Scene 34

"Well look you at that! You win, and it's still my stunning mug that makes the headlines!"

Sam flashed her mobile around the table, displaying the photo British Triathlon had posted on their Instagram. It was from the morning prior, when Sam had leapt the spectator fence and flung herself into Dillon's arms as she crossed the Leeds finish line.

One GOAT to Another the caption read.

"They got the goat part right," Kyle quipped, thumbing through the laminated appetizer menu. "You both look like you belong in a barnyard."

He let out a yelp as Sam gouged him with a strike of her toe. "Can it, ya gadgie!"

"Yeah," joined Georgina, "it's a bold statement coming from someone who put in the time of a tortoise!"

"Look—not all of us can pull off a Sinclair Special . Some of us are only human." He made a face at Dillon, who only rolled her eyes.

Yesterday, she'd set a new course record, smashing the previous one—also set by her—by more than a minute. The race commentator on BBC had referred to her ability to break her own leading times as a Sinclair Special , earning her a lot of ribbing from her teammates.

Under different circumstances, she would have allowed herself a pat on the back for running an exceptional race. One that had been flawless in its execution. Her swim had been strong, her bike had been stellar, and she'd entered the run with a lead no other athlete on the field could conquer.

But she hadn't beat Elyna.

Halfway through the swim, the Frenchwoman had pulled up with a shoulder injury and scratched as a contender. Dillon hadn't known it until after she crossed the finish line, and at that point, the win failed to matter. She didn't care that she'd broken another record. That she'd won, once again, in front of her fellow countrymen, on UK soil. It wasn't even a consolation that Kam had made it there to watch her.

She hadn't done what she needed to do—to prove to herself, to prove to Henrik, that she was still the stronger competitor.

But she'd done her best to put on a happy face, knowing no one else would understand her disappointment.

"All right—I'll take first shout," Harry said, sliding his bean-pole frame to his feet as he stretched off the stiffness of the weekend. "Who needs liquid courage?"

It was Sunday night, the day after the race, and the six of them had come down on the train from Leeds to London. Sam had dragged the small party to her favorite seedy nightclub, where Dillon had found herself entirely unenthused to discover it was Eighties' Night karaoke.

"You may want to make it a double," Sam tuned her voice to a stage whisper when Kam ordered a whiskey sour. "I know it's impossible to believe, but Sinc actually sings worse than she dances."

"I happen to love her shower singing," Kam pertly defended, grazing her toe against Dillon's calf underneath the table. Dillon would have preferred skipping the evening out and spending it alone with Kam instead. They'd hardly gotten to see one another since Kam flew in three days earlier, and already, it was their last night together. Tomorrow, Dillon would fly to Canada with her teammates to begin acclimating for the race in Montreal, and Kam would head back to Los Angeles. It would be months before they saw each other again.

Sam curled a lip. "They say love is blind. Apparently, it's deaf, also."

The Geordie turned a quick smirk to Dillon, awaiting some riposte, but Dillon's attention had detoured. Behind Sam, a flatscreen on the wall was showing highlights of Manchester City vs. Chelsea. On the silent footage, Kelsey was blasting across the pitch, drilling a ball through City defense, putting Chelsea up 2-1 in late minutes. Dillon had forgotten, almost, the joy with which Kelsey played. The happiness the game brought her. It made her wonder—not for the first time—if she still loved her sport the way Kelsey embraced football.

Did she still crave that first blast of cold water on pre-dawn swims in the winter? Did she still love the burn in her legs or the nearly hallucinatory collapse that came toward the end of a run, when her body was propelled on nothing more than stubborn will and a refusal to surrender? A sport that had her sleeping in a hotel bed two hundred fifty nights a year, disallowing her from putting down roots as insignificant as a houseplant.

Or, when she left in the morning for Montreal, was it someone else's dream she was chasing?

"Bloody Chelsea on their way to another title," Sam huffed, glancing over her shoulder to see what had caught Dillon's interest. The match highlights ended and a news story flicked on about an American Senator who'd been found guilty of arms trafficking. She turned her attention back to the table.

"Do you sing, Kam?" Kyle was asking.

