Chapter 39
Colin
I’d come too far to stop now, even though I could taste metal in my mouth and my stomach was threatening to eject its contents all over the road.
I would see the endless grey bitumen in a foggy haze in my dreams tonight.
Maybe I wouldn’t be able to stop, my legs might lock and I’d keep going until my blood poisoned my lungs and that was it: game over.
But in a few minutes… just a few minutes, Leesa might put her arms around me again. I knew this was the last climb, but I also knew the last climb always felt three times as long as the rest of the stage.
Steady, breathe…
There was only Den Otter with me now; the other two from the breakaway had fallen back, exhausted.
The Dutchman was looking worse for wear – although I knew I was too.
But I had more pride. I was certain of that.
My pride always flared when I was knocked down, when I was low and frustrated and a little bit desperate.
And when I thought of Leesa putting her hand in mine, despite my years of acting up, growing up so I could meet her in a place where we were level – like the top of this fucking mountain – I was more than a little desperate to get there.
Alan’s voice came over the radio, vibrating with a restless quality that was odd for him. ‘1 km, C. You’re doing it. They can’t catch you now. The peloton is too far behind. You’re knocking it out of the park. Steady as she goes. Don’t blow up now!’
The fog was a kind of embrace as the seconds ticked by, accompanied by Alan’s updates on my progress towards the blessed end of this torture.
I should have been looking at my instruments.
We had tested exactly how long I could keep up these levels of power, but I was running on instinct, feeling my own limits.
This was my heart on the line. Win or lose, I would show Leesa what I was made of, what I would throw into a relationship with her. I would goddamn make it possible to stay together.
‘500 m!’ came Alan’s voice, high-pitched with excitement now.
I heard Leesa’s voice in my head: It would be better if you won!
The road was lined with spectators jostling for a good view behind the barriers, cheering and whistling as they got their show: two escapees on their way to defeating the peloton, about to fight it out for the stage win, because second place wasn’t even close to a consolation.
Hyper-aware of Den Otter, clinging to my wheel now, I decided this stage was mine. Not for Dad – or Mum – or PowerFuel or any other sponsor. For the guys, yes, because without them I wouldn’t be here, grabbing this moment by the balls. But my name was going to be on the record today.
I felt my opponent about to try, a slight change in the fog between us, but I was quicker, jolting my body right back up to maximum.
My lungs burned. I felt as though someone had turned me inside-out and my organs were hanging off my skin.
But none of that mattered. It didn’t matter that I could barely see through the encroaching blackness at the edges of my vision.
The finish line was just ahead. Three more seconds – the longest of my life. The road was clear before me. Den Otter couldn’t catch me. The line was hazy and jagged in my brain, but I raised my arms over my head and bellowed from somewhere deep inside me.
Stage 16: Colin Valerio Gallagher, Harper-Stacked. My first stage win. My first everything – with Leesa watching. I was never going to let her go.
The first thing I did, before I even stopped rolling, was clap Julian den Otter on the back.
He’d had an epic day and we would face each other again without a doubt.
The second thing was scan the crowd for the one face I wanted to see, finding her easily, as she was rushing through the mêlée as though I’d just survived a hostage situation, not simply a stage of the Tour de France.
I managed to get my feet down to catch her, hauling her tight against me as the bike clattered, forgotten, to the ground. With a whump, everything in me settled. No more restlessness.
Her hands gripping my face, she made a sound suspiciously like a sob and then her mouth was on mine, tight and urgent. One hand on the back of her head, I deepened the kiss to scalding, setting off all the sparks we’d always had and feeding the flame inside me that was just for her.
There was no way I wasn’t saying it. I took a moment to marvel that this was happening, that she was peering up at me, tear-stained cheeks and the chin dimple I adored, then with one more gentle, soothing kiss, I looked her in the eye and said the words that had lived in me for a lot longer than I’d ever admitted. ‘I love you, Lees.’
Those gorgeous eyes widened. ‘You… what?’
It wasn’t the most flattering response, but her arms tightened around my neck.
‘Shhh,’ I managed gently. ‘I know, it hasn’t been straightforward between us and I screwed up a lot, but I’ve loved you for such a long time.
I loved you before I knew what that meant, let alone what to do with it.
Yeah, maybe at the beginning, I didn’t know you well, but these past few weeks…
You’re so real to me now and I love you so much more than I—’ My voice gave out and I had to blink away the spots in my vision.
