Then Nellie’s voice sounded over the team radio and made everything worse. ‘The neutral medic’s with Colin, but we need help here!’
My nose stung so sharply I had to shove the ball of my hand to my face and my vision swam again. Sagging heavily against the passenger seat, I rubbed the raised scar on my knee as though that would help me hear some better news. I tried to tell myself it wouldn’t be the first time he’d crashed – I’d crashed over and over again during my career.
But I’d rarely needed a medic.
‘Alan!’ Tony yelled into the phone.
‘We’re on our way. It’s bumper-to-bumper.’ Then, over the team radio, ‘Can you give us any more information, Nellie? Any other injuries? Damage?’
It was Amir who answered. ‘We managed to pull him back onto the road and if his language is anything to go by, he’ll live, but he’s in some pain – to say the least. His bike’s a mess.’
The footage picked up a close-up of Colin and I couldn’t contain a yelp. The left side of his face was smeared with blood, a wound above his eyebrow still profuse. He was holding his arm, a powerful grimace on his face. He appeared to be shivering.
I couldn’t breathe for the unexpectedpainof seeing him like that, when he was supposed to be the larger-than-life leader who couldn’t keep down his own powerful personality.
‘I think we’re looking at wheel contact for the origin of the crash,’ the commentator explained, but I didn’t care any more how it had started, I only cared about how Colin was feeling.
‘Does he need an ambulance?’ Tony’s voice was approaching a shriek. If he hadn’t had the health and fitness of an ox, I might have been worried about him having a heart attack, the veins in his temples were bulging so severely. ‘Where’s Angie?’ Tony barked into the phone, asking about the team doctor, who was in the car with the DS. ‘I want Angie to check him!’
Alan’s voice came over the radio again. ‘Colin, Angie’s on her way. Hang in there.’
Tony muttered something under his breath about a concussion that made my hair stand on end. He looked a thousand years old, rather than his usual weathered hundred.
I had the unexpected urge to go and stand next to him for comfort, bump shoulders. Tony wasn’t perfect; he’d probably been a rotten father at times. But I could see the genuine fear, the worry in him and I knew what that felt like.
I suspected I knew exactly what it felt like to love Colin Gallagher: frustrating and intense.
Tony swallowed audibly and turned halfway to me. ‘Do you want to talk to him? We could patch through the radio. I think he’d respond well to that. He’s always responded well to you.’
Except when I’d told him I was leaving and he’d pushed me away – and I’d been stupid enough to let him do it.
His words from that evening in Guérande came back to me with a stab of remorse:It’s gonna kill me. I wanted to get on a bike and race to him, grab his face in my hands and tell him he meant so much to me, he’d scrambled all of my priorities. It was clear that was the last thing that would help him right now, but only my hands clamped to the edge of my seat in the van kept me where I was.
‘I’m not sure he’d respond well to me right now,’ I said weakly.
Tony’s grumble came from deep in his chest.
‘I’m sorry. I should never have let any of this happen.’
‘No, you shouldn’t have,’ Tony agreed flatly. ‘Neither of you. But the damage is done now.’
‘The peloton’s getting going again,’ Edgar interrupted warily, pointing at the screen.
Tony’s attention was off me in an instant. ‘Like hell they are! Someone put a stop to that! The boy’s still on the ground!’
As though turning its nose up at Tony, the coverage showed Colin bending his legs tentatively and then wobbling to his feet. Swiping something out of his eyes – blood and sweat, I imagined – he bent his head to allow the neutral medic to dab at the wound on his face.
‘Well, he’s up and walking, but the question is: where to? Back on a bike or into an ambulance. With the looks of those abrasions, I wouldn’t like to guess which. What a huge disappointment for Harper-Stacked – and Gallagher himself. Such a big rider, great to watch.’
My stomach twisted with a lurch of disappointment for him, but seeing him flash a smile at the neutral medic also flooded me with relief. I had wanted him to do well, but mostly I just wanted to be able to wrap my arms around him again soon.
My gaze was glued to the screen, curious about the way he was holding himself, surprised he didn’t look angry and frustrated. His hand rose to his chest and the radio crackled on.
‘Tell Dad not to have a heart attack. Nothing’s broken.’
Colin’s voice always got under my skin, but in that moment, it dug right to my heart, his deep, slow drawl with a hint of humour soColin Gallagherthat I could have cried. Wait, Iwascrying. Wil’s soothing hand on my back was a tiny bit embarrassing.
‘Just let me get patched up— Argh, fuck, that hurts!’
