Page 88 of Head Over Wheels

A crooked smile grew on his face. ‘Thanks for the pep talk, Lore. You’ll make a great road captain one day.’ He blinked something back – it probably even hurt him to smile right now.

‘Except you’re not listening to me!’

He looked me in the eye, his gaze intense, but dark in a way that was unfamiliar. ‘I am listening. I’ve been listening very closely to you since the first time we chatted on the server. I’m going to get up tomorrow and get Colin over the line – and do that every stage until the Champs-Élysées. But it’s the end for you and me. You’ve worked that out, haven’t you?’

My stomach twisted. ‘We said after the Tour,’ I began, but he shook his head to cut me off.

‘There’s no time left, Lore. I’ve been your mistake and it’s time for you to leave me behind you.’

My breath spluttered out like the flame of a candle.You’ve worked that out, haven’t you?I’d felt something – feared something. But my stubborn heart didn’t want to accept it.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You’re back at your best. You don’t need me any more and I won’t change my mind about retiring.’

I felt as though he’d physically pushed me. ‘Do you think I’m only with you because Ineedyou?’

‘We created the fake relationship,’ he reminded me, in an infuriatingly reasonable tone.

‘Yeah, but that was all a load of crap I made up because I wanted to kiss you without freaking out my family – mycoach!’

If I’d hoped that statement would have an impact, I was disappointed. Alarm rippled across his expression, but then his brow hardened. ‘You needed an excuse to kiss me because you knew your “coach” had a point, Lori. It’s not the right time for a relationship.’ I hated how calm he was. ‘I’m maybe not the right person,’ he added, his expression drawing tight. ‘You have years to live and race and work out what you want. My time is up.’

How could he not be the right person? He was LoonieDunes. He’d been holding all my fears and vulnerabilities for months and I didn’t want anyone else. ‘You’re notdying, Seb! You’re just quitting. It doesn’t have to mean—’

‘We both know it means the end of… whatever this is too. You’re twenty-six, a world-class cyclist. I can’t give you the time you need to think about settling down.’

‘You mean youwon’t. Things got real and now you’re running away.’

He wrenched his gaze from mine, his chest heaving, but I didn’t feel any satisfaction to have made him feel something. ‘If I’m running away, it’s for both of our sakes!’

He kept talking, part of me wanting to stop him before he ruined all of my memories. ‘You don’t even know if you want me for real. If not today or at the end of the Tour, one day you’ll leave and the longer I’m with you, the harder it will be when you’re gone.’

‘So you’re leaving me first?’ I shot back.

‘Where could we possibly go?’ The strain in his voice cut into me. ‘If I stopped you reaching your goals—’

‘Cyclists have relationships,’ I blurted out but, even as I said it, I shuddered at the memory of trying to make it work with Gaetano: constant travel, compromises, negotiations – and heartbreak at the end. ‘Some do anyway,’ I qualified in a small voice. Now my nose was stinging and my vision swam. ‘What about that night? Didn’t it change something?’

He hesitated. I could tell he knew exactly which night I meant, when we’d reunited after two months and discovered our feelings had got stronger, not weaker.

‘Didn’t it mean anything to you?’ I pushed.

‘Lore…’ he began, staring at the ceiling as though I shouldn’t have spoken. ‘It meanttoo much. You have to see that.’

I shook my head. ‘In that sentence, all I hear is giving up. I’ve asked you to stay and you’re still leaving.’

‘Yeah, stay in the team,’ he muttered grimly. ‘I wanted to stay, Lori. There were moments where I almost thought I would. This season has been the best of my life, and not only because of the results. I had something else to race for. Racing for you was… an honour.’

It was so damn hard to be angry with him when there were tears streaming down my face. ‘You have this all wrong.’ My voice broke. ‘I’ve been trying to tell you. You want the best for everyone except yourself. You don’t believe you could be happy. You have so little self-respect you don’t believewecould be happy.’

He swallowed heavily. ‘Iwashappy with you. On Zpeed. In Girona. It’s enough.’

‘Siena and Liège,’ I added, my lips wobbling. ‘On the goat farm. I was happy too, Seb.’ My tears fell in earnest and I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead, as though I could turn them off.

He sighed and hopped off the table to stand in front of me, lifting a hand, but pulling it back again without touching me. Perhaps he knew I’d break. ‘We pretended for a while and it was something I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.’

I wanted to shove him. ‘You’re making it worse!’

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