Chapter 22
Leesa
The tattoo studio didn’t have the grim torture-chamber aesthetic I’d expected. The walls were white with a bold black pattern of interlocking swirls. I glimpsed a rounded retro desk and a curving floor lamp.
The artist himself appeared as soon as we walked through the door.
A big guy, he had a full beard – bushier than anything Colin was capable of growing – a neck full of tattoos and several solid silver rings on his fingers.
The thick nose ring was little more than an aside to the rest of his appearance.
‘Colin,’ he said gruffly, a smile somewhere under the beard.
Colin was folded into an enormous, muscly hug, the clap to his back more effective than chiropractic adjustment, while I watched on in dismay, reassuring myself that it wasn’t my turn next to find myself under those hands.
I was wrong.
The man turned to me. I truly hoped I’d correctly inter-preted his expression as a smile, because his eyes were a little wild as he pressed me in a hug. ‘Velcome. You must be a friend of Colin.’
‘This is Leesa. She might take my appointment, if she can get up the courage.’
Shooting Colin an ‘I’m going to kill you!’ look that I hoped contained the threat to end our friendship, I ignored his quelling hand gesture that only wound me up more.
‘Vould you like to come through?’ Norbert asked. He rolled up his sleeves as though he were about to beat someone up – or perform surgery. Tingles shot to my hairline.
Colin turned to me and lifted his eyebrows. The question was clear: ‘You or me?’
‘You know I can’t— Without thinking about this—’
Norbert laughed heartily. ‘A first-timer? Let’s see what she’s made of.’
A petite older woman with a tousled bob poked her head into the studio from an adjoining room. ‘Ciao, Colin!’
He greeted her with a kiss on the cheek that reminded me of how much of his life he must have spent in Europe. She was introduced as Olga and I was distracted, admiring the elegant barbed wire on her upper arm as she greeted me, until she asked, ‘Are you Colin’s girlfriend?’
I straightened. ‘No.’
Olga pouted. ‘Aw, I’d hoped you might be here for matching tattoos. Little hearts.’ She patted Colin’s cheek, which had turned ruddy Irish, like his father’s.
‘Your first crush, Bua?’ Norbert asked with a grin.
I opened my mouth to remind them that I was standing right here, but a photo on the wall snagged my attention.
It was a black-and-white shot of a woman, naked as far as I could tell, and turned away from the camera, the sensitive parts hidden in shadow.
The light accented the folds and curves at her waist. One of her hands – nails manicured into short points – was tucked under her arm and a few strands of hair fell down her back.
Inked onto her side in colour – the only colour in the photo – was a pair of flared wildflowers, their stalks bowed, with round, textured leaves emerging from a cover of snow at her waist. The image was striking, all the more so because it was on her body – it was part of her body.
Feeling pressure on my shoulder, I was almost surprised to find Colin still in the room, his arm now draped casually over me.
Norbert approached as well, gesturing to the photo. ‘This is my friend Silvia, with the Alpenglockchen, spring flowers in the mountains where she walks.’
Something in his tone made me wonder if Silvia was a little more than a friend.
‘Would you like to see more flower designs?’
Instead of flowers, my mind produced the image of Colin’s bare chest, the dark, delicate ink of the compass pointing northeast towards Europe – or his heart.
I couldn’t keep the words in. ‘I know what I want.’
The arm over my shoulders tightened. ‘Leesa…’
‘You brought me here,’ I pointed out, shrugging off his arm. ‘What did you think would happen?’
‘I didn’t think I’d fall the rest of the way in love with you.’
I had to force a choppy breath into my lungs. Drawled in his usual cheeky tone, I knew better than to take his words seriously, but they still seized my heart and squeezed. There was no happy ending here, but this moment belonged to whatever it was that drew us together.
‘It doesn’t hurt too much,’ he reassured me.
‘I’m not worried. I was a cyclist, remember?’
‘I won’t forget. What are you going to get?’
I followed Norbert’s beckoning to a curtained-off reclining chair with gleaming equipment set neatly in drawers and on racks.
