My eyelids drifted shut and the room seemed to be spinning. My voice was thin when I finally found it to ask, ‘And the talent?’
‘In the file,’ he said, nodding indulgently at the folder that suddenly seemed to be burning my fingers. ‘Have fun, Leesa!’
I lurched out of the room, finally breathing again on the other side. Escaping behind the dividers surrounding my desk, it took me several long, stern words with myself before I could bring myself to open it.
When I did, the truth was so much more frightening than I’d expected – my own reaction in particular.
Of course it was him. Somehow, every time I was struggling, there he was, with his shit-eating grin that couldn’t be called anything other than a smirk. Five years on the same team – and that one mortifying moment after my surgery back in September.
The moment I’d looked at him and for the first time felt…attraction.
I slammed the folder shut, but it was too late. I could still see the blue of his eyes, the curve of his bottom lip. I couldhearthat low, deep drawl that made everything sound like dirty talk. I thought I’d been at my lowest back in September when I’d last seen him, but this felt like some kind of prank – exactly the kind he’d play on me.
But this was my only chance. Joke or not, I was going back into the cycling world – and all because of Colin Gallagher.
Chapter 2
Colin
‘If there’s no pounding in ya bollocks, it hasn’t been a good day! Keep going, boys! Feel that lactate in your blood!’
Was it utterly cringeworthy being 25 years old and still having your dad training your sports team? Absolutely. Add in the fact that my dad was an Irish-Australian potty mouth with a fixation on testicles and a sadistic sense of humour and, yeah – sometimes he was enough to make me want to claim an immaculate conception.
Tempted to rip out my radio, I filtered him out instead, the world narrowing to the strip of asphalt in front of me, the cool air flooding my lungs, the sting of power in my body as I hauled myself up the mountain.
I was pretty sure I had lactate up to my eyeballs, but it wasn’t exactly something to celebrate from where I was sitting – and occasionally standing – on my bike. I could almost hear the screams as my cells demanded oxygen and my blood turned acidic. I also didn’t need my dad to point that out to me.
Another five minutes and I’d be cooked. Dad probably knew that. Maybe he’d push me anyway.
‘Amir, good progress, son. Keep it up. Two hundred metres to go.’
‘Come on, magic mo!’ my teammate Amir grunted as he passed me.
I smirked in response, rubbing a thumb across the scruff of bristles on my top lip, soaked with sweat. It had a little more ginger than the sandy blond on my head and it made me look like a baby gunslinger. We’d been ribbing our youngest rider about not being able to grow a beard and this was the result, but at least it was a little thicker than Derek’s. He looked like that kid fromSex Education– and twice as awkward.
Amir took the position at the front, ‘pulling’, as we called it. Although my legs were very aware that it was only slipstream and there wasn’t any actual pulling involved. I was still fighting gravity with everything I had.
‘Last curve. Great stuff, Derek.’
Up this high, there was still snow on the ground in June – piles of it, despite the daytime temperature hovering in the 20s. At the beginning of my career, I’d gawk and simp at the sight of the brittle summer snow in the Alps but, like high taxes and cheap beer, I’d got used to the weird stuff about life in Europe, although the socks-and-Birkenstocks thing would always be a step too far.
We were at the iconic Passo dello Stelvio, with its endless switchbacks. 24 km of punishing gradients that Dad probably thought was character-building this early in our training camp. Altitude stole my breath just as effectively as the astonishing views of stony summits and snow-covered rock debris.
But even the Stelvio came to an end eventually, the kiosks and the quaint hotel at the top of the pass swimming in my vision as the gradient finally eased. Pressure lifting, my lungs opened up, my chest expanding as drops of sweat puddled on my handlebars and the numbers on the display of my bike computer finally began to drop.
‘Don’t ease off yet!’ Dad cried.
Fucking oath. My throat was raw, but I followed orders, pumping harder to pick up speed before the descent, whipping through the milling groups of other cyclists and motorbikers who’d been allowed to stop there for a rest.
With a strangled gulp, I swallowed down the burst of stomach acid making its way up my throat.Fuck.
The radio crackled and I bit back a grimace. But all Dad said was, ‘Watts are looking good, Colin.’
My bike computer had already told me that – without the passive-aggressive tone.
Sweeping through one more bend, the air rushed at me suddenly as we hurtled into the downhill, reinflating my lungs after the crush of the high-altitude climb, beginning to fly. Dad was saying something, but I zoned him out as I tracked the hairpins, marked in my mind’s eye with angles and trajectories, accompanied by the rapid ticking of my wheel hub.
I zipped ahead of the others. It was my job to be faster, to push the limits. Dad had built the whole team around me, which was why he was such a hardarse. When I screwed up, I screwed up the whole team.
