Page 85 of Head Over Wheels

Seb

I’d competed in the Tour de France eight times, but I’d never felt the way I did at the starting line that day.

The air was thick with summer on the piazza in Trieste, the arches on the square bathed in sunlight. But it wasn’t the stunning city – one I’d never visited before and wouldn’t have time to see now – that was different. I couldn’t remember ever having sex the day before a race and it was concerning that I could still feel her in my body. Maybe I’d fail the post-race drug test because they found traces of Lori in my bloodstream – one of the most potent performance-enhancing drugs I could imagine.

‘You all right, mate?’ Colin asked and I gave him a quick smile, hoping that would satisfy him.

No, I think I’m in love with your sisterwasn’t an answer for the moments before a race.

I was in a lot of trouble. She’d become so precious to me I was starting to understand that character inLord of the Ringswho sacrificed everything, only to become a jealous, shrunken husk of a person because the ring didn’t rightly belong to him.

Not that Lori was a ring. She was a person. And people were free to make their own decisions – decisions like when to leave me.

I’d awoken to her pressing kisses all over my face, with my heart ready to explode out of my chest. I’d never been happier about having access to a single room, even if it meant that Colin knew where I’d been last night – and I knew he knew, because of the pointed looks he’d been giving me all morning. I didn’t blame him. He was under a lot of pressure and my performance would have a knock-on effect on his.

He leaned towards me and said, ‘Are you going to ask me not to say anything?’ out of the side of his mouth.

‘Hmm?’

‘About you sleeping with Lori.’

‘I didn’t realise I needed to hide it.’

‘Dad still thinks it’s some misguided stunt for publicity. If he knew you were really together, things would change. And my mum is a whole other problem.’

Glancing at him with a frown, I wondered if he might be trying to help me, rather than warning me off. But that didn’t stop his meaning from sinking in: I was a stick in the wheel of Lori’s success – of Colin’s. I’d been in her room last night instead of resting up for the opening stage of the biggest race on the calendar.

I found her weakness beautiful, but she was stronger byherself. She didn’t need me to convince her. She’d see that soon too – maybe already today, if I screwed up the way I was scared I might.

‘We aren’t really together,’ I insisted. ‘Itisa publicity stunt – at least that’s why she keeps kissing me in public.’ I couldn’t quite stifle my rueful smile at the memories of her flying at me and planting kisses on my mouth and how they’d been the highlights of my season.

‘It’s not why you weren’t in our room last night,’ Colin said gruffly.

‘Don’t worry,’ I assured him. ‘I’m not coming back next year.’ I couldn’t, with these feelings choking me. ‘She’ll be free of me soon enough.’

‘Maybe not soon enough,’ Colin mumbled. ‘If Mum finds out you’re sleeping with her – casual or not – she’ll make life difficult for Lori. I try to take the pressure off her, but Mum’s always been—’

‘I know,’ I cut him off. Cold was already creeping over my skin despite the warm summer morning and the crowd of cyclists. ‘She told me,’ I explained when Colin looked at me in confusion.

‘She… told you?’

An image of Lori saying goodbye flashed behind my eyelids with the inevitability of a relationship with winners and losers. Except she might not even say goodbye. She’d ghosted me once, after her mum had sent her into a panic.

As I waited in the restless bunch at one of the defining moments of my career, I saw with sudden clarity that it wastruly time to give up. For Lori’s sake, for the sake of my own fragile emotional state, I had to giveherup – in four days at the latest, when she left for her own race.

‘I understand, okay? I’ll stay away from her. She’s heading off to train in a few days anyway and I know how important the Tour is to your dad.’ It was time anyway – time for this dream season to fizzle out.

‘Your… last Tour, then?’ Colin asked me quietly.

‘I suppose so.’

He extended a hand haltingly to me and I grasped it, letting him give me a slightly aggressive bro handshake. ‘We’d better make it a memorable one, then.’

Later that day, after I’d launched him into an attack, my legs screaming from too long at my limit, I dropped back into the peloton to rest with the satisfaction of knowing he had a good chance of finishing well in the first stage.

And then I was free to think of the woman waiting for me at the finish line. Glancing at the ‘X’ she’d drawn on my forearm herself that morning, I knew she’d be there. What I didn’t know was exactly why. I wasn’t going to be anyone’s hero today. This wasn’t a one-day Classic where I could go hell-for-leather and see what happened.

As Tony had said that morning, ‘A dead man is no use to anyone.’

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