Chapter Twelve Keely
Chapter Twelve
Keely
Keely heard the crowd well before she saw it—as soon as she left the library, really.
It was Valentine’s Day, which explained why all the signage at the entrance of the stadium was decorated with red and pink hearts instead of the usual emerald and green. Even Abe the ash borer wore a pink sweater and held a bow and arrow, Cupid style.
Keely hadn’t been inside the stadium—or attended an athletic event in general—since her freshman year when some of the girls on her floor dragged her to a football game. It had been cold, and rainy, and the nachos were twelve dollars and served with artificial cheese.
She wasn’t much of a sports girl in general, but especially after that.
Now, after paying for her discounted student ticket, she made her way across the rickety bleachers toward the location Zoey had texted. She spotted her, along with some other familiar faces.
In the bottom row, below Zoey, Jeremy and Maya snuggled up to each other, her wheelchair folded and tucked out of the way.
They’d been casually dating since the fall.
Keely wasn’t sure how they found the time.
Maybe their to-do lists weren’t as long as hers.
Maybe they were on each other’s to-do lists.
Keely slid into the row behind them and hurried under the garish yellow fleece blanket Zoey held up for her. Rubbed her hands against her thighs, which she could no longer feel.
“You’re just in time,” Zoey said. She spread a paper program across their laps and pointed at it. “Max’s relay is on deck.”
Keely’s brows knit together. “I thought he was a sprinter.”
“Are you talking about Max Simmons?” Jeremy turned his head, then leaned back into their bubble. “He does three events. Hundred-meter dash, the four-by-one-hundred relay, and one-hundred-ten-meter hurdles.” An inordinate amount of awe colored his voice.
“And that’s. . . good?” Keely guessed.
Jeremy looked at her like she had two heads.
Whatever. Keely wasn’t the one who wore open-toed shoes to lab.
“Two events is above average. Three is basically unheard of, especially at the collegiate level.” He glanced at the track.
“I mean, it makes sense. He almost went to the Olympics last summer.”
Nerves jumped under her skin; Sam had mentioned that too. She’d figured Max was good, based on the way he carried himself, and how he really, truly believed he had a shot at the scholarship.
The Olympics were better than good, though, and she had a hypothesis that the better Max was, the worse her chances were.
Zoey gasped, knocking her knee into Keely’s. “There he is.”
Sure enough, down on the track, runners in myriad colors jogged to their starting positions, dipping into lunges or twists as they went.
And there, wearing the uniform Keely had tumbled extra-hot the night before, was Max.
Zoey’s elbow dug into Keely’s ribcage.
She barely felt it.
“What—” She swallowed. “What did we do? He’s not supposed to look. . .”
“Hot as fuck?” Zoey blurted unhelpfully.
The thing was, she wasn’t wrong.
Keely always thought runners were supposed to be lean, with sinewy limbs and smooth, too-flat torsos.
But Max had muscles—plenty of them, in lots of creative places.
Even from this distance, Keely distinguished the curves of his shoulders, the sweeping expanse of his broad chest. His shrunken uniform did little to hide the definition of his stomach.
In fact, it highlighted each individual ab.
And the angles of his obliques and the dips at his waist were two lines converging on what was, by Keely’s calculation, a very impressive package.
If he looked this defined from far away, she could only imagine what he looked like up close.
Not that she’d ever want to be close enough to him to find out for certain.
The other AMU runners stopped at various distances as the announcer listed details and team member names. She recognized Nolan from last night; he stopped a quarter way around the track. Max kept going, though, toward the end. The last position.
Then he bounced on the balls of his feet, which shifted every single muscle poured into that polyester suit.
Quite rude of him, if you asked her.
Keely couldn’t move. Her body wouldn’t let her, and her brain was busy whispering that she was a traitor. She wasn’t supposed to find her biggest competition attractive.
And yet, when the tone sounded, her heart suspended in her throat. She should have been watching the runners with the baton, but she could only watch Max watch them, his body stilling the closer they came.
Of the runners in the last position, Max didn’t receive the baton first, but it didn’t matter. Once it was in his hand, he was a blur, easily catching the few runners ahead of him. One, then the other, with methodical, practiced ease.
He was flying.
