Faster (The University of Gatica #2) Read Online Free PDF

Jani. “You’ll need more than ten minutes with that hair,” she murmured quietly and then grinned when Jani swore. She must have looked in the mirror.
    Aileen grabbed her runners from her bedroom and came back to the living room to put them on. She popped a bud in her ear from her iPod and tried to focus on music instead of the thought of finally seeing Tyler today. Would they hit it off right away again? Or was she an idiot for thinking he might be interested? February seemed so long ago now and the word ‘player’ kept popping into her head. What if he was just a player? It hadn’t felt like that on her recruiting trip but it wasn’t like she was an expert in love, or anything close to it.
    Jani ran by in a towel, with another towel wrapped around her head, and a banana in her hand. She stuffed a huge bite into her mouth, waved at Aileen and dashed into her room.
    “Aren’t you going to get a cramp from eating?” Aileen called out and shut her iPod off. She couldn’t imagine eating and then running. She had barely been able to eat lunch, too nervous with not knowing what track practice would be like today and seeing Tyler.
    “Nah…” Jani called through her open door as she dressed. “I can eat anything before practice or during. It always stays down. I’ve seen some of the girls hurl after a night drinking and coming in for Saturday morning niners. Never bothers me.” She patted her stomach as she dropped down beside Aileen to tie her runners.
    “What are niners?”
    “Repeat two hundreds. Nine of them. All a minute apart. They’re broken into three groups with a three-minute break in between the sets. It sounds easy when you say it, but it’s deadly.”
    “Will we be doing them today?”
    She shook her head. “We don’t usually start them until October. Coach likes us out at the hills where the cross country team runs the first training block.”
    “Okay.” Aileen had no idea what they would be doing at the hills, but she didn’t want to sound like she knew next to nothing about track. What was a training block anyway? She trained all year with her high school coach for two years. It never stopped. “Will coach tell us what we are doing before we work out?”
    Jani stood and straightened her tank top. “We’ll get a copy of what’s going on for the week every Monday. You can pick it up at the office anytime during the day or at practice on Monday afternoon.”
    Aileen decided she would pick it up first thing Monday morning every week. She liked the idea of knowing what was going on before practice started. She would need to get an extra binder to store the sheets in, maybe write down stats so she could compare and see if she’s improving. She loved stats and comparing numbers. That was one of the reasons she had also signed with the school; she liked Coach Anderson’s number fascination. And Tyler. Always Tyler .
    “You ready to go?” Jani opened the front door. A wave of humidity pushed against the cold air conditioned temperature inside the house.
    “More than you can imagine.” She slipped past Jani, who held the door open for her. She walked down the driveway and waited on the sidewalk as Jani locked the door. She was glad she had worn a tank top and thin shorts. Gatica took its seasons to the extreme. Every season apparently.
    “I do have my car in the garage,” Jani said as they started jogging. “It’s a little hunk of junk Ford Focus with a gazillion miles on it. I drove you around in it when you were here on your recruiting trip. It’s old, tiny and sucks on the cool scale, but it runs awesomely, it’s great on gas and perfect for doing groceries and stuff. I usually drive it to indoor practice once it starts getting cold. My dad bought me snow tires for it last December, so it drives great in the snow too. It’s stick. Do you know how to drive standard?”
    “No. I’ve never had to learn.”
    Jani laughed. “You’ll need to now. I’ll teach you. It’s not