Page 71 of Head Over Wheels

She nodded and I wrapped her in a hug of relief. I couldn’t have lived with it if she’d been injured again. She stilled against me, rigid at first, but slowly relaxing.

‘I came twelfth,’ she murmured.

‘That’s great!’

It was her turn to laugh. ‘It’s not great. I got caught in a crash and then isolated without Doortje and the others. It wasn’t disastrous, but I came second last year.’

Tugging off my helmet, I peered earnestly at her and said, ‘You’ll win it next year.’

‘Yeah, without you,’ she muttered.

It hurt, but when I noticed the necklace I’d given her around her neck, I didn’t blame her for the bitterness. Maybe her luck hadn’t been terrible today – perhaps it was still turning. But I was still tangled up with her recovery and not with her future.

I noticed a mark on the inside of her wrist and pulled back her sleeve to see a little faded redback on her skin.

Her blush was obvious on her pale face. ‘We all did them this morning. Did you?’

Grasping my arm, she turned my wrist over and peered at the doodle I’d drawn there this morning, now smudged from the rain.

‘Is that a redback?’ she asked doubtfully.

I shook my head slowly and swallowed the lump in my throat. ‘It’s an X.’

‘Marks the spot?’ she asked, adorably confused.

I cleared my throat and mumbled, ‘It’s a kiss.’

Embarrassment might have swept up my throat, but it made her smile, those gorgeous lips turning up into my favourite shape. She laughed, swallowing a snort, and said, ‘You drew a kiss? I thought you were mad at me.’

‘I am,’ I insisted, grasping her tightly around the waist. ‘But I was still thinking about a kiss,’ I admitted, making her look away with a scrunch of a smile. ‘A lot.’

The rueful look she gave me was enough to tell me I’d been right and we had to talk about our murky motivations and what the future held. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

‘You should go,’ she urged gently. ‘Get cleaned up.’

‘What for?’

‘Seb,’ she said, giving me a poke. ‘For the podium.’

‘Podium?’

‘You came third.’

‘I… whaaaat?’

Chapter 29

Lori

I hitched a lift back to the guys’ hotel with the swannies, hating that I was nervous. I wished I was just sneaking in to spend time with him – or even going on some wild scheme to get my luck back.

But no, I was here on behalf of my dad.

I was in full support of Dad’s proposal: a contract extension for next year. I might even have suggested it, if Dad hadn’t beaten me to it. But the timing was off. Seb was still mad at me, even though he’d kissed me as though his world depended on it. I hadn’t had enough time to convince him to stay and he’d sent that ominous:we have to talk. I hated to admit how many times that message had caught and hung in my brain during the race today.

He hadn’t replied to my ‘where are you’ message, so I asked one of the guys in the lobby which one was his room and banged on the door. When it flew open to reveal Colin, I took a step back in surprise.

‘What are you— Er, hi brotato chip. Nice win today. You finally managed to finish something.’

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