Page 3

Lori

As I poured my coffee at breakfast the next morning, I couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone was watching me. Poor Lori, that must have hurt ! Is she ever going to get back to her best? What about her nerves on descents? Surely, after a crash like that, you’ve gotta feel scared.

Pre-crash Lori would have eyeballed them right back and invited a fight, but I couldn’t quite find her yet. I would, at some point during training camp. I’d be back to my best – the best – and my teammates would win with me.

But that morning, the lingering worry that they were right wouldn’t leave me alone, even though no one was actually looking at me.

I turned the filter in the coffee machine with a yank that was harder than necessary and pressed the button for the water to run through. I only managed a shit coffee: slightly overbrewed, crema wonky and disturbed, but that was me today.

Not sure where to sit, I dawdled serving my porridge and listened to my teammates laugh and chat as they caught up after the couple of months’ break.

Bonnie snorted her coffee as Doortje related a story about the Dutch National Team post-Worlds party.

Leesa had been gravel racing again back home in the US – in between study for her fancy degree.

When I glanced over my shoulder at them, they were all smiles and friendly squeezes with each other, happy to be back together again.

What amusing anecdotes did I have? That I’d babbled some nonsense about hot Olympic swimmers while the anaesthetic was kicking in during my second round of surgery?

I imagined bringing my tray to their table and attempting a smile – which, in my current mood, would look like a creepy viral hoax – and killing all of the team spirit while they avoided the topic of my fitness.

The men’s team had similarly formed good-humoured groups at various tables – my Italian ex thankfully no longer among them.

Although there were a few new faces, I knew most of the guys well after a few years of these training camps: Lars, the Swedish lead rider who was getting on a bit now; Nelson, a support rider who was getting married this year even though he was only my age; and Amir from Algeria, the only rider in the World Tour peloton with Arabic roots.

These guys would rally around Colin this year, now my brother was 23 and maturing – in the saddle. He was not mature in any other context and I doubted he ever would be.

Neither my brother nor my dad had appeared in the breakfast room yet, but I decided I could grab a table and wait for them to avoid vacant conversation and overthinking. Turning warily, I scanned the room for a free table – and discovered someone was actually watching me.

Him .

I did not need that zing up my spine.

He seemed as surprised as I was when our gazes clashed, although he’d started it.

For a heartbeat too long, we just looked at each other across the tables.

I really didn’t need my lungs to seize up and the room to grow fuzzy in the background.

He was far too cute, with that swirl of hair I could run my fingers through.

But it wasn’t only that. It was the way he gazed at me, his brow askew, as though he couldn’t quite believe he could see me, as though I were a ghost or…

Taylor Swift or something. Or a puzzle. The thought didn’t help the fizz in my veins as the moment stretched much longer than I should have let it.

The doors slid open and Dad appeared – just in time to let me breathe again.

Gritting my teeth, I swallowed the stupid tingles of attraction before Dad could notice anything.

He’d hugged me while I cried the most pitiful tears over my useless boyfriend – as much as a gold medallist and national champion could be useless – last year and I didn’t want him thinking it could happen again.

Dad had thankfully never found out about LoonieDunes, although I’d had a few close calls with Mum.

I hated to think of the lecture I’d receive about taking my training seriously if he’d worked out why I was online so much – and hopefully he would never discover that I’d let that online friendship drift into murky personal territory. I didn’t want to admit that to myself.

That part of my life was over – my injury, the conversations with LoonieDunes. I would be ‘Top Gun’ again in no time and shake off this panicky version of myself, who got squishy over an online friend and projected the image of him onto the first new guy she met.

I’d hoped ruthlessly ghosting him would get rid of the weakness, but my brain was apparently more stubborn than that.

‘Molly, my girl!’

The short, wiry form of the ‘Irish bullet’, team manager and former national road-race champion – my dad, Tony Gallagher – whooshed into the room with his usual gusto.

‘Morning, Dad.’

Taking a seat at a spare table with my back to Sébastien Franck, I waited for Dad to join me, sipping my coffee.

‘Sleep well?’

I nodded, even though I’d rolled around a bit, as I often did these days, when my muscles stiffened up.

‘Back on the road with the girls today!’

I forced a smile in response, hating that the prospect filled me with dread. ‘Oh, I got a message from Mum,’ I said, changing the subject. ‘She told me to ask you about that quote for garden work at home?’

