by Hodgson, Jim
Buck shook his head then reached over and poked Jose in the ribs with a finger.
“Ay!” Jose said. Hector turned and smiled. The twins saw, and were watching as well.
When everyone was looking, Buck called “Vamonos!”
The riders responded as one voice. “Vamonos!” they yelled. Other riders turned to look, and smirked into their hands at the team.
Buck spotted Polini nearby with his New Orleans riders. “Listen to these idiots,” Polini said, sneering at Buck and his Miami team. He was speaking loud enough to be heard over the din of the crowd. “Don’t they know the language of cycling is French?”
“Remind me, Polini,” LeMond said, speaking equally as loud, “what is the French word for a sprinter who loses a crit to an all-rounder?”
A few riders laughed. A few more made “oooh” sounds. Polini’s smirk turned into a frown, and he scoffed. “A lucky win is all. Let’s see how your all-rounder does today, eh?”
The witty repartee was cut short by the race director, who called for attention over a megaphone.
“Attencion, monsieurs et madames!” he said, his voice feeding back over the sound system. “Bienvenue sur le Tour Nationale de New France!”
Cheers went up from the crowd and the riders. Buck’s heart swelled in his chest. He was here! Actually here, at the start of Nationals. Whatever happened in the race, he knew he would give everything he had. For himself, for the country he’d known only as a child, for his parents, for LeMond, for his teammates, for Michael, for Faith.
“Excusez-moi, but my French is not so good.” The race director laughed through the sound system. “I will continue in English.” A few laughs went up from the crowd. Everyone could relate to trying to learn French and not having a lot of success at it. “It has been brought to my attention by Monsieur Bernard here, New Orleans Director, that there are concerns about the team from Miami. Those concerns being that the team does not have a legitimate right to entry in the Tour de New France.”
Buck’s heart chilled as he waited to hear the director’s next words. Surely they couldn’t have come so far, only to be stopped at the last minute, once again, by Bernard.
The race director continued, “Let me be clear here. With respect, Monsieur Bernard, that is incorrect. They are here in accordance with the regulations and will be allowed to continue. Alors, let’s have a clean race, n’est-ce pas?”
Everyone cheered. Buck’s heart leapt again. They would be allowed to race! Of course, they’d still face the usual dangers: exhaustion, mechanical failure, and treachery on the part of the other teams. But at least they would be allowed to start.
“Okay, I gotta get out of here,” LeMond said. “Remember: Race easy. Flat stage. Conserve energy for tomorrow.”
Buck nodded. “Vamonos,” he said again.
“Vamonos!” came the echo from his teammates.
Buck did exactly as LeMond asked. After the race director started the peloton on its way with a starting pistol, Buck rode easily, just trying to keep himself safe in the peloton with his teammates around him. As much as they’d trained as a team, they’d never been in a race situation together. Buck was pleased to see the way his support riders behaved. They might not be the most experienced riders in the start list, but what they lacked in experience they made up in sheer will. They didn’t ride timid, and that pleased Buck immensely. They kept other team’s riders away from him, which lessened his chances of being crashed out or forced off the road.
Updates came from LeMond in the team car, who advised the team on parts of the road that might cause problems. Hard left turn ahead, rough pavement—that sort of thing.
The first breakaway came only a few kilometers into the race. A pack of riders sped away from the group. A few domestiques near the front of the peloton sprinted away to catch them, but the favored sprinters, notably Polini, let them go. The New Orleans team must be relying on the speed of the peloton to reel the break in before the stage finish, Buck thought. Most of the time, a breakaway would get caught by a larger group simply because a larger group has more riders who can work together. A hundred men taking turns on the front of the pack can quickly outpace four or five.
“Don’t worry about them,” came LeMond’s voice over the radio, crackly with static. “Nobody we need to concern ourselves with.”
Buck keyed his radio mic clipped to the front of his shirt. “Who do we need to concern ourselves with?”
“Find out tomorrow,” LeMond said. Since most of the riders in the peloton today were amateurs, there wasn’t a lot of data available on their capabilities. Anyone good enough to ride as a pro would be in Europe.
Buck looked around at the riders from the other teams. He saw some strong guys, obviously sprinters, and there were some more diminutive riders who were obviously climbers, but he didn’t see anyone around his size. Maybe he would get lucky and there wouldn’t be any real competition for the overall win.
Just as he was having that thought, LeMond radioed that they were crossing the halfway mark on today’s stage. Polini began to whip his team toward the front of the Peloton, hoping to drive the pace and catch the other riders. None of the other teams seemed that interested in chasing down the break, so the New Orleans riders were obliged to do it themselves. Serves Polini right, he thought. Act like a prick all the time, get no respect in the peloton.
But he wasn’t as amused when he felt the pace kick up as the New Orleans team took the front of the peloton. They rode like a maglev train. Buck expected to gain a kilometer or two per hour at most, giving the peloton enough speed to chase down the breakaway, but it was more like five k.p.h. Maybe ten.
