6. Finish With A Bang
Chapter six
Finish With A Bang
I lost Sydney at the four-kilometer marker.
Not, like, literally. Or emotionally. Or physically.
Well, I guess physically. Like, she was no longer physically with me, but I knew where she was and had said it was fine for her to ditch me even though running the last kilometer by myself would suck because the only thing worse than running was running alone.
“Oooh,” I said as we got near the marker, eyeing the flashing lights on the firetruck parked next to the route. “Is this a sexy firefighter station?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe they’re going to hose us down again.”
We were both wrong. As we got closer to the marker, it became clear it wasn’t just firefighters, but also police officers and paramedics. The firefighters were shirtless and posing for photos with runners, including the group of women in the wine sports bras I’d seen earlier. The paramedics seemed to be milling around, so I wasn’t sure if they were just on call in case anyone got hurt while running.
And then there were…
“Oh my God,” Sydney said, suppressing a giggle. “The cops are giving away donuts?”
“Apparently,” I said.
“Think Olivier will be mad if I take a photo and text it to him?” she asked as we veered to the side to claim our powdered donuts.
“Why would he be mad?”
“I mean, the whole cop-donut thing?” she said. “Obviously some people think it’s funny, but I don’t know if he does.”
“You don’t?” I raised my eyebrows, glancing at her. “Really?”
She frowned. “It’s not like I’ve asked him about it.”
I glanced at the donut station, then at Sydney. “And do you think you need to ask him about it?”
She looked even more bewildered. “I guess not, but how else would I—”
“ Bonjour, ma minoune .”
Sydney blinked, then whirled away from me and saw what I’d seen way before she had, which was an officer with messy brown curls, beige skin that was far tanner than the last time I’d seen him, and a wide grin on his face.
“Olivier!” Sydney gasped.
His grin widened as he stepped away from the table. “Surprise.”
It was the fastest Syd had run the entire time. She bounded the last few feet towards the station, though when Olivier’s shoulders tensed and he glanced around, she skidded to a stop as if remembering he was surrounded by his coworkers. He grimaced regretfully, though after another quick look, stepped out from behind the table and reached for Sydney. Her shoulders hunched almost imperceptibly so he didn’t have to tilt his head up when he pressed a quick kiss to her lips.
“I thought you were working late tonight!” she said when they parted.
He gestured around us. “When you said you were here for the run, I did not want to tell you I had volunteered. So I could surprise you. I have been watching for you all night.”
She bit her lip, but it wasn’t enough to stop her eyes from sparkling. “How long are you volunteering for?”
“Until the last racer is done.” He sounded apologetic. “Or until we run out of donuts. But if you want to, you can help me pass them out. I think it might go faster that way.”
Sydney glanced at me.
And here’s the thing.
If I’d thought she wanted an excuse to say no because she didn’t actually want to stay and help him pass out donuts, I would’ve happily thrown a fit about her ditching me. I would’ve absolutely made myself the bad guy so she wouldn’t feel bad about turning her down her fuck-buddy-but-also-kind-of-more-than-that.
Because that’s what best friends do.
But I knew Syd, and the look she was giving me wasn’t a “help me out of this” look. It was a “how mad are you going to be if I ditch you here so I can get laid sooner rather than later” look.
And sure, that might annoy some people. But part of the reason I loved our friendship so much was that Syd and I knew each other too damn well to be annoyed if one of us wanted to run off to get laid.
“Well,” I said, reaching over to grab a donut off the table. “Let me do my part to make things go even faster.”
Olivier’s tongue poked out, wetting his lips as a pleased smile spread on his lips. “ C'est gentil. Merci. ”
“It’s definitely a sacrifice,” I said, powder puffing off the donut as I took a bite.
As expected, it sucked to run alone, so I didn’t. The wine sports bra women were finishing up their shirtless firefighter photo shoot as I passed by and adopted me for a few minutes when I stopped to ask for a photo.
