Page 89 of Racing Hearts

Sofi lies back on the bed, facing my Olympic flag on the ceiling. “Nice spot for those rings. I believe it. Your videos have become a thing back at the training center. Mostly among the rowers, although the other day a volleyball player came up to me in the dining hall and asked if I knew you.”

“Wait.” I grab her knee as uneasiness slides through me. “Is everyone watching them?”

“You worried about Maxwell?”

“No,” I say, although possibly this explains the three missed calls I’ve deleted from him over the last few weeks. I wish I could remember everything Adrian and I have done on camera. It’s not like there have been any overt public displays of affection—we’re careful not to do any of that in front of the kids—but I don’t know what Rohan has caught when we thought no one was looking. “Does Carla watch?”

Sofi scoffs. “Carla doesn’t need TikTok to know what you’ve been up to. I keep her in the loop. Why does it matter?”

My chest relaxes slightly as I push myself up from my seat. “No reason. I mean, it doesn’t. I need to take a shower and tell Adrian I won’t be coming over tonight, but then we can go to dinner?”

“Sure,” she says, but she’s still eyeing me as I close the door.

I take Sofi to an Indian restaurant downtown that spices its chicken within an inch of its life. She insists we sit on the same side of the booth so we can really “soak up each other’s company,” which doesn’t bother me at all because I didn’t even know how much my heart ached for her until just now. So, we sit crammed together, elbows jostling as we dunk hunks of meat and puffy bread into green sauces and lick dribbles off our fingertips between bouts of laughter. Around the time that I’m digging into my third portion of chicken and Sofi has lifted her plate to lick sauce off the edge, my phone pings.

It’s Adrian. He’s sent a picture of an azure sky with a dozen technicolored kites flying above a marina. Underneath he’s typed a couple of sentences.

Don’t want to interrupt your dinner too much, but saw this and thought of you. What do you think?

We’ve been looking for something new to do for my next day off. Since I’m getting close to competition, it has to be low key enough that I avoid injury, even a minor one, but also unique enough that it’ll feel like a real break. I can already imagine sitting in a folding chair and using a hand to shield my eyes against the sun as Adrian runs a kite across an expanse of grass.

I bite back a smile as I write, It’s perfect.

Sofi nudges me with an elbow. “I see that look.”

She’s smiling at me, but it’s not her sideways teasing smirk or her wide laughing grin. It’s an expression filled with contentment and tenderness.

“He’s really good for you,” she says, and her eyes haven’t left mine. “I know I said it before, but it’s deeper than I realized.”

I drop the phone face down on the table. “Sure. For now.”

“I don’t think that’ll stop any time soon.”

I drain the rest of my water without looking at her. “I just mean soon I’ll be back in the training center where I belong.”

“Right, of course.” She shifts. “Where you can row on our perfectly flat lake with Carla shouting at you from her launch.”

“Yep. And where I can remind you to hydrate, in person.”

Her smile fades, but she tries to hide it by taking an aggressive sip of her soda water. It’s exactly the same look she gave me when she realized I’d been messing with her grips.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I’ll back off. I’m not trying to be annoying.”

“Why would you be annoying?”

“Or overbearing or whatever it is I’m being.”

Sofi squeezes her eyebrows together for a moment before releasing a small sigh. “It’s not you that’s annoying. I’m annoyed with myself for being so dependent on you.”

“What are you talking about?”

She picks up her paper napkin and starts tearing at the edge, watching her hands as she works. “You know, a few weeks ago, I realized my boat shoes didn’t smell right and I couldn’t figure out why. I wondered if maybe I’ve been sweating in practice more than usual or if something weird is going on with my feet. And then one day I saw one of the guys spraying down his shell and I realized something.” She looks up from her torn napkin. “But you already know, don’t you?”

“I always deodorize your shoes when I do mine.”

“Yes. Exactly. And sure, it’s not like I don’t clean my shoes ever. The rest of the girls and I have all that stuff on rotation. But still. You’ve been doing this extra thing for me for years and, as it turns out, the natural scent of my shoes isn’t lilacs.”

“Jasmine, actually. Sorry, why is this bad?”