Chapter Thirty-Five #2
JT shook her head. “No, she wouldn’t. That was a nudge. She’s offering encouragement. Believe me, I was on the receiving end of that kind of encouragement many times as a kid, and my mom always said it wasn’t a kick.”
Ali was shaking with laughter. “He doesn’t look encouraged. He looks pissed!”
Jonathan wasn’t moving any faster, until he saw Clark in the back of the other sled and Emerson throwing all her weight against the rope. Then he hurried his scrawny butt into the sled and told Beth to pull.
Beth was no bigger than Emerson, but she was intent on not losing. JT wondered if they had some kind of side bet that involved having to babysit all the kids if they lost. That was the only thing she thought would motivate them all to try this hard.
Halfway around the track, the women gave up and swapped with their husbands again. It was honestly embarrassing to watch, but possibly the funniest thing JT had ever seen. Her sides hurt from laughing.
“And time!” The timekeepers showed their stopwatches to the officials, who dutifully wrote down the times.
Clark and Jonathan stood next to each other trying to catch their breath while laughing. JT walked over to them.
“Guys, that was amazing!”
“Shut it, baby sister. We don’t need your sarcasm.” Jonathan spoke but all four of them laughed.
JT held up her hands. “Who says I was being sarcastic? You gave us so much time to cheer you on.”
Emerson popped out of the sled and tried to tackle JT into the snowbank, but JT simply picked her up.
“God, this is so unfair. You’re a physical specimen, and we ran around looking like the kids picked last in gym class.”
JT laughed and put Emerson back on the ground. “The important thing is that you tried. Isn’t that what you said to me after the gingerbread houses? Congrats on giving a good effort.” She held her hands up for high fives, but none of them bothered.
Beth stomped over to the timekeepers and returned looking grim. “Jonathan, I’m sorry to say you and I will be in charge of the children this evening.”
Emerson and Clark high-fived each other as if they’d set a world record. JT shook her head. “I knew you had a side bet going.”
Ali had made her way over to them. “What was the bet?”
“Losers have to do dinner and bedtime for all the kids tonight while the others get to go out for a date.”
Clark put his arm around Emerson. “We didn’t want to have to ask their parents to do it again, so we made a bet.” He sniffed the air. “I can almost smell it now.”
“We can do it,” Ali said.
JT gave her a look of surprise. “What?”
Ali smiled at JT’s siblings. “Why don’t you all go out and JT and I can take care of your kids for the night.”
“What are you doing?” JT said, her voice urgent and slightly panicked.
Ali rolled her eyes. “I’m offering to babysit so your siblings can go out on a date.”
JT scowled. Now there was nothing she could do but go along with Ali’s offer. Otherwise, she was going to look like an asshole to Ali and to her siblings. “Yeah, sure we’ll take your kids. But if you give them a bunch of sugar this afternoon I will murder all of you.”
The four of them exchanged a look. “Are you sure?” Emerson asked. “They’re kind of a lot.”
“Are you implying I can’t handle three kids for a couple hours?” JT asked, annoyed at being underestimated.
Clark smiled. “Not at all! The two of you definitely can handle them, we just want to make sure you actually know what you’re agreeing to.”
Ali looked at JT. “I’m a high school teacher, I can handle almost anything. We got this.”
Before JT could add anything else, the announcer called the next teams to the starting line and called for JT and Ali to line up next.
“Gotta go,” JT said, pulling Ali toward the start line. “Why on earth would you volunteer to take care of all those kids?”
Ali gave her a questioning look. “Seriously? Your siblings were so desperate for a night out they nearly killed each other in the race. Why wouldn’t I offer to help them?”
JT grunted. Now she felt like an asshole.
And asshole who was annoyed that she’d been bamboozled into babysitting when she could have been doing anything else.
Being reminded that she should have been offering to babysit without being coerced made her feel bad.
She was being a shitty sister and aunt. She didn’t like feeling this way at all.
She looked at Ali, who was smiling like she had a secret.
“What?”
Ali grinned. “You done feeling like a crappy aunt?”
JT harrumphed. “Yes. No. Whatever.”
Ali bumped her shoulder into JT. “We’ll have fun, I promise. I’m good with kids, and I bet you are too even if you’re being a giant grumpy baby about it right now.”
“I’m not being a baby.”
Ali laughed. “You are. You’re whiny and grumpy and I’m surprised you are not stomping your boots in the snow because you didn’t get your way.”
