You guys are absolutely phenomenal, let me tell you. This story went from #887 to #723 to #971 to #577 to #442 to #413 in Adventure as of TODAY, which is pretty exciting, and it wasn't cuz of me tbh, it was YOU GUYS. So this is just me thanking you guys for being amazing readers and whatever success this story gets really isn't me, it's you guys, SO THANK YOU FOR BEING ON THIS WILD JOURNEY WITH ME BUT REMEMBER...IT'S JUST THE BEGINNING HEHEHEHEHE (*evil laughter fades in the distance*) Btw...does anyone read my crazy ANs? Oh and also, MY ENDORPHINS INCREASE WHEN YOU GUYS COMMENT AND VOTE LIKE SRSLY THEY DO SO I WOULD APPRECIATE IT IF YOU GUYS WROTE OUT WHATEVER RANDOM THOUGHTS YOU GUYS HAVE IN THE MIDDLE OF READING THESE CHAPTERS OK I'M RAMBLING SO I'M GONNA LEAVE...BYEEEEEEEEE:D

The shrill cry of the school bell vibrated through Lyla, and she immediately left the class, but not before she spotted Grant having a serious conversation with Mr. Magnus. There was no way she would be able to listen in on the conversation right now though, because Coach Marcus was calling. And apparently, so was Coach Hope.

She quickly made her way down to the girl's locker room, and changed out into basketball shorts and a t-shirt, stuffing her clothes and backpack into the tiny lockers they offered for Girls' JV sports.

Sprinting towards the patch of trees located near the track, she finally stopped and put her hands on her knees and bent over once she got there. She collected her breath, and checked the time on her phone that was hidden in the front pocket of her shorts.

3:05 p.m.

Lyla looked up from her watch and observed the people who were standing around her.

She was surrounded by people of lean builds and toned stomachs and legs. She looked at her own hips on which hung shorts that bunched up at her waist but then tightened at the span of her lower body. She breathed out and closed her eyes. When she opened them, a face hovered right in front of hers and she rapidly blinked.

"I didn't know you did cross country."

It was Jayden.

He was smiling at her and she observed him. His glasses were gone, and she got the full effect of his projected eyes that looked at her with good humor. He was shirtless, but there wasn't too much to see, aside from the small indentations in his stomach amid the harsh contours of his rib lines that were fighting to break way through his skin.

Her lips twisted into a wry smile.

"Why, do cross country people have a certain 'look'?"

His face immediately dropped his omnipresent smile. "You know I didn't mean it like that."

She chuckled. "I might have to brush up on my telepathy skills, I forgot to look into your brain to check what you meant."

He was still frowning when a girl with slanted eyes and pink puffy lips jumped on him and squealed, "Aloha! Did ya miss me Morgan?"

His smile returned and he looked up at the petite Asian girl that hung on his shoulders. His eyes crinkled, and their noses touched as he said, "Hey Delilah."

They both stood in that position in a second till she jumped off and looked at her with a genuine smile. Both the girls looked at Jayden as he cleared his throat. "Lily, I want you to meet my girlfriend, Olivia, Olivia, meet my friend Lily, she's new."

"I can tell," she jibed, "I don't know anyone in their right mind who would willingly hang out with him unless they had to."

He playfully nudged her, and she stuck her tongue out and waved it back and forth. They were interrupted by the wolf whistles that erupted all around them, and as Lyla looked to find the source, she saw a short man walk out with a tall, shirtless boy.

Out of her peripheral vision, she could see Olivia rolling her eyes and looking at Jayden, while he just smirked and pulled her in for a side hug. The boy who was walking out with Coach Marcus turned out to be none other than Jack Kingsley, while behind him ran in an awfully familiar brown-haired boy who raised his arms, and reveled in the wolf-whistles that he heard.

Lyla couldn't tell where the people were looking since all three of them were in the same direction. Beside her Jayden stumbled, and she saw Olivia shaking, and when she saw Olivia raise her head, a wide grin was set on her face, and she could hear the cackling that she was trying to withhold from the rest of the group. Jayden just ran his hand through his hair and he looked at her with a glimmer in his eye, and he went behind her and then hugged her from behind, and rested his head on her silky short brown locks. She then asked him for the time, and he activated the Fitbit on his wrist and he showed it to her with a slight curvature on his wide lips.