‘I’m not telling,’ I answered Colin over my shoulder, enjoying his hitched groan of disappointment.
‘At least tell me where.’
‘Nope!’
The curtain swished closed behind me and I took a deep breath. It felt good accepting that maybe I didn’t have to be a nice girl all the time. I couldn’t know – or rationalise – everything. I was prepared to get this wrong and screw the consequences – today, at least.
‘What’s your favourite number?’ Colin called from the other side of the curtain, making me wonder at the change of topic.
‘Nine,’ I answered without needing to think about it, while Norbert took up a sketch pad and an enormous folder of designs.
‘Really? It’s one of my recent favourites too,’ Colin replied. ‘Is it because I came ninth in last year’s Tour that you like that number so much?’
I’d forgotten he came ninth last year. I’d spent most of the men’s Tour on training camp, trying to stop Lori moping about her troubles with her boyfriend.
‘No. It’s been my favourite number since school,’ I replied. ‘It’s the base-minus-one in our number system and can be used to solve all sorts of math problems. When you add all the digits of any multiple of nine, you get another multiple of—’
‘You lost me, but it’s fuckin’ sexy when you talk about multiples,’ Colin drawled. I suspected he was trying to distract me from any lingering nerves, but I was quite bright with anticipation, despite the wicked-looking stainless-steel implements spread around the room.
‘What’s your favourite number then? Sixty-nine?’ I teased, wondering when he was going to tell me what this was about.
‘That’s my second favourite.’
Wow, if he could bottle and sell that voice, he’d have a record-breaking following on OnlyFans, if he ever wanted to stop racing. ‘What’s your favourite, then?’
He didn’t hesitate. ‘Number one, of course.’
Colin
Fuck, it hurt.
I deserved the pain today, tricking Leesa into getting a tattoo, letting her think she’d saved me from the same fate, even though I’d had no intention of leaving here without new ink.
But, truthfully, I was a wimp with tattoos.
The road could rip my skin open, I could push my muscles until I had bushfires raging in my legs, even my broken collarbone hadn’t reduced me to tears, but the needle spiking my skin over and over again turned me into a whining, bleating weakling and it was a good thing she was behind a curtain and couldn’t see me right now.
Norbert had turned on some heavy rock music and she couldn’t hear me either – thankfully.
‘Zitto, ragazzo. Tutto va bene,’ Olga crooned, one of her hands gentle on my back as the other held the gun steady.
For the fiftieth time, I glanced at the curtain, wishing I knew what was going on in there. It was her first tattoo and I’d got her there, even though it had taken some well-meaning subterfuge.
‘Ungh,’ I grunted as Olga started up again after a brief pause.
‘The boy is growing up?’ she asked with a smile in her voice. I had no idea what language Olga spoke natively, but she’d switched back to Italian once Leesa was out of the room.
‘Apparently not,’ I said, my voice high as I struggled to lie still. ‘That needle still freaks me out,’ I added in English.
She chuckled and I hoped her hand was steady. ‘I meant you found a girl.’
That assumption tightened up everything that wasn’t already tense inside me. ‘I found her, but that doesn’t mean I can keep her. She’s just here for her job.’
‘She’s not here for her job, is she?’
A twinge of something powerful in my chest. ‘No, but she’s not here for me. It’s fair enough.’ But I wanted to be here for her.
The sound of voices carried through the curtain, but my thoughts were dim and I couldn’t work out what they were saying. A moment later, the curtain drew aside and there she stood, a bright smile on her face that punched the air out of my lungs – a smile that quickly faded when she saw me.
‘Colin!’ I felt like the luckiest man in the world when she said my name, even in that disbelieving tone. ‘You told me if I got a tattoo, I’d stop you from getting one!’
‘Yeah, well,’ I managed through a grimace, ‘I lied.’
‘It’s small,’ Olga assured her, looking up from her work. ‘It will heal quickly.’
‘What is—?’ The way she cut off her sentence with a strangled sound suggested she’d seen it. She didn’t have to be quite so horrified.
