Page 19 of Head Over Wheels

My phone vibrated as I whipped around a hairpin bend, the landscape growing forested, with a pink stone chapel built on a crag among the hills to my left. I gave myself a mental pat on the back for making Colin text me first, but the menacing clouds to the east meant I felt relief as well.

When I pulled over to check the message, it wasn’t Colin. It was an unknown number, but when I saw the words, anticipation rushed through my worn-out body.

Hey, it’s Lori.

She was typing more and I shivered as I waited for her next message to drop in, taking a moment to save her number in my phone as ‘Folklore’.

The guys just got back and told me what Colin did. Can you text me where you are? Weather forecast doesn’t look good.

There wasn’t anything much in the message, but I still grinned like an idiot as I fumbled to send my current location with frigid fingertips. A sudden Pyrenean gust confirmed her concerns about the weather. Her reply came quickly.

I can’t believe he did this to you – or that you fell for it! Get your arse indoors! It’ll take a while to get a car to you, but stay put. Get a hotel and have a shower before you cool down too much. I mean it, Seb. Look after yourself.

My head spun at the idea of Lori feeling concerned for me – and the prospect of standing under the warm spray, which gave me an inkling of just how dead I was on the bike. Checking the map again, I sent her a pin on the next town.

I’ll hole up here. Can you get a team car to pick me up?

Tucking my phone back into the holder and clipping one shoe into the pedal, I wobbled around the curve, the air cutting into my face and peeling a layer off my arse. Taking a turn-off onto a narrow lane, the town appeared below, a cluster of terracotta roofs and grey stone buildings clutching the slope, facing sheer rock and a steep valley on the other side.

Ten minutes later, I’d pulled up at a charming house with faded wooden shutters and Catalan flags and the sign I’d been looking for: a hand-painted one bearing the word ‘fonda’ – an inn.

The receptionist hadn’t blinked at my request to pay with an app and even offered to store my bike in the garage, as though bedraggled cyclists with no money limped into the hotel every day. Standing under a hot shower in the cramped bathroom, I thought Colin might have been a genius.

It was uncomfortable to put my jersey and bibs back on, but that was a small price to pay for the black bean stew and a salad with enormous hunks of crumbly goat’s-milk cheese. Fuck chicken and rice. Like the last day of the Tour de France, I ate and savoured and rewarded my wrecked body with calories, salt and protein while my brain indulged in memories of Lori Gallagher sitting across the dining room at the team hotel.

My phone rang as soon as I returned to the room, where I would happily have stayed a few hours longer. Snatching it up with a sigh, I blinked back a giddy smile to see the name ‘Folklore’ flash up.

‘Hey,’ I answered, hoping she didn’t hear the eagerness in my voice. ‘I thought you were the team car, come to get me. I quite like it here. Do you realise that now I have your number, I might text you sometimes?’

Her laugh was a rueful huff. ‘You’re allowed to text me congratulations when I win.’

‘Do you mean that? I might be texting you all the time, then.’ I stretched out on the bed with my arm above my head. ‘Give you something to look forward to.’

‘Ha ha. Yes, I mean it, but that’sallyou’re allowed to say in the text. I am the team car, though,’ she said drily. ‘At least, I’m driving it.’

It took me a moment to swallow the ball of delight in my throat and convince myself to stay cool. She wasn’t here because she wanted… me.

‘Oh, you— Yourself— That was quick. Did you leave right after your ride? Have you eaten? There’s a really nice restaurant here. If you’re hungry, we could…’ So much for staying cool.

She paused for a long moment – torturously long, since I couldn’t breathe properly. ‘Want to text me exactly where you are?’ she asked. ‘I’ll be there in a minute.’

Chapter 8

Lori

When I’d briefly considered the possibility of catching Seb alone to see where things led, I had not imagined the opportunity would fall into my lap. I’d thought about cornering him in a cupboard and getting hot and heavy for a dirty orgasm and then – done. I certainly hadn’t pictured the most romantic hotel in the world, floating over dramatic rock faces in the impossibly beautiful Pyrenees.

I was still in my jersey and shorts, now caked with dried sweat. My hair hung in salty strands around my face and a fuzzy plait past my shoulders. I was no one’s idea of a well-turned-out date, but none of that mattered when I saw Seb waiting for me outside, holding onto the low lintel of the doorway and stretching.

I’d established he looked great in Lycra: powerful leg muscles, a labyrinth of angles and ripples in his arms and a lean, ridged torso. But it was his smile that made my insides twist withlonging – as though I was the only person in the world he wanted to see in that moment, sweat and all.

A sense of inevitability hit me like déjà vu. I’d fought the attraction for too long. I had to let this happen. Once. We could do this once and it would be all right. No one from the team was anywhere nearby. Camp finished in two days and then I was heading back to Australia for Nationals. Once wouldn’t hurt.

His smile dimmed as I came closer and he reached for me. I held out my hand automatically before I’d worked out what he wanted and he dragged me close with a kick of a smile that made me light-headed. He smelled like a strange mix of soap and sweat and I couldn’t think properly, waiting for him to kiss me, my whole body on fire for it.

But he didn’t kiss me. ‘Hey,’ he said, his voice low and rough. ‘You came all the way here for me?’ The wonder in his voice showered tingles over my skin and he punctuated his words with a squeeze of my hand.

‘I couldn’t make one of the support staff drive all the way here again because my brother is a little shit. He said he didn’t expect you to actually make it up here alone.’

---