Chapter 20
Leesa
I was pleasantly groggy for a moment or two, but my stupid brain snapped quickly back into action, preparing for the next awkward moment in this theatre piece. He was heavy, still wedged inside me, which was becoming uncomfortable in the oversensitive aftermath of my orgasm.
Had we even finished the interview? I imagined getting dressed again – trying not to look at his cock – and heading back to the meeting room, settling in our chairs and continuing to ask and answer questions as though he hadn’t just had me raw and naked underneath him while he fucked like a wild thing.
Perhaps I had had a little more involvement than that sounded, but the image of him completely overcome above me would show up behind my eyelids for a long time to come.
‘You okay?’
I realised I had my eyes squeezed shut and forced them open, wary of what I’d find.
He was peering at me with his head inclined, a faint smile on his lips and the most earnest expression I’d ever seen on his face.
He looked several years younger all of a sudden, reminding me he was just 25 now and he’d been only 19 the first time we’d met.
I couldn’t decide if that was strange. I wasn’t sure we should have done this.
I realised this moment had been brewing since September, when he’d clumsily broached the subject, but we’d crossed the line now.
I’d had sex with Colin Gallagher, tangled up with enough feelings to give me a hernia. I couldn’t go back and change it.
He shifted, finally slipping out. I must have winced, because he whispered an apology and feathered a kiss over my cheek, smoothing my hair back from my face.
His smile faded. ‘You’re not okay? It’s all right, Lees. Just talk to me.’
Heat rose to my cheeks. I wasn’t sure I could talk about what had just happened – not coherently anyway.
I lifted a hand to my forehead, as though testing for a fever. ‘I don’t know if that was a good idea. You could get into trouble.’
‘What Dad doesn’t know won’t hurt him.’ He flopped onto the bed beside me, peering at me from under his lashes and shooting me a signature light smile.
Of course we would have to keep this a secret, but wasn’t that proof that sleeping together would cause more complications?
‘Don’t beat yourself up,’ he said gently, his fingers moving in my hair. The touch was dangerously soothing. ‘It was kind of inevitable, given how long I’ve been admiring you.’
Wow, I’d forgotten that bizarre part of the bizarre past half-hour. I rolled onto my side to stare at him. ‘You’re not serious.’
‘I’m not lying,’ he insisted.
‘But—’ It didn’t make any sense. ‘Why did you keep putting fake insects under my door?’
He shrugged. ‘Little boys and their crushes. It was better than you not looking at me at all. Hell, I tried something that wasn’t a prank to get your attention that last race and you didn’t even see me.’
I sat up, staring down at him, sprawled naked on my bed, the compass tattooed on his side pointing at his heart.
‘The sign really wasn’t a prank. There was nothing on the other side?
’ I wasn’t sure if I was touched or disturbed that he’d tried to earnestly say goodbye to me and it had backfired so spectacularly.
He hesitated before answering my question and I didn’t know what to think any more. ‘It did have something on the other side,’ he admitted.
I gave him a shove. ‘That is possibly the most juvenile thing you’ve ever done, making a distraction out of yourself.’
‘More juvenile than when I told you before the Tour Down Under that Australians expect to be greeted with “g’day, mate” and you went around saying it to everyone?’
‘That was embarrassing.’
‘It was gold. But you can’t tell me my pranks didn’t work, when I’m lying here staring at your tits, fuck-drunk and mind-blown.’
He knew staying stuff like that got a rise out of me, but despite the renewed prickle over my skin, his words also made me question the wisdom of our actions afresh.
‘Colin, if you struggle at the Tour because of me…’ I remembered well last year, Lori’s chaotic season as she and Seb danced around each other. Not that this was headed in the same direction, but that made it worse.
Colin had a gruelling few weeks ahead of him. When I glanced at him, his expression was unexpectedly sober, which was something of a relief. The volatility in him worried me.
‘It was sex, Lees. Great sex, but I’m not going to lose my form because we screwed. You really are hung up about this.’
I suddenly felt cold – and naked. Of course I was hung up about this.
He’d told me my overthinking didn’t bother him, although perhaps I shouldn’t have believed anything he said when we were nearly naked and groping each other.
I’d even let his confession about having a crush on me mean something, when it obviously didn’t to him.
I wasn’t the only person he’d been attracted to over the past six years and I certainly wouldn’t be the only one in future.
But some part of me was sad and hurt and small, a crash to earth after I’d surprised myself by soaring with him this afternoon.
I slipped my feet over the side of the bed and looked around for my underwear. ‘Okay, but from now on, you have to focus. The whole team is relying on you and my client is too. The content is great, but results speak louder than all of that.’
Glancing at him as I tugged my bralette over my head and tried to forget everything he’d done to me that afternoon, I found him staring grimly at the wooden ceiling.
‘All right, coach,’ he muttered.
‘Maybe now we’ve…’
‘Fucked,’ he supplied for me with a dry look.
‘Yeah, maybe now things will be easier. We’ve blown off the tension.’