She didn’t blink, didn’t breathe. Only focused with rapt attention as Max sprinted toward the finish line, all the muscles and dips of his body working in tandem to create something magical.
Her hands came up to her chest, clutching her coat closed and giving her something to hold onto.
She’d been wrong before—he was that fast. Faster than she’d thought possible. No wonder the Olympics were on the table. No wonder he had a shot at the scholarship.
No wonder he carried himself the way he did.
Max won the relay for his team. The entire thing lasted under a minute, and Keely felt every beat of her heart, pumping blood through her energized body.
Adrenaline, she thought weakly. Maybe there really was something to that hypothesis.
As the runners slowed and caught their breaths, times flashed in bold white numbers on the jumbotron. AMU was first. On the right side of the screen, SIMMONS appeared. That must have been the individual times. First again.
She shouldn’t be sitting here ogling muscles. She should be studying. Working on her thesis. Figuring out why Max always seemed to have the upper hand.
“I’m going back to the library,” she said to Zoey. To herself.
At the bottom of the stairwell, a strong gust of winter wind blew Keely’s hair into her face, and she lost sight of where she was going.
“Oof,” she wheezed, hands splaying wide in front of her as she ran into a brick wall. A brick wall that sort of smelled like. . . sweat?
Keeping one hand planted, she swept the hair from her face and craned her neck up—and up—and up.
This wasn’t a wall at all.
It was Max Simmons, and Keely’s hands were all over him.
His uniform was slightly damp with perspiration under her fingertips, and the rhythmic thump of his heart sent shockwaves through her palm and up her arm. All the way down to her toes, which made no sense at all.
He stared down at her, a brown curl hanging over his forehead. He tilted his head down. “Hey there.” His voice was scuffed at the edges, amused.
Her jaw unhinged, and another slight breeze deposited a lock of her hair into her mouth. She spit it back out and realized she was still holding onto him. Her fingers had started curling into the fabric of his uniform. His racing bib brushed the sleeve of her coat.
Keely snatched her hand back and immediately shoved it into her pocket. Then took a giant step back.
He clocked her movements. And winked.
Max winked.
At her.
If her face hadn’t been beet red before, it was now. She burrowed into her coat, hoping her collar would hide it, or maybe he’d think it was windburn.
Now that he was closer, his outfit wasn’t just tight. It was devastating. Painted on. Running naked wouldn’t have revealed more.
And she’d been touching it.
Been feeling him up in it.
She spun around without another word, putting as much distance between them as possible.
“Keely.” That same raspy, gravel-rough voice. Did he always sound like this after a race?
Against her better judgment, she looked back. His gaze was laser focused despite the expanse of ten or so yards between them. She shot him a fake, closed-lip smile. “Yes, Max?”
He grinned right back, wicked and wide. “Thanks for the upgrade.” He ran a hand over his chest, down his torso, stopping with fingers splayed below his belly button. An image flashed of him making that same movement. Of her making that same movement, with no fabric between their skin.
“And happy Valentine’s Day,” he tacked on, winking again.
She swallowed, and, unable to think of a sufficient retort, settled for leaving as quickly as she could.
This was just. . . a basal urge. She’d watched him win, defeat his competition handily, and evolution proved winners get ahead. She was probably ovulating.
It didn’t have anything to do with Max himself. Or that tiny, ungodly tight outfit. She plucked the memory from her brain before her neck flushed again, and headed back to the library.
· · · · ·
The following day at the shelter had been surprisingly uneventful. Keely had dutifully showed up for her shift, her hands mostly cleared of their blue tint.
She’d come prepared for the worst of Max’s wrath. Surely, he’d retaliate after the uniform fiasco.
But he hadn’t bothered her. Didn’t put dog slobber in her water bottle or tie her frayed shoelaces together or try to talk to her outside of their normal duties. He’d hardly looked at her at all.
She’d certainly avoided looking at him, now that she knew about the body hidden under Max’s pitch-black hoodies and joggers.
But her guard hadn’t dropped. She’d still watched, waited for him to relocate one of Biscuit’s, erm, biscuits into her bag. Or stuff catnip in her pockets right before she emptied the litter boxes.
When he didn’t, she’d tucked those ideas in her back pocket instead. She had others too, progressively more unhinged, in case Max ever decided to raise the stakes.