But then she went for the jugular. Spinning in the chair, she eyeballed me. ‘Colin, is something wrong?’
‘Nah,’ I replied immediately, throwing my arm over my face.
‘Because… I’m serious. We could get into trouble for this.’
With a sigh, I hauled myself upright, blinking back a few stars behind my eyes. The endurance ride today had wiped me, which was concerning in itself. My body’s limits felt close enough to touch – or were those limits in my head?
No matter how good it had felt to wake up in her bed, I shouldn’t have come here. It wouldn’t make it any easier to take Dad’s barbed comments that only made me angry these days. I had conked out so completely on her pillow I was still groggy, maybe the best I’d slept in days. Dad would approve of the rest, but not if he discovered how much I’d been struggling in my own bed.
But she wasn’t here for me – not in that way. She didn’t owe me anything and I shouldn’t have barged into her room and monopolised her bed.
I forced myself to my feet with a groan that made her leap up in alarm. A faint smile tugged on my lips as she grasped my arm as though she would catch me if I keeled over.
‘It’s nice you’re so worried about me.’
She dropped my arm. ‘Maybe I still have some loyalty to Tony and the team.’
My smile faded. The stupid wish that she’d have some loyalty tomemade me just as irritated as the mention of my dad. ‘Lucky for the team, I’m all right. I just need to eat something.’ And stop wanting to sleep in Leesa Kubicka’s bed when she obviously didn’t want me.
I should have got the message back in September. Only a stubborn idiot like me would still be dreaming.
Chapter 12
Leesa
‘I’m not creating latte art. I don’t do that shit.’
Two seconds into my video in the breakfast room and I was already glad I had decided not to go live after all.
But Colin was – unsurprisingly – a wiz with the espresso machine, tamping the freshly ground coffee with a flourish and setting the filter in the holder with the practised hands of someone who did this every day, multiple times.
Paying careful attention, he pulled the shot with a magnificent film of downy crema and moved on to frothing milk. I caught it all on camera, including his quick smile, which was compelling enough to break hearts all over the internet.
Morgan might have been sceptical of the power of a coffee-based video, but I knew the community better. Bike ride? With a coffee break, please. Which route are we taking today? The one past the cold brew place. Big ride? Yep. Two hours in the café.
If beer was frowned upon in the pro cycling peloton (sometimes with the tongue firmly in the cheek), then coffee was seen as one of the major food groups. During my time riding pro, coffee had gone from being a daily pick-me-up to a metabolic necessity that would preferably be injected directly into my veins – if injections of any sort weren’t such a sore point for the Union Cycliste Internationale, the governing body.
‘Can I have that one?’ I asked, hoping my voice didn’t give too much away on the video.
The little glance that was mostly eyelashes had no business being so sexy, but I was tired from a whole week of studying him in detail and, aside from the stupid moustache, everything he did caught me right in the gut – or a little lower.
‘Ask me nicely?’
‘Can you make me a coffee nicely?’
‘I’ll happily make you a coffee, but this one’s for Derek.’
The lift of his eyebrows was concerning.
‘Speaking of Derek, when are you finally going to shave—?’ My footage wobbled as I saw what he’d done with the milk. ‘I thought you said no latte art!’
‘This isn’t latte art. It’s latte graffiti.’
I followed him as he walked carefully in Derek’s direction and placed the coffee in front of his teammate.
‘Get your milk moustache with that one!’
Derek laughed. ‘Geez, man! You made me a cock-and-balls coffee? I have to drink that!’
