Page 41

Lori

I stormed through the hotel that evening, full of adrenaline and turbulent energy and frustration. Dad saw me, opening his mouth to say something, but he wisely reconsidered. I didn’t know which room was Seb’s, but I was prepared to knock on every fucking door until I found him.

He’d stopped believing, I could tell. He’d forgotten what he was capable of and would write his own failure if I couldn’t talk some sense into him.

I was annoyed as all hell and he would feel my wrath. It was the only thing I could do to hide how much it had hurt when he’d refused to kiss me.

The pounding of my heart warned me I was acting on impulse – chaos muppet Lori. But I didn’t have the luxury of thinking this through – or any idea how long it would take for me to recover from seeing him cruise in, blood trickling down the side of his face.

He was okay. I’d spent the past two hours pausing regularly to tell myself that.

Seeing a swannie with the first-aid case emerging from one of the bedrooms, I took a punt that it was the right one and stomped in before the door could close. It served me right that I was greeted by the sight of my brother’s bare arse.

Whirling around with a groan, I covered my eyes as well for good measure. ‘Can’t you guys ever wear clothes?’

‘I could be happily naked if you learned to knock,’ he quipped through gritted teeth. ‘Did you summon the witch, Frankie?’

‘I strongly advise you to get out of my sight as soon as you’ve covered up your bits, adopted child.’

‘With pleasure,’ he muttered, brushing past me when he was dressed and pulling the door firmly closed behind him.

‘You know, I still can’t tell if you two are really close or worst enemies,’ Seb said mildly from behind me.

‘Both. Always,’ I said, hesitating as I gathered my thoughts as best I could – which was more difficult now I’d heard his voice.

Bracing myself, I turned to find him sitting on the massage table that had been shoved into a corner of the room, a T-shirt in his hand.

His shoulder was draped in dressings, with a bandage around his elbow.

His eyebrow had been patched up with two little butterfly bandages and his eyes were bloodshot.

‘What time are you leaving tomorrow?’ he asked evenly, throwing me off balance.

‘Early.’

His single, curt nod made me feel out of control. ‘You’ll be able to focus on your training.’

‘Why are you so interested in my training?’

‘You’ve been following the men’s race for days.’ He gave a gruff sigh. ‘I hope it won’t impact on your performance.’

‘I’ve been on the bike every morning,’ I said defensively. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’

‘But you’ve had enough setbacks because of me. It’s your time now.’ He tugged the T-shirt gingerly over his head and manoeuvred his injured arm into the sleeve.

His calmness – his wrongness – set me off and I planted my feet in front of him, my hands on my hips.

‘You idiot. It’s your time, Seb. You’re the one in the middle of the Tour de fucking France.

It’s day three. It’s way too early to give up.

We all make mistakes. I know you crashed today and I know it hurts like hell, but you need to get up again and hit the road!

Leave today behind you. You haven’t retired yet! ’

A crooked smile grew on his face. ‘Thanks for the pep talk, Lore. You’ll make a great road captain one day.’ He blinked something back – it probably even hurt him to smile right now.

‘Except you’re not listening to me!’

He looked me in the eye, his gaze intense, but dark in a way that was unfamiliar.

‘I am listening. I’ve been listening very closely to you since the first time we chatted on the server.

I’m going to get up tomorrow and get Colin over the line – and do that every stage until the Champs-élysées.

But it’s the end for you and me. You’ve worked that out, haven’t you? ’

My stomach twisted. ‘We said after the Tour,’ I began, but he shook his head to cut me off.

‘There’s no time left, Lore. I’ve been your mistake and it’s time for you to leave me behind you.’

My breath spluttered out like the flame of a candle. You’ve worked that out, haven’t you? I’d felt something – feared something. But my stubborn heart didn’t want to accept it.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You’re back at your best. You don’t need me any more and I won’t change my mind about retiring.’

I felt as though he’d physically pushed me. ‘Do you think I’m only with you because I need you?’

‘We created the fake relationship,’ he reminded me, in an infuriatingly reasonable tone.

‘Yeah, but that was all a load of crap I made up because I wanted to kiss you without freaking out my family – my coach !’

If I’d hoped that statement would have an impact, I was disappointed.

Alarm rippled across his expression, but then his brow hardened.

‘You needed an excuse to kiss me because you knew your “coach” had a point, Lori. It’s not the right time for a relationship.

’ I hated how calm he was. ‘I’m maybe not the right person,’ he added, his expression drawing tight.

‘You have years to live and race and work out what you want. My time is up.’

How could he not be the right person? He was LoonieDunes. He’d been holding all my fears and vulnerabilities for months and I didn’t want anyone else. ‘You’re not dying , Seb! You’re just quitting. It doesn’t have to mean—’

‘We both know it means the end of… whatever this is too. You’re twenty-six, a world-class cyclist. I can’t give you the time you need to think about settling down.’

‘You mean you won’t . Things got real and now you’re running away.’

He wrenched his gaze from mine, his chest heaving, but I didn’t feel any satisfaction to have made him feel something. ‘If I’m running away, it’s for both of our sakes!’

He kept talking, part of me wanting to stop him before he ruined all of my memories. ‘You don’t even know if you want me for real. If not today or at the end of the Tour, one day you’ll leave and the longer I’m with you, the harder it will be when you’re gone.’

‘So you’re leaving me first?’ I shot back.

