Slow Twitch:

  A Bre nna Blixen Novel

  Book 3

  by

  Liz Reinhardt

  © 2012 by Liz Reinhardt

  All Rights Reserved worldwide under the Berne Convention. May not be copied or distributed without prior written permission.

  Cover design by Steven Peterson

  SLOW TWITCH :

Muscle fibers that determine if a runner is suited to distance running.

Chapter One

Brenna

The day I met Jake Kelly and Saxon Maclean, my heart thumped, strummed, sang, and dove through every single exhilarating hour of that entire day right up until I fell asleep that night. The moment I laid eyes on them, it was like I’d been waiting for the day I was supposed to meet them and the chemistry was like an electrical storm. I thought that it had to do with like. Or lust. Or chemistry. And I thought it happened because I was a girl and they were very attractive guys.

  Then, nearly a year later, my plane landed in Dublin, Ireland, and I got off and went to check into the gray, sterile dormitories I’d live in for a few weeks that summer. I shivered from a cold sweat brought on by worry and alien loneliness, sure I’d made a huge, stupid mistake in coming across the entire Atlantic for weeks on end. The little part of me that had wanted to just stay in New Jersey and keep things easy and fun wrestled energetically with the part of me that was ready to cliff jump into whatever changes were coming in the next few weeks. To grow or not to grow? To accept change or claw at its eyeballs, kicking and screaming all the way?

  I was desperate for a sign, any sign to give me some assurance that I wasn’t going to rot in dejected unhappiness without the boy I loved and the one I sort-of-loved-in-a-whole-different-way.

  Then I saw a face that felt like tasting my mother’s flakey-crusted, homemade-whipped-cream-topped apple pie after Thanksgiving dinner.

  My entire focus pinpointed on a smile so bright and sweet, I felt wobbly on my particularly gorgeous buttercup-yellow espadrilles, like the muscles in my ankles spontaneously lost their strength. I felt like that smile was as familiarly comforting as my own, and also like I was peeking at something special and real for the first time in longer than I could remember. I knew I should be normal and introduce myself, but I felt uncharacteristically tongue-tied.

  But the object of my attention didn’t wait for me to come over and make social niceties. Before I knew it, a hand with delicate fishnet-embellished nails reached out and shook mine.

  “I just came over to introduce myself and say those are the goddamn darlingest fucking shoes I’ve ever laid eyes on, and I might steal them like a thief in the night if you don’t sleep in them.” She pumped my arm up and down and these Arctic blue eyes stared right at me, at full attention, with a weird combination of frigid interest and melting friendliness that matched the cool-worded/honey-sweet-drawl mix of her voice. “Evan Lennox. Don’t look at me like that. I swear on all that’s holy, if I do bite you, it will barely hurt.”

  “Brenna Blixen.” I got my name out on a gasp while my eyes slid down her long, curvy legs, drank in the most decadently sexy peep-toe kitten heels I’d ever seen, and felt an instant kinship. “What’s your shoe size?”

  When her smile cracked wide, it was apparent that her bee-stung lips looked even plumper because of the slightest overbite. “If I’m gonna run a mile? A straight eight. If a pair of shoes starts flirting with me and then gets frisky, a seven won’t even pinch.” She turned her heel to the side and showed off a perfectly arched foot. “You?”

  “Nine. Always. I can’t deal with pinched toes.” I smoothed my hand over my skirt, and felt a strange, shy blush when she looked at me with frank approval.

  “That’s good news for me, and I have some for you.” She locked her arm through mine and leaned her head so close, her long, glossy brown hair tickled the inside of my elbow. “I’ll put up with a pinch that will deform my feet, but I will never, everwear a shoe that slides around. It ruins the entire silhouette. You know what? I don’t think I would have stolen those shoes, no matter what size. I like you too much already.”

  She moved her icy eyes left and right, watching the other students claim their rooms and settle their luggage, squeal, hug, and commiserate, and she slapped that gorgeous smile right at me. It was so neon bright, I almost missed catching the nervous flutter of her lashes. “So, let’s room next to each other. You want to?”

  I did.

  “That sounds perfect.” We exchanged tentative smiles for a split second before we nodded and got to work.

  Evan and I gathered out suitcases with a flurry of giggles and uncoordinated maneuvering and crammed the contents of them into our tiny dorm rooms. She claimed that she was happy enough to let all of her worldly possessions topple onto the scratchy cream blanket and call her room done, then followed me to mine and watched while I hung up all the clothes in my suitcase and put all my accessories in the appropriate drawers.

  “Brenna, I just want to tell you that you are so neat it’s exhausting.” She pulled a nail file out of a tiny clutch studded with pink leather rosebuds and leaned back in the old wooden desk chair, legs crossed like a lady, while I made hospital corners on the bed.

  “Doesn’t it just feel better when you come into a room and everything’s put away? More like home?” I blew my bangs out of my eyes and stretched my stomach across the mattress to more firmly tuck the sheet under while Evan made miniscule adjustments to the length of her nails with quick swishes of the file.

  “I guess. But it doesn’t matter how it feels. It’s never really home anyway, is it?” She stopped swaying her foot back and forth to music only she could hear, and scowled at her innocent, lovely shoe.

  “Are you homesick?” My voice came out just a fraction of a decibel louder than a whisper, and my gut clenched with organ-deep sympathy. I turned down the bed and smoothed a hand over the pillow, then looked around. I would have sat on the desk chair to avoid mussing the bed I had just perfected if Evan wasn’t already sitting there, and I wondered, briefly, if it would be totally strange if I sat on the floor instead. But Evan’s stricken face and far-off stare made me forget my neat-nick habits, and I sat on the edge of the mattress, barely noticing the sheet that came half-untucked, and reached out to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Because I get being homesick. I really do. This trip? It’s the first time I’m away from my parents in my life. And my boyfriend and I wanted to spend the summer together, but I’d signed up for this. So, if you’re homesick, I don’t think that’s a weird thing.”

  Her neck jerked up and she looked up at me, wild-eyed, nostrils flared, mouth pinched tight. “You can’t be homesick if you haven’t got a home to go back to.” Her voice grated out harshly. Shock knotted any words of comfort I knew I should try to say, and her mouth softened. “Oh, Lord, ignore me! I’m dead serious, ignore ninety percent of what comes out of my mouth. I’m just being a drama queen.” She snuck me a sidelong glance. “But my daddy didfuck up big time, and the house isofficially gone.”