Page 80 of Racing Hearts

“You love me?” Sierra asked against Ellie’s neck.

“Sierra No-Middle-Name Finnegan, I’m so fucking in love with you I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“You could start by kissing me.”

That was not a problem. Ellie pulled back just enough to bring her lips to Sierra’s. Even though it had been less than three weeks since their last kiss, this one felt like the first time all over again. The only difference was that it was even better, because she was kissing the love of her life.

“Thank god.” Juniper’s voice caused Ellie and Sierra to jump apart. When Ellie looked over at her, she was standing with her hands on her hips and a wide grin on her face. “I’m really happy for you two, but I’m even happier for myself. Now that you’re done moping around, we can focus on doing what’s really important—getting our relay team to nationals.”

Ellie looked from Juniper to Sierra. “What do you think, babe? Can we do it?”

“I’d say so. We do make a pretty good team.”

“We really do, don't we?” Ellie hoped they were on the same team for many years to come, maybe even forever. She would wait a little while to share that with Sierra, though. The girl was very good at running, after all.

Epilogue

Sierra

“In sixth place, we have West End.”

Sierra stepped up onto the podium with the rest of her relay team. She still couldn’t believe how amazing her freshman year of track had been. Not only did they win the indoor and outdoor conference championships, but she finished second to her girlfriend in the 400 at both of those meets. To make things even better, the times they each ran at the outdoor conference championship were good enough to qualify them for the national meet in the 400 as well as the relay.

Sierra hadn’t made it into finals for the 400 at nationals, but she still had plenty of time for that. What she really cared about was the fact that Ellie had ended her track career with a bang by finishing fifth in the 400 with a career best time and had led their relay team to a sixth place finish.

After they each received their trophies, Ellie grabbed ahold of Sierra’s hand and held it tight while they announced the rest of the top relay teams. Ever since getting back together after Sierra momentarily lost her mind, Ellie never missed an opportunity to show that they were together. She was constantly touching Sierra in one way or another, whether it was an arm around her waist or shoulder, or their fingers interlocked. Ellie always told her it was because she was so proud to be her girlfriend and wanted everyone to know that she was the luckiest girl in the world. She was wrong about that, of course, sinceSierrawas actuallythe luckiest girl in the world.

When they stepped off of the podium, Ellie’s hand remained tightly wrapped around Sierra’s. “How are you feeling?” Ellie asked Juniper as they all walked together.

Sierra knew what Ellie was asking. Not long after getting back together with Ellie and becoming surprisingly good friends with Juniper, she had found out from Juniper what had happened with her dad. She couldn’t imagine what that must be like, but it made her understand Juniper a lot better.

Juniper sported a bigger grin than Sierra had ever seen on her before. “I’m doing fucking amazing. My dad might have done some things that I’m really not happy about, but he was always a good dad to me. I’m glad I could officially become his All-American Girl.”

“I’m glad too. We actually did it.”

“You sure did,” Chris said as he rushed over from the side of the track to wrap Juniper in a tight hug.

“Should we go find our families?” Ellie whispered to Sierra as Juniper and Chris became lost in each other.

“It shouldn’t be too hard,” Sierra said with a laugh. “I don’t think they’ve stopped screaming since our race started.”

Like clockwork, more screams came at that very moment. Ellie smirked at Sierra. “Found them.”

They walked to where their parents and siblings were all sitting together on the bleachers. Ellie and Sierra’s families were basically inseparable at track meets at this point. They had even booked the same hotel for this meet and apparently ate breakfast together every morning. Sierra didn’t want to get ahead of herself when they had been dating for less than half a year, but she couldn’t help thinking about what great in-laws the Finches would make.

“We are so proud of you girls,” Sierra’s mom said before pulling her and Ellie into a hug together.

“So proud,” Ellie’s mama echoed before doing the same.

The rest of their family members followed suit until Sierra and Ellie had been hugged by every single person.

“So, what’s next for you two?” Sienna asked as she looked between the two of them.

“Well, I obviously have three more years of this. Whether or not I’m lonely throughout those three years is up to this one.” Sierra playfully elbowed Ellie in the side. She didn’t actually put any pressure on Ellie to stay close to her, but when Ellie said she wanted to if she could find a job, it made Sierra so excited, she couldn’t help but ask for updates on the job hunt every single day.

Ellie smiled lovingly at Sierra before focusing her attention back on Sienna. “Juniper is keeping our apartment since she is doing grad school at West End next year, so if I hear back from one of the places I applied, I’ll stay with her. Otherwise, I unfortunately might have to look elsewhere.”

The thought of not being with Ellie next year saddened Sierra, but she also wanted Ellie to thrive, so if that meant the two of them had to be apart, she would deal with it.

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