Page 4

Chapter 4

GAbrIEL

F riday was one of my days off from massage therapy. Unfortunately, in the life of a coach and an Ironman athlete, the day off from one job meant more work for the other. I’d spent the first three waking hours glued to a bike seat.

Like most other serious cyclists, I had a bike trainer—it was sort of like a treadmill for cycling. You took the back tire off your bike, hooked it up to the trainer, then binged Netflix. It was nice not having to leave the house to get a quick seventy-five miles in.

Unfortunately, the workout was one of those where the breath scraped out of my lungs. The plan called for such high power, it felt like I was going uphill the entire ride. So, I had to rewatch those episodes of Ozark. I vaguely understood Jason Bateman’s character was in deeper shit in each episode, but it was hard to catch the details when I was busy working through my own hell.

After mopping up the sweat from my apartment’s tile and showering, I headed over to Just Tri. Trevor had texted, letting me know they’d gotten in the new Nike Vaporfly, and I wanted to try them as my race-day runners. I had about an hour before a Zoom meeting with an athlete, and then the rest of the day would be uploading training plans for next week.

The plan was good. Get in, get out, get home so I could work on training plans for my athletes.

But then my feet stepped across the threshold of Just Tri, and it wasn’t Trevor in the shoe section, but April.

For a split second, I forgot what I was even doing there. She pushed her shoulder-length, dark blonde hair behind her ears as she scanned the shoe boxes on the wall. She had a casual way about her. If her hands weren’t busy fixing up a bike, they were usually in the pockets of her overalls. It was a good look on her. As a triathlete, I came in periodically, and my attention always snagged on her.

But then she turned to face a customer in the sitting area, and there was a tightness in her eyes—an expression I wasn’t used to seeing.

The quirky sitting area for trying on shoes included a long bench, a rocking chair, and a full sofa. The sofa faced away from the entrance, so I didn’t recognize the customer as my rival until I was close enough to hear him ask about the new Vaporflies. Then Clay’s eyes fell on me, and the disdain was clear.

“Hey,” I said, giving him a nod.

“Hey.” He was wearing that brand of sweats he’d had on since he got the sponsorship back in winter. We’d all hoped the summer months would sweat him out of them, but no. Not even Texas in July could pry them from his body.

“Oh, hi, Gabe,” April said after handing Clay a box of shoes. Her tone had its normal bubbly pitch, but her smile looked forced .

“Not used to seeing you away from your area,” I said, nodding towards the empty counter. A bike was on the stand, but all the tools still hung neatly on the peg wall.

“Trevor is running a bit late. Sorry, you’re stuck with me.”

“I needed to talk to you anyway. You wouldn’t happen to have an opening for a bike fitting, would you?” It had been over a year since I’d last had one done, and I was starting to get a light pinching in my knee.

“I don’t have any availability until Monday.” She frowned. “You weren’t hoping to get in before the race this weekend, were you?”

“No. I’m just supporting athletes at the sprint—not participating.” With a full racing schedule myself, it was rare that I could focus solely on supporting my athletes, so I was looking forward to the upcoming sprint triathlon. “Monday morning will work.”

“Okay, I’ll put you on the schedule.” She smiled at me, and I suddenly found myself looking forward to a bike fitting, of all things.

“Where is Trevor, anyway?” Clay asked, pulling April’s hazel gaze from me.

“Ned called him. Something about a dog chasing cyclists down Second Street.”

“Beast is at it again, then.” I didn’t go down Second Street often, so I didn’t know what Clay was referring to. April didn’t seem to either. Clay shook his head, laughing at our blank expressions. “I see that pit bull over there all the time. Thank God he’s never caught me. That thing reminds me of the dog from The Sandlot. I hope Trevor has had his rabies shot. If I were him, I’d have called animal control—let the professionals handle it.”

April didn’t seem concerned. “He’s pretty good with animals.”

As if summoned by our conversation, the door dinged, and Trevor entered the store. “Sorry,” he said to April. “I got the dog to come to me easily enough, but he was nervous about getting in the Jeep.”

