Unspoken Memories (Unspoken Series) (17 page)

I can already see the paparazzi catching the shot,
headlining it, “Supermodel gets slapped on the ass.” Yeah, definitely not going
to happen if I can help it.

SAYING THAT CRASH training for a
marathon in less than two months is harder than it sounds, would have to be the
understatement of the century.

It was torture.

My body would ache in places I didn’t know existed. One of
the benefits from all this was that my legs were starting to tone out very
well. Even I couldn’t help admiring them in the mirror sometimes.

Another plus was that I didn’t really have to watch what I
ate. I didn’t eat junk food, Matt made sure of that, but I wasn’t living the
life that most people assume for a supermodel. I was able to eat pieces of what
I wanted, when I wanted it, and not have to stress about it.

Matt finally took me on his last long run before the
marathon, and although twenty miles sounds long, it’s even longer when you’re
running it. Matt never let me stop, and kept tugging me along. At around mile
16 I tried walking, this is where he kept his promise by turning around, coming
up behind me, and slapping me on the ass.

Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt though. Maybe it didn’t hurt as
much because I was awake. After that I would slow down, but keep moving,
knowing that he’d keep his word. I don’t know how in the world I was going to
be able to keep up with Matt. He wasn’t Speed Racer, but I wasn’t as into it as
he was, which caused me to slow my pace.

We finally finish the run and my body is already aching a
bit on the walk back to the car. We climb in and I’m relieved that we are
finally heading home. I just want to go home and fall asleep. My body feels
exhausted, and a shower sounds so good right now.

I’m soon disappointed on the way home when instead of
heading to the house he’s headed in a direction that is unknown to me. We pull
into a street that begins to wind and curve to some buildings that look like
they are part of the college. He finally pulls the car to a stop in front of
the building that says, “Athletic Department.”

“Where are we?” I’m curious why he’d even bring me here.

He doesn’t say anything, but reaches for a duffel bag that
he had brought with him this morning and placed in the backseat.

“Come on,” he says, opening his door and climbing out of the
car. I have no choice but to follow him since he’s already walking towards the
building.

At this point my legs are killing me, and I don’t want to
walk anymore.

“Aren’t we going to get in trouble for being here?”

He takes my hand and says, “Nobody’s here right now, and I
have a key. This is where I come to work out and recover after my really long
runs.”

I really don’t feel like working out any more than I’ve
already done this morning, and I’m pretty sure I can recover at home in the
comfort of my own bed. Apparently, Matt has a different idea though. He uses a
key attached to his car keys to open the door to the building, and then holds
the door for me, and I walk in.

I notice right away it’s a locker room, as he walks ahead of
me. I follow him, and we end up in front of what looks like giant bathtubs that
have plastic covers on them. He takes the cover off the one we are standing in
front of, and pushes a button a couple of times. I see the numbers on the dial
begin to drop, lowering the temperature.

“Take off your jacket, shoes, and socks,” he tells me, while
he starts to do it himself.

“Why?”

“We’re getting in.”

Does he mean in the tub? Is he crazy? I saw the low number
on that dial. I’m not getting in there, so I stand there, refusing to do
anything. Noticing that I haven’t done my part, he bends down instead, and
starts to untie my shoes removing them along with my socks. He stands up when
he’s done and removes the jacket I’m wearing. Which leaves me in only the
sports bra I had underneath the jacket and my tight running shorts.

He places his hand in the tub, checking for the temperature.
Satisfied, he grabs my hand as he walks over to the steps, and begins to climb
them. With his hand stretched out, still holding mine he swings his legs over
into the tub, and I notice he immediately sucks in his breath as he sinks in.
His reaction scares the shit out of me and I stick the hand that he isn’t
holding into the water, yanking it back just as fast.

“Are you crazy? That water is freezing cold,” I squeal at
him.

Matt stays sitting in it, ignoring my complaint. “It’s good
for your body to take an ice bath after a long run. It helps your body recover
faster, and prevents injuries.”