‘We’ve blown something all right,’ he drawled, but he wasn’t smiling. ‘It’s going to take a bit more to get you out of my system, Kubicka,’ he continued with a deep sigh. ‘But don’t worry. I know what’s important and I won’t screw it up.’
Colin
She was in my head – my bloodstream. I’d thought it had been bad before, but after seeing her naked, feeling her everywhere, I could no longer see anything else when she was in the room.
Breakfast the day after was tough. I kept imagining Dad was watching me, that he could tell I’d slept with her, since my heart seemed to beat differently this morning.
I avoided him by sitting with Nellie and Amir, but that meant pretending to be interested in the latest photos of Nellie’s son.
He’d already inflicted them on me, but Amir loved babies and wanted the full commentary.
I didn’t understand why Nellie’s wife kept sending him so many photos when we were going home soon and he’d see them in the flesh but, apparently, he didn’t want to miss any of the little milestones and he found it difficult to be away.
I was trying to think of something to say about the video of his wife playing with the baby’s toes, when the door opened and there she was and my vocabulary shrank to something similar to Rupert’s.
She wasn’t wearing one of her dresses, thank fuck, but she looked bad enough – good enough – in denim shorts and a fitted T-shirt with a sports brand across the chest. My brain filled in what was underneath and I could almost feel her skin under my hands.
‘… even Colin said he’s getting cuter.’
It took me far too long to realise they were waiting for a response from me. I tore my gaze from her to stare, unseeing, at Nellie’s phone. I had to blink for several moments before the picture came into focus: a goofy baby grin that looked like he’d just farted.
Amir shared a look with Nellie.
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with Colin,’ Amir said thoughtfully, as though I weren’t sitting right there with them.
My ears were so hot they were probably steaming more than my oatmeal. I kept my eyes off her, but I could feel her to the side at the breakfast buffet and the way my teammates were looking at me, they knew what was going through my head.
I held my breath, waiting for them to say something, to tell me off for sleeping with the woman from marketing – what a stereotypical thing for Colin Gallagher to do.
But Amir simply said, ‘I can’t believe he doesn’t like babies.’
Nelson grinned at me, his eyes bright. ‘Maybe he will when he grows up.’
Scowling at him, I struggled to think of a comeback. Nellie was only two years older than me – Lori’s age. ‘Not all of us age as quickly as you.’
Hiding behind a sip of coffee, I sensed Leesa moving into my peripheral vision and, when my eyes were drawn there, I found her glancing back at me. That was all it took for my lungs to seize up.
But she winced and sent a guilty glance to where Wil was eating with Dad and the logistics manager. I couldn’t bring myself to regret what had happened, even if it brought complications for both of us but, for her sake, I could make sure no one found out.
For her sake, I could pretend it had never happened – or at least try. We had two more days of training camp and then her work with me wouldn’t be so… close. Her nightmare job might get a little easier.
As I was heading for my room, Dad stopped me, breaking my reverie, and drew me into the hallway.
That was enough for my stomach to sink. It wasn’t easy to read his expression – he always had a gruff smile on his face, especially for bad news – but I couldn’t think of anything he’d have to say that I wanted to hear.
‘I spoke to your mum this morning.’
I might have interpreted that as a good sign but, given how stringently he’d avoided any contact with her recently, this wouldn’t be comfortable for anyone.
A few years ago, I would have desperately wanted them to work things out but, as I spent more time with Mum alone, I’d started to see the strain she was under trying to reach him and I didn’t want that for her any more.
I also realised that Dad had got worse as I’d got better – at cycling. I couldn’t deny my success was down to his unrelenting pursuit of improvements, in my body and in my head, but he refused to see the costs and I was too chicken to stand up to him.
‘I didn’t realise she was already here in Europe,’ Dad continued.
‘I’m spending the week with her in Treviglio after the camp,’ I explained. ‘Nonno hasn’t been well.’
‘Oh, she didn’t mention that. I was talking to her about the Tour, since last year was… so awkward.’
The only thing that had been awkward last year was the fact that their relationship was over, but no one was saying it out loud. At least Mum was in touch with reality, if Dad was still ignoring what had happened.
‘It’s almost impossible to arrange accommodation for her in the team hotel and I thought it would be better…’
‘Did you tell Mum she couldn’t come to watch the Tour? Dad!’
‘She’s seen you race so many times.’ I thought he was going to say something else, but he stopped. I understood what he meant: I was too old to be upset by this development. If I complained, I’d be the weak little youngster he seemed to think I still was.
‘You can give me all the reasons you want, but I know you just don’t want her around, now that she’s left you. You don’t want me listening to her.’
‘She doesn’t understand your—’
‘You don’t understand everything either, you know!’
Before I could blurt out anything more incriminating – about my state of mind or my encounter with Leesa – I brushed past him in the direction of the staircase, my mood turned sour.
As I passed the door to the breakfast room, I almost wasn’t surprised when I glanced inside to find Leesa, standing just inside the door, frozen.
She probably hadn’t wanted to disturb us.
Great. The day just got even more dysfunctional.