He waved at me, but his face fell when he noticed Clay.

“I’m surprised you survived Beast,” Clay said with a laugh.

“While getting chased by a dog isn’t fun,” Trevor said, taking a moment to clean his glasses on his T-shirt. “He’s a pocket breed. Can’t be more than two feet tall. Furthermore, he’s really sweet. It’s a natural instinct for dogs to chase, but he was all tail wags once I approached on foot. So, it’s not exactly a miracle that I’m still among the living.”

“Did you bring him to an animal shelter?” I asked.

“No.” Trevor sighed. “He’s chilling at my apartment right now. I didn’t want to bring him to the shelter because pit bulls don’t historically do well at those. There’s a no-kill pit bull rescue not too far from here. I’ll give them a call later.”

Trevor’s rescue didn’t surprise me in the least. He was always fostering dogs. The uglier and more pitiful, the greater the chance Trevor would intervene. Case in point—Johnson.

Johnson slept, curled under April’s workbench—like always. Animal control told Trevor they’d found him in the dumpster behind the Johnson Space Center. Hence the name. Or so Trevor said. But you don’t name a one-eyed wiener dog “Johnson” without having a sense of humor.

“Well,” April said, giving Clay and me a polite half-smile, “I’ll leave you two in Trevor’s much more capable hands.” She turned to Trevor. I knew they were cousins, but the silent conversation between them in that two-second eye contact rivaled twin telepathy. Trevor raised a brow just slightly, and then April gave the smallest shake of her head before she was gone—off to the back.

If you weren’t looking close enough, you’d miss it. I didn’t know what was going on between them, but it was something that they didn’t want either Clay or myself to catch—something they weren’t happy about.

As April turned to go, Clay stood, testing the feel of the new shoes by leaning his weight from foot to foot.

“You trying on the Vaporfly, too?” Trevor asked me.

“Yeah. Size—”

“Fourteen,” Trevor answered, then laughed. “I remember, you freaking giraffe.”

Trevor disappeared into the back to get the shoes, and Clay turned to me. “How are your athletes doing, Torres?”

Had the question come from anyone else, it would have been a polite inquiry. Coming from my rival, it was a goad.

“Fine,” I said, sitting on the bench across from him—not even the least bit interested in the dick-measuring contest Clay seemed to want.

“Matt looks like he’s having a good season.”

“He’s doing okay.” Matt was not doing just okay. He was my star athlete and was crushing his goals, but I didn’t want to give any gasoline to the conversation.

“Wait until you see how Ned is progressing,” Clay said because, of course, he wasn’t finished with the conversation. “He’s killing it.”

“That’s great,” I said. “I know he’s been working hard.” Hard enough that he’d come to the massage clinic for sharp knee pain. I worked out some knots and suggested monster walks, side plank exercises, a strict icing regimen, and stretches to help alleviate it. Ultimately, his body needed rest—not what someone training for an Ironman wants to hear. Hopefully, he’d at least ease up on hill running. The last thing he wanted was to get IT Band Syndrome. But all that was between Ned and myself .

“My roster is deadly,” Clay continued. “So don’t feel bad if you don’t get A-Team. There is always next year.”

I was about to give him a flat-toned congratulations, but Trevor returned, plopping the shoebox next to me and giving Clay a chilly look before asking, “But how many athletes did you have to remove from your roster to make it ‘deadly?’”

“Come on. Don’t be like that,” Clay said, jogging in place. He kept his features even, but Trevor’s words had struck a chord if Clay’s reddening face was any indication.

I didn’t even look at the shoes Trevor had deposited. The tense exchange had my full attention. “What’s he talking about?” I asked Clay.

Clay stopped jogging with a sigh and looked at Trevor. “I know she’s your cousin, but it had to be done.”

So, this was about April. I sat up straighter. “You dropped her?” I asked. Clay looked between the two of us, clearly unhappy to be cornered about the topic, even though he’d all but led us there. “We’re three months out from Ironman,” I added.

