Page 41 of Love in Tandem
Still, that didn’t stop him from tossing up one of his own. Dear Lord, don’t let this whole thing be a mistake.
This was a mistake, wasn’t it? Sophia spun her Mickey Mouse watch around her wrist, staring out the window next to her booth at Pinky’s Pancakes, gaze locked on the empty street corner where Zach’s Jeep had turned and disappeared more than thirty minutes ago. The corner she fully expected to see Zach’s Jeep return to any minute when Charlotte realized this whole thing was a mistake.
Except Sophia knew her sister. She spun the watch faster, chafing the skin on her wrist. Sophia could stare at the corner all she wanted, but Charlotte wasn’t coming back. Not until she’d either completed the challenge or failed. And if she failed . . .
Sophia closed her eyes and tried shaking away the thought of Charlotte even more dejected than she’d been two summers ago. When she’d worked so hard to convince everyone she was fine. But boy, was she not fine.
“Need a top-up?” Before waiting for Sophia to reply, a waitress poured coffee into Sophia’s mug, then rushed on to the next booth.
Sophia had been drinking hot chocolate, but whatever. She cradled the warm mug in her hands. Mistake, mistake, mistake. Sophia never should have pushed Charlotte into doing the challenge. Not when nobody knew for certain if the prize money was for real.
“What do you mean?” Ty had said when Sophia voiced her concern fifteen minutes ago over a pile of pancakes. “Of course it’s for real. When has Hopkins never come through before? He already deposited the funds for the new bike path. The mayor said it arrived a few days ago. Besides, you know how else I know this challenge is for real?” Ty said before he dashed out the door to leave for his vacation. “Because it’s Charlotte’s last hope.”
If Ty had meant for his parting words to bring comfort, he’d failed miserably. Sophia wanted proof. Stressful enough worrying whether Charlotte would be able to complete the five-hundred-mile journey on time. Even worse was imagining her crossing the finish line only to discover it was all for nothing.
Sure, Hopkins had always come through in the past. But nothing about this challenge felt like the ones he’d done in the past. Something about it just didn’t sit right. Maybe because this time so much was riding on it. Literally.
Would Charlotte really have to move to find a different job if she didn’t win the money?
Sophia didn’t even want to think about her parents’ shaky marriage—or why Charlotte had asked with a weird expression whether Sophia had talked to them recently. Had they finally admitted to Charlotte they were having marital issues?
They better not try admitting it to Sophia. Divorce was the last thing she could handle right now. In fact, she might want to avoid all conversations with her parents until Charlotte returned. Charlotte had always been Sophia’s rock. If their family was falling apart, Sophia needed her rock by her side. All the more reason to make sure this challenge prize money was for real.
So what was she doing sitting here then? Sophia swung her legs out of the booth. Time to stop drinking terrible hot chocolate coffee. Time to track down the recluse A. P. Hopkins and make sure this wasn’t a mistake.
This was a mistake. A huge mistake. Charlotte didn’t know if there had ever been a mistake as big as this. If she had a time machine, she’d be in it right now, twisting the dial back to the moment she’d volunteered to be maid of honor in a wedding she had no business being a part of.
No, before that. The moment she’d let Sophia talk her into stepping foot into that restaurant on a fool’s mission.
No. Before that. The moment Ty had told her the grant money had fallen through and her music program was at risk. She’d go back to that moment and tell Ty not to worry because she’d never been all that fond of music in the first place.
Okay, fine. Maybe not that moment. She didn’t want to lie. Well, not any more than she already had. So how about a different moment? Like the moment her friend Megan had tried talking her into going out for the cross-country team in junior high, and Charlotte had wrinkled her nose, saying cardio wasn’t really her thing.
Yes, if Charlotte could go back to that moment and choose cardio over music, then maybe she wouldn’t be stuck in this moment. With a screaming rear end. A pair of burning thighs. A set of gasping lungs. All while pretending they weren’t less than four miles past the sign welcoming them onto the Natchez Trace Parkway.
“That waitress . . .” Charlotte tried finishing the sentence. Couldn’t. It required too much oxygen. But if she had the oxygen to finish complete sentences, she would have said “wasn’t kidding.”
When Zach had insisted they eat a hearty breakfast this morning at The Loveless Cafe, a place Charlotte had never heard of but which was apparently famous for its biscuits, their chipper waitress had warned them there’d be lots of hills to conquer this first day. Oh, how Charlotte wished that lady had been kidding.
Hanging her head, Charlotte focused on the pavement gliding beneath the rotation of her feet. Just keep pedaling. Just keep pedaling.
After five minutes of hearing Dory’s voice from Finding Nemo in her head, her own voice took over. Mistake, mistake, mistake. Could their bike even stay upright with how slow they were moving? And where was the other side to these hills? Why were they only going up?
All good questions. Another good question—what was really going on with her mom’s health? Maybe it wasn’t as dire as it sounded. It had been early in the morning. Everything sounds dire before coffee.
“Doing okay back there?” Zach asked over his shoulder. “I know you’re not used to this, so we’ll take a break early on. Maybe after ten miles.”
Ten miles was “early on”? Wonderful. By then, Charlotte would be dead.
“Great,” Charlotte said, trying to hide how winded she felt. No need for Zach to get worried. Not when they had over sixty miles to go that day. At least.
Sixty miles. At least.
Oh, mistake, mistake, mistake. The way she felt right now, she’d be lucky to make it another three miles. “Where . . . we stopping . . . the day?”
“Why? Getting tired already?” Zach said with a laugh.
Charlotte attempted to laugh back, but it came out sounding like a wheezy old man on his deathbed.
