Page 44

Story: Head Over Wheels

Lori

My stomach was hollow with nerves and my bed was strewn with strands of hair I’d tugged out over the last unbearable hour.

A solo breakaway? He was an idiot. He was an idiot who’d cost me a year of my life that afternoon – a big-hearted idiot who made me want to yell and cry and jump in a car and drive straight to Tours.

Seb and Gaetano looked well matched in the final sprint, even though poor Seb had been solo for over an hour and Gaetano safe in the peloton. He was up out of the saddle now, duelling my ex with every muscle in his body – and he had some rather lovely ones.

Looking at the two of them, despite the fact that I was supposed to be still hurt and angry, I realised Seb meant so much more to me than Gaetano ever had. I’d been my best self with him. He’d made it all right to be me – me , and not just a star cyclist.

I wished, hoped that he’d been his best self too – and not only on the road.

They fought so hard; the bikes see-sawed and Seb’s expression contorted, his teeth clenched. As the finish loomed, his hoarse shout of effort came through on the video. Throwing his bike forward as Gaetano did the same, his wheel crossed the line—

Half a metre behind Gaetano’s.

After a heroic effort in a solo breakaway, during his last Tour de France, he’d come second.

He wouldn’t even stand on the podium, since only the winner got to do that for the individual stages.

Taking up the mantle of responsibility for the team, pushing himself out of his comfort zone – he hadn’t quite won.

And while I inwardly screamed in aggravation, I was far more frustrated that half of France currently separated us and I couldn’t grab him and kiss him and tell him he was a fighter and a keeper and he had to believe that now.

I held my breath, glued to the post-race coverage for his reaction with as much tension as I’d felt in the final kilometre.

Unclipping his foot, he staggered and fought to stay upright, then his bike clattered to the ground and he went down with it.

My heart seemed to stop. The coverage moved on to show Gaetano with his smug grin, hands up high as he sailed past the spectators, since Seb had fought too hard to allow him to raise his hands at the finish line.

When the video switched back to Seb, I hopped up on my knees, squinting close to the screen of my laptop as though that would help me gauge his condition.

Two of the swannies had reached him, tugging him to a sitting position and helping him to drink.

Then Dad appeared, slipping an arm around him to haul him off the road.

I needed him to be okay – not only physically, but to realise the enormity of what he’d achieved. It was suddenly clear to me that we’d both been right and we’d both been so wrong, those times when we’d argued about his retirement, about giving our all for a win.

My expectations had been close to impossible, especially the expectations of my healing body. I’d set myself up for failure instead of redefining success. Seb had never believed in success, so he was never disappointed, but then he’d rarely reached his potential – except today.

I was right to want him to fight and he was right, I was worth more than my palmarès.

But maybe if he believed in me and I believed in him, there would be a way forward there somewhere.

I didn’t want to change anything about him any more, I just wanted him to get up, to smile – preferably at me, one day soon.

Damn it, if the last text I ever wrote him was, ‘ Live long and may the force be with you ,’ I’d kick myself into the next lifetime.

The camera shot changed to pick up the peloton roaring through the streets of Tours, with Colin and Amir and the others comfortably among their number. But all I wanted to see was Seb’s face, to gauge how he felt.

Gaetano’s handsome smile filled the screen and I jerked back in disgust, wondering how I’d spent over a year with him when I felt as though I didn’t know him at all. Far from being tough, I’d been young and na?ve, thinking that an element of emotional distance in a relationship was normal.

I’d never been good at distance with Seb, which was why I’d been so afraid of getting distracted. But fighting my feelings had been a distraction too. Loving him, committing to each other would ground me and not put me off course – I was determined to make that the case.

When the footage showed a top-down view of Seb from within a crowd of journalists, his chest still rising and falling erratically and his hair a sweat-slicked mess, my heart tumbled to my toes.

His gloved hands on his hips and his shoulders back, his lean body filled the screen, all ridges of tough muscle.

His arm was covered in smudged pen marks.

He was alive and breathing and gorgeous and all mine !

His head was turned slightly to one side, listening to a reporter’s question, but I stared at his mouth as it twitched, holding my breath.

‘… a real Jedi moment for you today, but it wasn’t quite enough in that final few metres ,’ was all I caught of the reporter’s comment.

Bristling fiercely, I closed my hands into fists at the nerve of that guy reducing Seb’s achievement to ‘not quite enough’.

He’d made a solo breakaway and held on until the end.

He’d produced the team’s best stage result of the Tour.

And he was fucking hot in his tight jersey, every defined muscle pumped from long hours of endurance.

Seb’s lips broke into a smile – wide and twisted and self-deprecating – and something was overflowing inside me again as I stared at him. If he didn’t defend himself, I was going to lose it.

‘ Yeah, credit to Maggioli. He made all the clever moves .’

‘ You fought it, you fucking wonderful idiot!’

Seb continued, ‘ It would have been great to get in front of him at the end, but I had a cracking day and the team behind me. I suppose I had something to prove and, although I didn’t win, I think I proved it.

I had some great coaching this year – from all the Gallaghers.

’ He glanced at the camera, the briefest of cheeky looks, and my heart flipped.

‘ As you might know, this is my last Tour, but I hope to be… involved… in the sport… still. You know, I love it. ’

Seb

Maggioli might have won the stage, but I won the combativity award – a nice extra bit of cash – and the memes.

A particularly eye-catching press photo of me on the ground in the finish area looking absolutely wrecked had been captioned numerous times.

My favourite was, ‘ Cycling: more expensive than therapy .’ I also quite liked, ‘ Rethinking my life decisions .’

A great shot from my solo breakaway was doing the rounds too, one with the caption, ‘ Never tell me the odds .’ Knowing as I did that it was a quote from Han Solo, I was tempted to get that one framed.

At the beginning of my career, I’d occasionally participated in the online fan spaces, before the pressure got to me and I couldn’t take the attention.

But I enjoyed scrolling the old subreddits while Chris massaged my poor legs that evening.

Although I hadn’t won, the team treated me as though I had and it was so much that I ended up hiding behind my phone at dinner, even though I was only scrolling cat pictures and funny science videos.

Anything to stop me messaging Lori. I couldn’t credit her for my performance today. But I wanted to share it with her anyway.

Thinking of memes and Han Solo and Lori, I spent a stupid amount of time creating an edited version of the iconic scene from the old film, where Leia declared her love, except when it was finished, it pinched me much harder than I’d expected.

Like Leia, Lori had told me she loved me – in a roundabout way – but the more I thought about it, the more I believed she’d meant it, the conviction blossoming inside me like its own life form.

She’d probably never forgive me for my own, ill-judged, ‘I know.’ But she might take me back, especially if I could show her I understood how wrong I’d been to push her away.

The meme – and the subreddits – gave me an idea. It would be a little embarrassing – very public. But at least she’d have to believe I meant it. I only wished she’d give me a hint about what she was feeling.

My mind full of wild plans, I collapsed onto the bed after my shower. Colin was already snuffling quietly on the other bed, recovering from another day of suffering under the weight of the team’s expectations.

Reaching reflexively for my phone, I saw I had a message. From Lori. My heart kicked into gear and I nearly dropped the device in my hurry to unlock it. Huh, it wasn’t exactly the hint I’d been looking for, but I’d take it.

My mind was made up: I was mobilising the fans.