Kam gave an noncommittal shrug. "A little."

His pale eyes brightened. He'd spent the last two days regaling Georgina and Harry about the events of Hana, and how if he hadn't been a complete tosser, Dillon never would have given Kam a bell.

He could keep that claim to fame, Dillon had assured him.

"Right, then!" Kyle thumped Kam on the shoulder, grinning from ear to ear. "Up you are, let's have a song!"

Taking a quick inventory of the nightclub and its rough and rowdy crowd, Kam smiled her decline. "I think I'll pass tonight."

"What about tit-for-tat?" he pleaded, half-risen from his chair. "I sing one, you sing one?"

"Only if you sing Girls Just Wanna Have Fun ."

"Oh, lord," Georgina moaned, "you've just challenged the wrong bloke. His favorite is Man, I Feel Like a Woman. "

"At least that one fits him," Harry teased, all of them protesting as Kyle sauntered toward the stage, where the mic hung invitingly open.

Dillon leaned across the table as Kyle falsettoed his way through verse after miserable verse of Cyndi Lauper. "You know you don't really have to sing. They're just taking the piss out of you."

But as the music faded and the audience cheered Kyle's swishing departure from the stage, Kam shot Dillon a covert smile. "Oh, one song won't hurt, I suppose." She took a final sip of her whiskey and offered Kyle a high five as she passed him on her way to the mic.

"What's your name, love?" the DJ asked, eyeing her approach through black-rimmed eyeshadow as he carefully smoothed a misplaced hair back into his lime green mohawk.

"Kam."

"And what'll it be tonight, Kam?"

Standing in the center of the raised platform, Kam detached the mic from its stand, looking out over the crowded room as calm and collected as Dillon had ever seen her. She didn't seem to mind the lights, or the focus of the empty stage, or the dozens of eyes turned in her direction.

"Well, given that it's Eighties' Night, how about I Wanna Dance With Somebody ?"

"Here here," cheered a ruddy-faced, bearded lad leaning against one of the high-top tables. "I'll dance with you!" He blew a shrill catcall. Kam ignored him completely. Her hip was cocked, her stance relaxed, one hand tucked into her jean pocket. It was clear being in the limelight didn't bother her at all.

It was a side of her Dillon had never seen. One more piece of a puzzle bringing her into focus.

"Out of your league, ya wanker," Sam shot off to the heckler as the DJ cued up the song, the opening lyrics appearing on the monitor. The audience, still keyed up from Kyle's hamming performance, had their full attention facing front. It didn't hurt, Dillon imagined, that Kam—despite her casual attire—simply looked like a movie star. That she looked like she belonged up there.

"I love a woman brave enough to take on some Whitney," the DJ hummed, settling back in his chair as the snappy percussion beat slid into the familiar synthetic intro. Kam's eyes skimmed across the crowd until she found Dillon, offering her a subtle wink and a smile, and then her attention was turned to nothing more than the song, with its soaring verses and chorus.

"A little?" Sam hissed as Kam effortlessly tackled the pop anthem, her voice rising above the music with a velvety warmth and fullness. "She calls that a little ?"

"Shhh," Dillon shushed her, unable to peel her eyes from Kameryn. She was—there was no other way to put it—remarkable. All signs of the sometimes shy, often self-deprecating girl who, not so many months earlier, had allowed the entire Hallwell family to walk all over her were vanished.

This was the woman who had caught the attention of some of the most powerful kingpins in Hollywood. The woman who had beaten out literally tens of thousands of others to earn one of the most coveted roles in movie history. This was a person Dillon had yet to meet—and as much as it thrilled her, it was also a little unnerving.

As Kam sailed through the bridge, onto the final chorus, and into the outro, the boisterous patrons cheered and whistled their approval, chuffed by the unexpected brilliance of the performance.

Settling the mic back in its stand, Kam flashed an almost reticent smile to the DJ, who looked out over the crowd and said "well, who wants to embarrass themselves and follow up that showstopper?"

Kyle stood as Kam returned to their table, her face flushed with exertion.