The message had been a little strange, but I knew Dad got so deep into his strategising as he planned the season that I hadn’t been completely surprised he’d forgotten something. But his expression when I mentioned it was weak and uncertain.

‘All right, love. I’ll get back to her,’ he mumbled.

That feeling of everyone watching me returned in force, but this time I recognised the anxiety for what it was: the feeling that nothing had returned to normal and this year would not run as smoothly as I needed it to.

As I was quietly not panicking, Dad glanced up suddenly and raised his hand. ‘Frankie! You done already? Come and sit down, son.’

Goosebumps swept up my forehead and I was afraid I was blushing – for no reason, I tried to remind myself.

It didn’t help that he seemed equally hesitant. ‘Euh…’

Keeping my eyes trained on my porridge, I ignored him – really quite rudely – as Dad insisted he join us. But the hairs on my arms stood up when he took the chair next to mine.

‘Settling in okay? I hear Amir snores. If you need some ear plugs, we’ve got plenty.’

‘Thanks,’ he replied, with a hint of a chuckle that I wished I could un-hear. Everything he did reminded me of soft words in my headset, breaths, panting jokes as we pushed each other on the stationary bike, separated by the distance of half a world.

It was a good thing I’d ghosted him or I’d be even more distracted from the only goal that counted this year: winning.

In an awkward pause, I caught him glancing at me again and looked down at my outfit to check there wasn’t anything off. But no, I had on my usual baggy T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms, no make-up to smear.

‘You won’t take Colin’s stunt too much to heart, I hope? He only meant it in fun,’ Dad was saying.

‘I know,’ Sébastien replied. ‘I understand Australians have a… unique sense of humour.’

‘Good man!’ Dad said, clapping him on the shoulder.

‘You could have just taken the doll off your bike,’ I added. ‘You don’t need to let Colin pick on you. It was childish and unfair of him.’

He gave an eloquent nod that had its own French accent.

‘He’s not going to win the Miss Congeniality award, but it’s not the worst welcome I’ve had into a new team.

’ He was still speaking, but I stopped listening when he mentioned Miss Congeniality .

A coincidence? At least this one wasn’t the fault of my overactive brain.

He’d actually said it – mentioned a movie I’d watched with LoonieDunes, before I’d dropped him like a hot coal. I wasn’t making it up this time.

But LoonieDunes was Canadian. He was a long way away, somewhere in the depths of the internet, not sitting right next to me, giving me goosebumps and looking at me with wide, honey eyes.

Wasn’t he?

‘Have you… seen that movie?’ I had to ask.

‘It’s a classic,’ he said, his tone oddly halting. ‘You probably… don’t like romcoms.’

‘I didn’t until recently.’ I wanted to curl the words back in as soon as I uttered them. ‘You like romcoms?’

‘Euh—’

‘You chatting up my sister again, Frankie?’

I’d rarely been happier to hear one of my brother’s stupid jokes.

The new guy leaped to his feet as though someone had just ripped hot wax off his legs – and, given he was a pro cyclist, he would know what that felt like. ‘I need to…’ He didn’t even bother finishing the sentence. He just took off like the Road Runner – another Looney Tunes reference, damn it.

‘You scare him off?’ Colin asked, as he set his breakfast tray down and collapsed onto the chair Sébastien had just vacated. ‘Good girl.’

‘Fuck off’ was the best rejoinder I could muster with such a fried brain. Colin knew saying ‘good girl’ was the surest way to piss me off.

He slouched over his coffee. ‘Did he take it okay or do I have to apologise for yesterday?’

Downing the last sip of my double espresso, I hauled myself to my feet. ‘How should I know? Fix your own problems.’ Without looking back, I headed for the sliding doors of the breakfast room.

Behind me, I heard my dad’s Irish-Australian brogue. ‘That’s my girl. She’s back.’

Lucky he didn’t know the truth.

Seb

Too much philosophy was more a weakness than a strength in the competitive world of pro cycling.

Psychology was useful, sure, although you had to believe it and I’d never quite managed that part.

As I stood in the cool morning sunshine outside our hotel in Girona, gazing at the wisps of cloud and the distant belltower of a historic church, I was deeply philosophising, even though I should have been getting in the zone for our next training ride.