I shake my head and try to pull my hand from his, but he has
a firm grip on it and holds on. “Come on beautiful, I’ll keep you warm,” he
says with a sexy smile.

He doesn’t give me a chance to protest as he stands up,
grabbing me by the waist. Lifting me up off the ground, over the tub, dunking
me completely, including my head into the water.

The shock of the freezing cold water hits me, and I stand
up, gasping for air. My entire body feels like it’s being pierced all over with
needles, and I immediately start shivering from the cold.

I’m standing there, trying to focus on my breathing, wanting
the coldness to go away. Matt pulls me closer to him, pushing his knees in
between mine, forcing me to straddle him.

As I sit there, straddling his hips, he wraps his arms
around my waist, placing his face into my neck to breathe his warm breath next
to my skin. I wrap my arms around his neck in reaction, trying to pull him
closer to me, and sit there against him. I lay my head against his neck as
well, as my teeth and lips are rattling from the cold.

Since I can feel the warmth of his face against my neck, I
start to relax a little, trying to ignore that we are in freezing water. After
a minute, my body starts to forcefully adjust to the temperature, and it
actually does start to take away the ache that was coursing through my body
earlier.

My body starts to warm up, obviously not from the water, but
because I know that my body is pressed so closely against Matt’s. He slowly
starts moving his hands up and down my back, heating the blood in my body with
his fingertips gently gliding as they touch my naked skin. I try pulling him
closer, even if I know it’s not physically possible, since we’re already
practically glued to each other, but I want him closer. I want his body linked
with mine. I feel him gently bite my neck and my body reacts with an explosion
of shivers that run up and down my body.

I feel him come alive between my thighs, and I get excited,
grinding myself against his groin in reaction. I hear a small groan come from
his neck. I pull my head back to look into his eyes, wanting to see what they
look right now, but they are closed. His face is strained, slightly thrown
back, with his jaw drawn tight. His breathing is heavy and almost restrained,
as if he’s using all his willpower to control himself. I love the way he looks
right now, and it satisfies me knowing that I’m making him feel this way.

He slowly opens his eyes to a slit, looking directly into
mine, and his lips go into a slow sexy smile as he sees me. I start to lower my
head to kiss him, closing my eyes, and the minute our lips touch my body feels
like it explodes.

He pushes his tongue into my mouth, forcing me to meet his
with mine, tangling them together as they move back and forth against each
other. Tilting my head so I can have better access to his mouth, I grab his
hair with my hands, practically digging my nails into his scalp.

I grind my body against his, feeling his erection grow
harder beneath my core and his hands tighten, digging into my hips. Right now
I’m cursing the fact that we both have a barrier between us. Why didn’t he make
us remove all our clothes before we got into this tub?

I love feeling him hard against me, as our bodies rub fiercely
back and forth. Our mouths practically fusing together as our tongues duel with
each other, I moan loudly, not caring what he thinks.

I feel his hands begin to creep up my body. His palms slowly
tease their way up my back.

We hear the door of the locker room opening and the shock of
knowing that we might be caught causes me to instantly jump off Matt. I push
myself off him, pushing myself against the other side of the tub, putting
distance between us. I hear footsteps behind us. I turn to look back at the
person entering the locker room and see an older gentleman walk over towards
us.

“Hey there Matt, I didn’t know I would be seeing you with
company today,” he says, looking down at me in the tub.

I must be beet red from the embarrassment of being caught. I
sure feel like I am. “Hey Coach, this is my roommate, Abigail. We’re training
for the marathon next week, and I brought her in for an ice bath,” he says
casually.

The older man laughs, saying, “You actually managed to
recruit someone to run it with you after all.”

“I didn’t have much choice,” I mumble while holding my arms
around my waist to try to find some warmth, since Matt’s heated body isn’t
underneath mine to warm it any longer. I can feel the piercing feeling coursing
through my veins all over again, and I don’t like it.

