Cycling Downhill: A Sweet Young Adult Romance (Love is a Triathlon Book 3)

by Chrissy Q Martin

  “You don’t know how many times I wanted to say something,” Dylan says. “It was sheer torture.”

  “Good,” I say. “You deserve it.”

  “It was fun.” Dylan can’t stop grinning. “Wasn’t it?”

  I roll my eyes at him and grab the fork again. “I knew it was you.”

  “Anytime you want to be set up on a blind date, I’m your Guy,” Dylan says.

  THIRTY-NINE

  “What’d you do over the weekend?” Paul asks when we’re given ten minutes to work together at the end of calculus class on Monday.

  I twist my lip to the side. He could have asked, “How was your weekend?” and I could have said, “Good.” But no, he asks what I did. I shouldn’t have a problem telling a friend about my weekend.

  “I had a date,” I reply, not wanting to look at Paul’s face. From the stillness of his body I can tell he’s surprised.

  “Oh.” I dare to glance up at him and he swallows hard. “Who was it with?”

  Yep. I expected this and it’s best conquered with continued talking and a string of questions. “It was a blind date. We went bowling with Nick and Nora. What about you? What’d you do this weekend? Have you gone on any dates with anyone?”

  “No.” Paul looks flustered, which was my intention. “Have you been on other dates?”

  “Just one.” I look down at the notebook in front of me. “With Dylan.” It’s time. Dylan told me to tell him. I meet Paul’s wide eyes. “He won a bet with me and I owed him a date.”

  “What…” Paul chokes on the word. “What was the bet?”

  I wonder if he’s having flashbacks of the stupid bet he made with Dylan in middle school.

  “I’m sorry I never told you,” I say. “I debated telling you many times, but I thought I’d win.” My leg bounces up and down under the table. It’s slightly nerve-wracking to be telling Paul this now. “When we first started going out, Dylan bet me a date we’d break up before graduation and I bet him not working with me over the summer we wouldn’t.”

  “And he won.” Paul’s voice is barely audible over the quiet talking of our classmates. “Because…because I broke up with you.”

  Finally. Finally, he says those words. He broke up with me.

  I shrug, covering the vindication I feel. “Yep. And I owed him a date.” I wonder if Dylan’s given me a consolation prize by not working with me this spring. We haven’t worked at the same pool for the last few sessions of lessons, and I quite miss it.

  “If I hadn’t broken up with you, you wouldn’t have gone out on a date with him?” I can see Paul twisting this over in his head, the guilt manifesting itself with tiny lines between his eyes. “I thought he was dating Sabrina?” Paul’s eyebrows twist in confusion.

  Oh, boy. I’m the one dropping truth bombs now. “Nope. They’ve never actually been a real couple. They pretended to date so you would be comfortable with me trying out for water polo with Dylan there.”

  “They were fake dating?” Paul’s face continues to contort in confusion. Could shock cause someone to faint? Because Paul might be close to it. “But I saw them at the diner not long ago. And Tara told me…” His voice fades away.

  “I’m sorry. That was our date,” I say. Guilt wells in my belly for not telling him sooner. “When you saw Dylan, I was hiding under the table.”

  Paul’s eyes widen even more, and honestly, even with the guilt, I’m drawing some satisfaction from this conversation. I hope my truth telling will compel him to tell the truth about why he broke up with me.

  “You were there?” Paul asks.

  “Yes.” I wobble my head back and forth. “And now I owe Dylan again because he covered for me.”

  Paul looks like he’s about to choke, or maybe puke. “What do you owe him?”

  “He wants me to do the gym triathlon with him.”

  “And are you?”

  “Sure, why wouldn’t I? We’re friends.”

  Paul places his head in his hands and rests his elbows on the table. I’ve given him a lot to mull over.

  “I never should have broken up with you.” Paul keeps his face tucked in his hands.

  I touch his elbow with my fingertips and Paul peers at me through his fingers. “Then why did you?” I ask.

  Paul looks around, seemingly noticing we’re in a classroom and not alone. “Can we talk about this another time?”