‘Relax, Kubicka,’ I grumbled. ‘It’s my number for the Tour this year. Nine for the team and one for my rider number.’ At least it was a convenient coincidence. ‘Did you think I’d tattooed your favourite number on my arse?’
Her spluttered response would have been more satisfying if I’d been telling the whole truth.
‘I can’t believe you got a number tattooed on your ass two weeks before the Tour de France,’ she said, her voice high.
‘It’ll make me faster. I promise.’ I shot her a smile. ‘And it’s not quite my arse, as you can see.’ It was right at the top of the slope of my butt. All Olga had had to do was pull my shorts down a bit.
‘I am taking no responsibility for this,’ Leesa said, scrunching her hair at her temples as though she were about to pull out a handful – because of me.
‘Of course it’s nothing to do with you,’ I lied as smoothly as I could.
As Olga finished up her work, the next few weeks yawned before me and I struggled to stay still. I’d made the tattoo appointment in a moment of restlessness, the team, my dad, my fixation on Leesa Kubicka all too much.
It didn’t take a genius – like her – to work out that she wouldn’t be happy to know she was affecting my head, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I couldn’t seem to stay away from her – I didn’t want to. After the Tour, she’d be gone from my life – maybe this time for good.
I’d already said goodbye to her once and it had been so awful I hadn’t known what to say.
She was quiet, her arms crossed, as I drove the team car back to the hotel in the golden light of the early evening. I had to confess – only to myself – that my fresh tattoo was uncomfortable when I sat in the driver’s seat. I had a feeling I’d regret this one one day.
‘Are you going to tell me what tattoo you got? Or did you chicken?’
‘I did not chicken,’ she answered with her chin in the air.
‘Of course you didn’t.’ It was a miracle I could say anything, my lungs were so tight. ‘Can I see it?’
‘It’s covered under a dressing.’
I was dying to know.
‘What time are you going tomorrow morning?’ I forced myself to ask.
‘First thing. I have an early train.’
Can I sleep in your bed tonight?
‘Where are you staying until the Tour?’ Want to come and stay with my mum and grandfather?
‘I’m spending a week in Poland and then arriving in Strasbourg a few days before the team presentation.’
‘Your family in Poland?’
‘Babcia – my grandmother. She won’t understand that I have to work, but I couldn’t come back to Europe and not visit.’
‘I’m visiting my nonno,’ I told her with a quick grin that she warily returned. ‘He doesn’t live too far from here. Do you speak Polish with your family?’
She nodded. Of course, Leesa would be effortlessly bilingual. ‘But it’s funny: in Poland, I’m an American and in the States I’m Polish.’
‘Tell me something in Polish?’
She eyed me. ‘What should I say? Hello? Sorry? Thank you? You could just download a language app.’
‘If I ever meet your grandmother, I will.’
She stilled, her brow dipping, and I berated myself for the stupid things I blurted out when she was next to me. But then she spoke: ‘Co ma piernik do wiatraka.’ Her tone was even, the consonants precise and delicate.
‘Let me guess, you’re calling me an idiot?’
That earned me a reluctant chuckle. ‘No. “What does gingerbread have to do with a windmill?”’
‘Is that a brain teaser? Am I supposed to answer it?’
‘It’s rhetorical, but you could answer in Italian,’ she prompted, shooting me a sidelong glance I wanted to bottle and store for months.
‘Hai voluto la bicicletta? E adesso pedala!’ I answered, exaggerating the variations in tone and pinching my fingers together in the famous Italian hand gesture.
Finally. A genuine smile. ‘I only caught the bicycle part.’
‘“You wanted the bicycle, now pedal,”’ I translated.
‘Sounds like a judgement on my life,’ she muttered with a rueful laugh. ‘But I like it better than “You made your bed, now lie in it”.’
We fell silent. I had a hundred things I could have asked her, but most of them led somewhere we shouldn’t go.
The drive was over more quickly than the distance suggested – either that or my thoughts had tied me up in so many knots that I hadn’t been paying attention. I pulled up on the gravel outside the hotel and set the park brake, but I didn’t move to get out of the car.
Neither did she.