This makes them both laugh, as the coach shakes his head,
and he walks away. He waves his hand in the air yelling, “Don’t forget to cover
it up and turn it off when you’re done, boy.”

I hear the shutting of another door and once I’m sure the
older gentleman isn’t in the same room, I stand up and climb out of the tub. I
don’t even bother with the stairs, I need out as soon as possible.

Matt takes the hint and climbs out using the steps. I’m
standing there wrapping my arms around my freezing cold body. Matt walks over
to a stand with towels on it and brings several over, handing one to me. I
automatically wrap one around my shoulders, wishing it would take the cold
away. Matt takes one in his hand, and starts rubbing down my legs.

Once he’s done with them, he takes the towel, and starts
drying himself. After a few minutes of making sure we are both completely dry,
he reaches for my jacket, helping me put it back on. He takes the wet towel I
have and throws it with the others into a bin. He grabs another dry towel and
wraps it around my waist.

He reaches down and unzips his duffel bag, taking out our
sandals, placing them at my feet for me to put them on. Then he picks up our
shoes and socks, placing them in the bag. He goes over to the tub, turns it
off, and places the plastic cover back on it.

As I’m about to take off the towel he shakes his head. “Don’t
worry about the towel, I’ll bring it back during my next workout. Let’s get you
home and fed. I know you must be tired too and wanting your nap,” he says as he
grabs for my hand, pulling me to the exit.

I take one last glance at the cold tub, wondering how far it
would have gone. Even if I was freezing my ass off, I’m pretty sure it would
have gone far enough if we hadn’t been interrupted.

ONE WEEK LATER, I am once again
standing at the start line of a race with Matt. As we are adjusting our phones
into their armbands, he says. “Okay, fastest person has to do the other
person’s chores along with their own for a week.”

I knew exactly what he meant. We had come up with a little
system in the house between the three of us. Trey was in charge of cleaning and
maintaining the outside of the house, including the garage. Matt was in charge
of grocery shopping and cooking. Since I couldn’t handle clutter, I was now in
charge of the cleaning, something that the guys hated doing. I’m not going to
lie and say I deep cleaned the house the first time I cleaned it.

Oh hell no.

That house was screaming bachelor pad from head to toe. I’m
surprised I even went near the toilets to pee the first day I moved in. I ended
up calling a maid service; I even paid extra for them to come over that same
day and take the first round. After that I took over. Maintenance was a lot
easier once you’ve set some ground rules.

“What, I don’t get to drive your car again?” I say, pouting
my lips.

He grunts before saying, “Beautiful, even if I was dying, I
would still make you call an ambulance before I let you drive Eleanor again.”

I laugh at his response. He’s never going to get over that.

“Deal,” I say, knowing that I’m going to end up losing
anyways. The guys are going to have to eat a lot of canned soup for the next
week, or else starve. It gives me a little confidence knowing that he doesn’t
want to do the cleaning just as bad as I don’t want to cook.

It’s still dark outside as we stand around waiting for them
to start ushering us ahead. Since every corral was gathering in a different
section of the city, you really didn’t know when exactly you were going to
start. Just standing around was making me nervous. The nerves were there all
week, but I was too tired to let them take over. I’ve been so worn out from the
running that we did during the week, I practically passed out last night. So I
didn’t need a repeat of Matt keeping me company, which I was grateful about.
After the tub incident, I was scared of getting too close to Matt’s body in
fear of raping him.

I feel the crowd around me start to jog forward. I’m
wondering where the hell the start line is, but as I’m jogging along I finally
see it up ahead, and I start getting excited.

The beginning of the race goes very smoothly, with Matt and
me weaving and bobbing our way through the crowds of people. With every mile
that goes by we start to get a silent routine between the two of us,
occasionally separating to get around people, but coming back together.

This race is a lot different from the half that we ran
because it has long stretches of land before you have to loop back around and
run the same stretch all over again. Since Matt had me study the course online,
it was killing me knowing how much we had ahead of us.