Not from the tall, bald, beautifully sculpted shirtless firefighter. Or the tall, red-haired, beautifully sculpted shirtless firefighter. Or the other tall, bald, beautifully sculpted shirtless firefighter. No, I wanted a photo with the slightly shorter, brunette, beautifully sculpted firefighter who was wearing a shirt because even though it wasn’t illegal in Montreal, baring your tits in public wasn’t exactly common.
Not that it mattered. I mean, she was so hot that I finally understood the whole “fighting fire with fire” analogy. Frankly, the tousled undercut, long eyelashes, and strip of midriff showing beneath the hem of the tight-fitting navy blue T-shirt worn beneath her beige firefighter jacket was doing way more for me than the muscle guys.
After I got my photo with the hot firefighter, I jogged past a group of college guys who apparently ate edibles before starting the race and were astounded by how light could make colours, like, glow , man. Not too long after, I passed a couple standing to the side in morph suits, the woman using her vape through the fabric while the man unzipped a hood that had multiple wet marks on it, peeling it away to reveal a face dripping in so much sweat that his hair was plastered against his forehead. I joked with them for a moment before continuing past a bachelorette and her bridesmaids, another set of morph suits, and JP.
He was laughing and chatting with a short, chubby man with dark brown hair and pale beige skin, but I didn’t make eye contact or wave at him or anything. Not because of anything weird, but I didn’t want to impose on whatever this tradition was. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two and two together; the SIX FOR SAM T-shirts, the toast at the start of the race, and the literal announcement about a guy whose name sounded like Sam made it pretty clear they were running in memory of someone. A teacher, maybe, or a coach, or some other mentor.
But just after I claimed a four-and-a-half ounce plastic cup of beer from the four-point-five kilometer marker, he jogged up and fell in pace beside me.
“Tired yet?” JP asked, holding his hand out for my empty cup.
I scoffed and passed it to him. “Of course not. I could run another one of these. In fact, I might circle back and start the race all over again.”
“I dunno about that,” he said, stacking my cup into his and veering to the right so he could throw them both in the nearest garbage can. “You look pretty tired to me.”
“Looks like you need your eyes checked.”
It wasn’t my best retort, so I was a little surprised when JP let out a bark of laughter. “Maybe. I don’t have my contacts in. I made that mistake one year and between the Holi powder and the foam pit, my eyes were red for three days afterwards.”
I looked at him, bewildered. “Since when have you worn contacts?”
“My dad said I couldn’t get them until I turned thirteen, so the day I turned thirteen.”
That just raised more questions. “I have zero memory of you wearing glasses.”
“Because between the ages of ten and thirteen, I pretended that I hated reading and that writing in straight lines was for losers.” He smirked. “Trust me, I’ve made every effort to make sure no one knows I wear glasses.”
“Why?” I asked. “Afraid they might make you look smart or something?”
“It’s more convenient if my fans and admirers don’t know about the glasses so I can take advantage of the whole Clark Kent effect.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, Superman.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw him grin as he glanced at me. “You think I’m Superman, babe?”
I chose not to respond to the pet name, even though I knew he was trying to get a rise out of me. “I think you think you’re Superman. But I’m not going to take your word for it without proof.”
“There you go, proving why you would’ve made a great lawyer again,” he said. “How am I supposed to prove I’m Superman?”
I shrugged as we ran past an elderly couple who were strolling peacefully under a string of black lights, white golf visors glowing on their heads. “You could tell me your kryptonite.”
“Nice try, Lex Luthor. If I tell you, you’ll use it against me.”
I shrugged nonchalantly. “Fine then. I guess I just don’t believe you.”
He chuckled, but didn’t say anything else. For a while, we ran next to each other in silence.
Which was weird.
