Page 10

Seb

It made no sense that something that hurt this much could be so wonderful.

I was broken; my lungs hurt, my blood hurt. I was so far past muscle pain that my legs had transcended physical matter. My head pounded and my stomach roiled and nothing would stop me on this last ride of the camp.

Perhaps something should have stopped me, but I’d switched off the cautious part of my brain at the first winding descent, high on gravity and adrenaline and the ragged peaks of the Girona Pyrenees.

Grassy alpine pastures with patches of snow spread out before me and in the distance, the figures of endless summits rose white and grey and blurred with mist.

It was freezing cold – actually below zero up here, while Girona enjoyed a civilised 11° Celsius – but I didn’t notice. My metabolism was on fire, and I didn’t care what happened to me afterwards, as long as I reached the little flag Colin had programmed into my phone.

I didn’t know where the others were but somehow my motivation was always better on a solo breakaway, the gruelling doomed act of a racer who doesn’t know any other way to win against better competition.

Perhaps that’s why I kept going, when I really should have known – when part of me did know – that something wasn’t right. This stuff would be great fun to unravel with a therapist when I quit riding pro.

The climb finally levelled out and after a few more metres of pedalling like a maniac, I shot past the virtual flag like a sprinter on the Champs-élysées.

The entirety of Catalonia opened up before me – big hills followed by little hills and the haze of the sea, lost on the horizon – and I was the winner of my own perverse race against myself. It was my favourite kind of race.

I decelerated slowly, making wide loops and drunken figure eights on the lonely road as my legs gradually released the tension. The cocktail of acids and adrenaline in my blood receded a little, allowing rational thought to interfere – or rather, to regain control of my body.

I quickly realised that Colin had finally got the better of me. I laughed and gave him a two-fingered salute with my stiff hand, even though he must have been miles away.

‘Well played, bastard,’ I muttered. Either he was very clever and had planned to use my own unhelpful psychology against me, or he’d got lucky, but Colin’s last prank had hit the jackpot.

There was no one there, on that lonely pass.

No team car. No backslapping trainers – not even any side-eye from Tony Gallagher.

When I’d unexpectedly dropped them back in Ripoll, my teammates must have turned off and headed to the real meeting point, while Colin had programmed somewhere different into my phone, leaving me stranded on the Coll de la Creueta, a windswept mountain pass, where I couldn’t climb into the team coach and head back to Girona in time for a late lunch.

It would only have been chicken, vegetables and rice – as always – but I couldn’t hold back a helpless whimper when I realised I wasn’t getting any soon.

With a deep sigh that only dragged the icy air into my body, I checked the map, plotted a route and set off again, one leg dangling limply as I headed down the mountain.

I had no food and not much water with me, only the payment app on my phone, if anyone up here in the mountains accepted that.

If Colin had been a real dick about it, there might be a miserable 120 km in front of me.

I could call someone, but my pride stopped me, imagining them all gathering around waiting for the ring and guffawing as I babbled in a panic.

As I zipped down the other side of the pass, I mused that I’d been waiting for something like this to happen.

I couldn’t decide whether it had been the most hellish training camp of my life or the highlight of my career.

Matilda had slowly deflated over the past two-and-a-half weeks – a warning that I had perhaps peaked too early?

I was in the form of my life. Despite the side-eye, I’d impressed Tony Gallagher and the men’s directeur sportif, Alan Hargreaves.

My legs had been so good, I hadn’t recognised myself and I’d tried hard not to grow too confident in them.

Anything could happen in this sport and it usually happened to me.

I had earned the trust of Tony Gallagher and – I hoped – the respect of Colin.

He was the lead rider and even though I would only be drafting him towards the finish line until my legs gave out, helping him to save energy, the domestique to a leader was still recognised as a damn good rider themselves.

I would most likely start the Tour de France one last time.

But every time I looked at Colin, I saw Lori and my thoughts scrambled. It had been maddening trying to avoid her, when I saw her every morning at breakfast and every evening at dinner – and every night in my inappropriate dreams.

It wasn’t only me she kept at arm’s length; she’d often sat alone before a ride and even when she sat with her teammates, there had been a pride, an intensity to her that discouraged intimacy.

