Page 18 of Head Over Wheels

The photographer spoke before I finished my inarticulate humph. ‘Try a few poses. Have you seen the website? All the guys are doing something different.’

‘Poses?’ Seb repeated, his voice high. ‘What, like this?’ He raised his fists and eyeballed the camera as though ‘Chariots of Fire’ was playing in the background.

‘That’s great!’ the photographer gushed.

‘Really?’ Seb said with a chuckle. He puffed up his shoulders and crossed his arms in front of him, every ripple of muscle visible through his skintight jersey. But he ruined the effect with a wry smile.

‘Hold up an arm like a bodybuilder,’ the photographer suggested and I stifled a snort, wondering how mortified Seb would be later when he saw his portrait on the team website.

‘Pull down the zip of your jersey a little – a bit more,’ said the photographer and my hair stood on end. He stared into the camera, intense and a little uncertain. Tugging on the zip, I could imagine he was undressing for me, peeling off the layers so I could run my tongue—

He looked up, his gaze snagging on mine and he froze for a heartbeat. Or maybe I froze and my heart stopped beating. His mouth kicked up on one side and I was back in his hotel room, his hands on me, wishing my dad hadn’t interrupted.

I couldn’t afford another season like last year’s, full of setbacks and distractions and a giant, public break-up with a teammate, even before I crashed out of my life for three months. Ihadto get Seb out of my system.

As I watched him intently, my skin blooming with goosebumps and my heart trying out a Zumba beat, I wondered whether there might be a better way to do it.

Chapter 7

Seb

It made no sense that something that hurt this much could be so wonderful.

I was broken; my lungs hurt, mybloodhurt. I was so far past muscle pain that my legs had transcended physical matter. My head pounded and my stomach roiled andnothingwould stop me on this last ride of the camp.

Perhaps something should have stopped me, but I’d switched off the cautious part of my brain at the first winding descent, high on gravity and adrenaline and the ragged peaks of the Girona Pyrenees. Grassy alpine pastures with patches of snow spread out before me and in the distance, the figures of endless summits rose white and grey and blurred with mist.

It was freezing cold – actually below zero up here, while Girona enjoyed a civilised 11° Celsius – but I didn’t notice. My metabolism was on fire, and I didn’t care what happenedto me afterwards, as long as I reached the little flag Colin had programmed into my phone.

I didn’t know where the others were but somehow my motivation was always better on a solo breakaway, the gruelling doomed act of a racer who doesn’t know any other way to win against better competition.

Perhaps that’s why I kept going, when I really should have known – when part of medidknow – that something wasn’t right. This stuff would be great fun to unravel with a therapist when I quit riding pro.

The climb finally levelled out and after a few more metres of pedalling like a maniac, I shot past the virtual flag like a sprinter on the Champs-Élysées. The entirety of Catalonia opened up before me – big hills followed by little hills and the haze of the sea, lost on the horizon – and I was the winner of my own perverse race against myself. It was my favourite kind of race.

I decelerated slowly, making wide loops and drunken figure eights on the lonely road as my legs gradually released the tension. The cocktail of acids and adrenaline in my blood receded a little, allowing rational thought to interfere – or rather, to regain control of my body.

I quickly realised that Colin had finally got the better of me. I laughed and gave him a two-fingered salute with my stiff hand, even though he must have been miles away.

‘Well played, bastard,’ I muttered. Either he was very clever and had planned to use my own unhelpful psychology against me, or he’d got lucky, but Colin’s last prank had hit the jackpot.

There was no one there, on that lonely pass. No team car. No backslapping trainers – not even any side-eye from Tony Gallagher. When I’d unexpectedly dropped them back in Ripoll, my teammates must have turned off and headed to the real meeting point, while Colin had programmed somewhere different into my phone, leaving me stranded on the Coll de la Creueta, a windswept mountain pass, where I couldn’t climb into the team coach and head back to Girona in time for a late lunch. It would only have been chicken, vegetables and rice – as always – but I couldn’t hold back a helpless whimper when I realised I wasn’t getting any soon.

With a deep sigh that only dragged the icy air into my body, I checked the map, plotted a route and set off again, one leg dangling limply as I headed down the mountain. I had no food and not much water with me, only the payment app on my phone, if anyone up here in the mountains accepted that. If Colin had been a real dick about it, there might be a miserable 120 km in front of me. I could call someone, but my pride stopped me, imagining them all gathering around waiting for the ring and guffawing as I babbled in a panic.

As I zipped down the other side of the pass, I mused that I’d been waiting for something like this to happen. I couldn’t decide whether it had been the most hellish training camp of my life or the highlight of my career. Matilda had slowly deflated over the past two-and-a-half weeks – a warning that I had perhaps peaked too early?

I was in the form of my life. Despite the side-eye, I’d impressed Tony Gallagher and the men’s directeur sportif,Alan Hargreaves. My legs had been so good, I hadn’t recognised myself and I’d tried hard not to grow too confident in them. Anything could happen in this sport and it usually happened to me.

I had earned the trust of Tony Gallagher and – I hoped – the respect of Colin. He was the lead rider and even though I would only be drafting him towards the finish line until my legs gave out, helping him to save energy, the domestique to a leader was still recognised as a damn good rider themselves. I would most likely start the Tour de France one last time.

But every time I looked at Colin, I saw Lori and my thoughts scrambled. It had been maddening trying to avoid her, when I saw her every morning at breakfast and every evening at dinner – and every night in my inappropriate dreams.

It wasn’t only me she kept at arm’s length; she’d often sat alone before a ride and even when she sat with her teammates, there had been a pride, an intensity to her that discouraged intimacy.

She was right that we should leave things between us. She was too young for me, too ambitious. That was the simple explanation anyway – more than enough to convince me to keep my distance before I even considered how quickly all my other attempts at intimacy had gone down the toilet.

I dropped a couple of hundred metres of altitude quickly as the rocks and meadows flew past and little stone villages appeared and disappeared in the distance. Could I retire here and run a training camp for amateurs? I knew a couple of guys who’d done that, but they’d had families to support theendeavour and I’d never managed to make anyone stay in a relationship – let alone move somewhere for me.

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