Faking Ms. Right (Dirty Martini Running Club #1) - Claire Kingsley Page 0,3

it, I knew it worked for Mr. Calloway too.

I winked at Steve, and grabbed my phone. I had work to do.

2

Everly

My shoes hit the pavement in a steady rhythm, and I tried to concentrate on my breathing. Running wasn’t my favorite activity—I’d never been what you’d call an athlete—but something happens when you turn thirty. You just can’t recover the same way.

My girlfriends and I couldn’t, at least. Not from any of the things we used to do without batting an eyelash—or gaining a pound. Martini Mondays. Taco Tuesdays. Wine Wednesdays. Thirsty Thursdays. Fast-food Fridays (don’t judge). Not from binging on cheap pizza and chocolate ice cream because one of us had an epic breakup. And let’s be honest, best friends cannot shirk their gorge-on-crap-food-and-get-drunk duties just because said breakup occurred after the age of twenty-nine.

“Are we done yet?” Nora asked. She jogged beside me in full makeup, looking gorgeous as always. Her thick, dark hair was in a beautifully curled ponytail that swished and swayed as she moved.

Hazel looked at her high-tech watch. “Almost. We’re at two-point-seven miles. We’re doing three today.”

“Ugh,” Nora said. She was acting put out, but she didn’t even sound winded.

“Nora…” Breath. “You’re doing awesome.” Breath. “You’re not even breathing hard.”

“Her metabolic rate has improved,” Hazel said, pushing her glasses back up her nose.

I’d been best friends with Hazel and Nora since forever. The three of us lived in the same apartment building now, but we’d met in middle school and could have been voted girls least likely to be best friends. We were all so different. Nora had always been exceptionally beautiful—and popular. Men loved her, and women wanted to be her. Hazel was gorgeous in her own way, but she tended to minimize it. Plus, she was brilliant—an actual, bona fide genius. I think she even had a plaque somewhere.

And then there was me. People usually called me cute, rather than beautiful. Being blond and admittedly a little bit bubbly added to the cute factor. I had a reputation for being an optimist, and it was true. I tended to see the good in everything, and everyone—which occasionally got me into trouble.

Okay, maybe not occasionally. Maybe it often got me into trouble.

“You realize I’m only doing this to offset the copious amounts of vodka I’m planning to drink this week, right?” Nora asked.

“Nora, we’ve been over the benefits of regular exercise,” Hazel said. “For starters—”

“Stop,” Nora and I said together. We both loved Hazel, but once she got going on a topic, it was hard to shut her up.

“We’ve heard your statistics-laced lecture at least a dozen times,” Nora said.

“It’s really good,” I said between breaths. “Good information, I mean.”

“I’m just saying the facts are well-documented,” Hazel said.

The park where we’d started our run came into view, so we slowed to a walk to cool down. Streetlights winked to life above us. We usually ran in the evenings, and the sun would be setting soon. I put my hands on my hips and took deep breaths. Hazel pressed her fingers to the side of her throat, taking her pulse. She always recorded it at the start and end of every run. Nora pulled her phone out of her sports bra and checked her messages.

“Good job, ladies,” I said. “That was a great run.”

“It was,” Hazel said. “But I think we’re reaching a plateau. We might want to start incorporating fartleks.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Nora asked. “You didn’t say fart-something, did you?”

“Fartleks,” Hazel said. “It’s a Swedish term meaning speed play. It blends continuous training with intervals—periods of fast running broken up by recovery periods at a slower pace.”

Nora laughed. “I don’t see how running at any pace is considered a recovery period. It’s still running.”

“I don’t know, it sounds good to me,” I said. “Hazel can map out the program and tell us what to do.”

We made it to the parking lot and stood behind Hazel’s car to finish cooling down and to stretch. When we were all finished, we walked across the street to Brody’s Brewhouse.

It was possible we always came here to start our runs because Brody’s was right across the street. Their bar was one of the best in Seattle, and the bartenders never minded us coming in all sweaty. In fact, it was Jake, one of the regular bartenders, who’d given us our nickname—the Dirty Martini Running Club.

Jake was working tonight and gave us a nod when we came in. We chose a tall table with high-backed stools in the