“She’s not going to finish anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“She has some sort of hangup. It wouldn’t matter if she was my sole athlete, and I gave her my undivided coaching. She is going to DNF like she does every year.”

Not much riles me, but I could feel my pulse picking up at that statement. Because I’d been there last year.

I shouldn’t have been. Wouldn’t have been at that spot in the race if the zipper on one of my athlete’s wetsuits hadn’t jammed. I spent fifteen minutes trying to get it to go up without breaking it, delaying my start time .

But because of that delay, I was on the second mile of the bike when an athlete in front of me hit a water bottle and went over her handlebars. I was surprised when I realized the athlete lying on the asphalt was April. It took a while for her to regain consciousness and then another few minutes for the pain to wake up, but when it did, she’d clutched her collarbone—jaw clenched and pupils blown.

Something was wrong. Broken.

And she still fought me to continue. Still wanted to get back on her bike to finish the race.

“Did you expect her to keep going after breaking her collarbone?” I asked.

“Well—” Clay’s face flushed deeper. “No, but that wasn’t her first DNF.”

“The year before last, she tested positive for the flu,” Trevor supplied, crossing his arms over his chest. “Would you like her doctor’s note?”

Clay sat down to untie his shoes. His cheeks were still crimson from fighting off the onslaught on two sides. I’d feel bad if I hadn’t just learned the guy had abandoned an athlete in the middle of our season.

I thought back to my own races. I had a bad finishing time last year because of April’s accident. The year before, I’d had a personal record. But the year before that . . . “And there was the storm,” I said. I’d been pulling on my wetsuit when lightning lit up the sky. “She didn’t DNF three years ago. It was canceled.”

“I’m telling you,” Clay said, bent out of shape. “People create their own luck, and April has created her own curse.”

I searched his face, completely thrown by his rationale. After a tense moment of silence stretched between us, I said, “You don’t actually believe that.”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe. It’s what she believes. As a coach, you should know better than anyone. The mental game is half the battle with these races.”

“So, you coach her through it,” I said, hardly recognizing the bite in my tone. At least I didn’t add the pendejo that I’d been thinking.

“I bet you would love that, Torres,” Clay said, yanking a shoe off and slapping it down in the box. “For me to keep her on the roster. A DNF would kill my chance at A-Team, and you know it.”

If A-Team was the reason he’d dropped her, he’d been an idiot. “She’s never completed an Ironman,” I voiced. “Any time under seventeen hours will be considered progress. She’d boost your overall score just by crossing the finish line.”

Clay stopped pulling on his shoes to look at me. “If she’s such an advantage, by all means—” he gestured to where April had disappeared to the back of the shop, “she’s yours.”

The dare hung in the air, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from snatching it up immediately. My roster is already full, I reminded myself. I thought back to my own coach and how he’d been irritated I’d picked up this many athletes. Adding one more to the team would give him a stroke.

“Go ahead,” Clay said, still goading. “You take April, and I’ll take A-Team.” He stood, swinging the shoebox toward Trevor. “Do you have any of these in the black?”

Trevor didn’t answer immediately, and I got the distinct feeling he was facing an internal battle—provide good customer service or tell the guy off. Eventually, the good angel on his shoulder won out. “Sorry. We’re all out of black. It’s a popular one.”

Clay went to pay for his shoes. The cashier had been busy drawing, and she seemed irritated to have to put her pencil down to ring up Clay .

While I tried on the shoes, I fought the impulse to head to the back and offer April a spot on my team. I knew how badly she wanted to finish an Ironman, and I’d bet good money that if I looked at her training, she followed all her workouts to a T. She had a spark. She just needed guidance.

“Are you okay with the blue?” Trevor asked after I told him I’d buy the shoes.

“Yeah, blue is fine. The only other color I was looking at was the black.”

“We’re not out,” Trevor said, waving to Clay as he left. “You two are my first customers after getting in the new stuff.”

I cocked my head.

“I just told that to Clay because I couldn’t stand another second of looking at that asshole.”

I could relate.

“Then, yeah. I’ll take them in black.”