Page 25

Lori

Waking up after the painkillers had worn off was a hundred times worse than waking up with a hangover. I couldn’t decide what hurt the most: my shoulder, my hands, my hip or my pride.

Doortje was still asleep, so I bit back my groan as I shifted on the bed. I didn’t want to face her yet. I didn’t want to face anyone. I’d basically told Dad to go to hell last night on the way to the hospital to have my shoulder scanned.

If I’d been back in Melbourne, I’d be hiding in the basement again – which triggered a vague memory from last night, some time after I’d told Dad to go to hell but before I’d been swallowed by drugged sleep.

Groping for my phone, I woke up the screen and the app was still open to the scene of the flaying of my pride. Damn it, I really had texted Seb, as though I were a needy barnacle when I lost, instead of the professional I was supposed to be.

Eek, looking back over last night’s messages, I had been a long way from professional.

Woozy memories returned with force: the relief as the painkillers started to kick in; how my body had relaxed into syrup and I’d found myself suddenly thinking about Seb’s hands, about the way he’d teased me with the towel and casually talked about fucking me.

Then I’d remembered his knees nudging mine as the sun set over Siena and I’d grabbed my phone to make a fool of myself.

I’d apparently conditioned myself to want him whenever I hit bottom and there was nothing good about that – well, except when he smiled, and wrote things like: Congratulations on winning – as many kisses as you want .

My throat was thick as I reread his message. He really wasn’t supposed to say stuff like that, making me imagine him watching my race, maybe checking me out. But then I shouldn’t have threatened to kiss him and goaded him to win.

It was thoughts of today’s race that dragged me upright to take some more ibuprofen and smear on the analgesic gel. Since I wouldn’t race for at least ten days, I could have taken something stronger, but after my recovery, I didn’t want to go anywhere near opioids again unless I was screaming.

Contorting myself into Seb’s baggy hoodie and strapping on my sling, I slipped down to breakfast, staring at the carpet and refusing to meet anyone’s eye.

As I shovelled muesli into my mouth – making a mess because I’d unfortunately popped my right shoulder – I scoured the cycling news for mentions of Seb.

There was almost nothing. Nobody had guessed that he would be a lead rider for the day.

I was desperate to know how he felt, but that was exactly why I’d told him not to message me.

I needed to be strong in my thoughts as well as my body if I was going to make it back from the miserable place I’d found myself in – far too low in the World Tour rankings.

But I was so sick of keeping my distance.

There was nothing I could do about my shitty luck.

The season was already a disaster. The way I’d manhandled the bike yesterday, I was restless and needed to shake things up.

I recognised the feeling and it usually meant nothing good, but I felt it nonetheless.

Ignoring Doortje’s concerned look, I grabbed my shoulder bag and left the hotel.

I might have told myself I was wandering aimlessly, but my feet took the quickest route to the velodrome.

Bypassing the concrete entrance to the spectator stands that looked like a brutalist municipal swimming pool, I skirted the fence and slipped through the back gate to where the team bus was still parked from yesterday.

Swallowing bitter memories, I climbed the steps to join the support team, thankful I didn’t have to explain myself as they all assumed I was supporting Colin and not fawning foolishly over Seb.

They spoke to me sparingly, as though my emotions were still close to the surface, but that was just one more frustration encouraging me to blow a fuse.

He had better win. I’d never looked forward to doing something stupid more than in that moment.

When one of the assistants turned on the TV and tuned into the online channel with English commentary, I plonked my butt in front of it, trying to resist the urge to tap my fingernails on the armrest of the seat.

Aiden, the middle-aged driver who’d worked for the team for years, placed a coffee and a banana in front of me and I somehow managed to spare him a moment to say ‘Thank you.’

As the race got under way, my stomach twisted in knots. The start was slow, the peloton wary and sedate as clouds billowed overhead, threatening rain.

The glimpses of Seb were frustratingly quick – a flash of his face, his sharp cheekbones.

I wondered if he had a redback drawn on his wrist, what other rituals he had for luck.