  The class dismissal bell rings and saves Paul.

  For the rest of the week, I wait for Paul to tell me, but he doesn’t, and I don’t pester him about it. He seems to be in one of his dark moods, and I’m not going to push it. On Friday, Paul’s demeanor improves, and he slides into the chair next to me during project work time in calculus. He has a rare smile on his face. Once, I was often the recipient of the smile that’s as elusive as a wild snow leopard.

  “Hey, Ash,” he says. “Are you coming over to ride the tandem tomorrow? It’s supposed to be a nice day.”

  It’s the last week of April. April is a fickle month in Minnesota. You can have sunshine and warmth one day, and a blizzard the next.

  I nod my head. “Same time as usual?”

  “I was thinking…” Paul scoots his chair closer to mine. “We could do something afterwards. Get a bite to eat or watch a movie?”

  The words in my mouth freeze. What was I going to say? Something about the project? The troubled sea of my heart has finally started to find peace, and Paul is stirring the waters. I remain mute for so long Paul tries to fill in the awkward silence.

  “I mean, unless you have something going on,” he says.

  “Oh, no.” I shake my head like I’ve been shocked with an electric jolt. “I’m free. You don’t have plans with Bridgette or Tara after we work on the project?”

  Paul twists his hands around and looks at the table. “Has Bridgette talked to you?”

  I pinch my lips together. “Not lately.”

  “She hasn’t said anything to you about me, has she?” Paul looks concerned.

  “The last time I talked to her she told me to stay away from you,” I say.

  “I haven’t done much with her lately, and I wondered if she talked to you,” Paul says. Why does he look guilty? Does she have something to do with why he broke up with me?

  “Is she still mad at you about the Spring Fling?” I thought Bridgette would have latched on to Paul as more than friends by now.

  “Something like that,” Paul replies and returns to being quiet.

  We resort to working on our project. It isn’t until the bell rings, and we walk to physics, I broach more personal subjects again, hoping to brighten whatever darkens Paul’s mood.

  “You know,” I say. “I’m still here, even if we’re not together. You can talk to me.” I’m embracing this new confidence. I think it’s helpful to be by myself for a bit, to keep finding who I am on my own. When I’m ready, the right person will come into my life, or back into it. “We’ll be at college together next year,” I say. “It’ll be nice to have a friend there.”

  “Wait.” Paul stops in the middle of the hallway. A huge football player nearly runs over me. I grab Paul’s arm and tug him into our classroom. “I thought you took the water polo scholarship. Why are you going to Eastern?” he asks.

  I wrinkle my nose and sit on the stool. How does Paul not know this? I told him I was going to Eastern. I think back, replaying conversations over in my head like a show on fast rewind. Oh. Paul broke up with me right before I gave my decision to the State University, and before I knew I had a full-ride academic scholarship to Eastern. Time for some more truth bombs. “I told you before I want to go to Eastern and swim. I don’t want to play water polo.”

  Paul smacks his hand against his forehead and hides behind it. “I’m such an idiot.”

  He doesn’t need to tell me. Everyone’s been telling me Pa
ul’s an idiot for breaking up with me.

  “Are you sure you’re not making a mistake going to Eastern?” Paul asks.

  I squint my eyes at Paul. “No, I’m not. I have a full-ride to Eastern.”

  “You do?” Paul looks shell-shocked and his body slacks over the table.

  “Yes,” I reply in an annoyed tone.

  “I’m the one who made a huge mistake,” Paul says.

  FORTY

  I’m not confident enough to let go of the handles on the treadmill yet. They’re tightly clenched in my hands while I run next to Dylan.

  “Can you believe him?” I still can’t believe it myself. “He didn’t say it, but I bet he broke up with me, so I’d take the water polo scholarship. He was shocked I’m going to Eastern.”

  “I don’t think he’d push you to go to State, especially if I’m going to be there. He’d want you with him at Eastern.” Dylan faces forward, his eyes on the track.

