How's she supposed to look at that as anything other than a challenge? The glance over his shoulder, the camera-flash of a smile, catching the sun like it's glinting off a mirror, doing nothing but adding gasoline to the fire. Her legs feel rubbery, muscles past strain and into the perfect clarity of performance and perseverance as she leans into the final sprint downhill. Dirt and volcanic dust spitting from where her shoes hit, arms engaged and held at easy ninety degree angles, tucked tight unless she needs them for balance.

Accepting the challenge. Like always. Except it's not about Steve, or the day, or the week, or leave. It's about the tension and spring in her knees, the sweat-sheen on her skin, her heavy ponytail, the delirious haze of breath and sunshine and breeze.

And freedom in every step, every further push for speed, each buckle she loosens until she's in a dead sprint and all thoughts of a twisted ankle or a face full of rock and gravel or a broken wrist from catching herself on the stairs are gone, evaporated in the hum of heat and the pattern of her pace. Aiming like an arrow at the parking lot that's rapidly growing, the land that's flattening back out. The lift and fall of each step, like she could fly right off the mountainside, every thud of pulse and ricochet of breath sending her spinning off into the blue like a bird, chasing Steve's footfalls to the tapering edge of the mountain.