I sat on my hand to keep it still, desperate for something to happen to end the waiting, but knowing a break this early was usually suicidal.

I couldn’t help thinking that was the DS’s strategy.

He wanted to see where Seb would break. Usually, a domestique would have broken already, every time, dropping back for self-preservation after delivering the leader to the head of the race.

But Seb was riding a wave of luck and good form and I couldn’t help wondering if it had something to do with me.

‘Come on, Loonie,’ I muttered through my teeth.

The commentator and the DS saw the break at the same time.

‘ It’s Andreu! Francesc Andreu is going to have a go early and that’s quite a pace he’s set! ’

Alan’s voice was much more sedate over the team radio. ‘On the right, Frankie, Nellie. Off you go.’

Less than a second after the Spanish rider pushed ahead of the peloton, another five riders broke out and pumped the pedals in a burst of speed, attempting to follow.

Watching Seb on the screen made me wish we were on Zpeed and I could chat to him directly, or at least hear his grunts and heavy breathing.

I couldn’t gauge how much he was struggling, how long he could keep up the blistering pace.

When he stood out of the saddle, my stomach coiled and I couldn’t swallow.

He was using too much power and no one could sustain that for long.

He might exhaust himself and not even manage to stay with the lead group.

The camera followed him for several breathless seconds, catching the clench of his jaw, the muscles standing out in his thighs and the tattoos glistening damp on his calves.

He was tense, his face strained with focus and his body taut and rippling, and I had to swipe a hand over my mouth because I was too strung out to be able to swallow my own drool.

Even when Seb settled into the breakaway behind Nellie and I could take a shaky breath, I didn’t know how I’d get through another four hours of this.

And he had the hell of all the cobbles still to come.

‘ The only team with a pair in the breakaway is Harper-Stacked, ’ one of the commentators said, his tone intrigued. ‘ Do you think they forgot Gallagher? ’

The other commentator laughed. ‘ The only other explanation is that they’re letting Franck out to play.

I think we’re all interested to see what happens here, after some surprising performances from the domestique this season.

He’s got form . But to hold onto an early breakaway will take some serious nerve. ’

The commentators had hit the nail on the head. I wouldn’t have said that nerve was Seb’s strong point, but he couldn’t not win, not with my sanity riding on it.

The door of the bus banged open and I jerked back from the screen, crossing my legs in an attempt to look casual, as Dad emerged up the steps. His strained face crinkled into a smile when he saw me and I thought I might have got away with it.

‘What are you doing here, Molly?’ he asked as he pressed a kiss to the top of my head.

‘I just… wanted to watch the race and it’s better from here. One of the Gallaghers needs to do well, at least.’

He muttered something that sounded like ‘Tell me about it’, which made my stomach clench.

I knew he was in discussions with sponsors at the moment – he always seemed to be in discussions with sponsors.

Dad hustled for the money to keep the team afloat, while everyone else hustled for contracts – and that was before anyone had clipped a foot into the pedal.

It reminded me of Seb’s confession about retiring.

Lunchtime came and went, but eating was out of the question and I managed to put Dad off with a lie about a big breakfast. If my shoulder throbbed as the ibuprofen wore off, I didn’t notice as the breakaway sped inexorably towards the cobbles.

Dad muttered about Colin and occasionally called through to the assistant in the team car. He wasn’t allowed to talk to the DS during a race, after bitter experience. I was glad he was distracted with Colin that day and didn’t question me.

The comments over the radio were clipped. Seb asked for a Coke – even holding down the button of the microphone while he said please, the idiot.

A light shower of rain misted the landscape and as the breakaway ploughed into the first cobbled section, conditions promised a mud-bath.

A crash narrowly missed taking out Colin, making Dad leap up and tear out more of his thinning hair, but I wanted the camera back on the breakaway as they juddered past the quaint windmill in sector eight, kicking up mud.

The speed and conditions whittled the group down to four, then three, when Nelson finally had to drop back.

