“Right back at ya.”

I’m blinking in astonishment at the fact that she’s wiping away tears when Damian and Mom walk back in.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

“Yes,” Stella says, moving back to her chair.

Mom looks at me, her eyes questioning. I shrug and take my seat.

I don’t have any more of a clue about what happened than she does.

I have a feeling, though, there won’t be any more bets made on my anticipated behavior in the near future. And I guess that’s all any girl can ask for.


“This is our last practice before the big meet. No practice tomor row, so I expect you all to rest up and eat complex carbs. On Friday we compete for the Cycladian Cup. The victors get to display the coveted trophy at their school for the next year.” Coach Z gives us all a stern scowl. “The losers get nothing but dust in their teeth.”

This is apparently the big pep speech for the meet.

I’ve heard so many of these in my lifetime I just tune out.

Instead, I glance over the crowd of teammates listening avidly to Coach Z’s threats and promises. Adara and her blondes, Zoe included, are right up front, watching Coach Z with rapt attention.

There must be some sort of gender war going on because there’s not a single guy sitting with them. My gaze flicks briefly to Griffin, surrounded by Christopher, Costas, and the rest of the Ares jockheads. He looks up, like he feels my eyes on him, and I immediately look the other way.

Eye contact is too much contact as far as I’m concerned.

He doesn’t take the hint.

No, he stands up, weaves his way through the crowd while Coach Z is still speaking, and sits down next to me on the grass.

“Phoebe, I-”

I get up and move away.

He follows me.

“We haven’t seen the trophy at this school in five years,” Coach Z says, scowling at Griffin’s disregard. “I want that trophy back in our front hall this year.”

Everyone cheers.

I keep evading Griffin, who is shadowing my every step.

“Now break up into your events and get in a good practice,”

Coach Z says, dismissing the group to our individual coaches.

I head for Coach Lenny, hoping our workouts will separate us.

“Today we’ll be working out in pairs,” Coach Lenny explains. “I want you to push each other to perform at your highest level. The pairs are as follows-”

He starts reading names from his clipboard. As he works through the roster, I’m starting to get worried-he hasn’t read my name or Griffin’s yet.

No, I tell myself. Coach Lenny wouldn’t do this to me.

Then he does. “Phoebe Castro and Griffin Blake.”

He gives us a brief rundown of our workouts then turns to walk out of the stadium. I jog up and tap him on the shoulder. Griffin, of course, is right behind me.

“Something wrong?” Coach Lenny asks when he sees the sour look on my face.

“No, sir,” Griffin answers.

I glare at him. “Pair me with someone else, Coach.”

“He’s the only one capable of pushing you, Phoebe.” Coach Lenny gives me an apologetic look. “Work with him.”

“No. He’s an a-”

“For the sake of your running,” Coach Lenny says. “It’s just for one day.” Then he gives Griffin a threatening look. “Follow the workout, push her to do her best, or you’ll answer to me on race day.”

“Yes, sir,” Griffin replies, the picture of a perfect gentleman.

Ha. What a put on.

The second Coach Lenny walks away he starts in. “Phoebe, I know you’re mad, and you have every right to be-”

“Thanks for the permission,” I say.

I stalk across the inner lawn, find an empty spot with lots of room, and settle in to do my stretches. Griffin, right on my tail, sits down next to me, mimicking my actions.

“Hey, how is my being part of that bet,” he asks, “any worse than you making that deal with Stella?”

I clamp my jaw and don’t say a word.

“I’m sorry, Phoebe, that wasn’t how I wanted to start.”

I reach for my other foot, leaning away from him.

“I’m not going to let you shut me out,” he says, reaching for his toes. “You have the right to be mad, but I have the right to explain myself.”

I exhale deeply into my stretch. “I don’t have to listen.”

“No, you don’t have to.” He leans out over his left leg, stretching his quads. “But you will.”

He’s right. Purely driven by curiosity I at least want to hear whatever lame excuse he’s come up with. Then I can file it away under too-stupid-to-believe and move on with my life.

My time is too precious to waste on the likes of Griffin Blake.

