Chapter 10: The complication

She traces the slight indent of muscle along Cole's shoulder while he's bent over his shoes, retying the left one for the third time that morning. The fabric of his training shirt pulls taut across his back. Her hand moves on its own, which is becoming a problem.

Cole straightens, and she drops her hand.

"Your laces are fine," she says, too sharp.

He glances at her, then back down. "They were loose."

They're never loose. He's stalling. Or she is. Either way, the casual touch that felt like nothing two weeks ago—back when this was fake, when he was still just the guy she had to beat—now feels like the worst decision she's ever made that didn't end in a personal record.

"We're on the same qualifying heat tomorrow," Zoe says. The words land hard between them.

Cole pulls the laces tight, knots them carefully. "I know."

"And you're still—" She stops. Still what? Still here? Still acting like her hand on his shoulder is something he wants? Still pretending this isn't disaster?

"What?" He looks at her directly now, and his gaze is steady in a way that makes her want to run. Not from him. From this. From the fact that if she runs her fastest tomorrow, he might not run his fast enough.

"Nothing," she says. "You should focus on your technique. Your start was off yesterday."

It's a lie. His start was perfect. She was watching from the warm-up area, saw him explode out of the blocks the way she's only seen in his best races. Of course it was perfect. Cole doesn't do anything halfway.

The problem is that she wants him to do something halfway. Just this once.

Cole stands, grabs his water bottle from the bench. "My start is fine, Zoe."

The fact that he used her name—not baby, not that half-smile flirtation he's been testing out for the cameras—tells her everything. He knows. Somehow, he knows that she's scared. Not of him beating her. Of her beating him.

"I'm going to shower," she says, turning before he can respond.

She doesn't wait to see if he reaches for her this time, whether his hand moves like it has for the last two weeks, that automatic reach like she's become something he does. She doesn't want to know if the look in his eyes softens when she leaves, because if it does, if it does, then this whole thing is ruined. The qualifier, the sponsorship money, Cole's second chance after his injury kept him off the podium four years ago. If she sees that softness, she'll throw the race just to keep him from hurting again.

And then what? Then she goes home without qualifying. Then all of this—the sponsorship, the plan, the late-night conversations where they stopped performing and started talking—means nothing.

In the shower, she runs through her split times for the past month. 11.23. 11.19. 11.18. Each number a small victory. Each one closer to the Olympic standard, the one that matters. She stands under the spray and recites them like they're scripture, because they're the only thing that's still simple.

Cole's splits have improved too. She's been tracking them in that way she tracks everything—obsessively, categorically, like if she understands the data, she can understand how to beat it. How to beat him. How to beat him and not hate herself.

She changes into fresh clothes in the locker room and catches her reflection in the mirror. There's a line between her eyebrows that wasn't there three weeks ago. She looks like someone preparing for something she doesn't want to face.

When she gets back to the track for the qualifier prep session, Cole is already there, doing hip rotations with one of the assistant coaches. He doesn't look at her. She's grateful and furious in equal measure.

"Zoe." It's Marcus, one of the other sprinters. He does a double take. "Whoa. You look like you're about to commit a crime."

"Qualifier's tomorrow," she says. "I'm allowed to focus."

"You're allowed to breathe too," Marcus says, laughing, "but you're definitely not doing that."

She manages a smile that probably looks feral and moves toward the blocks. If she keeps moving, if she stays occupied, maybe she won't think about Cole's second chance, or the way his knee buckled in the Paris qualifier four years ago, or the fact that his whole future hinges on tomorrow the same way hers does.

Not the same way. Worse. He's already been broken. She hasn't.

Cole finishes his rotations and moves to the blocks for a practice start. Zoe positions herself on the opposite side of the track and pretends to work on her footwork. She's really watching. She does this now—watches him when he doesn't know, or when he does know and lets her anyway. The way his shoulders align with his hips. The way he breathes before the false start horn sounds. The way he drives through the tape on the finish line like the tape is made of something soft instead of something meant to measure.

It's the best she's ever seen him run.

