Page 4 of Racing Hearts

Ellie shrugged. “Maybe it’s just a bad day?”

Okay, evenshedidn’t really believe that.

Chapter 2

Ellie couldn’t stop the wide grin from spreading across her face as she entered the school’s football stadium to meet up with the rest of her overachieving teammates for their first day of optional practice. She breathed in the crisp fall air and her smile grew even more. She loved this time of year.

She looked toward the track where a handful of girls and about a dozen guys from the track team were gathered. She sighed. That number was pitiful given how many of them there were on the team. Then again, this wasmostlyjust sprinters and jumpers since the majority of the distance runners were on the cross country team and the throwers normally organized their own, separate practices.

It was disappointing that Ellie didn’t see any fresh faces among them, which meant the newest group of recruits didn’t feel the need to attend these practices. Well, except one, apparently. As Ellie’s eyes scanned past her teammates gathered around the track, they landed on another girl standing away from the group—Sierra.

I really need to remember to look up her last name, Ellie chastised herself.

She was about to walk over and talk to her when a hand landed on her shoulder. She turned around to find Chris Clemson, another senior on the track team, smiling at her. With his sparkling blue eyes, boyish grin, and perfect blonde hair, Ellie was sure she would have a crush on him if it wasn’t for the fact that sheonlyliked women.

“What’s up, Finch?” Chris asked, squeezing her shoulder before letting his hand drop back to his side. “How was your summer? Any new women in your life?”

Ellie had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. You’d think the guys on this team had never met a lesbian with the way they thought the only logical topic of conversation was other women. “Unfortunately not,” Ellie said with a lighthearted laugh. “My moms were pretty much the only women in my life this summer.”

When Ellie noticed movement in her peripheral vision, she turned her head slightly to see that Sierra’s eyes had snapped toward Ellie and Chris, the furrowing of her eyebrows leading Ellie to believe she had never heard of someone having two moms before.Go figure. Maybe Juniper is right about her.

“Same for me.” Chris chuckled. “Well, minus the wholetwo momsthing. How are they doing? I miss them.”

Of course he did. Probably along with everyone else on the team. Even with living over three hours away, Ellie’s moms were very involved, and everyone on the team loved them. “They’re wonderful. Spent the summer trying to convince me I should switch my major to pre-med to take over the practice, though.”

Ellie’s mom, Brinley, was a doctor and she and Ellie’s mama, Annalise, owned a medical practice in their hometown of Melsborough, a town in New Jersey that her parents had apparently fallen in love with after getting married there. Ellie couldn’t blame them for that. She absolutely loved the town she grew up in and would be happy to end up back there if that’s where life took her. Unfortunately for her parents, she wasnotinterested in joining the practice. Not that her moms actually cared what she did. They only wanted for her to be happy. They just liked to joke about her joining the practice, mostly because her mom thought that meant she could retire sooner.

It wouldn’t bethathard for her to switch her major to pre-med, even this late in her college career, because she was an environmental science major, which meant she had alreadytaken many of the required science classes. Even though she wasn’texactlysure what she wanted to do with her degree yet, she had no question that she didn’t want it to involve medicine. She had plenty of time to figure out the rest of her life. For now, her focus was on her track career.

Speaking of which…“I was thinking we could start off easy and just go for a loop around campus and through town today.”

“Easy for who?” Chris asked as he elbowed her in the side.

As sprinters, they preferred being on the track over going for a long jog, but Ellie especially hated it, and Chris knew that. Freshman year they had bonded over the fact that neither of them could keep up on such runs even though they were supposed to be the two fastest freshmen.

Ellie groaned. “I know. I really don’t want to do it, but I’m afraid if I tell them we’re starting out with ten 200s, no one will come back.”

“Aw, but I love that workout,” Chris said playfully.

“Me too.” Ellie smirked. “That’s why we’re doing it tomorrow.”

“Not taking any prisoners this year. I love it.” Chris clapped his hands together and took a few steps closer to the group of athletes waiting for instruction. “All right, everyone. Today we’re doing the campus loop. For those of you who don’t know…”

Ellie let his voice fade out as he described the route they would be running. It’s not like she needed to listen since she knew it like the back of her hand. She walked in the direction of Sierra and stopped when she was a few feet away

“Excited for the season?” Ellie asked. She knew Juniper would kill her if she knew she was still trying to be nice, but Elliecouldn’t stand feeling like a freshman was left out, evenifthat freshman didn’t realize that gay people existed.

Ellie waited for Sierra to respond, but when the response never came, she cleared her throat.

Sierra’s head snapped toward Ellie and those blue eyes were so intense, they made the hair on Ellie’s arms stand up. “Were you talking to me?” Sierra pointed toward Chris. “Sorry. I was trying to listen to the directions.”

At least she said sorry, even if it didn’texactlysound sincere. “All good,” Ellie said as cheerfully as possible. “It’s cool if you missed anything. We all tend to stick together for these runs. No need for heroes today.”

Sierra opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by the sound of a phone ringing. Sierra snapped her mouth shut, took her phone out, and stared at it for a few seconds before looking back at Ellie. “I need to take this. It’s okay if you start without me.”

Sierra hit a button on her phone, then walked away, talking in whispers to the person on the other end of the phone.

“Good to go, Finch?” Chris yelled over to her.

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