Coming through the doors into the hall in that state of distraction, a nudge to my shoulder made me jump. Turning reflexively, I started again at the image assaulting my eyeballs: miles of pasty skin, lightly freckled, over tight muscle and bone; a tattoo of a compass pointing northwest decorating his body on the left, just below his ribs; soft tracksuit pants that clung precariously to his taut waist; tan lines on both arms that were more clearly demarcated than the North Korean border.
I dropped my gaze, muttering to myself about Colin’s inability to put a shirt on.
‘There you are. We’re all waitin’.’ His deep voice was rich and rough, like nougat chocolate, and I was distracted by the scent of him – clean and soapy, like that day in the hospital. He was wearing the branded slides all of the riders wore at the hotel, his feet bare, toes a little crooked.
Nobody has sexy toes. I focused on the toes and not the easy movement of his body, or the way he seemed to set the molecules in the air fizzing. When I’d finally gathered my composure to look at his face, the view of his stupid moustache – even bushier today, I imagined – got rid of the last few sparks.
‘I hope you’re not waiting for moustaches to become sexy again, because that one is more “little dirtbag” than “Tom Selleck”.’
‘I still secretly think you like this little dirtbag – moustache,’ he added with a wink. ‘But it took me four weeks to grow this. I can’t shave it off until Derek admits mine is better than his.’
‘Why am I not surprised it was for a bet? If you’re trying to remind me how juvenile you can be, it’s working.’
He grinned, the bright curve of his mouth acting on me like an amphetamine. ‘I can be a jerk for a good cause.’
‘Sometimes I wonder if that’s your calling in life.’ And there was my first angle. If I couldn’t get him to behave, maybe I could turn him into a loveable idiot at least.
‘It isn’t enough that Derek sacrifices his own chances of winning for you?’ Derek was a support rider, like I had been. Lead riders like Colin used the slipstream of support riders to conserve energy for an attack later in the race.
‘Is this a chip on your shoulder?’ he said, pretending to pick something up from my upper arm. ‘Looks like a big one.’
‘Well, thank you for removing it,’ I said sweetly in reply.
‘The ’tache isn’t a competition, you know.’ He made that ‘pfft’ sound that he must have learned from living half the year in France for nearly a decade.
‘You justtoldme it’s a competition. I might be a bit strung out on coffee and jetlag, but you can’t pull that on me.’
‘That’s rough.’ He shoved a hand in the pocket of his tracksuit and sauntered ahead of me, unfortunately giving me an irresistible opportunity to admire the ripples in his back, the glimpses of his tattoos: the Southern Cross and Olympic rings on one forearm; a simple, but fascinating dragon across his shoulders.
‘Are all you guys allergic to clothes?’
‘I’m not allergic to clothes,’ he insisted, shooting me a pout over his shoulder. ‘It’s doctor’s orders. Gotta air the road rash.’
With a flourish worthy of a 1950s Hollywood musical, he gestured to the ugly red patch down his side and my stomach turned.
‘You’re familiar with road rash, right?’
My gaze snapped back up to find him peering at me with a glint in his eye.
He had the unnerving ability to speak directly into my bloodstream when he continued, ‘I seem to remember a pic from the Vuelta a few years ago. You crossed the finish line with a rip from your ribcage to your thigh – via the back.’
The lump in my throat grew unbearable as I tried to interpret his tone. There was a hitch in his voice. Or perhaps I was just terribly susceptible to it. I had been certain he’d never spared a thought for me during the years we were on the same team – including that year when I’d crashed at the Vuelta.
‘What, you never lookedmeup?’ he said with another pout.
‘I haven’t needed to know how to swear like an Australian,’ I quipped.
His response was a swagger. ‘Youhavelooked me up.’
‘Colin, I’m using you to create content for my client. Of course I looked you up.’
He bit his lip, sending a jolt through my veins, although hopefully that was just the coffee. ‘I kind of like that you want to use me.’
Before I could splutter a response, he disappeared into the conference room, where the DS and coaching staff were waiting to give the day’s briefing, and I stumbled in after him, my skin too tight. Everything he said shot straight to my gut – or a little lower – and I had to struggle to pull myself together.
Rather than a sleek, white-painted, glass-panelled space, at this family-run hotel tucked into the middle of nowhere in a place called Lüsen in the back corner of Italy, the wood-panelled conference room looked more like the place where hunters used to meet up to smoke pipes and play cards while plotting each other’s deaths.
It still reminded me of the times when I’d sat with the team like this, Bonnie and Doortje next to me, and Lori being Lori – rushing in late. The pressure for results had always clouded our friendships, especially with Lori, who I’d never truly called a friend, but I missed those girls now. I wished I’d made more of our camaraderie.