Buck radioed back to LeMond in the team car. “Holy shit, these guys are strong. We just kicked up like five k,” he said, grunting with the effort of staying on the pace.
“Almost ten,” came the reply. “The peloton will catch the break long before the end of the race.”
Buck swiveled his head to check on his team. They looked okay, but not great. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that a few riders were hanging their heads when they thought he wasn’t looking—a sure sign they were feeling strained by the extra speed. There was no way the New Orleans riders could hang onto this pace for long. Even with the benefit of being in the peloton—where the wind resistance was lessened by 30%—Buck and the Miami riders were panting with the effort of keeping up.
“Vamonos!” he shouted, by way of encouraging them. They did their best to shout back.
Well, New Orleans were only hurting themselves, Buck thought, by going this hard on the first day. They might be able to deliver their sprinter to the finish line with a great chance of winning today, but they’d be feeling the pain tomorrow when the road turned upward.
Buck and his team stuck to their plan. New Orleans kept their frenzied pace on, and eventually set up Polini for his sprint in textbook cycling team tactics. When they got to the finish line, though, there was no one much to sprint against. Polini sailed across the finish line 500 meters ahead of his nearest competitor, thus snagging the yellow jersey of the race leader plus the green jersey of the fastest sprinter. Buck crossed behind with the main pack, in 57th.
Buck watched the short awards ceremony that concluded each day’s stage with a frown.
“So, wait,” Faith said, standing at his elbow and watching Polini posing for photos in the yellow jersey. “He gets yellow and the green, too?”
“Yeah, because technically he’s leading in both categories. But there is more honor in the yellow jersey, so he’ll wear that one tomorrow,”
“Oh, I see,” Faith said, who didn’t sound like she saw at all.
LeMond’s post-stage speech back at the hotel was congratulatory. “Great work today, team,” he said after the riders had showered. “We had a tactic and we stuck with it. Obviously, New O
rleans did too, but they are playing the short game. We are here to win, to play the long game. Hard work tomorrow in the mountains, and then we’ll see who’s in yellow, okay?”
The team murmured back at him. Buck couldn’t shake a nagging sensation that something was just not right but decided it didn’t pay to think negatively. He resolved to get a relaxing massage, eat some dinner, and settle in for a good night’s sleep. His legs felt pretty good considering they’d raced today, so he allowed himself cautious optimism about the mountain stage the next day.
In Faith’s room, there were two massage tables set up so that she and LeMond could work on the riders two at a time. After LeMond finished working on one of the twins, though, he excused himself to “go check on something.” That left only Faith to give Buck his massage. LeMond wink at him on his way out. When the second of the twins got up from being worked on by Faith, he also gave Buck a wink.
“I’m starting to think this team needs an optometrist,” Buck said. What the hell did they think they were achieving by winking at him like that, anyway? He was their team leader, not some schoolboy with a crush.
“Optometrist?” Faith asked, puzzled.
“Nothing,” Buck said, watching as his giggling teammates eked their way out of the room.
“How are we feeling?” Faith said. “Any problem areas?”
“Yeah, I have a problem with most of New Orleans.”
Faith took this comment as Buck meant it, which was to say that he didn’t feel particularly sore in any specific muscle. She started on his legs, rubbing the lactic acid out and the healing blood into his muscles. “Oh yeah?” she asked. “Why’s that?”
“They were just too fast today. No team should be able to pull the whole peloton like that. Polini’s a good rider, but . . .” he trailed off, searching for the words. “They were really, really fast.”
“You’re really fast, too,” she said.
He chuckled. “Thanks. I’m just lucky they don’t have an all-rounder. If any of the teams had an all-rounder with the kind of power New Orleans showed today, I would be in real trouble.”
“Hey,” Faith said. Her voice was soft and musical, and he enjoyed the sound. He wished she would say “hey” like that more.
“Yeah?”
“You’re fast. And you’re a good man. You’ll be fine. And you’ll make us all proud,” she said, staring him directly in the eyes.
The words hit him with force. There was the attitude he was supposed to have. Not sitting around worrying about trouble before trouble was at his door. He felt gratitude well inside him.
“I will do my—” he said, but she cut him off when she leaned down a placed a kiss on his lips. Her hair brushed his face, and the swell of her breast pressed onto his body. Here again was the soft mouth and strong heart he’d felt that night on the veranda. The image of her lithe, powerful body flashed in his mind.
She straightened, breaking off the kiss, and he looked into her eyes. She looked back, her eyes glassy. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done that. You need to concentrate on the race.”
“No, no, it’s okay,” he said. He rose to his elbows so he could address her without speaking lying down. “I . . .” he trailed off when he noticed that he was completely, fully, embarrassingly erect beneath his towel. Oh great, he thought, this is how you treat a woman who is doing her best to support you? Get a boner at her? Some respectful professional you are. He lay down again and pressed his penis down with both hands.
