My vision tunnelled. ‘I am not breaking his heart,’ I insisted, but the words came out stilted and breathy. I wanted to slap my hands on the table and yell, ‘He brokemine!’ Instead, I propped myself up with my elbow on the table and swallowed. ‘I really don’t think so. He never said… anything.’
Just that I wasn’t supposed to be in his head. Colin wasn’t flowery with his words, but he usually meant them. He’d said he’d missed me when we were apart. Sure, he said everything with a glint in his eye, but if I’d really hurt him, his heart and not just his pride—
Surely not. Colin was invincible – at least he pretended he was.
Lori’s words came back to me:Colin grew up years ago. He just hasn’t noticed yet.He puts pressure on himself. What Colin says and what Colin does are two different things.
When my eyelids sank closed, I could almost see a younger, leaner version of his face – staring at me in the fading light of a Malaga sunset – and something in me shifted.
I’d hurt him – during the biggest race of his career. He was such a professional that he was mostly keeping it together, but he thought I’d rejected him, that stupid hero, when he’d never given me anythingtoreject.
The first tear broke free and I swiped it hurriedly away. ‘What difference does it even make what either of us feels?’
Wil’s wince was relatable. ‘It is a very… delicate time.’
I remembered what I’d overheard when I’d first warily approached the table. His first priority had to be the Tour. After that, I wasn’t sure what could even change. We lived on different continents and I’d only just found my feet in my new career. But even though a long-distance relationship had to be difficult, I imagined those obstacles weren’t insurmountable – if he was interested in… surmounting them with me.
He’d probably joke it was a complicated sex position, I thought with a rather hysterical snort of laughter. Swiping at my nose, I discovered more tears on my cheeks and there was no point in hiding them.
‘This truly isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about.’ I straightened, trying to channel the sought-after professional I was.
Wil nodded. ‘I’m sorry for bringing it up. It’s your business. You’re a marvellous marketing exec and not only a… Well, I just feel a little personally involved, given how long I’ve known you two.’
‘It’s okay,’ I insisted. ‘I am personally involved in this team. It’s a fact. But that’s a good thing.’ I squeezed her arm and she pressed her hand over mine. ‘You all helped me find my spark again and I want to keep that going.’
The way I was almost brave enough to try to keep things going with Colin too, despite the obstacles –ifWil was right.Ifhis gigantic pride would ever let him admit he wanted to. It was a big if.
*
The second stage in the Pyrenees was tense, the whole team beginning to realise we had something to lose, now Colin was in the top ten. Watching the coverage, I felt the familiar pull as the grey rock and the mountain meadows filled the screen – for both my childhood excursions in Colorado and my time in the saddle.
This time I was also remembering a more recent ride – in the valley in Italy on training camp, where I’d looked up into the sky with Colin by my side, almost touching. The day’s stage would finish on the formidable Col du Tourmalet, forcing the riders to suffer up 20 km of constant altitude gain, some stretches at a ten per cent gradient, where gravity dug its claws into you.
Lori and I had done this climb last year in the Tour de France Femmes and I was still shocked I’d lived through it. I’d cracked about halfway up, clicking my gears right down and inching up to the finish at a fraction of the power I was usually capable of, but I’d pulled Lori for most of the race, giving her slipstream so she had fresher legs for the monster climb.
Unlike the dramatic switchbacks of some other mountain passes, so much of the Tourmalet was long and straight that I’d managed to see Lori attacking, a small speck well ahead of me, but it had made my suffering worthwhile.
Today it was the men’s turn – Colin’s turn. The mountain stages were a chance to separate the good riders from the truly great ones and I knew Colin had all the potential to be the latter – if he could work out how to reach it.
Potential… There was that word again. I suspected it haunted him as much as it haunted me, but I wanted him to make this race his own somehow so he wasn’t just suffering for his dad’s sake.
There was no space for all the team buses, so we bundled into cars and one van to drive up to the finish, every available screen running the footage. I was glad Tony had let Edgar, the logistics manager, drive, because he couldn’t take his eyes off his phone.
I was surprised how much time I spent glued to my own device, especially given the enormous landscape out of the window. The road to the pass wiggled through a neon-green valley that bordered on the rock and scree of the summits just above, five, six, seven of them. Being up here had always felt like touching the sun to me.
On the other side of the pass, the road was steeper – meaner – and would set the scene for the final battle of the day, although the peloton still had two other climbs to conquer before they arrived at the finale.
A throng of team and support staff milled on the opposite side of the hill from the finish line. A white marquee had been set up for the post-race protocol, including drugs testing and media. The yellow podium stamped with logos was under construction, the place where the current holders of the jerseys – yellow, green, polka-dot and white – would be presented at the end of the day.
It had already been 25 degrees this morning in Pau when we’d set out and the lower stretches of the race had been sweltering, but the col itself was a refreshing 18 degrees – 65 degrees as everyone in America except my parents would call it. Tugging a team-branded cap on to ward off the high-altitude sun, I hunched in the back of the van with Wil, watching the progress of the stage on her laptop.
A breakaway had formed, but no one expected them to hold out against the peloton. The big group was unsettled on the narrow roads and switchbacks, several teams jostling for control of the speed.
‘He’s marking him, the bugger!’ Tony said grimly. ‘What does he want with Colin? He’s only one position down.’
I quickly saw what he meant. The former Italian champion Gaetano Maggioli – also Lori’s ex-boyfriend – appeared to be shadowing Colin, although Nellie was doing a brave job getting between them.
‘He’s expecting an attack on your home roads,’ Edgar mused.
