Page 55 of Racing Hearts

Sierra plopped down onto the common room couch and made herself comfortable. She might as well. Going back to her room seemed like a much more uncomfortable option than this brick couch right now. With the safety of space between them, Sierra typed out a text she never thought she would send.

I am over you.

She hit send and shut her eyes.

Chapter 25

Ellie

Ellie was so excited for her date with Sierra, she couldn’t stay still. She paced her room and she checked the time on her phone over and over again. Getting ready had taken surprisingly less time than expected, so now there was nothing left to do but wait.

Track practice tonight had been fun with all of the secret smiles and discreet touches between her and Sierra. It was a tough workout, and she didn’t even register that she was tired, because there was so much adrenaline pumping through her veins just from being close to Sierra.

Ellie jumped when there was a knock at her bedroom door. When she opened the door, she found Juniper standing there. Juniper didn’t look like herself. She looked less confident than usual, and it put Ellie on edge. As far as she knew, there was no reason for Juniper to be anything other than extremely excited right now. She had killed their workout, after all. She kept up with the front group the entire time.

Ellie stepped to the side to allow Juniper to walk in. “Everything okay?”

Juniper paced in the same way Ellie had been doing a moment prior. “Yes.” She stopped, shook her head, then continued pacing. “No. I mean, I guess so. We need to talk.”

A lump formed in Ellie’s throat. She assumed Juniper must have noticed something at practice and was here to call Ellie out about her and Sierra.

“What’s up?” she asked as calmly as possible.

Juniper sat down on the bed and wrung her hands together. “I’ve been lying to you.”

Ellie had no idea where Juniper was going with this, but she had a bad feeling it was somehow going to lead back to her and Sierra. “Okay…”

Juniper looked up at Ellie, her eyes wide with fear. “I’ve been, kind of, dating someone.”

“Okay.” Ellie still had no clue why Juniper was making such a big deal out of this.

“It’s Chris. We didn’t mean for it to happen, but after the track meet, we both stayed back at school for a few days, and it was just the two of us, and things kind of just happened. I think we’ve both felt something for a while, but didn’t realize it went beyond friendship. I wanted to tell you as soon as everything happened, but I didn’t know how you would feel about it since we’re your best friends on the team. We didn’t want you to feel like a third wheel or anything.”

Relief swept through Ellie, and she started to laugh. “Dude, that’s it? You scared the shit out of me.”

Juniper’s shoulders dropped as she noticeably relaxed as well. “What the hell did you think I was going to say?”

“That’s a great question. I’m not sure,” she lied.

Juniper blew out a breath. “I’m so happy you’re okay with this. I should have just told you from the beginning.”

Ellie sat down beside Juniper and took her hand. “Of course I’m okay with it. Like you said, you’re two of my best friends. All I want is for both of you to be happy and if you can find that together, that’s great.”

“There is one other thing.”

Ellie’s heartbeat picked back up. Maybe she wasn’t out of the woods yet. “What is it?”

“When I ditched you to go skiing, Chris is the one I went with. I’m so sorry. I know it’s supposed to be chicks before dicks, but I—”

Ellie put her hand up to motion for Juniper to stop. “It’s no big deal. This is all new. You’re excited. You want to spend all of your time together.” Ellie understood all of those feelings much more than Juniper realized.

Juniper wrapped her arms around Ellie and squeezed her tight. “Thank you so much for being so cool about this.” After letting go of Ellie, Juniper jumped from the bed. “I made plans to get dinner with Chris tonight, but if you want me to cancel, I can.”

“Of course not. You two have fun.”

Juniper looked like she was going to leave but then she hesitated for a moment. “Do you have something to do? If not, you can come with us.”

“I’m good. I actually have plans with some girls from the team.” It wasn’ttotallya lie. She was hanging out withonegirl from the team.

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