Chapter 7 Jackson #2
As the rest of the group continued to laugh and drink together on the bank of the lake, Ilaria and Alice stood, taking his hands and pulling him to his feet.
Jackson followed without protest, feeling the last of the sun’s warmth fading against the evening chill as they led him down the road back to the hotel, tipsily pointing out all the places he should visit while he was there.
Jackson was aware of where this was leading; the women hadn’t been particularly subtle, and he was up for it, though he wasn’t as into it as he supposed he should be.
The most probable reason for his inability to engage was standing in the lobby when the trio stumbled in.
The look on Owens’s face was enough to ruin the mood, even if he had been feeling it.
His posture stiffened as he spotted Jackson. “You missed dinner. Guess I can see why.” His voice echoed through the cavernous lobby. “Just what I’d expect from supposedly top-tier athletes.”
The women stilled beside him. Looked like no fun would be had tonight, then.
"I was making sure these ladies got back safe,” Jackson replied with a tight smile.
Owens rolled his eyes. “How utterly chivalrous of you. Who knows what could have happened in the five-minute walk from the lake to the front doors.” Owens leaned in close as the women waved him an awkward goodbye and carried on upstairs.
“This place is crawling with journalists.
You may not be thanking me, but those women bloody should.
Do you have any idea what a headline like that can do to a female athlete's career?”
Jackson flushed. He hated that Owens was right.
It was easy to forget that, unlike in London, where the city granted a degree of anonymity, the sporting press knew where to find endurance athletes in the lead-up to major events.
Jackson had cultivated a…reputation of sorts—part truth, part fiction.
It was how he protected himself in a way.
There was nothing that would surprise the press about his personal life enough to consider it a scoop, not really.
He knew that wasn’t the case for most athletes, though.
“We might be enemies, Jennings, but I’m not going to let you throw the entire GB Athletics organisation to those vultures.”
“Enemies?” Jackson laughed. “Main character syndrome, much?” Something in Jackson lit up at the glare Owens sent him.
“I don’t think about you nearly enough to consider you my enemy, Owens,” he lied.
He may not have considered him an enemy, but he definitely didn’t like Owens calling him out for not being considerate of other people.
He especially disliked him being right. Jackson turned on his heel and booked it to the lifts.
He was suddenly far too tired to deal with the hot and cold he was getting from Owens anymore, or to think about why he gave a shit at all what his fellow runner thought.
Jackson was very, very late. It was slightly mortifying with the track literally in front of the hotel lobby, its metal railings glinting in the pale March sun.
But there was nothing for it. Beth had rung him, stressing about Dad wanting to build a new shed and ignoring the doctor’s orders to rest. He’d had to calm her down, then talk his dad out of it over the phone.
Jackson could tell the man was going stir crazy, desperate for a project, but there wasn’t much Jackson could do from here.
Already in a mood when he arrived, he was hardly thrilled to see Owens standing next to Anders when he walked through the gate. A cold breeze swept across the track, tugging at his jacket and sending the faint scent of pine through the air.
“You’re late, Jennings,” Anders barked. “Get a hustle on.”
Owens arched a brow and smirked at him. “I wonder why,” he mused airily.
Jackson nodded and fell into a quick warm-up. He didn’t need yet another ticket to the Owens and Anders buddy show. He got it; they’d worked together for years. Whatever.
By the time Jackson had finished his leg swings, Owens was already circling the track.
Jackson fell into step with him, feeling the cold air bite at his lungs, the warmth of his legs from movement a sharp contrast. The familiar beat of his feet on the slightly slick track, legs cycling rhythmically beneath him, helped drain the tension of his hectic morning, and by the time he sank into a deep lunge to finish his warm-up sequence, he felt like himself again.
“So, you have a nice evening?” Owens’s voice cut through the calm that had engulfed Jackson.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jackson rose to his feet.
Something in Owens’s tone had triggered his defence systems, but before he could do anything, Anders was over, instructing them to line up and informing them they were running Yasso 800s.
The groan that echoed in the air, with Jackson and Owens lamenting their fate in perfect sync, may well have been audible from space.
The Yasso 800 workout consisted of running ten 800m intervals at a consistent pace with equal amounts of active recovery time between repetitions.
They were meant to be good predictors of marathon times, which was likely why Anders wanted to run them today, to take stock before the London Marathon.
London would be Jackson’s last big race before the Olympics—Owens’s too, he imagined.
’Cause it wasn’t like Anders hadn’t made it clear that Elliot Owens would be joining him on that start line in August. So, the Yasso made sense.
Still, it was the fucking worst workout.
Jackson knew he had a habit of starting too fast. It had been an issue since he’d first started running, but something about the thrill of a race got to him, and he struggled to hold himself back.
Lining up with Owens, he could feel that familiar bubble of euphoria building, and he tried to tamp it down, but the second Anders set them off for the first rep, he was flying.
The second rep was the same, though Jackson’s brain came back online partway through and he tried to pull back, recognising that there was no sane world in which he should be leading by as much as he was.
By the fifth rep, he was feeling his earlier mistake.
He started to slow his cadence, trying to get his heart rate under control while questioning every choice he’d made that had brought him to this point.