The clocks alongside the course are what really keep me
distracted. According to them we are keeping a faster pace that we normally did
during our runs. I was starting to get a little worried since my body didn’t
feel fatigued yet. I couldn’t help but wonder if we were going to crash and
burn towards the end. We’re definitely going faster than we did last week.

I keep the thought to myself, trusting that Matt knows what
he’s doing, and lose myself in the music blasting through my ears. As we cross
over St. John’s Bridge, knowing it’s the first of two that we have to go over,
I get excited noticing the crowd has really thinned out by this point. We are
well over with the first half of the race.

I start to notice that my body wants to give up, but I see
Matt speaking to me, and I pull out my ear bud to listen to him. “Your body is
going to want to hit the wall soon, but try to ignore it, and push through it.
It’s all mental Abigail, your body can do it. Or you could start planning all
the meals you’re going to have to cook for the team as well, while you’re
running,” he says before pulling ahead of me.

Oh hell no.

I think to myself that there is no fucking way I’m cooking
for half of the team as well. I’ll end up burning down the kitchen; no, the
whole house!

So I pick up the pace and push forward. I have to win this
thing. Or at least finish it. I’m not giving up, dammit. I see the sign that
marks the 20-mile mark, knowing that I have never run more than this distance.
I have to listen to Matt and tell myself I can do this.

When “
Firework
” starts to sing about feeling like a
plastic bag drifting through the wind, I make my legs go faster as I see the
Broadway Bridge. I know that the race is almost done past that bridge.

My body feels like it has found a second wind with
excitement. Next thing I know, I’m passing Matt with speed as I’m going over
the bridge. Forgetting about him, I promise myself that I’m going to beat his
ass again, even if it kills me. Every time a new song comes on I use the tempo
of the bass to keep me going. I had timed my songs, leaving my most motivating
and fastest ones until the end, knowing that I was going to need the beat to
push me harder.

I finally see the buildings of downtown up ahead, and know
it’s practically over. I dig deeper, moving faster than my protesting legs want
to go, but I ignore them. I start using the visual of the screaming crowd on
the sides of the streets to encourage me. I finally turn a left at a corner.
Only a few feet ahead of me I see the banner, and I’m crossing the finish line
while the announcer says my name.

As I slow to a walk they put a medal around my neck. I turn
around to look behind me, and see Matt starting to run up to the finish line
with a smile on his face. Almost as if he’s laughing while the announcer says
his name as well.

Matt comes straight to me once they are done placing the
medal around his neck and says, “Just couldn’t resist leaving me in the dust,
now could you?” He throws his arms around me bringing his sweaty body against
mine, and kisses me on top of my head.

I embrace him back, holding him around the waist with both
my arms, smiling from ear to ear. I notice that there are at least three camera
people surrounding us, taking pictures as they circle us.

I ignore them, wanting to take in the moment.

We collect our rose for finishing, memorabilia, and a
souvenir shirt that we immediately put on. We leave the race, heading straight
to my new favorite hangout. I’m starving right now and I want a big juicy
burger to satisfy my hunger.

On the way I call all our friends. Once we’ve arrived at the
Brewhouse, they’re waiting for us, ready to celebrate. We walk through the door
and they start cheering for us as we walk into the restaurant. I can’t help but
throw my hands up and down in the air taking the praise they were giving.

“So who won?” Trey immediately asks as we take a seat in the
bench.

I start to smile, while biting my lip as Matt answers. “She
did,” he says, hooking his thumb in my direction, not sounding too happy about
it.

The manager of the day comes over to our table and asks, “What
can I get our runners to drink?”

I look up at him, beaming. “I want Matt’s usual. A really
big one, I think I’ve earned it today,” I say to him, as he nods his head at
me.

“Damn right you earned it,” Trey says to me.

This makes everyone laugh, and we start to order our food
while we sit there sipping our beer, and I savor the moment.