  “But he knew I really wanted a scholarship to go to college, and he told me to take the water polo one. When I told him I wanted to go to Eastern, he broke up with me.” I shake my head, remembering the day. It doesn’t hurt quite as much anymore. “Or maybe he knew he was going to break up with me and pushed me to go to State so I wouldn’t be at Eastern with him.”

  “I told you he’s a fool.” Dylan pushes damp curls out of his hair. “Just ask him.”

  My feet pound on the treadmill, and I enviously watch the people going around the track. “I don’t know. Every time I ask him why he broke up with me, he tells me it’s complicated.”

  “Maybe it is,” Dylan replies.

  I laugh, a single loud snort. “That’s what I tell people when they ask why I broke up with you. It’s better than saying I found out you were blackmailed to date me.”

  “I dare you to tell people that.” Dylan finally looks at me, a grin on his face.

  “I’d hit you if I could let go,” I say and grip the handles tighter. “But I’ll be the one getting a swat from this evil machine.”

  “Maybe it really is complicated for Turner,” Dylan says. “He’s always been an intense person.”

  “Maybe,” I say. Talking with Dylan is easy, like it is with Nora. He lets me ramble on about anything and get it all off my chest, and I let him do the same. “Now what’s going on with you? What happened at school this week?”

  It seems strange to think about Dylan at school, about him having a whole other life separate from what I know. I try to imagine what Dylan’s like at his school, but I only see it through the lens of how I know him.

  “You have all the prom nonsense going on at your school?” Dylan asks. He grabs his water bottle and takes a drink.

  “Yes.” My reply sounds as annoyed as his question. The senior prom is in five weeks, and it’s the talk of the school.

  “Anyone ask you?”

  I grip the handles tighter. “Paul hinted at it.” Dylan steps harder on the treadmill, his feet beating on the running mat as I speak. “But no, I’m not the kind of girl who gets asked to dances or goes to them. What about you?”

  “I’m thinking I need a fake girlfriend to stop all the other girls from asking. I’ve already been asked three times this week.”

  “Poor baby.” I chide Dylan. “It’s so tough to have all the girls all over you. Maybe you need to wrangle Sabrina back in to help.”

  “What about you?” Dylan looks over at me, his eyes the color of water from a tropical beach.

  “You want me to fake date you?” I raise my eyebrows at Dylan, while he grins at me.

  “Our proms are the same night,” Dylan says. “Let’s at least make plans to hang out, so we have an excuse not to go.” Dylan reaches over and presses a button to increase the speed of my treadmill.

  “Fine,” I say, as I increase my foot speed to keep up. “And why are you pushing my buttons?”

  Dylan wiggles his eyebrows. “Why do you let me push your buttons?”

  I roll my eyes and clench my hands tighter on the handles. “You seem to put me in situations where you can push them.”

  Dylan chuckles. “You’re going to have to learn to let go a little bit.”

  “I’m trying,” I say. It’s harder on the treadmill right now than it is in my life.

  “They won’t let you hold on the entire time in the race.”

  I exhale loudly. “Fine.” I release one hand and keep it near the handle just in case I have to grab on. “And you’ll have to have jellybeans for me on prom night. You owe me for being your excuse to not go.”

  “I’ll have a bag of only coconut ones for you.”

  Dylan and I finish up our treadmill training and make plans to do a trial triathlon next Saturday. We meet Nick and Nora for lunch before Dylan drops me off at Paul’s.

  “How are you getting home?” Dylan asks as I unbuckle my seatbelt. We sit in his car on the side of the road, at the end of Paul’s driveway.

  “I’m sure Paul will give me a ride home,” I reply. A garage door on Paul’s house starts to open.

  “Just be careful,” Dylan says. “I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  I grab my stuff, open the door, and get out. I’m not sure if Dylan means I need to be careful with biking on the tandem or if I need to be careful with Paul in general. Either way, I could get hurt. I hold the open car door, bend over, and peer back in at Dylan. “I’ll be fine,” I say. “I’ll text you when I get home, so you know I made it safely.”

