Page 30 of Fallen Crown

“Me?” Tucker frowns and checks her clipboard.

She rarely runs with the group, but she always runs with me. I haven’t been able to decide what that means.

“Yes, Tucker. You.” I huff out a breath as I turn to stare at the top of the hill again. It’s possible she’ll boot me in the butt to make me start moving again. Honestly, she probably should. These wobbly legs aren’t going to be made better by this brief pause.

“Is it a good joke?”

“Terrible. But that’s the beauty of it. It’s so bad, it’s good.”

She raises her eyebrows and marks down Wren’s time as she circles around us and heads back up.

“Two guys walk into a bar,” I say. “The third one ducked.”

A hint of a smile tugs at the edges of her lips, but she doesn’t acknowledge me.

“No?” I try to catch her gaze. “What will the terminator be called in his retirement?”

“Dad jokes? Really?”

“The Exterminator.”

“That’s a terrible joke,” she says, and then she shoos me toward the hill. “We only have so many training days left.”

“Don’t remind me of the calendar,” I say as I start to jog up the hill. “It scares me because its days are numbered.”

“At least that one was clever,” she calls to me, and I can hear the smile in her voice.

Each time I pass her for the next hour, I have another joke I’ve remembered at the ready. On my last tour around her, Tucker finally cracks.

“What does a sprinter eat before a race?” she asks me.

I wrack my brain for the answer, but if I’ve heard this one, I can’t locate it. She’s got my attention, and I tip my head to get her to continue.

“Nothing,” she says. “They fast.”

My delight is genuine, and I can’t help the laugh that roars out of me. Underneath all the prim properness, Maren Tucker has a sense of humor, and she even knows some dad jokes. As I head back up the hill for my final run, there’s a lightness in me I don’t expect. With every step, I see a flash of her grin, broad and happy, and I vow that I’m going to see that grin a hell of a lot more over the next few months.

While we train together, I’ll no longer be the guy who adds to her misery. Instead, I’m going to try my best to ease it.

Chapter Fourteen

Maren

The ocean breeze lifts the ends of my hair as the team paddles along the coast. It’s one of those days where I can’t help feeling grateful to be alive. Between the sun, the breeze, and the cool ocean water below, it’s a perfect day.

“Everyone good?” I call back to the group.

Varying shouts of agreement float up to me, Brice being the loudest, of course.

We’re halfway through training, and we’ve settled into something resembling a friendship. Though I’ve never asked Brice, my mother says they’ve set a date for George’s... I don’t even know what to call it. Three weeks to the day before Brice leaves to compete. Sometimes her ear to the ground is helpful.

The timing, had anyone asked me, could not be worse. The last thing he’ll need in a mentally and physically grueling race is to be battling grief too. Intense grieving while isolated from his family and while promoting the Alzheimer’s Society for an international audience is a recipe for disaster. InterFlix is already advertising the season he’ll appear on, but there’s a part of me that worries the focused attention will eat Brice alive. Grieving in private was hard enough, but to do that publicly? I can’t even imagine.

Just as Brice predicted when he asked to be selected for the team, donations to our charity race have poured in, from Bellerive, but also from all over the world. There appear to be no borders to Brice’s friendship. Unlike other years where we’ve practically had to go door-to-door to raise money for a cause, the press has been loving Brice’s pursuit of athletic excellence in the face of his father’s diagnosis. Radio appearances, TV spots, and articles have littered the internet. The advanced promotion has created a certain fervor over the upcoming season that I’ve never witnessed before. InterFlix must be ecstatic. When we applied and they accepted, they thought they were merely getting skilled racers, and instead, they’ve gotten a prince and international playboy. Quite a deal for them.

Wren appears at my side, paddling in the same rhythm as me to keep pace. “InterFlix arrives on the island today for the promo videos?”

It’s a rhetorical question. They’re interviewing everyone, including me. While I’m not racing, I’ve agreed to be part of the support team that will be available at each refuel station in Fiji. Initially, I didn’t want anything to do with the actual race activities, but I’m unreasonably concerned about Brice with the timing of everything. Maybe I’m projecting, but seeing him so low once before makes me believe George’s death will hit him hard. Harder than he might realize. Even if he supports the reasons behind George’s decision, deep grief is something no one understands until they experience it. You can try, but anyone’s empathy can only extend so far. The hole you can fall into is vast and lonely.