JP and I didn’t, like… do stuff together. We fucked. We were polite to each other in social situations. But while he was my best friend’s brother, JP was almost five years older than me and Anne-Marie. It was enough of an age gap that he’d never complained about his parents making him let his little sister tag along with his friends because no one in their right mind would send a twelve-or-thirteen year old girl to hang out with a bunch of seventeen-year-old boys.
Those four-almost-five years didn’t matter quite so much now. Yeah, there was definitely a difference between me being twenty-one and him being twenty-six, but it wasn’t as intense as it seemed when he was starting CEGEP while Anne-Marie and I were technically still in elementary. But still. We weren’t friends . We didn’t hang out.
So it was weird to just… run together.
And it was really fucking weird that it didn’t actually feel weird.
“What happened to your entourage?” he asked after a while.
“Bruno fell in a garbage can,” I said. “And Sydney’s hanging around the donut table so she can fuck a cop.”
“One of those things raises more questions than the other,” he said.
“I’ve told her a million times that him being a cop is a huge red flag, but Syd insists he’s nice.”
JP chuckled. “That’s what I meant, obviously. Since it’s a well-known fact that Bruno’s a distant relative of Oscar the Grouch.”
“Well, technically it was a recycle bin. He was staring at a hot guy and tripped.”
“And you left him there?”
“I considered it, but the hot guy got him out and I’m assuming Bruno’s off ‘showing his gratitude’ or something.”
He let out another soft chuckle. “So you’re on your own, then?”
“Until Anne-Marie inevitably tracks me down.” I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. “Why?”
“Well, I was thinking you might like to earn it.”
“Earn what?”
“The right to know my kryptonite.”
“You seem to think I’m a lot more desperate to know what it is than I am.”
He shrugged. “Fine. If you really don’t want to know what my weak spot is, I won’t tell you.”
The bastard.
I glared at the race route ahead of me for a moment, telling myself not to give him the satisfaction of knowing he called my bluff, then promptly gave up. “What would it take to ‘earn’ that information?”
“Race me.”
I twisted to look at him, raising my eyebrows. “Excuse me?”
JP’s grin widened. “We’re almost at the finish line. Race me to the end. If you beat me, I’ll tell you my kryptonite.”
“And if you beat me?
His eyes flicked down as his lower lip curled between his teeth. My heart rate was already higher than usual, but it skipped an extra beat and made my breath hitch as his eyes traced my body.
“There’s a stage with live music set up at the finish line,” he said, his voice low. “Behind that and to the left are a bunch of outhouses. Behind those , there’s a gravel trail that leads to the other end of the park, where there are a ton of trees. If I win, you slip away from the party, follow that trail, and meet me in those trees.”
Fuck.
In the best possible way, fuck .
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“There are only two things I take seriously, babe,” he said. “One is winning.”
“And the other?”
“Fucking.”
I tried not to laugh. “You think that’s a good idea?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Hmm, I don’t know.” I tapped a finger on my chin. “Let’s start with your entire family being at this event.”
“My dad texted me five minutes ago to compare finish times and admonish me for not being done yet. They’re already in the car. Marc-Andre never even started the race. He left to go to a friend’s place. And Anne-Marie—”
“The worst of them all.”
“She’s busy being in the thick of the action.”
He wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t want to admit that. “I don’t know why you think a quickie in the trees is that good of a prize.”
“Maybe it’s because I’m jealous of your heart.”
I frowned. “What?”
“You know.” He elbowed me. “It’s pumping inside you right now and I’m not.”
I gagged loud enough that a few heads turned towards us and JP almost tripped as he laughed.
“So?” he said.
“I just about died because that joke was so bad and you still think I want to race you?”
“Don’t you?”
I tried to tell him he was delusional. That there was no way I’d race him to “earn” the right to know something he was joking about. That his dick wasn’t good enough for me to risk us getting caught with our pants literally down by the last person on Earth either of us wanted to be caught by, also known as his sister.
The problem was that his dick was definitely good enough for me to risk that.
“You’re on,” I said.