“Shut up,” JT said, unable to keep the laugh out of her voice. “It’s annoying that you can read me so well.”
They watched the race before theirs. It had Kyle and Sharon matched up against a middle-aged couple who were doing their best but who couldn’t keep up with Kyle.
He was annoyingly good at this. JT had hoped he would fall on his face or pass out from exertion, but it appeared that working in a manual labor profession had kept him in decent shape.
It was going to be harder to kick his ass than she’d thought.
“What’s the time to beat?” JT asked the timekeepers.
They told her the lowest score so far, and she calculated how fast she would have to make it through each of the four sides. She knew she could do it, but it didn’t stop a few butterflies from flapping around in her stomach.
“We’ve got this. You don’t have to beat that time now. Just do well enough to move on. Remember, we can’t win it all here.”
“Survive and advance,” JT said, staring at the track.
“Survive and advance,” Ali repeated, and put the helmet on over her hat. JT looked at her. “My brain is kind of important to me.”
“You don’t trust me not to crash?” JT asked with a grin.
“I trust you, but just like I wear a helmet on my bike, I’m wearing one now.” She nodded at their competition. “I might trust you, but not them.”
JT looked at the competition, which was a guy wearing outerwear that was way too stylish for him to be from New Hampshire. His partner also had on an outfit that looked like it was put together by a stylist and not the folks who worked in the LL Bean store.
“What do you think? Connecticut?”
Ali looked at the couple. “Maybe. Or New York.”
JT grinned. “Let’s give them a proper welcome.”
When the whistle blew, JT lunged forward, the vest and rope trying to pull her back.
Fortunately, years of weight training and sprinting made this easy for her.
She sprinted forward, zipping past the bewildered Greenwich types, and was making the first turn before they really got started.
Ali slid a bit wide in the turn, which almost threw JT off balance, but she recovered and was ready for the swing on the last turns.
She crossed the finish line panting, her lungs and quads burning.
“Holy smokes,” she heard the timekeeper say when she looked at her stopwatch.
JT waited for Ali to unhitch her from the rope. “How was that?”
Ali grinned. “So fun. You were flying. I’m surprised I was able to hold on. I almost slid off the back at the start, and the turns were crazy.”
JT hugged her. She’d had fun showing off. She was already thinking about how to improve for the next run but she wanted to know how well she’d done this time. The timekeeper showed her the time.
Ali asked the question JT wanted to. “Is that the fastest so far?”
The timekeeper laughed. “I would say so! It’s the fastest time I’ve ever seen.”
JT blinked. “Seriously?”
Ali grabbed her in a hug and squeezed like she was going to try to lift JT off the ground.
JT responded by lifting Ali. “Don’t hurt yourself.
I’m too big for you to lift, tiny.” If they weren’t in public where they were supposed to be ‘just friends’ JT would have kissed her.
But there were so many people, including JT’s siblings and Ali’s ex watching them they didn’t need to make a scene.
“I knew you could do it,” Ali said with a laugh. “So much for survive and advance, though.”
“I wasn’t trying to set any records, I promise.” JT felt a little sheepish. She really hadn’t been.
Ali shook her head. “Of course you weren’t. Only you could half-ass it and set a course record. You’re an athletic freak.”
JT pushed her hair out of her face where it had fallen out of her winter hat. She scanned the crowd and lifted her eyebrows. “He doesn’t appreciate my effort.”
Ali turned. “Oh man, he looks so grumpy. Think how pissed he’s going to be after we beat him in the final.”
JT looked at him warily. She’d been around enough guys who were bad losers to know that things might get ugly. “If we’re racing him, you have to be extra careful, okay? It’s not worth getting hurt.”
“Kyle isn’t going to hurt me.”
JT sighed. “I’m not saying he’d do it on purpose. Some guys get really aggressive when they think they might lose to a girl. If we pull ahead, he might not take it very well.” JT shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, I want to win, but not if it means either of us gets hurt in the process.”
JT wanted to kick Kyle’s ass. She wanted to make him sorry he’d entered the contest and to beat him so badly it made him rethink his entire life.
But not if it meant Ali getting hurt. As much as she hated to lose, she would never forgive herself if she let something happen to Ali.
She looked down at Ali’s beautiful face, her cheeks pink from the cold and her eyes sparkling, and JT knew she would do anything to protect her.