With 50 km to go, more chasers took their shot and another team was pushing the speed of the peloton, narrowing the gap to the lead group. Colin bided his time while Seb looked ragged out front, mud spattered up his back and smeared on his face.

Now he’d lost Nelson, Seb cooperated with the others in the breakaway group, sharing the lead to make the pace more sustainable.

I knew he would be past thinking by now, running on instinct and years of training, losing nutrients and fluids faster than he could replenish them, but there was no time to stop.

‘ Lead is fifteen seconds ,’ came Alan’s voice over the radio. The peloton was advancing, the mother ship approaching to sweep up all loose riders – and I truly was a mess if I was making a space joke. Seb would have a field day.

What would he think if he could see me hunched in front of the screen, biting my fingernails for him?

Picking up speed, the three-man breakaway hurtled onto the notorious Carrefour de l’Arbre.

Fifteen seconds later, all hell broke loose.

A group made a break to chase the leaders, while another rider hit a poorly placed stone and bounced off the barrier, careening back into the peloton.

Bikes tumbled and flipped, riders landing spread-eagled, and a typical mud-soaked Paris-Roubaix melee filled the screen.

‘ We’re just trying to see who’s down. There’s Janssen and Hurley – and Gallagher? Is that Colin Gallagher signalling to the team car? It is! His bike looks like another victim of the Carrefour de l’Arbre! ’

‘Bleedin’ ’eck! Just one year I’d like to not wreck a bike here!’ Dad cried.

The team cars were caught behind each other on the narrow lane and Colin had to sprint back on foot to change bikes, dropping more than two minutes behind the leaders before he started off again.

I felt faintly guilty to be relieved when Dad stomped back out of the bus in frustration, but I definitely didn’t want to explain why my nerves were likely to get worse from here.

A group of chasers caught Seb and the breakaway just before the turn and I held my breath, picturing the many disasters I’d lived through myself on that single curve.

The new lead group was restless and too big and travelling at speeds that made crashing on the cobbles likely, rather than just possible.

Seb was hemmed in by other teams, riding a dangerous line between tumbling on the stones and running into a competitor.

Clenching his teeth, he pulled to the side to make space and promptly clipped the barrier with his pedal. He went down hard, his body bouncing on the stones.

I was going to be sick. The commentators’ voices were only gibberish in my ears and I couldn’t even make sense of Alan’s calm inquiries over the radio.

I could only see the heave of Seb’s chest as his breath came back, the smear of red down his arm when he sat up and then hauled himself to his feet.

Hobbling to his bike, he fished it out of the mud, threw his leg over the frame with a grimace and took off again, wobbling a little before he picked up speed.

The voice of the commentator rushed back in my ears as the panic receded.

‘ All is not quite lost for Harper-Stacked today, but Franck appears to be the last man standing and I’d say he has a hell of a task in front of him – assuming the bike isn’t damaged .’

The camera zoomed in on his face as he pumped it, dancing his bike over the bumps, his brow low and lopsided and his breath coming in gusts. His jersey was ripped at the side, showing his pale rib cage with a nasty gash.

‘ Is anyone… there? ’ came his voice over the radio, punctuated by a grunt of effort.

‘ I’m chasse-patate here. Could do with some help .

’ I knew the French expression – ‘potato chase’, when a rider is a sitting duck between the peloton and the breakaway – but my thought in that moment was how rarely I’d heard him speak French. I kind of wanted to hear more.

‘ Sorry, Frankie, the boys are stuck. You’re on your own ,’ Alan replied.

The camera caught him lifting his head as though measuring the task ahead. ‘ Okay ,’ came his muffled reply, on a pent-up kind of sigh. ‘ See you at the end .’

The hairs on the back of my neck lifted as I wondered if he knew I was here listening, if he was talking to me. He couldn’t be, but the idea of him racing to the finish to see me grabbed me around the ribs and squeezed.

He’d had a roaring race and he was nearly home. It would kill me if I couldn’t kiss him when he rolled in. I’d been an idiot to make that stupid promise.