Page 101 of Wild Card 13

The cold bit at the back of my throat with every breath. Just enough to remind me it was late October in Minnesota, and winter was already standing offstage waiting for its cue.

The parking lot beside Alder Lake Park was half full when I climbed out of my truck. A couple of cyclists were unloading bikes from a rack. Someone in a neon running jacket stretched beside the trailhead while an older man poured coffee from a dented thermos before clipping a leash onto an aging golden retriever.

Sunday mornings belonged to people like this. The ones chasing miles before the rest of the town finished breakfast.

I pulled my earbuds from my pocket, stared at them for a moment, then shoved them back again.

Not today.

Leaves skittered across the pavement in the breeze as I started down the trail. Most of the maples had already surrendered, their branches bare against a cloudless blue sky, but enough gold and burnt orange still clung to the trees to catch the early sunlight. Frost glittered along the shaded grass near the shoreline, slowly disappearing where the sun finally reached it.

My feet settled into a rhythm almost immediately.

Left.

Right.

Breathe.

Running had always been the closest thing I had to thinking. Or maybe it was the closest thing I had to outrunning thoughts.

Usually, somewhere around mile two, my brain stopped trying to solve the universe.

Today it apparently had other plans.

I saw New York every time I blinked.

The hotel hallway.

Lucy standing in front of my door with her hair still damp from the shower.

The way she'd looked at me across breakfast like briefly she'd forgotten how to breathe.

Then—nothing happened.

I exhaled harder than I meant to.Bullshit.Something had happened. Maybe not the thing we'd both wanted to happen. But something shifted.

I'd felt it every time she forgot to hate me for half a heartbeat. Every laugh she'd caught before swallowing it back down. Every time our eyes met and neither of us looked away fast enough.

She hadn't saidnothing happenedbecause she believed it. She'd said it because she needed it to be true.

There was a difference. A painful one.

I rounded the bend where the trail opened beside the lake, sunlight dancing across ripples pushed by the wind.

Runners moved past in both directions. A dad jogged beside a little girl riding a scooter. Someone walked two huskies that looked far more interested in wrestling each other than exercising. A woman balanced two coffees while talking animatedly into her phone.

Just... life. The kind that kept moving whether your heart had caught up or not.

I tried to focus on that instead of the ache sitting behind my ribs. It lasted all of thirty seconds. Because up ahead, I caught a flash of auburn curls escaping a charcoal knit headband.

My stride faltered.

Lucy.

She wore black leggings, running shoes, and a dark green quarter-zip I'd never seen before. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, little clouds of breath disappearing in front of her every few steps.

She looked different. Not because she'd changed. Because she looked like herself.