She was right that we should leave things between us. She was too young for me, too ambitious. That was the simple explanation anyway – more than enough to convince me to keep my distance before I even considered how quickly all my other attempts at intimacy had gone down the toilet.

I dropped a couple of hundred metres of altitude quickly as the rocks and meadows flew past and little stone villages appeared and disappeared in the distance.

Could I retire here and run a training camp for amateurs?

I knew a couple of guys who’d done that, but they’d had families to support the endeavour and I’d never managed to make anyone stay in a relationship – let alone move somewhere for me.

My phone vibrated as I whipped around a hairpin bend, the landscape growing forested, with a pink stone chapel built on a crag among the hills to my left. I gave myself a mental pat on the back for making Colin text me first, but the menacing clouds to the east meant I felt relief as well.

When I pulled over to check the message, it wasn’t Colin. It was an unknown number, but when I saw the words, anticipation rushed through my worn-out body.

Hey, it’s Lori.

She was typing more and I shivered as I waited for her next message to drop in, taking a moment to save her number in my phone as ‘Folklore’.

The guys just got back and told me what Colin did. Can you text me where you are? Weather forecast doesn’t look good.

There wasn’t anything much in the message, but I still grinned like an idiot as I fumbled to send my current location with frigid fingertips. A sudden Pyrenean gust confirmed her concerns about the weather. Her reply came quickly.

I can’t believe he did this to you – or that you fell for it! Get your arse indoors! It’ll take a while to get a car to you, but stay put. Get a hotel and have a shower before you cool down too much. I mean it, Seb. Look after yourself.

My head spun at the idea of Lori feeling concerned for me – and the prospect of standing under the warm spray, which gave me an inkling of just how dead I was on the bike. Checking the map again, I sent her a pin on the next town.

I’ll hole up here. Can you get a team car to pick me up?

Tucking my phone back into the holder and clipping one shoe into the pedal, I wobbled around the curve, the air cutting into my face and peeling a layer off my arse.

Taking a turn-off onto a narrow lane, the town appeared below, a cluster of terracotta roofs and grey stone buildings clutching the slope, facing sheer rock and a steep valley on the other side.

Ten minutes later, I’d pulled up at a charming house with faded wooden shutters and Catalan flags and the sign I’d been looking for: a hand-painted one bearing the word ‘fonda’ – an inn.

The receptionist hadn’t blinked at my request to pay with an app and even offered to store my bike in the garage, as though bedraggled cyclists with no money limped into the hotel every day. Standing under a hot shower in the cramped bathroom, I thought Colin might have been a genius.

It was uncomfortable to put my jersey and bibs back on, but that was a small price to pay for the black bean stew and a salad with enormous hunks of crumbly goat’s-milk cheese.

Fuck chicken and rice. Like the last day of the Tour de France, I ate and savoured and rewarded my wrecked body with calories, salt and protein while my brain indulged in memories of Lori Gallagher sitting across the dining room at the team hotel.

My phone rang as soon as I returned to the room, where I would happily have stayed a few hours longer. Snatching it up with a sigh, I blinked back a giddy smile to see the name ‘Folklore’ flash up.

‘Hey,’ I answered, hoping she didn’t hear the eagerness in my voice. ‘I thought you were the team car, come to get me. I quite like it here. Do you realise that now I have your number, I might text you sometimes?’

Her laugh was a rueful huff. ‘You’re allowed to text me congratulations when I win.’

‘Do you mean that? I might be texting you all the time, then.’ I stretched out on the bed with my arm above my head. ‘Give you something to look forward to.’

‘Ha ha. Yes, I mean it, but that’s all you’re allowed to say in the text. I am the team car, though,’ she said drily. ‘At least, I’m driving it.’

It took me a moment to swallow the ball of delight in my throat and convince myself to stay cool. She wasn’t here because she wanted… me.

‘Oh, you— Yourself— That was quick. Did you leave right after your ride? Have you eaten? There’s a really nice restaurant here. If you’re hungry, we could…’ So much for staying cool.

She paused for a long moment – torturously long, since I couldn’t breathe properly. ‘Want to text me exactly where you are?’ she asked. ‘I’ll be there in a minute.’