He's running like he has nothing to lose, which is the opposite of the truth. They both have everything to lose.

When Cole finishes his last repetition, he walks to the side where the water bottles are. He could walk back to the other side of the track, where the other sprinters are. Instead, he walks toward her. It's slow. It's choice. It's the thing she's been bracing for and dreading in equal measure.

"You've been avoiding me," he says. Not a question.

"I haven't." The lie is automatic.

"You changed your shower time." He sips his water. "You're eating alone. You haven't sat next to me at team dinner since Monday."

"We're maintaining professional distance," Zoe says, but her voice sounds thin. "Given the circumstances."

"The circumstances," Cole repeats, "being that we have to race each other tomorrow."

"Yes."

"And if I win, you lose," he says quietly. "If you win, I go home."

There it is. The thing neither of them has said out loud until now. Zoe's chest tightens in a way that has nothing to do with her conditioning and everything to do with the fact that he's right. He's always right about this kind of thing. The quiet things. The things that matter.

"That's how qualifying works," she says.

"That's how this works," Cole corrects. "Not just the qualifying. Us. You think that if we're together for real, if this becomes something that isn't fake, then winning means something different."

She doesn't deny it. Can't deny it, not when he's looking at her like he can see straight through to the part of her that's terrified—not of losing, but of winning. Of crossing that finish line first and turning around to see that look on his face. The one that says she broke something.

"So I'm making it easier," Zoe says, "by creating distance now."

"You think pulling back now means it won't hurt later."

"Won't it?" Her voice cracks on it, which is humiliating. Zoe Park doesn't do cracks. Zoe Park does fast and fearless.

Cole sets down his water bottle. When he speaks, his voice is steady, and there's no pity in it, which somehow makes it worse. "I'm going to run my best tomorrow. You should run yours. And if one of us beats the other, at least we'll know it was real."

He walks back across the track before she can respond. Before she can tell him that real is the problem. Before she can say that keeping him at a distance is the only way she knows how to protect them both from the collision that's coming.

The training day continues around her. Marcus does his speed work. Another sprinter works on his hand placement. An assistant coach calls out times in that brisk, clinical way that makes competitive seconds feel like scientific facts.

Zoe goes through her sets on autopilot. Warm-up, speed work, cool-down, stretching. Each movement precise and empty. She can feel the eyes of the other athletes on her sometimes, that particular attention that comes when everyone knows something is happening but doesn't know exactly what. The sponsorship deal was supposed to be easy publicity. Boy and girl, fake dating, sell the brand, move on.

Nobody factored in them actually being able to stand each other.

When the sun starts to set and most of the sprinters filter out, Zoe stays. She tells herself it's just to get in some extra core work, but that's a lie, and she knows it.

Cole comes back out about twenty minutes later with his personal coach. She recognizes the rhythm of it—this is his second session of the day, the one he doesn't always do, the one that shows up in his times when it matters.

She watches from the stands as he goes through his warm-up routine. Hip circles. Leg swings. That thing he does where he shakes out his whole body like he's trying to shed something. Then he gets into the blocks.

He runs like a man who has nothing to protect except himself.

His form is perfect. His drive off the line is explosive. His lean into the tape is the kind of thing that ends races before they're really started. When he finishes and slows, he's breathing hard, and there's a small, private smile on his face—the kind he gets when he's run a good time. Probably personal best territory. Probably exactly what he needs.

Zoe leans against the railing and watches him walk back to the coach, watches them exchange a few words, watches Cole turn in her direction like he might have sensed her there.

She doesn't move. Doesn't hide.

For a moment, they just look at each other across the empty track. There's nothing fake about his expression. There's nothing protected about hers.

Then Cole nods—small, acknowledging, final—and walks back inside the training facility.

Zoe stays until the lights go out, until the track is just a shadow of itself in the dimming light. She thinks about tomorrow. About the sound of the gun. About the feeling of her body responding exactly the way she's trained it to. About crossing the finish line and then having to live with whatever that means.

This was supposed to be simpler, she thinks, watching the space where he stood.

Just this was supposed to be simple.