“Yeah, it was a hard one today.”
“Shut up,” Kelly grumbled. “I feel like you’ve been scamming me for years.”
“Here they come.” Jessica lifted on her toes to get a better view.
“See … Gabe was nice enough to wait for Luke so they could finish together.”
Jessica laughed. “What makes you so sure Luke didn’t wait for Gabe?”
The guys crossed the finish line far from first place, but the weak grins on their faces said they were in fact pleased to have made it to the end still standing. Luke spotted Jessica first with his unspoken question. She played the somber defeated part long enough for Gabe to take a look and get his hopes up. He patted Luke on the shoulder with a can’t-win-’em-all look of arrogance on his face as they ambled closer to Kelly and Jessica.
Kelly shook her head at Gabe as Jessica held the finish line tape above her head. Her grin was wicked.
Luke’s grin was knowing. “That’s my girl!” Luke yelled, picking up his pace to a weak jog. He bear-hugged her, swinging her in a circle. “You’re so damn incredible.” He kissed her until his lungs demanded air again.
Jessica didn’t need the medal, the tape, or the money. “That’s my girl!” was all she needed and the adrenaline rush she got from those three words exceeded anything she felt during the race.
“No way … not possible.” Gabe looked to Kelly for confirmation.
“Sorry, babe … she played both of us.”
Gabe slumped, resting his hands on his knees. “Three. Thousand. Dollars.”
“What?” Kelly questioned. “Two.”
Gabe shook his head. “We upped it … just before the start of the race.
Jessica looked up at Luke, who was smirking behind the mouth of his water bottle. “Fifty-fifty split, Jones,” she warned.
Luke laughed. “Take it all. You earned it. That…” he gestured to the ugly defeat morphing Gabe’s face “…that’s all I needed.” He took her hand and pulled her toward the tents in search of some energy. “I had complete faith in you, but I’m not going to lie … when you held up that tape I nearly fell to my knees in awe of you. That’s … impressive.”
“Truth?” Jessica looked up at him.
“Yeah, what?”
“The course, the wind, my recent distraction from training…” she narrowed her eyes at him “…it all kicked my ass today. I stopped counting how many times I thought I was going to die. And those women who were on my heels the entire time … they wanted it. They wanted it more than me.”
“Yet you still finished first.”
She turned into his embrace as they stood in line. “I finished first for you, not me.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Knight
Lilith stared at Jillian with her head slightly tilted, eyes glazed in a dream state. After a few moments of silence, she blinked from the realization that story time was over for the day.
“I get chills every time you tell me about Luke.” She sighed with a wistful smile. “I’m living vicariously through you and life is good.”
They both laughed.
“You took first place in a triathlon. That’s amazing.”
Jillian nodded. “The only first place medal I ever took. I wasn’t lying to him. It was excruciating, but I wanted him to be proud of me because there was just so much that I’d done that was not worthy of his respect. It’s a cliché, but he made me want to be a better person. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so black and white. The mind is too complicated and emotions, impressions, and feelings are stronger than anything. I couldn’t just flip the switch and declare myself cured. Jessica Day’s past will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
Lilith gave her a sad smile. “Tell me about Sarge.”
Jillian grinned, trapping her lower lip between her teeth like a ridiculously giddy teenager. “What can I say? He’s sexy, intense, overwhelming, grumpy as hell most days, and stuck in either an emotional or physical war with his past on a daily basis.”
“So you’re crazy about him?”
Jillian squinted one eye. “You already know I’m ‘crazy.’”
“Oh stop it, dear. You are not.”
“It’s hard to say. I like him … a lot. The sex is …”
Lilith’s eyes grew big as Jillian winked at her.
“Anyway, the problem is … Jillian’s having trouble letting Jessica go, or maybe Jessica’s angry with Jillian for trying to move on. I don’t know yet. AJ reminds me, almost on a daily basis, that he’s not my Prince Charming, which is fine because I don’t own any glass slippers.”
Lilith smiled.
“So it’s hard to assess what we are to each other. I think whatever it is we have works because we’re both messed-up, not in spite of it.”
“Sounds tragic or perfect.”
Jillian huffed a small laugh. “It is … it’s perfectly tragic.”
*
The double standard in regard to the Knights was entirely too 1970’s-ish. If Jillian showed off her body she was a home-wrecking whore, but when Jackson beached out in the sun smack-dab in the middle of the driveway wearing only a pair of low-hanging shorts, flaunting his musclebound, tattooed body to all the women, it was completely acceptable.