She put her hands on his, which made him shake a bit. Tremors surprised his body like a peloton suddenly riding past a family breakfast table.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. She reached her hand under the towel, gripped him, and he threw his arms around her neck, filling his nose with the smell of her sweet skin. Soon she was hurriedly pulling her clothes off, and he was trying to feel every inch of her at once. When she straddled him and took him inside her, there was no further protest, except from the wooden legs of the massage table.
Chapter 19
Had she done the right thing? Faith didn’t know. She felt self-conscious about it. Here she was, a thousand miles from New Lyon where her brother was facing imminent doom and she was humping and thrusting like a teenager. What in the world had she been thinking of?
Okay, she knew the answer to that. Or, one answer, at least. She was feeling full of emotion and it had overtaken her. Her intentions were good. Wasn’t that what mattered? She’d wanted to let Buck know that she believed in him, knew he could succeed. So she’d leaned down and kissed him before she’d thought too much about it. Then, when his body responded as a man’s body tended to do when aroused, she’d wanted to let him know it was okay. That she recognized and accepted him as a man and he didn’t have to feel embarrassed about it. And then, well, it’d been the hottest moment of her life, so she’d run with it.
True, a huge part of her massage training were warnings that any masseuse would sooner or later get propositioned. Faith had seen it happen when she was doing her practical training. Businessmen come in for a massage, pop a boner, and then they want to try to negotiate a little more personal massaging. Any masseuse who agreed faced being ostracized by her peers, not to mention sanctions from the licensing board if the truth got out. For that part of what had happened with Buck, she felt ashamed.
On the other hand, so to speak, this was different. It was Buck. Of course, she couldn’t carry on a relationship with him. They were working together. Besides, she’d just gotten out of some kind of weird, fucked up relationship with a power-tripping asshole mayor of a major metropolitan area, so she didn’t need to be dating anyone.
She just felt so comfortable with Buck, like she could look into those beautiful eyes and whatever was bothering her would melt away. Win or lose in this race, he was a good man. He always did the right thing. He behaved respectably. Didn’t he deserve to be relaxed? From a physical standpoint, he’d certainly needed it. And she’d needed it too. Not just the orgasm, but to share it with him.
She’d never encountered anything like his orgasm. When it came to his penis, he wasn’t superhuman in size, but definitely above average, if her hazy memory of her classes in human anatomy were anything to go by.
God forgive me, she thought, it was so hot. She allowed herself this secret, decadent thought. What harm could it do, here inside her mind? No one would know. She loved the way his body strained and he arched his back, lifting her into the air as though the force of their combined climaxes would cause them to take flight. Loved the grunting sound he made and the way he kissed her so hungrily. He was so . . . male. What would it be like to have him on top of her?
Okay, she had to stop that. She fanned her face a bit with one hand and checked the time. She was up before her alarm and might as well get in the shower and get ready for the day. Maybe she’d make the shower water a few degrees cooler than strictly necessary. The cold would do her good.
Chapter 20
Buck suspected LeMond knew that something . . . different had happened with Faith. He was smirkier even than usual, which was pretty damn smirky. But he thought it best not to ask LeMond what he was smirking about, lest he get mired in some kind of awkward discussion. Whatever happened, happened. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before, and it happened. It might not ever happen again.
But it had happened.
The image of her body atop him, the feel of her mouth on his, her round backside in his hands . . . but no. He couldn’t think like that. If there was anything he needed to be thinking about, it would be his race. So much was riding on him, he—poor choice of words. So many people trusted in him. The fate of a nation was on his shoulders, if Miguel was to be believed. Even if that part wasn’t true, he needed this win.
The press was going insane. LeMond had flipped the television on thirty minute
s before they planned to wake up, and he’d already seen the photo of himself on his bike at the start line a few times on it, usually sharing the screen with Bernard’s frowning face and crossed arms. They were calling Buck a “strong contender” for the overall win, given the lack of all-rounders in the field. Then they showed images of Polini, arms up, crossing the finish line for the stage win, and accepting his leader’s jerseys in the awards ceremony.
Well, we’ll certainly see who is an all-rounder today, he thought. He looked at a printout of the day’s elevation. It showed what looked like a line graph, with the graphed area filled-in yellow. The graph showed a huge hump in the middle, a slope back down, and a big rise on the far right-hand side. There would be a big climb for mountain points in the middle of the stage, a fast descent, and then a big climb at the close of the day. A typical mountain stage.
Though Buck was technically in 57th place, what really mattered was his time. The leadout group for Polini had finished thirty seconds ahead of his group. He should be able to get those thirty seconds back today easily, though. He’d need the help of his team to put him in a good position, but climbing, ultimately, was a solo occupation. With sprinting, a team was critical to help break the wind, but at slower climbing speeds all you really need is strength and the ability to endure a lot of pain.
Buck got up, showered, and put on his riding clothes. He then went room-to-room and checked on his team. They looked fit, muscular. Faith’s cross training had really done them all good. Walking out of the hotel with his bike and heading to the start line, he felt pride. He had a great team behind him. They were going to kick ass today.