Chapter 12
It’s competition day. My body remembers before I do. I feel well and truly awful. The sun isn’t up yet, and I already want the day to be over.
Riley must have gotten us breakfast while I was panicking in the bathroom. There’s a tray full of eggs, toast, and coffee sitting on the hotel dresser. I’m not sure where she is, but there’s a small note covered in pink cursive.
‘I figured you could use some alone time. Let me know when you’re ready to go meet Reid.’
Having to see Reid before a competition is never easy, knowing he’ll be watching and cheering me on even if I can’t hear it.
Sure, I want to prove to myself and my family I can do this, but more than that, I want to make Reid proud.
I want to be able to keep up with him and the boys, shredding my way down a mountain without blinking an eye.
The way I can barely get myself to eat a bite of delicious cheesy eggs is making me doubt I’ll ever accomplish either.
My first failure of the day, a half eaten breakfast, stares back at me as I get dressed.
Baggy mountain biking pants cling to my knees.
They’re forest green and insanely comfortable, even if they do make me look like a boy.
Up top, I pull on two tight sports bras that are objectively too small for me.
Nothing annoys me more than my female anatomy getting in the way of my handlebars.
The impact of mountain biking is no joke, and I’m certain it’s harder on the girls than it is the guys.
My shirt is bright white and covers my forearms. People might think it’s dumb to wear white to race around in the mud, but I kind of like it.
It’s a fresh canvas waiting to be decorated.
I left my mountain biking shoes and my knee pads back at the van. Truthfully, I look a little ridiculous without them. Riley knocks on the door as if she didn’t pay for this hotel room, and I promptly let her in. She takes one look at me and stifles a laugh.
“What?” I mean to sound incredulous, but I know just as well what she’s laughing at. “Leave me alone. I have to wear this.”
She’s still giggling. “Maybe take the socks off?”
“Let’s just go.” I groan.
We pull into the parking lot from the other day, and there are tons of people walking around. It looks like what I imagine a commune to be, and I’m sort of jealous that I wasn’t free spirited enough to be a part of it.
Riley doesn’t blink an eye. Her family is even more well off than mine, but she’s always been exceptionally adaptable. Floating into scenes and places like she’s always been there. Effortless and beautiful—that’s Riley.
Reid is shirtless and wet. He’s using the detachable shower head in the back of my van to wash his bike, but our bikes are clean—we haven’t used them since Colorado. Everything makes sense once I spot his tripod in the corner. He’s fucking taking pictures for Instagram.
“What is he doing?!?”
Riley is shocked. I don’t blame her. That was my reaction the first time I encountered his ‘marketing strategy’ too.
Pictures of a half naked Reid with his helmet covering the majority of his tanned face assaulted my eyes while I scrolled before bed one night. He first started doing it after discovering the phenomenon of motorcycle accounts. Apparently, lots of people have a thing for a man in a helmet.
That was the day I discovered I was also one of those people. Desperately, I wish I had blocked him or something before I saw that shit. I haven’t been able to scrub it from my mind since. Every so often, weakness overtakes me and I take a peek at that account like some junkie.
Seeing him take the pictures is a different experience entirely…a tortuous one. Riley is out of the car already, and I catch a glimpse of her pink dress out of the corner of my eye. My mouth hangs open as Riley opens my door and pushes it closed. “You’re drooling.”
“I am not,” I whisper-scream.
We walk towards Willa, and Reid still doesn’t notice us. Thankfully, his next pose doesn’t quite deliver the way he expected, and he looks like he’s in a cheesy car wash commercial. It’s enough to break me out of my trance and tear my eyes away from his glistening torso.
“Why are you washing an already clean bike?”
His smile almost takes me out at the knees—it’s still laced with flirtation. Even though it’s aimed at his followers, my stomach still flutters. He bends down and picks up a fox racing shirt.
“Can you snag a couple of me with this?”
I grab his phone and start getting ready to snap a few. At least I’ll be able to stare at him through the camera lens unabashedly.
Riley quips, “Come on, stud. Are you gonna put it on?”
Honestly, I forgot she was here for a second. We both look at each other as we wait for Reid to put on the shirt. He has other plans and folds it so that the iconic fox racing logo is facing out and tosses it over his shoulder like that’s just how it naturally fell.
One of his legs comes up to rest on the edge of his bike, and he looks back at me while he flexes his biceps as he pretends to clean his dropper post.
He’s winking as he asks, “Do my arms look good?”
“They look fine, diva.”
Making fun of him is my only defense against the blush that is overtaking my face right now. I’m so hot and bothered that I’m certain I won’t be able to pretend it’s from the heat.
Reid struts himself around his bike posing in various ways for the next few minutes as I snap photos and do my best to avoid looking too closely at his body. He tosses me the fox t-shirt and winks.
“I’ll sign it for you, if you want.”
I want to be mad, but I climb in the back of Willa and see that he’s laid out all of my gear for me, and that my bike is tuned exactly the way I like it.
He even greased the chain for me. I’m scared to ask if he actually slept in my bed or not last night.
I’ll smell it on my pillows if he did. It’s not exactly easy to wash your sheets on the road—we have to plan for that sort of thing.
Once I pull on my knee pads and the rest of my gear, I feel much better. They’re my armor in more than one sense of the word. Riley climbs in the van and looks me up and down.
She’s smiling. “Okay, this is much better. You look like biking barbie!”
Riley hasn’t seen the van. Well, she’s seen it on facetime, but never in person. She immediately walks to my bed, and it’s obvious Reid did sleep there. He made the bed, or he tried to—it’s slightly off kilter and rumpled. There’s a small folded note on my pillow.
My best friend smiles back at me and grabs it before I can stop her. I damn near tackle her to the floor trying to grab it out of her hands. It doesn’t matter what the note says—I cannot handle reading that right now.
She realizes I’m serious and puts it back on the bed, but I catch a glimpse at the words on the front. It says ‘Blondie’ in big sloppy letters. My heart twists involuntarily.
“I’m gonna leave you to this. I’ll see you at the race!”
“Are you coming to the qualifier?”
“I’ll come to yours. I’m gonna go lay in the sun for a while.”
I’m pretty sure laying in the sun is Riley’s favorite hobby. It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that she doesn’t want to watch Reid’s qualifier. She hates mountain biking—says it’s a dumb and dangerous way to spend time in nature. But she tolerates it for me, and I love her for that.
Reid hops in the driver’s seat and shifts the mirrors to his liking. My head tilts to the side as I study him making himself comfortable. “I didn’t realize we were driving together.”
He looks almost hurt before he replies, “Do you not want to?”
“No, that’s fine.”
Reid settles himself in his seat and appraises my outfit before giving me a nod of approval. “You look like a shredder.”
“We’ll see.” I tuck a stray piece of hair behind my ear and gaze out the window.
This whole teamwork thing is going well so far. I didn’t have to do any bike maintenance, and he loaded everything up. Now I just have to hydrate, stretch, and try to do my best.
He starts to back out, and he rests his arm on the back of my seat as he cranes his neck to see if anyone is behind us.
The warmth of his skin radiates off of him and onto the back of my neck.
I’m struggling to find anything to focus my attention on.
I find a piece of dust on my dash, and I pretend to be fixated on picking it off.
We meander our way out of the parking lot, dodging school buses and rafts as we go. Kai passes by the van and Reid rolls down the window. “Catch ya later.”
Kai covers his ears dramatically and waves to us both before saluting. So, they were drinking last night. I truly don’t know how Reid does this—he’s always pushing his body to the limits before, during, and after a ride.