Free Higher (The University of Gatica #3) by Lexy Timms Page B

inside the fieldhouse turned up to full volume. “I’ll see you in an hour!” she yelled at they dashed out in opposite directions. She turned and waved once to Aileen, who was running like a rabbit, her backpack bouncing up and down against her back.
    By the time Jani stopped to wait for the first street light, she was drenched. Thank goodness she had asked Coach Maves to let her leave her high jump shoes with her laptop. They would reek if they got this soaked. Maves had ordered new ones for her, they were just on back order from Asics. The school wore Nike but Jani could not compete in the Nike high jump spikes. They were too flat for her arched feet. She loved Asics and luckily, Coach Maves didn’t make a big deal out of it. Probably because of the whole mental mind games she always goes on and on about.
    Fifteen minutes later she stood just inside the doors of the football facility dripping wet. Her shoes squeaked and swished as she walked down the hall to the entrance of the weight room.
    “Stay there!” the weight coach called out from his office as he hurried over and tossed Jani a towel. “You’re soaking wet!”
    “It’s pouring outside.” Jani wiped her arms and tried to squeeze the water out of her hair with the towel. “I jogged over.”
    “Sorry, Jani but you can’t work out in wet clothes. It’s too dangerous.”
    “I’ve got tights on underneath. They’ll be fine.” She pointed to her dripping jogging pants.
    “Your shoes aren’t. You could slip and fall.”
    “I won’t.”
    “But you might. Sorry, kiddo. I can’t let you.”
    Seriously? She’d just jogged over here for no reason? “I could do it in bare feet.”
    He shook his head. “Not allowed.”
    “What if I just do the stationary stuff? Skip the cleans, snatches, and squats? I can do my arm stuff and core strength. I promise I’ll be careful.”
    “I know, but I can’t.” He scratched his head as he stared down at her feet. “What size shoe do you wear?”
    “Ten.”
    “We don’t have any women’s runners here. What’s your size in men?”
    “Oh, uh, maybe an eight and a half.”
    “Shoot!” He shook his head. “Could you get away with a nine?”
    “Probably with a pair of thick socks.”
    “Give me a sec.” He stepped by her and opened the door to the weight room. “Wait right here.” He disappeared and came back a few minutes later with a shoe box in his hands. “You’re lucky.” He tossed her a pair of socks that were tucked under his arm. “Put those on and try these size nines.”
    Jani slipped her wet shoes and socks off and sat down on a plyo box nearby. The socks were big and long. They came up to her knees. She slipped her jogging pants off, thankful her spandex capris were damp but not soaking. The shoes were brand new. A way better quality than the track team ever got. She put them on and gave the weight coach a thumbs up. “These fit perfect.” For once, big feet were a bonus. The runners were a bit large, but the thick socks stopped her from sliding inside of them. She tied them tight. “I’ll give them back to you when I’m finished.”
    The coach laughed. “Keep ‘em. Nobody’s going to want them after they’ve been worn.”
    “Seriously?”
    He nodded. “You could have skipped the workout but you made the effort to come in, even jogging in the pouring rain. Get your workout in and I’ll make sure you’ve got a ride back.”
    “Thanks!” Jani high-fived the coach and jogged over to the filing cabinet where the track team’s workouts were stored. She checked Aileen’s and marked down some of the weights she had used to try and stay about the same. Aileen had the strongest legs in the world, and Jani worked hard to keep up with her. The season’s workouts seemed to be paying off so far. Look how practice today had gone.
    Jani pushed through her cleans and Olympic lifts before moving on to her squats. As she went through the cycle and was changing the weights for her last