Page 4 of Racing Hearts

He tilts his head. “Why not?”

“Sounds a bit saccharine.”

“You’re not a sweets person, then?”

“Sweets are usually useless to me, but—Well, actually.” My eyes fall on his untouched lemon bar lingering at the edge of the table. “That’s what I want to talk to you about.”

He lets his pencil drop between the pages of his book. “You have my attention.”

“Right, well, the thing is…is that…” I fumble through my cross-body bag for my wallet. “I’d like to buy your lemon bar. Please.”

“Even more interesting.”

“I’ll pay you whatever you want.” I shove a handful of coins toward him. “That is, as long as you’ll take euros. Otherwise, I’ll have to use an app or something.”

He leans back in his chair. “Honestly, now I just need to know why someone who is not a sweets person so desperately wants a lemon bar.”

I drop the coins and they tinkle to the ceramic table with a soft clatter. “Okay. I assume you’ve seen the signs around town? The last regatta of the World Rowing Cup is here in Varese.”

For a fleeting moment, the stranger looks genuinely surprised, and not just in an amused kind of way. He quickly hides the expression, though, wringing it out with an exaggerated frown.

“Rowing…” he says. “Is that the one where you huck yourself off a waterfall?”

I snort. “That’s kayaking.”

“Oh,” he says, but there’s mirth tugging at the corners of his lips. “Then you mean the one where you face the wrong direction and a short person yells at you from the back of the boat.”

This draws a smile out of me. “I race singles so the only person yelling at me is my coach, and she’s nearly six feet tall.” I flatten my lips. “I guess you don’t know much about rowing, then?”

He exhales a laugh and flips his book closed. It’s not a textbook at all, but Dunbar’s Training for Elite Rowers.

“Clearly, not as much as I should,” he says, motioning to his mangled notes.

Now it’s my turn to be surprised. I survey his torso with new appreciation. He’s wearing a loose windbreaker, so I can’t gather much about his build, but he has a rower’s stereotypically broad shoulders. He also has telltale signs of someone who spends their summers on the water—in his case, a mess of brown hair that’s lightened at the ends and white skin tanned to a light taupe.

“You’re a rower?” I guess.

This time his smile is more forced than genuine. “Let’s just say I’m a passionate fan.”

That seems purposefully evasive, and I pause, waiting to see if he’ll say more. The door chimes in a cascade of bells, and a laugh rings out over the clatter of plates and cutlery. The stranger watches me, his expectant gaze unbroken by these distractions.

I guess it’s time to explain.

“Here’s the thing. I’m in the B final tomorrow, and it’s important that I do well. I mean, it’s the World Cup, so of course it’s important. But it’s bigger than that for personal reasons.”

“How does a lemon bar help?” he asks.

“It’s one of my rituals.”

“One of them?”

“You want an inventory?”

His lips tick. “No, but I’m curious about this particular one.”

Even though the bar is on the line, I hesitate. It’s not like I believe eating this pastry will guarantee victory. It works because it gives me a feeling of calm and confidence—a knowing that I’ve done everything I can to prepare, which puts me in the right mindset for victory. Still, I know how this sounds. I get judgmental reactions to my detailed sleep plans and food logs from pretty much everyone except Maxwell.

“I’ve been eating a lemon bar before every race since my first Youth Nationals,” I explain, bracing myself as I walk through my logic. “I ate one the night before a final and, very unexpectedly, I won gold. The next race, I didn’t eat one, and I got fifth. I’ve been doing it ever since. Every race. No matter what.”