Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100750 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100750 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
“Can we go with you?” Gemma asked.
Rafe nodded. “Big family dinner. Grandma and Grandpa will join us.”
“Yay,” Lynnea said with a mouth full of banana.
They ate breakfast and washed up, and Nadia somehow convinced Lynnea that pirates weren’t allowed at the race. She reluctantly changed, donning the same shirt her mother and sister wore, and begrudgingly made her way downstairs.
Rafe stood at the bottom of the stairs. When she was three steps from him, she launched herself into his arms.
“Are you going to win?” She placed her hands on his cheek and scratched her nails against his scruff.
“No,” he told her, despite wanting to. He figured if he won, she’d be over-the-moon happy for him. And if he didn’t, she’d still be proud, and he wouldn’t have let her down. “There are way better runners than me.”
“Next year,” she said. “You can practice more better.”
Rafe didn’t bother correcting her, even though he knew he should. He pulled his youngest closer and held her to his chest, kissed her forehead, and then moved her to his hip. He’d carry her as long as she’d let him.
Rafe couldn’t have scripted his morning any better.
Rafe drove them to the staging area, not far from the starting line. Nadia got out of the car and moved over to the passenger side. She reached for her husband.
“Today is going to be great. I’ll see you at the finish line,” she told him. Rafe kissed her, much to the annoyance of their daughters, who heckled them from the back seat.
“Thank you.”
“I’m so proud of you.”
“I haven’t raced yet,” he reminded her.
“Doesn’t matter. When you first raced, three years ago, you said you’d better your time each year. Now you have a chance to win.”
His smile beamed at her compliment.
“You wanted something and worked to achieve it. That’s exactly the kind of work ethic we’re working to instill in our children. You’re a very good role model, Rafe Karlsson.”
Rafe thanked her again and stepped aside to open the back door. He leaned in. “I’ll see you girls at the finish line.”
“Good luck, Daddy,” the girls said in unison before he shut the door.
He gave Nadia one last kiss. “Run fast,” she told him.
Rafe laughed. “It shouldn’t take me more than an hour.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Rafe kissed Nadia again. He waited for her to get back into the car and leave before he left the parking lot. He let a couple of cars pass by and then made his way over to the tent where he needed to check in. After he gave the young woman at the table his name, she gave him a bib to pin to his shirt and directed him to the starting line.
He stepped off to the side and looked at his bib numbers, 777. Rafe was far from superstitious but would take this as a sign. “Lucky sevens,” he muttered to himself. On his way home, he’d buy a lotto ticket.
“Everyone line up, please,” someone with a loudspeaker said. Casually, everyone moved toward the starting line. Rafe looked around. Last year, they’d had thirteen hundred runners, and if he had to guess, the amount was the same this year.
Rafe had a plan—keep pace with whoever jumped out front; then he’d turn on his boosters, as Lynnea called them, and beat them to the finish line.
The firing gun sounded, and everyone took off. He wove in and out of groups of people and found himself a nice groove rather quickly. Rafe liked running alone. He enjoyed the solitude but also the freedom he felt. After passing a couple more runners, he counted five people ahead of him. The woman to his right wore those over-the-ear headphones and had established a good pace. He matched it easily. In two or three blocks, he’d surge ahead to the next person, and then again until he had a mile to go. Unless the leader had bigger boosters than him.
Along the route, people cheered. They had signs, miniature megaphones, and other artificial noisemakers. He heard cowbells, lots of clapping, and a car horn. The latter seemed odd, until he saw the group of people blocking the street scramble out of the way.
In a split second, he saw the car careening toward him and the other runners. It was like time had stopped, and nothing existed except the car and the muddled sound of its horn. In a flash, the runner he had passed, the one with the headphones, zipped by.
Rafe saw it all unfold. He rushed toward her and pushed her out of the way. She turned and looked at him with horror etched across her face. She yelled, but he couldn’t hear her over the screaming and the horn. Why wasn’t she grateful he’d moved them out of the way?
FOUR
NADIA
Nadia sped through the side streets, getting as close to Harvard Square as she could. They had planned poorly. Rafe should’ve taken the car, while she and the girls should’ve taken the T. Parking was hard to find any day of the week, but add in an annual road race and it became nonexistent. Panic grew as she navigated the narrow streets of Cambridge. She shot down one side street and then another, finally choosing to turn in to one of the parking lots at Harvard. If she got a parking ticket, oh well. They weren’t going to be there for very long.