She's No Beauty Queen

Mark was in a bad mood the entire time he escorted Lily to that cocktail party. He knew exactly why too. Her words in the car earlier hit him right where it hurt.

One of the people he admired most in this world—the one who had given him motivation to chase his dream after all hope was lost—thought he was spineless. Even worse was that she wasn't completely wrong.

The main thing he cared about was not living in poverty ever again and he couldn't exactly tell her that when she asked. Just about everything else fell under that umbrella.

Her accusation about feeling guilty if anything happened to her was true but not only because he had been the one to drag her into this. Mark cared about what happened to her because she was one of the rare people he genuinely liked.

Lily was perhaps the most fascinating person he had ever met. Bright, quirky, passionate, and brave. Everything he wasn't.

She didn't let anything stop her and hadn't for as long as he had known her. His seventeen-year-old self wanted to emulate that after their little talk so that was what he tried to do.

Mark had moved forward without letting where he came from hold him back and graduated from college with a job working for the most well-known businessman in the county lined up already. He wouldn't have been able to do that if he hadn't been trying to be more like Lily.

She had been right about the nature of their relationship too. He thought very highly of her but hadn't done anything to actually show that. He had been pretty tough on her while teaching her how to act more like a lady but that was only because he knew it was far outside her comfort zone and that she needed the extra practice.

They weren't friends. Anything nice or friendly he did had been the direct result of him trying to get his job done efficiently.

Mark hadn't taken her feelings or how astute she could be into consideration at all. Now he was feeling both guilty and unsettled. Probably because he actually did want to be friends with Lily.

She was a highly intelligent person that had a lot to say. He had sincerely enjoyed their conversations since meeting up again. He wanted to talk to her more and he had blown it by making everything about work.

It didn't change the fact that he still thought she was being reckless. Volunteering to be bait for someone who could be completely unhinged to kidnap her on the off-chance Angelina was still alive was a suicide mission.

Mark didn't want her to die. The world needed more people like Lily Bennett. There was so much good she could do that wouldn't happen if she unnecessarily put herself into danger.

What about her family? It was obvious how much she loved them and they loved her. She wasn't factoring them into this at all! Once she made up her mind about something the blinders went on and she couldn't see reason.

He wanted to try and coax her away from the idea using her family as leverage but he doubted she would listen to him right now. She didn't speak a word more than absolutely necessary to him all night including on the drive home.

The next morning Lily still had to come over to Eddie's house to get ready because she needed to look as flawless as possible without looking like she was trying to be for the pictures that would inevitably be taken at the 5k. She had a speech to give too as one of the public figures most supportive of the epilepsy research foundation hosting the fundraising run.

She wrote it using her own experiences with epilepsy and Mark was surprised that it didn't need tweaking at all to be more fit for public consumption. Then again, she was in college and had probably written a ton of persuasive essays. The concept was similar.

Eddie managed to get those trackers from the hacker he hired. There were six of them and due to their tiny size they were planted in all sorts of places.

Both of Lily's large fake pearl stud earrings. Inside the soles of her shoes. In her running bib. Even attached to the clasp of her bra. She had been rather embarrassed about that but she figured it would be the last place anyone would look.

Mark was inclined to agree but that didn't make it any less awkward to think about. He had no experience with such things because he always avoided romantic entanglements and hadn't grown up with any females in the house.

She certainly looked the part for her role today wearing royal blue leggings and a purple, blue, and green marbled tank top with black and purple running shoes. Her hair was in a curled high ponytail and her makeup was as light and natural as possible while still having it on.

Despite how fancy she looked he had no doubt she would be difficult to outrun. He had seen her in P.E. She had the fastest mile time out of all the girls and beat about half of the boys as well. He was worried about being able to keep up with her for safety purposes.

"I look ridiculous. This isn't what runners actually look like," Lily said in disgust after looking at herself in the mirror.

"Have you participated in 5ks before then?" Mark couldn't help but ask despite not knowing whether or not she would deign to answer after their sort of fight.

"Duh. They have them supporting various conservation charities all the time. It's a good way to fundraise and exercise at the same time. One year I even enrolled Genevieve because I couldn't find anyone else to go with me and pushed her all the way across the finish line."

He was more surprised they allowed someone in a wheelchair to enter in the first place than he was to hear that Lily ran while pushing someone in one the entire time and still managed to finish the race. That seemed like exactly the sort of thing she would do.