“It started out as a bet,” he has the nerve to admit. “Not my bet, but a bet nonetheless.”

I give him a look that says I know this much already.

“That’s why I agreed to meet you that Sunday.”

“Thanks,” I say. “Glad to know I’m such a prize you need extra motivation just to go for a run-”

“I’m sorry, all right.” He reaches so abruptly for his right foot I’m surprised he doesn’t tear a tendon. “How many times do I have to say it?”

“About a million more times would be a good start.”

He sits back, giving up all pretense of stretching. “It started out as a bet,” he bites out, “but it didn’t end up that way.”

What a load of hooey.

“If I had been honest with myself-” He starts tugging up little clumps of grass. “I would have realized that the bet was just an excuse. A reason for me to spend time with you. One I didn’t have to explain to anyone.”

I continue with my stretches, working through all my leg muscles and ignoring his little heartfelt speech. Ignoring the fact that my deal with Stella served pretty much the same purpose-a reason to go after Griffin without guilt over how Nicole felt about him.

“Even though I was a total jerk, you still gave me a chance.”

“Stupid me.”

“Second chances are a rare thing around here.” He inches closer on the grass. “When I was seven my parents got on Hera’s bad side.

No one has seen them since.”

That makes me pause. That would have been about the same time Nicole’s parents got banished.

He’d said his folks weren’t around-and I remember thinking how vague he was. I hadn’t even considered they might be dead.

I’d just thought they left him with his aunt while they traveled the world or something.

I never thought his parents being gone had anything to do with Nicole’s.

My heart melts. Just a little.

“Here I was, carrying you in my arms because I had to, and you were trying to get me to open up. You wanted to know me. Despite how horrible I had been to you.” He leans in and whispers, “That’s when the bet ended for me.”

Another few drops of ice melt away.

Not ready to get burned twice in one week, I tell myself not to fall for his lies. He could be making every last word of this up, too.

And even if my initial motives for meeting him that Sunday were barely better than his-though I think a deal is way less offensive than a bet-at least I admitted to myself early on that I was really going after Griffin for myself.

Rising, I start twisting at the waist to warm up my upper body.

Griffin scrambles to his feet.

“Last Saturday after your practice,” he says, pleading. “That was real. The rest doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

I stop moving long enough to meet his sad stare.

Clearly, he’s not sure what to say. Which is fine with me because I’ve heard enough lies to last a lifetime.

“Let’s just get this workout over with,” I snap, fed up and thinking of all the homework I have waiting for me.

Our first segment is a two mile run at moderate pace.

I walk toward the regular starting line, but Griffin has other ideas.

“Why don’t we run a different course today?”

I eye him suspiciously. Certain he has something underhanded up his sleeve-even if he’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt-I want to argue, but honestly it will be a relief to see anything other than that shrubby course.

“Fine,” I relent. “But if you try to pull anything I’m telling Coach Lenny about the shoelaces.”

He just rolls his eyes at me and says, “Come on.”

Griffin heads out of the stadium and circles around to the right.

Not wanting to follow behind him like a second-place dog I settlein at his side, matching him step for step. He must be pulling his stride because his legs are like twice as long as mine.

Neither of us speaks or looks at the other while he leads us down a steep path behind the far stadium wall. It looks like just another wooded cross-country course until we break through the trees. We’re on the beach.

“I figured that with all your extra training,” he says, “you haven’t had time for many beach runs. Which I think you love as much as I do.”

I shrug, secretly loving the way the sand squishes beneath my feet. With every stride I have to work harder to push myself forward.

This is my personal heaven.

Now, I love the L.A. beaches-especially when I get permission to drive up to Malibu and watch the surfers while I run-but nothing compares to the beach on Serfopoula. The sand is pristine. Gleaming white.

Glancing over my shoulder, I see the footprints we made disappearing as the sand pours back in on itself.

The sand in California is so full of gunk it keeps your footprint until the tides wash in.

“Was I right?” Griffin asks.

I scowl at him for interrupting my daydream. I’m still mad at him, after all. “About what?”

“The beach.”

“It’s okay,” I lie.