How to Get Over Your Ex by Nikki Logan Page B

determination all over his
face, and he sucked air in and blew it out steadily between the thud of his
sturdy runners on the track.
    A slick gloss of sweat covered most of the exposed areas of his
body but instead of making him look hot and miserable, it just made him
look...hot. Some men really did sweaty well and apparently buttoned-up Zander
was one of them. The all-over sheen defined the contours of muscles that flexed
taut with effort and made her imagine other ways he might get that sweaty. And
that taut.
    She shut down that thought hard as he ran past.
    ‘Is that your guy?’ the man next to her asked, his eyes still
on the bend in the road up ahead, his bananas and energy drink still
outstretched.
    ‘No, he’s just a friend,’ she laughed. Way too brightly.
    The man glanced at her quizzically, as if she’d answered a
totally different question from the one he asked. ‘I meant is he the one you’re
here cheering on?’
    Heat surged into her face. ‘Oh, yes.’
    He turned his eyes back to the bend and waited for sight of his guy. Or girl. That was how little attention
she’d paid to anyone but Zander. ‘Next stop you’re welcome to one of my
squeeze-bottles if you want.’
    ‘Thank you, no,’ she said, dragging her eyes back off Zander’s
disappearing form. ‘I’m just watching.’
    She picked up her fold-a-chair.
    ‘Well, I’ll see you at the King’s Arms,’ the affable fellow
said. ‘We’ll all have earned a brew by then.’
    She hadn’t planned on waiting at the end, she’d only thought to
watch him for a bit, get a feel for this sport that he loved, and then drive the
many hours back to London. But while the idea of sitting waiting to surprise him
in a pub didn’t appeal, the thought that what she was actually doing was
tantamount to stalking appealed even less.
    ‘Yes,’ she suddenly decided. ‘I’ll see you there.’
    Late night be damned.
    She clambered her way back across the farmer’s field to where
her car was pulled off the road heading west—the same direction as the pack of
runners.
    As the afternoon wore on, Zander’s form remained steady but the
exertion showed in the lines around his mouth and the cords that became more
pronounced in his neck and calves. So even with all his heavy training this
wasn’t an easy run. The front of the pack certainly made it seem so and she was
always gone by the time the rest of the pack went through. But Zander went from
the front-runner in the second cluster of runners to the rear-runner in the
front group with a brief, lonely stint by himself as he transitioned the
ever-stretching gap between them.
    Most of the other spectators went to the final checkpoint to
cheer their runners across the line but Georgia headed straight for the small
pub on the main street. There was no guarantee that Zander would even go there;
if he valued his solitude enough he might just clamber back into his Jag and
head straight back to London all puffing and sweaty.
    And she’d be sitting here for nothing.
    But she stayed. She wanted him to know she’d come—even if he
might not be all that happy about it. She wanted him to know how much she
admired his dogged determination. She wanted to know what time he’d run. Those
long waits on the side of the road were great for getting a feel from the
regulars on what was a good time, what the stages in the pack meant and why
long-run competitors did what they did.
    Curiosity and a real sense of anticipation hung with her.
    She wanted him to have done well. For his sake.
    The front-runners started to appear amid the small crowd in the
pub. She recognised some of them since they were the ones she’d been looking at
all afternoon. Their arrival at the Arms was a mini-version of the race order.
Clearly there was a procedure followed by most competitors—finish, shower,
pub.
    Her eyes drifted to the door yet again.
    The crowd grew too thick in the small pub for her to see the
moment Zander actually came through the door,