‘Where could we possibly go?’ The strain in his voice cut into me. ‘If I stopped you reaching your goals—’

‘Cyclists have relationships,’ I blurted out but, even as I said it, I shuddered at the memory of trying to make it work with Gaetano: constant travel, compromises, negotiations – and heartbreak at the end.

‘Some do anyway,’ I qualified in a small voice.

Now my nose was stinging and my vision swam.

‘What about that night? Didn’t it change something? ’

He hesitated. I could tell he knew exactly which night I meant, when we’d reunited after two months and discovered our feelings had got stronger, not weaker.

‘Didn’t it mean anything to you?’ I pushed.

‘Lore…’ he began, staring at the ceiling as though I shouldn’t have spoken. ‘It meant too much . You have to see that.’

I shook my head. ‘In that sentence, all I hear is giving up. I’ve asked you to stay and you’re still leaving.’

‘Yeah, stay in the team,’ he muttered grimly. ‘I wanted to stay, Lori. There were moments where I almost thought I would. This season has been the best of my life, and not only because of the results. I had something else to race for. Racing for you was… an honour.’

It was so damn hard to be angry with him when there were tears streaming down my face.

‘You have this all wrong.’ My voice broke.

‘I’ve been trying to tell you. You want the best for everyone except yourself.

You don’t believe you could be happy. You have so little self-respect you don’t believe we could be happy. ’

He swallowed heavily. ‘I was happy with you. On Zpeed. In Girona. It’s enough.’

‘Siena and Liège,’ I added, my lips wobbling. ‘On the goat farm. I was happy too, Seb.’ My tears fell in earnest and I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead, as though I could turn them off.

He sighed and hopped off the table to stand in front of me, lifting a hand, but pulling it back again without touching me. Perhaps he knew I’d break. ‘We pretended for a while and it was something I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.’

I wanted to shove him. ‘You’re making it worse!’

‘You’ll see it too, when I’m gone and you’ve got some perspective. We were always taking time out of reality – time you need to get back into your real life.’

Thinking back to what I’d said in December, in March, the excuses I’d given so I could reconcile my ambitions with how much I wanted him, I realised I’d been na?ve and selfish – and clueless. I’d had no idea what he would mean to me, how much I’d want to fight to make this work.

‘I might have said I didn’t want any distractions this year, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t fall in love with you anyway.’

Choking off my speech five words too late, I turned away with a flinch. Was that the truth? Was I already in love with LoonieDunes? I certainly felt like the loser in this relationship and damn Mum for being right again.

‘I… I know, Lore. I didn’t mean to make this so difficult for—’

He knew? I held up a hand to silence him before I broke in two right before his eyes – a new worst moment in my life. Taking one panicked step in the direction of the door, and then another, the realisation of just how dumb I’d been washed over me.

I’d thought my break-up last year had taught me a lesson, that saying I wasn’t in a relationship would be enough to make it true. In my defence, spending time with Seb had felt nothing like my dates with Gaetano. But Seb and I…

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…

The word looped in my head, because everything else was scrambled.

I’d made a huge mess of this. How had I not understood what my feelings meant?

I’d pushed him away when he was already so afraid of people he loved leaving him.

I’d ruined the best thing that had ever happened to me and all I had left was the chance at a crappy trophy.

I made it to the door, clutching the handle.

‘Lori, I’m sorr—’

Shaking my head vigorously, I cut him off. ‘You said we’d always be friends, but friends don’t give up on each other! Enjoy your cheese and your fucking B&B!’

His flinch was a poor consolation for the wrench of loss inside me. I’d missed a chance. My nose ran and my tears flowed and I managed to force myself through the door somehow, slamming it behind me, but for once, there was no satisfaction in releasing my explosive feelings.

Fumbling behind my neck, I yanked off the necklace with the two medallions, cursing when I used too much force and the clasp broke.

I’d lost him – completely. I’d lost.

Seb

The door slammed like an ice bath over my feelings.

It was what I’d wanted: something to make it hurt less when this was over.

Except nothing had happened the way I’d expected.

I found myself staring at the door, my fist raised as though I were about to knock, when really I wanted to bang it down, go after her and change the way the past five minutes had played out.

I wanted the hurt back, as long as she came with it.

The door flew open and would have caught me in the nose if I hadn’t had razor-sharp reflexes, honed by years of high-speed racing.

Colin stormed in. I wasn’t often struck by the resemblance between the two of them, but the stab of regret that this was the wrong Gallagher and not an opportunity for the do-over I suddenly, desperately wanted, shook me.

But what would I change, if I could?

‘What did you do to her?’

‘The right thing – I thought.’ Except why did I feel as though I’d destroyed something? The precious moments of the past ten months – on- and offline – gaped inside me like a wound.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t fall in love with you…

Those words were not supposed to emerge from her lips, not in any version of reality I’d prepared myself for.

I was the one who’d lost my grip on the boundaries and fallen in love.

I’d felt certain saying goodbye was the necessary course of action.

But if there was a chance she felt a fraction of what I did…

I could still see her face as she blurted it out: reckless Lori. And I’d responded in a panic with, ‘I know,’ like Harrison Ford in Star Wars , so stuck in my own misery of emotions that I hadn’t even told her how much it would break me to give her up.

‘It had better be the right thing,’ Colin growled. ‘You look like shit, mate.’

Gulping, I tried to settle my feelings so they weren’t written all over my battered body. ‘I feel like shit,’ I muttered, my voice gravelly.