He was still smiling a closed-lip smile as she yelped, tossed him a frown, and scampered back to the girl's locker room.

In the meantime, Grant had started conversing with Jack and Coach Marcus about something, until a pale lady with a pink bandanna covering the majority of her bald head, square glasses, buckteeth, a lanyard covered with basketballs and red basketball shorts walked out. When she came out, three girls jumped on her and yelled "COACH ADAMS!" Even Grant smiled, and when she turned her head towards Jayden, he also had a wide smile plastered on his face. He saw her looking and said, "That's Coach Adams, she's been going through breast cancer lately, and she wasn't there towards the end of last year because apparently, it spread to the rest of her body. I'm not too sure how she's feeling right now, but it's good to see her back in school again."

Lyla looked back at the woman making her way across the prickly, dry grass. She turned towards Jayden again, and asked, "Are there three coaches for cross country?"

"Ummm, no? Did someone tell you there were three?"

She dodged the question, and instead asked, "Then who's Coach Hope?"

He chuckled, "Oh that's Coach Adams, her full name is Hope Adams."

Lyla felt a bit foolish for not knowing that. Top child assassin. Pfft.

She was watching Grant and Jack greeting Coach Adams until she was, yet again, rudely interrupted by Coach Marcus, or, to be exact, the screeching of his whistle. He yelled, "WARM-UPS, LET'S GO! IF YOU KNOW IT, THEN SHOW OUR NEWER MEMBERS HOW IT'S DONE! LET'S GO, LET'S GO!"

Immediately, Grant and Jack sprinted towards the field that the track looped around, and they started doing high knees on the field. The rest of the group jogged and Lyla followed them, with Jayden at her side. There was an abundance of geese poop on the track, and she heard the low groans of the people who had the pleasure of stepping on the pieces of moldy green mush.

A flock of geese took to the sky as the cross country kids started running at them, enjoying the feel of destroying whatever peace the geese had. Even Jayden ran at one, and tugged on her arm to join in. She gave him one of her cheap, condescending smiles and instead turned towards the area where Grant, Jack, and a few others were standing, waiting for the rest of the kids to finish their high knees, and she started her own batch of high knees, while joining Jack's line at the end of her warm-up.

She smiled at Grant and Jack who were both looking at her with eyes that were about to pop out of their heads and roll onto the floor, twitching all the while. Grant sputtered out, "What the fuck? You do cross country too?"

She looked at Jack, and he started cracking up while looking from Grant to her, and then back to Grant. "Wait, wait, you guys know each other?"

Grant mumbled out a terse, "We may or may not be neighbors."

Jack was almost close to tears. "What's so funny?" Grant inquired, while pulling his eyebrows close together and tightening his lips.

"Nothing, aside from the fact you've been bad-mouthing her ever since the gym incident, and you failed to mention the fact that you guys were neighbors." Grant expression turned even sourer, and he straightened up, looking around as if to check if anyone was watching, and then he punched Jack where the sun didn't shine.

Jack yowled, and as he did that, Coach Marcus looked up from his conversation with Coach Adams and he screamed, "WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING?! CHASING BIRDS?! I DID NOT SIGN UP TO COACH A BUNCH OF LOUSY BIRD BRAINS! IF I DON'T SEE ALL OF YOU WARMING UP IN THE NEXT THREE SECONDS, ALL OF YOU WILL BE CUT FROM THE TEAM!"

Immediately, everyone sprinted over to where the three of them were standing, along with a couple of the other not so social kids who actually followed his instructions the first time.

Grant checked to see if everyone had arrived, and if they had formed the lines that were apparently expected of them. When the last people had arrived, he immediately yelled, "Row One, Buttkickers, go!"

The people in the first line started raising their feet high into the air; she watched Jack's lightly muscled back flex as he moved his arms. She looked to the boy on his right and she looked at the way is arms and legs moved with a cutting-edge precision that Jack just...didn't have. No one did. It was eery, but Lyla liked the challenge.

Beside her, Jayden called out, "Second row, go!" and the boys on either side of her entered into their high-energy routine. Lyla kicked up dirt into the person's face behind her and she heard the pale boy behind her continue to cough during her butt kickers. She didn't apologize.

