Chapter 6
Not everyone is going to think you’re amazing, gorgeous and magical. They’re wrong, though. Dickheads .
— Milena’s secret thoughts
MILENA
Me :
Hey , I’m running like two minutes late. I forgot where I put my shoes. Don’t start without me!
No response.
I didn’t waste time after sending the text.
Instead , I hurried out the door and to my car, heading to the front entrance of the lake where Hazel and I usually started our long run.
She hadn’t answered my text yesterday, but honestly, I hadn’t expected her to after I’d seen her social media story.
I’d happened to be stalking some random woman on Instagram and Facebook and had seen her story about being out with some girls from her office.
One of those girls was my girl. My best friend.
Hazel had been doing that a lot lately.
In fact, it’d been so long since we’d done anything more than run together that I was starting to get a complex.
Not to mention, any time I texted her, she either replied hours later, or didn’t reply at all.
I didn’t like the sick feeling it was leaving in my stomach, either.
Like our friendship was slipping through my fingers, and if I wasn’t careful, I’d lose it.
Feeling desperate now, I pulled out my phone when I got to a stoplight and texted again.
Me :
You know what’s always there for you? Carbs . They never let you down.
Still no response.
I stared at my phone, wondering what my best friend was doing.
On the way past Hazel’s place, I looked for her car in her driveway but I didn’t see it anywhere in the vicinity.
That was how we’d become such good friends.
We kept seeing each other on the trail that ran around the lake, and one day four years ago, we’d decided that since we were already running, we’d run together.
From there, a fast and easy friendship had formed.
I loved Hazel with all my heart and counted her as my very best friend.
Yet , as I waited for a solid thirty minutes for her with no response, I began to think maybe I wasn’t that to her anymore.
Stomach a little uneasy at the thought of Hazel not wanting to be around me anymore, I threw my running vest on over my shoulders and began loading it up with my running gels and electrolyte water.
Today I was running nineteen miles.
In exactly one month, we’d be running not only our first marathon, but our first trail marathon.
The marathon was in Glacier , Montana and I was super duper thrilled about it—despite my depth perception problems.
I was excited because one, I’d always wanted to go to Glacier National Park . And two, I got to get away from the store and my family for a while and spend a week at, arguably, one of the most beautiful national parks in the nation.
Me :
Hey , I’m really sorry, but I can’t wait anymore. I have to get all of these miles done before I have to meet the contractor at Grizzly to let him in.
With my heart heavy, I started my long run off.
At first, it wasn’t too bad.
The day was cool but proved that if I didn’t hurry up and get this long run done, I’d be spending the tail end of my run in the blazing heat with no shade.
I was about an hour in when I made it all the way around the lake.
I had a pressing need for a bathroom, so I went off course of my usual running trail and headed to the end of the lake where I usually stayed away from because Hazel didn’t like running it.
She’d told me once that the trails were all uneven, and she always felt like she was going to trip and fall if she wasn’t careful. Generally , we’d avoided that end of the trail for so long that it wasn’t something I even contemplated going to anymore.
But today, knowing there was a public bathroom that was well-lit and safe, I headed toward it.
I got to the bathroom, did my business, and started pulling my soaked leggings up my legs and positioning them in place.
It was while I was doing that—and if you’ve ever pulled on anything spandex and wet, you know what kind of a struggle it was—that I heard a familiar laugh.
I pushed out of the bathroom door once my leggings were in place and stopped, heart beating fast, and listened.
I knew that voice and that laugh.
Hazel .
A smile on my face, I rounded the corner of the bathroom only to come to a startled halt when I saw Hazel there, stretching, and talking to the best friend stealer.
Hazel was laughing about something.
Rayann turned to my best friend, a smile on her face, and said, “ I just love this part of the trail. I’m glad you were willing to run with me today. I know you said you were busy last week.”
“ Oh , it’s nothing. I wasn’t too busy,” Hazel said. “ What I had to do wasn’t all that important.”
What I had to do wasn’t all that important.
Noted .
“ Did you talk with your other friend?” Rayann asked. “ Did you tell her that we were going to go to the race with you?”
“ Uh , yeah. She’s fine with it,” Hazel said, but immediately changed the subject. “ Did you get your new trail shoes?”
I looked down at my stupid trail shoes that I hated beyond belief.
I hated running on trails.
I hated even more that I tripped eight thousand times and fell at least twice a run.
Stomach in knots now, I readjusted my pants one more time, then turned.
Since I could no longer go past them to the trail entrance that was beyond the bathrooms, I turned and ran for the road.