Why had he become a runner anyway? He could have been a barista or a film critic.
God, that would have been a great job, just sitting, watching films, not being passed on the track by Elliot bloody Owens.
Wait. Passed by Elliot Owens?
Absolutely fucking not.
Jackson pushed again on the sixth lap. He wasn’t letting Owens win this.
By the eighth rep, he was hanging on for dear life, reciting mantras in his head that were questionable in their effectiveness, and also very actively feeling like he might vomit.
The final lap was upon them, and Jackson wasn’t sure he was going to make it. He could hear Anders shouting something, but it was all just noise as he pushed and pushed.
It wasn’t enough.
Owens sailed past him again, looking like he was out for an easy morning jog, and had the gall to laugh when Jackson collapsed behind him as they finished.
“Fuck,” he groaned as he pushed himself up into sitting. Cold air brushed against his sweat-damp skin, making him shiver slightly even as his muscles burned from the effort. Holding his head in his hands, he caught his breath and mentally berated himself for his lack of control.
A hand appeared in front of him, and he gratefully allowed it to pull him to his feet, only to find himself standing face-to-face with Elliot Owens.
“You okay?” Owens asked. It almost sounded like genuine concern in his voice. God, how bad did Jackson look to have Owens concerned for him?
“I’m fine. I’ll catch you next time,” Jackson replied.
Owens arched one of those perfectly groomed brows at him. “Sure you will, Jennings.”
“Nice one though.” It almost physically pained Jackson to deliver the compliment.
“Thanks. Stamina’s kind of my thing.”
Before Jackson’s brain had processed the comment, Anders was with them.
He tossed Jackson a bag of sweets—they’d been working on trying different fuel sources, as he’d admitted he hated gels at one of their early sessions.
Anders launched into a review of their performance with nothing but praise for Owens and a nice, long list of everything Jackson had done wrong.
Any inkling of goodwill towards Owens that he’d been allowing to fester was wiped away as Jackson watched him take in Anders’s praise like the lapdog he was.
“Thinks he’s god’s gift to running, I swear,” Jackson groused.
He was on a video call with Darius. They were rehashing a conversation that Jackson knew his friend must be tired of by now, but proximity to Owens was making every feeling of inadequacy a hundred times worse.
Jackson knew he was being annoying, but once he got going on Owens, he couldn’t stop.
He could hear how ridiculous he sounded, but Elliot Owens had been consuming way too many of his thoughts.
There was nothing worse in his mind than four weeks with stupid, perfect Elliot Owens and his stupid, perfect finishing kick; his stupid, perfect posture; stupid, perfect hair; and stupid, perfect eyes, all in this stupidly perfect location.
Darius rolled his eyes, laughing at Jackson for his fixation. It was kind of rude, actually.
“You wouldn’t be laughing if you’d seen him today. Basking in Anders’s praise, and then you know what he said to me? ‘Oh, stamina’s kind of my thing.’ What the fuck? Who says shit like that?”
“Sounds like a come-on,” Darius laughed.
“Can you imagine?” Jackson joined in with Darius’s laughter. “I just don’t get how he can be so cold all the time.”
“Yes, Owens is a dick. We’ve established that. How’s your dad?”
The abrupt shift in conversation struck Jackson hard, and he immediately sobered. “He’s doing ok. Struggling with having to rest.”
Darius snickered. “Runs in the family.”
“I know, I know.” Jackson smiled despite himself. “I wish I were there, though. I feel like the timing’s wrong. Maybe I should give up my spot and…”
“Don’t even joke about that, Jackson. I know I was a dick to you when the news broke, but you worked hard for this.”
“No, I know. I wouldn’t… I’m just…” There was no way he could explain how messed up he was over being selected first. It should have been Darius; everyone knew it.
“Being dramatic?”
Jackson smiled. “Me? Never.”
They might not be fully back to where they’d once been, the Olympics still a gulf between them, but it was nice to be able to talk to Darius like this.
They’d hit a rough patch in their friendship not long ago, and Jackson knew it was his fault.
It was just, well, he’d started to have feelings, and he knew feelings didn’t align with the arrangement they had, so he’d pulled back.
His inconvenient feelings weren’t worth losing a friend over.
Jackson had always been a bit much for everyone in that department.
In any case, he was over it now. He always did move on quickly.
Crushes, hairstyles—Jackson Jennings was nothing if not adaptable.
Jackson rolled onto his side, his phone warm in his hand, thoughts of Owens still circling in his head.
God, maybe Darius wasn’t wrong; he had to get control of this fixation.
Owens was going to be in his face constantly for the next four weeks.
Likely longer, if he was named for the team—and he would be, there was no question in Jackson’s mind about that.
Owens was a formidable competitor. It wasn’t even hyperbole when he said stamina was his thing—he was built for endurance, and his long, lean limbs held undeniable strength.
Anders had been clear that whatever issues the two of them had had in the past needed to stay there.
Olympians didn’t sulk, they adapted. Jackson had never been good at letting things fester anyway.
If Owens was going to be this unavoidable, then maybe the smarter thing was to get closer, not further away.
Be civil. Be helpful. Be the version of himself no one could look at and think, yeah, he shouldn’t be here.