‘Hey.’ It was her turn to soothe me, wrapping her arms around my chest and holding me up as Chris rushed to help me stumble to the team area. He pressed a recovery drink into my hand and I guzzled it greedily and demanded another with a flick of my hand.
I stayed standing for another half a second before my legs gave out and Leesa had to ease me to the ground.
‘Take it easy, champ,’ she said with a smile I could hear in her voice. ‘I’m not going anywhere. You’ve got time to tell me all about it later.’ She smoothed my hair off my forehead and I leaned my head on her shoulder with a groan.
‘You are going somewhere – after Paris.’
Her sigh was eloquent. ‘We can try to make it work. Maybe I can look for work in Eur—’
I shook my head, vehemently enough that it hurt and I had to squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. ‘No.’
‘No?’ I loved that doubtful tone.
A smile touched my lips. ‘I will not accept you making sacrifices just because my life is a circus. I’ve started looking for a place in California for the off-season.’
That stole the wind right from her lungs. She gawked at me, another expression to add to my favourites. ‘You what? What does Tony think of this?’
‘It’s not his life,’ I said with a shrug. ‘It’s mine and I want you in it. I just won a fucking stage of the Tour de France, but the thing I really want? More than all of this?’
I clutched her shoulders while I let the dramatic pause have its effect.
‘I want to make you happy. I want to hold you and ground you, treasure that clever brain of yours and sometimes make it shut up so you can just enjoy life. I want to be wherever you are as much as I possibly can. I’m yours, Leesa,’ I said emphatically.
‘I always have been and unless you tell me to fuck off, I always will be.’
Leesa
My brain had well and truly checked out for the evening.
No thoughts for the cameras pointed right at us, sniffing out a story even more thrilling than Colin taking the stage win despite his awful crash less than a week ago.
I wasn’t even worried about stealing the limelight when, really, the news should be him and not… us.
I didn’t care about anything except the words spilling out of him, raw and untainted by his usual bravado, the words I understood now he’d been working up to all week.
He loved me – enough that he was willing to upend his own life so I didn’t have to sacrifice mine.
There was no ‘Let’s try this out long-distance.
’ No, that wasn’t Colin Gallagher’s style.
He loved me and that meant all in. That meant for real – through thick and thin – because that’s the person he was, the person I’d only seen clearly for the first time five weeks ago on training camp, although I’d caught glimpses over the years.
‘I told you it was just a crush,’ he continued, ‘but it was always more than that. I never thought you’d see anything in me. First I was too young and then I was… an idiot.’
It was difficult to believe that, under everything he’d said and done, he’d always been hiding this depth of feeling, but I also couldn’t doubt him, not today – not after everything he’d planned and executed over the past few days.
Thinking of the years he’d lived with unrequited feelings for me, there was only one way I could respond – with my own surprising truth.
‘You know what?’ I began, my lungs tight with the words ready to pour out.
‘What?’
‘I love that idiot – so much.’ With the words out, the truth of them only seemed to sharpen. My journey to that declaration had been longer, but I’d fallen in just as deep.
The disbelieving smile that formed on his face felt like a mirror and his breath hitched, which probably wasn’t good for him right now.
‘You’re still with me, right?’ I grasped his face in my hands – dusty, smeared with sweat and tanned from his helmet straps. ‘Don’t keel over now. I’ve got a long future I want to live with you.’
‘You won’t get rid of me that easily,’ he mumbled. ‘And I’ll remember that you said you want to live with me.’ His arms came up and tugged me closer.
‘I have to tell you,’ I whispered in his ear, ‘I’m not a very tidy person.’
‘I can handle that, Kubicka. Now tell me again.’ He lifted his chin to prompt me.
‘What? I love you?’
‘That’s the one,’ he said with a smile, stretching up for a kiss that was soft and slow.
‘None of that now! We need to get him recovered and ready for the podium protocol! My boy! On the podium! You beaut, he did it!’
Instead of listening to his dad and drawing away, Colin’s hand came up to hold me where I was. ‘Screw the podium. Leesa Kubicka is in love with me. I officially win everything.’
I pushed at him. ‘Go! You’ve worked so hard for this.’
His arm snaked around my waist. ‘I’ve worked harder for this.’
Smiling down at him, I nodded. ‘I know that now. But I want to see my idiot on the podium!’
Then Tony’s shrill voice added some of the only words capable of knocking some sense back into Colin: ‘In white! He did it! He made up two-and-a-half minutes with that mad effort. He’ll be on the podium in white!’