I still had two hours of running to go, and I wouldn’t skip out on it now, no matter how awful Hazel had just made me feel.
I wouldn’t get the trail running in that I should have gotten, but running on the road would boost my morale and hopefully keep me away from Hazel and her new friend.
Another twenty minutes passed when the sound of a motorcycle penetrated the woman’s voice that I was listening to on my true crime podcast.
It was about a serial killer that murdered all his victims on a trail—ironic, I know, since I was running on said trails.
The podcast itself had me slightly jumpy because the killings had gone on all over the country, but the serial killer had finally been found only a few hours away in East Texas . So when a motorcycle pulled up beside me, my heart jumped into my throat.
My head whipped to the side, and I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the familiar brown eyes.
Jeez .
The man was in jeans, a black t-shirt, motorcycle boots, and his MC cut, but he had to be the sexiest man alive.
“ Hey ,” I called to him after I pulled out my headphone.
“ I’ve been calling you for twenty minutes,” he said. “ I was going to go to the store early today since I suddenly had some time free itself up but couldn’t get ahold of you. You have a key I can have?”
I winced. “ I silenced my phone for my run.”
Okay , so I’d silenced my phone because I needed to get through this run, and if I hadn’t, I’d be thinking every random text I got might be Hazel .
I reached for my keys, ready to just hand it to him, only to realize that my keys were gone.
“ Shit !” I groaned.
Then I remembered hearing a jingle in the bathroom twenty minutes ago when I’d been pulling my leggings up.
“ What ?” he asked.
“ I think I dropped them in the bathroom back there.” I groaned again.
He frowned. “ Where ?”
I gestured to his bike. “ Give me a ride back so we can look?”
He indicated for me to hop on, and I did, trying to stay away from him to keep my sweat off his body.
“ Scoot in, darlin’,” he urged as he took his helmet off and handed it back to me.
The tears that met my eyes as I thought about how Asher had never offered me his helmet hit me hard.
But , likely, the tears were more because of everything that had happened lately—which included Hazel —and not just Asher’s treatment of me.
Once I had the helmet on, I scooted closer and wrapped my arms around his solid torso.
Man , the guy was ripped.
There wasn’t a soft spot on his body.
The drive to the bathrooms took a whole lot less time than I wanted it to, and when I got off, it was with my head down so I could hide the tears still in my eyes.
I took off the helmet and placed it on his seat, then rushed into the bathroom, thankful to find my keys laying exactly where I expected them to be.
“ Oh , good.” I bent over and snatched them up. “ They’re here.”
“ Glad I caught you, then,” he said from the mouth of the bathroom. “ I was just riding around and spotted you. You live close to here?”
I explained where I lived, and he frowned. “ Running on the road like that is really dangerous, Go . I don’t think you should do it. There’s no shoulder, and there are a lot of crazy people out here that don’t know how to drive.”
He had a point.
Plus , that podcast had freaked me out.
The trail was more populated than the road I’d been on…
“ I’ll run on the trail,” I said to allay his fears. “ This key is to get into the building. Will you be there all day?”
He nodded. “ I will.”
“ Then I’ll come up there and get the key, then go make a copy of it, and bring you one back once I’m done.” I looked down at my watch. “ I still have another thirteen miles to go.”
His brows rose. “ You’re running that much?”
I smiled, albeit a bit sadly. “ Yeah , my friend urged me to sign up for a trail marathon run with her, and it’s next month. This’ll be my longest run before I start to taper down.”
He watched me for a long second before he said, “ Stay to the trail. And be careful.”
I smiled. “ I will.”
And I would.
I’d stick to the main trail this time.
He tucked my keys into his pocket and said, “ You don’t need any more of these keys?”
“ No , I have an app that will lock it.” I said. “ I left the biggest key, my car key, locked in the car. Those keys are just the ones for the office, and to be quite honest, I don’t even know why I brought them.”
He patted the keys in his pocket and jerked his chin. “ Seriously , be careful.”
I smiled. “ I will.”
When I started my run again, I could feel his eyes trailing me as I went.
I hated the moment I rounded a bend of the trail and the trees closed in on me, blocking my view of him.
I don’t know why, but he made me feel so…protected.
And warm.
Definitely very warm.
I was finally feeling better about everything when, an hour into my run, I ran into Hazel and her friend.
The deer in the headlights look on Hazel’s face was enough for me to realize that I didn’t want to talk to her.
I ran right past them both, and didn’t stop.
I’d deal with Hazel later.
Maybe .
If she actually spoke to me.
But for now, I’d listen to my creepy true crime podcast about women getting murdered on a trail in the middle of the woods and forget about everything else.