  “I’ll be waiting,” Dylan says. I’ve been joking, but his face is serious.

  “Go hang out with some of your other friends. Enjoy your new freedom,” I tell him. “I’ll be waiting to hear what you did today.”

  Dylan looks up the driveway with a stern face as I close the door. When I turn, Paul stands near the garage, looking down the driveway at Dylan’s car with a matching face. They’re both glaring at each other. I shoulder my bag and walk to Paul.

  “Ready to start?” I ask, a smile on my face.

  Paul nods his head at Dylan’s retreating car. “He gave you a ride?”

  “Yes,” I say. “We train together in the mornings. Do you mind giving me a ride home later?”

  Paul places a hand on the small of my back and guides me into the garage. “Not at all.”

  “Are you ready?” Paul asks. We’re at the end of his driveway, on the road, and we both straddle the blue tandem road bike.

  “I’m nervous,” I say and swallow hard. My heart thumps against my chest and I grip the handlebars tighter than I hold on to a treadmill.

  “You’re tiny, so this should be easier than with Tim,” Paul says. “I’ll hold the bike still while you get on, and then I’ll start. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Okay?”

  I’m not so sure I trust those words, but I try to gather up whatever confidence and courage I have. A loud exhale leaves my mouth. “Okay.”

  I hoist my rear on to the saddle and tentatively place my feet on the pedals while Paul braces the bike. It’s like getting onto a still bronco that will start bucking once it’s released.

  Paul rests his left foot on the ground, settles on the saddle, and places his right foot on the pedal. “Ready?”

  “Yep.” It comes out between gritted teeth.

  Paul counts down from three and I feel him push the right pedal down. I try to copy his movements while keeping my body still. The bike wobbles a tiny bit, but Paul gets it back in line and continues to pedal while my heart beats like a bass drum in my chest.

  “Breathe, Ash,” Paul says from the front.

  I knew I was forgetting something, and Paul knows me. I take in a lungful of the crisp spring air. It’s warmed up, trees are budding, and spring flowers poke through the ground. It’s a beautiful day for a bike ride.

  “We’ll just bike around for a bit to get used to it, an
d then we’ll run the tests. Does that sound okay?” Paul asks.

  “Sure.” I look at Paul’s back in front of me and concentrate on staying still and pedaling.

  “Ash.” Paul laughs, and the sound sends reverberations through my body. “I think you’re doing all the work. I could probably take my feet off the pedals.”

  “Sorry,” I say, and hold back on my effort a little bit.

  “I’ll try and let you know when to pedal and when to coast,” Paul says.

  Tandeming is an intimate type of cycling. You need to be in synch with the other person for it to work most effectively. It doesn’t take me too long to match Paul’s movements on the bike. A couple of times, my legs get jerked to a stop when he starts to coast and I’m still pedaling, but I soon anticipate his movements. Cycling downhill on a tandem is enjoyable because I don’t need to steer or think about any of the bicycling mechanics. It helps Paul knows what he’s doing, and I’m comfortable riding with him. The breeze blows in my face and I even close my eyes to appreciate the feeling.

  “Are you having fun?” Paul asks, as we cruise around his neighborhood.

  I open my eyes. “Yes.” This is pleasant and I relax. We coast down a hill fast and I nearly miss seeing the person passing by us. I glance over my shoulder, and spot Dylan running up the hill. He looks back at me, his lips in a tight line. He’s still keeping an eye on me.

  I check my phone when Paul and I are done biking.

  Taylor: What’re you doing tonight?

  Me: Hanging out with Paul

  Taylor: Not Dylan?

  Me: Not tonight

  I know Taylor’s looking for an alibi, and I quickly shoot Dylan a text.

  Me: Would you mind hanging out with a phantom Taylor tonight?

  It doesn’t take long for him to return my text and I wonder where he’s at. I stand at the entrance of the garage and peer down the road.

  Dylan: Sure

  Me: Thanks. Talk to you later

  I text Taylor back and tell her to “hang out” with Dylan tonight.