"I'd say my hat was off to you, but you're a hustler, Kam Kingsbury!" He grinned. "Are you certain it was movies you were made for?"

"Oh, don't you bother sitting now, pet," Sam was immediately on her feet, interceding Kam's retirement to her chair. "You can't think we're going to let you pull a fast one on us, and then get off so easy!"

A moment later, Sam had dragged Kameryn back to the stage with her, where the Geordie intertwined her brassy voice with the dynamic clarity of Kam's as they belted through a duet of (I've Had) The Time of My Life . Immediately following, Harry, who—unbeknownst to his teammates—could also sing, convinced Kam to branch out of the Eighties and join him for Se?orita , and then, as a final song of the night, Rewrite the Stars , from The Greatest Showman .

"Well, if he doesn't post a decent time for Montreal, at least he has something to fall back on," Georgina teased, watching their youngest teammate eat up the limelight, basking in his newfound stardom.

"Aren't you a little jealous, Sinc?" Kyle ribbed, chucking his chin at the stage where the duo harmonized the longing of lovers kept apart. "Your shower singing can't compete with that!"

Dillon shrugged, unworried. "I know who she's going home with tonight."

"Yeah, and if she keeps making moon eyes at you the way she does, so will everybody else," Sam teased, and then, seeing Dillon's stiffening expression, leaned over. "Don't get your dander up, I'm just ruffling your feathers."

But when Kam, politely refusing any additional songs, bypassed her chair and settled into the empty one beside Dillon, Dillon gently drew away from the shoulder Kam pressed against her.

She felt bad, aware of the silent apology Kam cast in her direction. Kam shouldn't have to apologize for sitting beside her, for showing her affection. But Dillon couldn't help but brace herself, feeling her self-preservation kicking in for what she knew was coming.

The first Sand Seekers' movie trailers were releasing at the end of the month. Kam was scheduled for a press tour with her co-stars beginning the week she got home to Los Angeles. Things were changing, fast. The next time they saw each other, Kam—whether she liked it or not—would be living the life of a different person.

"You were brilliant." Dillon smiled, trying to soften her withdrawal. "You know Harry's not going to shut up about this all the way to Montreal?"

Across the table Kyle laughed. "Montreal? He's going to be crowing about this until he's gray and old!"

"Something you have experience with already," Harry ragged Kyle.

"You okay if we call it an early night?" Kam whispered when Georgina rose to take orders for another round. "I'd love to spend what little time we have left alone."

Goodbyes said, Kam was stopped by the DJ at the door.

"If I'd known you were going to smash the Whitney tribute, I'd have recorded it for our video of the week!" He handed her a card. "I got your duet up, though—on my Insta, if you want to give me a follow. If you come back next week, I'll be sure to get you and your mates drinks on the house."

"Oh." Kam stared at the card. "I—thank you, but I'm afraid I'll be out of town."

"Well, when you're back in again, you know where to come!" He aimed a finger gun at her, clucking his tongue. "Don't forget to give me a follow!"

As soon as they were settled on the train to Waterloo Station , Kam pulled out her phone.

"Oh, thank God," she breathed a sigh of relief. "He's only got 159 followers. That video's going to get buried."

"You could make it 160," Dillon teased, and this time, when Kameryn rested her head against her shoulder, she didn't pull away.

"Do you know how much I'm going to miss you?" Kam asked, her eyes closed.

Dillon slipped her arm around her. "Double it, and you'll know how much I'm going to miss you."

"You don't get to win everything," Kam stuck her thumb into Dillon's ribs, not bothering to open her eyes. "I have this one on lock. I'm going to miss you more."

"I could try to come see you?" Dillon said, after a moment. "After Málaga?"

Kam settled more heavily against her. "Don't give me false hope." She sighed. "Let's just stick to our plan."

It was the smart thing to do, Dillon knew. Five months wasn't forever. Kam was going to be weighed down with promotional obligations prior to the premieres, and Dillon had to focus on her season.

Come the holidays, they would have time to spend with each other. Time to see what life looked like from there. To move forward, building a future on a landscape neither was certain how to navigate—but one, they promised, they'd figure out together.