She swiftly moved her hands and legs in a scissor-like precision. She had already broken into a sweat that covered her forehead. As she slowed to a walk between Grant and Jack, Grant didn't look at her and continued watching the rest of the people warming up, while Jack smiled at her. She had a question for Jayden though, and so she looked for his chocolate body through the crowd of runners.

He then appeared on her left, and she asked, "So where did Olivia go?"

He looked at her weirdly, but then his expression cleared. "Oh yeah, she isn't part of the cross-country team, she does water-polo this time of year. She does off-season track training during winter, and then during spring she does track. That's where I met her actually," he said, his eyes glazing over.

Lyla had another question.

"So what's with Morgan and Delilah then? Are those your middle names or something?"

He looked at her and chuckled. "You don't miss a thing, do you? My initials are JP, and she thought it was clever if she just finished my initials with Morgan, so in full, it would be JP Morgan."

Lyla grinned at that; it was quite clever, she had to admit.

"And Delilah?"

"Oh, she just wanted a nickname since she gave me one, so I just call her after my favorite song, "Hey There Delilah," and that was a win-win situation since she liked the name Delilah anyways."

Lyla smiled. "You guys are a good couple."

His expression brightened from a 100-watt smile to a 1000 watt smile in a span of approximately three seconds.

They finished warm-ups in a similar manner, with a person from each line calling out when each line would start, with Grant leading all of them through it.

Coach Adams finally spoke up, and yelled, "On the track now! Give me a two-mile warm-up, and wait for everyone to finish before you guys start on Ricks."

Lyla looked towards Jayden. "Ricks?"

"Yeah, there's a park called Ricks and it's about 2.5 miles away, they're going easy for the newbies since it's the first day I guess."

That was the last thing he said before the mass of people started on their run.

Wind whipped through Lyla's short locks as she stayed at the back of the crowd. When the crowd spreads out; that's when you speed up. After the first two laps, Lyla sped up and passed four girls and three boys.

They all looked at her like they had lemon juice with no sugar for breakfast.

Lyla wore a shit-eating grin when she saw the expression on Jayden's face as she eased her way over the finish line an exact seven seconds before he did.

But she still didn't pass Grant or Jack.

She was an entire minute behind Jack, and two minutes behind Grant.

His time was as good as the boys' times at Juhager's were.

They waited for the people behind them to finish up as they all went to the water fountain near the Coach's office to get a drink.

"I didn't know you could run like that," said Jack, as he let her take a drink before him.

"Ummm, good for you."

"Wait no, I meant that in a good way."

"Okay."

He just looked at her awkwardly, his left eyelid making the smallest of twitches.

The three boys just looked at her with awe as she made her way back to the grove of trees. They were all dead silent, as they watched the rest of the people finish up and make their way towards the water fountain.

Once everyone finished, the three boys started jogging in the direction of a street, and they kept running along the sidewalk. The fresh air raced across Lyla's exposed arms and calves, and she smiled out of pure delight. It had been a while since she had just run for the fun of it.

At about the halfway point she saw the park they were talking about. They stopped, specifically because the boys wanted to play tag. She didn't join, but she enjoyed the scenery around them. Flowers sprung from every visible plant, in an explosion of pastel pinks, yellows, oranges, and purples. She watched the boys laugh, and their interaction seemed so natural. Jayden got along with them well enough, and although all of them, including herself, were glistening with sweat, it felt nice to just, let it go.

She watched the others come into clear view, and she while she was about to tell the others, they immediately stopped their game of tag and continued running, and the next time they stopped was only at school.

While she was catching her breath, Coach Adams came up to her and said, "In case you weren't aware, you're varsity."

Lyla responded with, "I kinda guessed."

Coach Adams smiled and stretched out her right hand. "Coach Adams," she said as Lyla shook her hand.

"Lily," Lyla responded with a smile.

"Well, we'll be seeing each other a lot more often, so I think it's a good thing that I'm starting to like you."

Lyla let a fake laugh slip into the fast-dying conversation. "I think so too."

Coach Adams said, "See you around Lily," and she turned to leave to talk to some of the other kids who had arrived and were greeting her.

Lyla made her way over to the sheet that Coach Marcus had collected their times on. Only four times stood out to her.

9:48.

10:32.

11:56.

12:03.

Grant.

Jack.

Lyla.

Jayden.

First.

Second.

Third.

Fourth.

Grant was first.

Samuel prepared him well.

But Lyla hated being beaten.

Picture: Olivia Takei

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