Page 99 of Head Over Wheels

Seb

There was no way I could wait a whole week until the end of the women’s race. Text messages and cardboard signs had been better than nothing, but I was free now the Tour was over. I probably would have blown it all off after stage 18 if I hadn’t known Lori would kill me for that.

Today the women would conquer one of the most iconic climbs of the Tour de France, the Alpe d’Huez, and I would be there to see her do it – holding a #FolkyDunes sign and my heart in my hand. I’d been an idiot for long enough. The instant she’d said her feelings were real, I should have told her I wanted to be together.

It couldn’t be too late, not when the image of her wearing a stage winner’s medal, holding a bouquet in one hand and a floppy cardboard sign in the other, was seared onto my memory. Posting our story in the subreddit with my silly Leia-Han Solo meme and a plea for help had worked even more swiftly and effectively than I’d hoped.One of the happiest moments of my life and I hadn’t even been there.

I was mostly packed and ready to head straight to Huez to make everything right. I just had to get out of bed first, which was easier said than done, as my legs didn’t seem to work – something about cycling 3,500 km across Italy and France over the past three weeks.

As I rolled over, a stab of pain cracked through my vertebrae. My hand shook as I reached for my phone on the bedside table. The veins in my arms stood out and I hated to think of the state of my legs.

Damn, I should have told her what she meant to me before I died.

Hauling myself up, even the heels of my hands hurt and, when I threw off the sheet, the sight of my legs made me flinch. I had a tan line as defined as the North Korean border, a spider-web of thick veins, as well as bruises and scrapes in angry purple and red. My head pounded after the champagne last night. I hadn’t hit the celebrating hard after I’d caught sight of that photo of Lori on the podium and decided I had to live today. But three glasses had been enough to throw me to the deck.

‘Stop shouting,’ Colin snapped from the other bed.

I thought he was dreaming until I realised I’d been groaning and gasping with every movement. ‘Sorry,’ I said, my voice gravelly.

One of his eyes opened a slit. ‘Why are you even awake?’

Leaning forward, I used gravity to help get me up, leaningon the bedside table so I didn’t overbalance. I felt 64 instead of 34 and if I hadn’t developed the wild conviction that gorgeous, 26-year-old Lori might actually want me, I would never have moved.

‘Going to Huez,’ I mumbled, moaning as I leaned down to fetch a shirt out of my suitcase.

Colin’s other eye cracked open. ‘You still messing with my sister?’

‘No,’ I contradicted him immediately. ‘Look, I know she probably deserves better than a retiring domestique, but…’

‘She knows what she wants, Frankie,’ Colin rasped. ‘And I’m pretty sure it’s you. Took you long enough to see it.’

‘Hope so,’ I said, studying him. Colin was young and he dealt with the pressure he was under in some stupid ways, but he was more perceptive than I’d given him credit for – and protective of Lori in a way I had to admire.

‘Fuck, you’ve got to get out of here before this FolkyDunes shit makes me sick.’

In the breakfast room, hastily inhaling a few croissants and hopefully enough coffee to get me to Grenoble, I called the one person who could enable my mad dash to get the girl.

‘What’s—? Do you know what time it is, Frankie?’

‘Already late. You know we have to get to Huez, right? How quickly can you get a car?’

‘I’m joining the women’s Tour tomorrow,’ he insisted.

Time for the big guns. ‘You’re going to miss three race days? When she’s in yellow?’

‘All right, all right. Give me twenty minutes,’ he grumbled.

When he arrived in the breakfast room, rumpled and sallow, he eyed me warily. ‘I thought it was all over between you two. I thought there was never anything between you to begin with! She’s ambitious – and young.’

‘I know,’ I agreed solemnly. ‘And I’m retiring.’ Taking a deep breath, I looked Tony in the eye. ‘But she’s important to me. I need her to see that.’

The sprinkle of emotional blackmail sank in nicely and, five minutes later, we were careening through Paris in a team car, sloshing coffee and risking our lives – or at least a traffic fine.

‘I like you, you know, son,’ Tony said stiltedly.

‘Thank you,’ I answered with a huff of a laugh.

‘You’re much better than the last guy.’

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