? If that’s allowed…” Nevertheless, he moved back beyond the fence.
Cole sighed when he felt it was safe to do so. If Echo came up short, he was fairly certain he’d be fired. Her parents would hire someone else for the next few months to take her through the games themselves, Rory would make sure of that.
While Cole wouldn’t miss the likes of Rory Coulter, the thought of not getting to work with Echo everyday sent an unexpected—and unwanted—slice of pain through his chest. They were a team now. No matter how they’d started. Whatever his abilities as a coach might be, he could only do his job effectively with runners who were talented and open enough to allow themselves to be guided. Looking around at the interactions between the nearby coaches and their runners, he was becoming aware of just how he’d lucked out with Echo.
At that moment, Echo’s next race was announced over the loudspeaker. He crossed his arms over his chest and paced anxiously, as she and the other runners lined up at the starting blocks. You can do this, Echo. Come on. The seconds seemed to drag on so long that even when the gun fired and the runners took off, Echo seemed to be moving too slow. But she wasn’t.
His eyes followed her, as she easily took over the lead position in the heat. There were several feet between her and the next runner, and then several yards. He uncrossed his arms and clenched his fists. As she rounded the last bend of her second lap on the track, the rest of the group still only halfway down the previous stretch, he started bouncing on the balls of his feet. It was becoming clear that she not only had the race, but had to be close to breaking the record.
Though it wasn’t like him, he started to scream her name. His calls of “Holy shit, Echo, burn them,” probably went unheard. But he could hope that some of his energy reached her. Adrenaline spiked his blood.
He had to wait until the results were officially announced before he could go to her. Those minutes felt like eons. All he wanted to do was hold her. When he was allowed on the track, he found her milling about, her competitors acknowledging her feat with congratulatory nods and handshakes, as they, too, bent at the waist and gasped to catch their breath.
He ran up to her, but the moment he got close enough he froze, too afraid that if he held her, everyone would see too much. See how he felt about her. So he held himself back. “You did good,” he told her simply, his grin insuppressible.
She grinned back before the voice came over the loudspeaker to make another announcement. Echo had tied an Olympic qualifying record in the event, and was only four seconds shy of tying a world record for 800 meters.
They stared at each other for one second, then another. And then Echo laughed and launched herself into his arms.
Cole held her tight, spinning them both around, laughing with her. This was safe, right? They’d just smashed their goal. A hug was called for… Wasn’t it? Never mind that he never wanted to let her go. So he did what he’d been telling her to do. Closed his eyes and enjoyed the moment.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Echo whispered earnestly, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, her forehead leaning against his.
They were so fucking close to kissing. And right now, it was all he wanted to do. He could already taste the salt of her sweat on his tongue. But it was more than need pouring through his veins. He cared about her. He wanted a million more of these moments with her.
“Now THAT’S more like it,” Rory Coulter shouted from the fence, as the officials permitted him and the rest of Echo’s family onto the track to celebrate with them.
Cole set her feet back on the ground and loosened his hold on her waist, but she took a few extra seconds to step out of his embrace, her arms lingering around his neck. Like she didn’t want to let go.
But then she was out of his arms, turning and smiling broadly to her family, finally engulfed by the small swarm of Coulters. Her grandfather gave her a well-deserved pat on the back, as Echo leaned in to her proud parents.
Rory Coulter’s grin froze in place when his gaze landed on Cole. “Guess we don’t have to fire you after all,” he muttered. Cole just glowered at him, but he turned back to the celebrations and congratulations, effectively dismissing him.
A pair of officials came over to the small family group and expressed their own congratulations for Echo and her accomplishment before gently reminding them that they would need to return to their seats for the rest of the races.
Echo was finished for the day. Th
e rest of her events were scheduled for the following day, so her parents were pushing for a celebratory dinner out with just the family.
“We’ll do a larger party later,” Julia said. “Once all your qualifiers are run and we know just how much we have to celebrate.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Echo objected politely. “A party like that…it’s a lot to plan, and you guys don’t need that kind of stress.”
“Shut up, Echo,” Fox rolled his eyes. His hockey team was still in its off-season, so he was able to schedule his personal practices as he liked. “A party is always a good thing.”
“You’ll just have to resign yourself to being the center of attention,” Dax agreed, high-fiving Fox behind his girlfriend Asha’s back. Asha just rolled her eyes and poked him in the ribs.
“If she doesn’t want to talk about having a party to celebrate because she’s afraid that kind of planning will jinx the races she has tomorrow, then you should just shut up and go along with it,” Asha said. Judging by the puzzled expression on Echo’s face, Cole was willing to bet that the motivation Asha ascribed to Echo had missed the mark.
While the Coulters were busy figuring out whether going to dinner would be lucky or unlucky, Cole gathered his things together and quietly slipped away, leaving Echo to enjoy the moment with her family.
Twenty-One
Maybe she should have thought this through. In truth, Echo had no idea what to say to Cole. But they hadn’t had any time to talk during day two of qualifiers, because her grandfather had insisted on being there. Then right after that, they were on a plane home.
Echo rocked on the balls of her feet for a moment, before knocking on the door to Cole’s apartment. She remembered all too well the last time she’d been there. The only other time she’d been there. And how eager they’d both been to get inside.