In hindsight, it was probably a mistake to be so friendly with Julia. But I'd never thought it would be a problem; she was twenty now, two years gone from the high school where I taught. She'd come back the summer before to help out with the summer runs I led as assistant cross country coach, and she'd been an absolute Godsend.
The first couple years of college had left her lean runner's body completely unscathed, the dreaded "freshman fifteen" sliding right past her as she'd always slid past slower runners; even as a freshman, she'd had a fearsome kick that had won her races from 400 meters all the way up to 5k. She had the total package, athletically; she was tall and straight, with strong sure legs and a compact muscular ass to drive them. Her breasts she'd always kept mercilessly squashed beneath sports bras that had to have been working very hard; I remembered how I'd gawked when I'd seen her at her senior prom, on display, her cleavage deep enough to fall into.
She'd enjoyed my attention, I remembered. There'd been a momentary stare from me as she came up that night to greet me, but nothing more; I'd dragged my eyes to her face and made the appropriate compliments, but the sauciness of her smile told me she'd noticed where my eyes had gone. As she walked away, arm in arm with some insignificant date she'd swept into her life, she'd grinned whimsically back at me and wiggled that tight ass.
But that had been it, I swear; she'd graduated and gone on with her life, and I'd forgotten about her as I'd forgotten about dozens, even hundreds, of gorgeous female graduates.
And then, there she'd been last summer, having arranged with Coach Daniels to come help out while home for the summer. I'd seen the two of them talking as I'd pulled into the parking lot at the county park, and I'd remembered her at once.
"Julia!" I'd called out as I came up. She smiled calmly at me and flickered her eyes up and down my own body. I'd been running for over twenty years, but I was now past forty and the metabolism had slowed down; still, I tried hard to keep from developing a gut, even though my wife didn't seem to appreciate it much.
"Hi, Mr Herrick!" she replied. She'd held my gaze as she grasped her ankle and pulled it behind her to stretch her quad, balancing easily on her other foot. For an instant I thought about moving in for a hug, but there were cross-country kids everywhere. And of course Coach Daniels was right there.
"Julia's helping you out with the girls' soph/frosh this summer, Scott," he said. "She'll also stretch the varsity girls."
"Great," I said. She'd always been a favorite student, if a bit sassy. "Looking forward to it. Still running at college?"
"Sort of," she said. "I'm in ROTC, so we do a lot of running. But I'm looking forward to getting out and moving a little faster."
"Then you've come to the wrong place," Daniels laughed. The current mediocrity of our team was legendary. "Scott and I aren't exactly setting any records these days."
"Come on," she said, once again starting into my eyes as she switched legs. "Coach Herrick looks like he could beat me at any distance." We all laughed, but the lively spark in her eyes made me wonder.
And that was the summer. She'd promoted herself to coach the girls' varsity full time by July, but it was obvious that she wasn't feeling challenged by the few mousy young ladies we'd been able to recruit. She came in one afternoon, well out ahead of her girls, just as I was loading up my car.
"Leaving early, Coach?" She was breathing deeply, recovering, her chest moving evenly. I blinked as I realized I was staring at a bead of sweat, slipping quietly past her collarbone. She smelled like effort. I'd always liked her enthusiasm; she'd been the rare excellent runner on our subpar track team. A strand of her red hair, escaped from her ponytail, drifted across her cheek.
"What can I say?" I shrugged. "Gotta go pick up the kids."
"That's right! You had a boy last year, I remember." Her dark eyes twinkled slyly. "You never did let me babysit your daughter."
"Yup. You were a student; I couldn't do that." I was out of things to say, but her sweat was still distracting me as it spilled down toward her chest. For a second, I thought wildly about reaching out to flick it off her skin, but then I shook my head like a dog emerging from a bath. "Well, see you."
Only, I didn't. She'd disappeared after that, and Coach Daniels had told me she'd started lifeguarding down near the beach. Ah well. That was that; I'd gone back to my quiet, routine life, teaching history and running the middle-distance track team, complacently moving toward retirement. I certainly never assumed I'd see Julia again.
Which was why I was shocked to see her come back the following summer. She was her old self, the long body and the mischief in her eyes, but harder and more confident after two years of ROTC. I'd been in the National Guard once upon a time myself, so we made small talk about boots and M-4s as we waited for practice to start late that June.
"I'm glad you came back," I said.
"Didn't you think I would?" She grinned and winked. "I'm not easy to scare off."
"Well, I just figured you weren't getting much out of running with us last year. Let's say I wasn't surprised when you left us for a beach full of surfer-boys."
She barked a laugh. "Come on. The guys here weren't the problem." Again that disconcerting confidence, the cool deliberate glance up and down my body. She scratched absently at her belly, flat and bare underneath the tight singlet she'd chosen. "You're right, though; I did want to run a bit faster."
"I know what you mean. Coach Daniels has a stranglehold on the faster boys, though."
"Yeah, but you look like you're still getting out and breaking a sweat," she pointed out. "Maybe I should just run with you this summer. You do the JV boys, right?"
I was speechless. I was not the kind of man that attractive young ladies invited themselves to run with. "Well, sure, but to tell the truth they'll probably hold you back too. You were still real fast last summer."