After looking back at it, I realize that no matter how much
Matt has to push me, in the long run I’ve ended up finding something I like
doing. I would have never thought that I would love running, but since the
first day I started, I fell in love, and wouldn’t change it for the world.

I’m grateful that Matt is finally going to start the season.
He doesn’t do races during the season, so I was in the clear of him trying to
sign me up for any. I can finally give my body a break from
long
distances and just do it for fun. Which is exactly what I plan on doing.

THE NEXT DAY I wake up to Kelly’s
ring tone blaring through my peaceful sleep. Even though I want to ignore it, I
know I can’t, or else I won’t hear the end of it from her about ignoring her
phone calls. I reach over, and answer the phone, half-asleep.

“This better be an emergency Kelly, or else I’m not speaking
to you for a week,” I grumble into the phone.

“Have you seen the sports section of today’s newspaper?” she
says to me.

Knowing that we don’t get the newspaper, I say to her, “No.”

I hear the sounds of beeping, as if she’s exiting the car,
then a car door shutting. “Well, I’m at your front door, so get your butt up so
you can see for yourself,” she says before ending the call.

Knowing she has a key to the house now, I stay in bed,
counting the moments until she walks into my room. I hear talking coming from
the hallway and wait for Kelly to come to my room, which is 30 seconds later.
What I didn’t expect is for her to be dragging Matt along with her.

He comes over to the empty side of the bed, and climbs
beneath the covers, trying to go back to sleep. If it weren’t for Kelly in the
room, I would have snuggled up against his body, and fallen back to sleep with
him.

For that split second of a thought I did forget she was in
the room, before she walks over to my side of the bed swatting both of us on
the shoulder with what feels like a newspaper, shouting, “Get your asses up,
you made the front page.”

This wakes both of us up in a heartbeat. I sit up, grabbing
for the newspaper in her hand. I see Matt and me on the front page. The
headline reads, “Local celebrity runs marathon!” It’s a picture of Matt
embracing me, and I have a huge smile on my face as I’m leaning into his
shoulder at the finish line. This must have been the photo all the
photographers surrounding us were trying to get.

Crap. Right when I’d finally got Bill out of my hair, I’m
out in the public all over again. I only had three more weeks to go to ride out
the contract, and here I am on the front page of the newspaper.

Matt is looking at the newspaper with his chin on my
shoulder, still half-asleep. I shrug it to wake him up. “Well, it only proves
one thing. You missed Boston by 18 minutes, what a bummer,” he says before he
gets up and walks out of my room.

What is he talking about? What the hell is Boston, and why
is it a bummer to miss it, if I’ve never even been there? At least I don’t
think I have. Wanting to know what he’s talking about, I get up and follow him
into the living room. He’s sitting on the couch now with the remote in his
hand, turning the TV on.

“What were you talking about when you said Boston? Why would
I miss it?” This earns me a laugh from Kelly as she sits on the other couch,
leaving me standing in front of Matt with my arms crossed over my chest, still
waiting for an answer.

Obviously Matt is ignoring me, causing Kelly to answer my
question. “Boston is the Super Bowl of running races. You have to run a
marathon under a certain time in order to qualify for it,” she informs me. “Even
if you do make the qualifying time, you have to sign up in a certain time
frame, which is super hard to get into.”

I look over at her confused, wondering how the hell she
knows all this info. As far as I knew, she wasn’t a runner. She shrugs her
shoulder, seeing my confusion. “My dad ran it one year when he was young.
That’s the only reason I know about it. It’s his proudest race to date.”

Still confused, I look back at Matt. “So how fast are you
supposed to run a race in order to qualify?” I ask, throwing my fingers up in
air quotes as I ask him.

He takes a deep breath like he’s frustrated, as if he’s
finally decided to answer me. “Women your age have to run it in under three and
a half hours. For me it’s under three.” His lips go into a grimace. “So you
missed it by 18 minutes, being that your time was three hours and fifty-three
minutes. Which is pretty good for your first marathon, and you had a lot of
people to push out of the way.”