The Miles Read Online Free PDF

and faster. Despite the silliness of this battle of wills, Liam had to see this test to the end. He imagined the tips of his toes just barely touching the track before they kicked back in more forceful and definitive strides. As he passed Gene, Liam made sure to glide rather than gallop, unequivocally asserting his dominance. And when he slid into the lead position, he only ratcheted the speed down slightly to continue to tax Gene as he struggled behind. It felt like the least he could do to return the favor. By the time that Liam decided to pull a new runner into pole position, he saw, off in the corner of his field of vision, near the bleachers, Gene leaning by a trash can with his hands cupped over his mouth.
    Now that the group was whittled down to three, the rotations went more smoothly, with Zane, Liam, and Marvin running efficiently and respectfully. But in the final minutes of the workout, Liam heard the pounding of a new set of footsteps come up on his right shoulder out of nowhere. There was no breathing audible—just the pounce of a sprinter. Liam looked quickly to his right and saw the angular jawbone and those unmistakable brown eyes, steeped in concentration and loaded with determination. The workout had been going so well that Liam did not want to cave in now and ruin his last set due to silly competition. He kept his pace strong but consistent and Didier followed suit. While the gamesmanship exhibited by certain Fast Trackers that evening had intrigued Liam and stoked his competitive fire, he preferred working out for himself and not others.
    In the final lap of the workout, Didier ran stride for stride with Liam, and Liam never looked over his shoulder. Instead he focused all his mental reserves, which were now running low, on maintaining perfect form. As they crossed through the finish line, Didier thrust his bony chest out as though he were trying to edge out Liam in the photo finish of some race. With a solid forty-five minutes of hard running behind him, Liam crouched over on the side of the track and collected his breath. Didier swiped his hand quickly over the curve of Liam’s spine and thanked him for the hard aerobic run. His teammates from the Urban Bobcats had apparently left for the night already and he needed a reliable fast pacer for his last mile. Liam lifted his head in a gesture meant to connote “not a problem,” but Didier had already begun to jog out of the facility. Liam stared longingly at the lithe outline of Didier’s shoulders as he faded out of view.
    As Liam changed out of his sweat-heavy T-shirt, Marvin came over to thank him for a good and steady workout. Liam had noticed Marvin’s strong and prominent legs when they ran in the park but still could not stop looking at his calves. They were not the massive, bulbous calves of gym mavens who bench pressed hundreds of pounds. Not at all. They were taut and tapered down to his vein-strewn ankles, which somehow supported his overly large feet. Liam pegged them as a size 14. But his eyes lingered over all the wild and prickly hair that sprouted from Marvin’s legs, in all manner and direction. The beauty of his legs made up for the more workaday aspects of his face and his forgettable upper body.
    â€œIt’s always this bullshit warfare out on the track with Fast Trackers,” Marvin said and patted Liam consolingly on the shoulder. “Don’t let it bring you down. You’ve got a much better running instinct than all these queens who can’t help but shoot their loads prematurely.”
    Liam looked more closely at Marvin and imagined he might be slightly attractive if his eyes were a little larger and set a bit farther apart. They were a strange dark blue, but their beauty was lost to their smallness, to the compact economy that guided every feature of his face.
    â€œIt was a bit intense for a first day. And yet it’s always like this, you say?”
    â€œPlease, don’t let it