“Tomorrow, I’m going for a bike ride with Kris. Need to finally start clocking up the kilometres and she offered to come with. Wednesday, I have extra swimming training. Thursday is my mamma’s birthday so I’m taking her out for dinner. And Friday I have to work late. We’re catering for a law firm’s summer party.”
“Oh, right.” I start to breathe again. That all sounds perfectly normal. Perfectly reasonable. Apart from maybe… “Extra swimming training, huh? With Mr Speedos.”
Marcello blinks at me and then moves jerkily, collecting a couple more plates for the barbell. “Er, he’ll probably be there,” he says without looking up. “But I actually just want to do a double session. I was reading how I need to be a bit further ahead than I am with my cycling and swimming. The running and strength training is going so well, thanks to you…”
“You’re the one doing all the hard work.” I’m quick to remind him, crossing my arms.
“But you’re the one that gets me here, motivates me to do the work, which is not an easy job, trust me.”
Funny, it hasn’t felt like a job at all. Not once.
“Well, sounds like you’re going to be active enough. Still want to run on Saturday, or will you need a rest day?”
“I still want to run,” he replies as he screws the lock back on the end of the weights. “Meet in Hyde Park again?”
In the few seconds I take to respond to him, I have this very brief but very detailed fantasy of Marcello and I waking up in my flat, gettingdressed into our running gear and heading to Hampstead Heath to do a run together, all the while we smile and laugh with each other, knowing we get to touch each other in the shower after.
“Sounds good,” I say and am grateful again for the busy gym’s noise because I swear when I swallow away that fantasy, it’s an audible little desperate gulp.
Chapter Thirty
Marcello
“Wow, you really do have all the gear,” I look Kris up and down. Which doesn’t take long. She’s barely an inch over five feet, has her dark hair cropped short and is wearing a simple but serious-looking black set of matching cycling shorts and zip-up top.
“And I do actually have an idea too,” she says with a glint in her eye. She rests her bike against her hip as she puts her racing helmet back on.
“Since when? I had no idea you were into cycling.”
“Last year. Met a woman who was into it and decided to join a beginners’ group at a cycling club so I had something to talk to her about.”
“Oh, Kris, that’s very—”
She holds her hand up at me. “Don’t say it. She ghosted me after the first date.”
“Jesus. Ouch.”
“Yeah, it wasn’t my best date, but interestingly also not my worst ever.”
“Was that me?”
“Actually no. Although I don’t really remember us dating. I just remember a lot of red wine, a long conversation about how Channel Four should bring back Football Italia and you didn’t leave my house until I kicked you out on Sunday night.”
“That sounds familiar.” I smile at the vague and admittedly quite blurry memory. There was a lot of red wine. “So, dating not getting any better?”
Kris’ expression changes. Not shutting down or closing off exactly, but I am not surprised when she ends my line of questioning very quickly.
“You could say that,” she mumbles. “Come on. Clip in.” She swings her leg over her bike and is on it before I can pull my underwear out of my arse crack.
Maybe that article advising you to not wear underwear under these ridiculous tri-suits was onto something.
“Where are we going?” I ask when I finally catch up with her. It’s nine o’clock at night. The sun is on its way down and the sky is a warm orangey-pink that only summer evenings can be. But we didn’t choose this time to go for a ride because of the sunset; it’s because of the greatly reduced traffic of South London.
“Richmond Park and back. I’ll have you home in one piece by ten-thirty at the latest.”
“An hour and a half with you. Maybe you’ll actually have to spill the details about your love life,” I wonder out loud. “I know there’s a story there.”
“You first,” she says in her short and sharp tone that I know others would bristle at but it just makes me smile. “The last text I got from you on the topic was your coming out message. Congratulations by the way and welcome to the alphabet mafia. We don’t require loyalty payments for protection but we do expect you to wear rainbows, challenge gender norms and fight heteronormativity at every available opportunity.”
