Spokes (29 page)

"Well, duh." Christopher could hear him moving around. "I'm sogging up your last towel for that."

The towels were a flat-weave, soft linen that soaked through with droplets. Christopher whipped open the shower curtain to see Bob wiping his face with a
corner.

He looked up with a grin. His face changed abruptly. "What the hell happened to you?"

Christopher took a quick look at his arms and legs--had he scraped himself in the tunnels? Oh, those. He'd gotten used to the scars that
streaked his skin. "I got hit into a barbwire fence a couple months ago."

"Ow. Sorry, man." Bob dangled the towel from his fingertips, just out of reach. "So where's Luca going? You can
tell me."

"No, I can't, because I don't know." Well, not to pinpoint it on a map, or say what town they'd debark
the train. He snatched the towel from Bob's hand and cut the water.

"Where are
you
spending the rest of the Giro?" Had Bob detected the evasion?

"
CycloWorld
expects reports on every stage, and that's what they're going to get." Christopher scrubbed at
himself with the towel, stopping to wring it once. "The last train is in about an hour, and I plan to be on it."

"With Luca?" Bob fled the bathroom when Christopher grabbed the hand shower--there might be enough back-pressure left to
squirt him. "Hey, I'm only trying to get the poop on the most interesting development of this stage." Bob peeked cautiously
around the door frame.

"You and everyone else." If Bob was persistent, the rest would be too. He had to work something out with Luca about what he could say.
"So be different. Look at the second most interesting thing. You know that sprinter who got dropped today?" Christopher pushed past Bob
on the way to jeans and shoes.

"Yeah. He had some plans for making it through the mountains. He wants a big tour triumph." Bob guarded the door, lest Christopher and
his information escape early, but Christopher was still shrugging into a T-shirt. "And he blew up instead."

"Get a picture of his bike from today and take a really good look at his front chainring. Do some math. He killed off his chances all by himself
by thinking like a sprinter. He should have geared like a climber." Okay, backpack closed, laptop extracted from safe, wallet,
passport...

"What about his chainring?"

"I can't do all your thinking for you." Christopher slung everything on his back and grabbed his bike. "Besides, I
have a train to catch." He pushed past his captor. One hungry shark diverted, two hundred to go.

***

Luca and his rain-suited escorts waited on the platform. Christopher caught his eye but didn't approach. He'd get on the same car as
Luca, and then join him, not lead the charge to his side. They'd have to stow their bikes in the same area: a casual meeting wouldn't
look odd. Other journos taking the last train out noticed Luca, but his rainsuited guards kept them at bay. Could Christopher be as effective?

Once aboard, he noted where Luca went, and casually made his way down the aisle, one step ahead of two other men with press passes and hungry looks. He and
his computer bag made an effective bottleneck--they grumbled from behind to hurry. "May I join you?"

Luca shoved over to the window seat. "Fine." Christopher took his time getting settled, long enough that the other two journos gave up
and went back to their seats. They'd be back.

Before the train was underway, Luca produced sandwiches, thick with shaven ham and luscious but unidentifiable white cheese, a subtle reminder Lienz was in
Austria and they wouldn't be in Italy again for an hour or two. "Good." And needed--so much had been crammed into
this one day he felt he'd missed a dozen meals. Luca's color came back, bite by bite--he'd missed a month of food.
The journos made surreptitious passes up and down the train car, hoping to catch Luca when his mouth wasn't full, but he made his sandwich last,
and then he produced
apfelstrudel
. Christopher licked flakes of pastry from his fingers. If anyone wanted to draw conclusions from them eating the
same meal, they could assume Christopher was trying edible bribery.

Luca yawned so widely even Christopher could feel his jaw creak. "Can you sleep? I'll wake you when..." When they
had to change trains.

"Good idea." Luca lay back, flopped into what didn't look like a comfortable position, and it didn't take long
before he was buzzing softly. Christopher glared one of the journos away, daring him to risk broken bones for disturbing the sleeper. The train darkened,
but Christopher was too wired to sleep. The light from his screen shouldn't bother his companion. He pulled out his laptop.

Before he could send in this piece, he'd need to clear some of the content with Luca, but he'd get started now. Bob would have a shit
fit.

Start with pictures: he'd taken a number of shots at the start. Racers milled about, signing in to the race log and rejoining their teams. The
maglia rosa
had to be included--how could he leave the leader in the pink jersey out? Selecting a particularly good view of the
Antano-Clark team, with Luca, of course, he cropped out the distractions. A K-Aero saddle wasn't a distraction--that poked up at
Luca's side. Maybe Nick Leyburn would get the message.

Um, no.
He
needed to get the message. What had Luca said? Wait a month and get for free? Nope. He cropped off every bit of saddle but a tiny hump of
unidentifiable black. Let the bastards wonder.

On to the text.

When I got up this morning ready to watch the eighth stage of one of the world
'
s most important races, I only expected to watch. I had no idea I
'
d accidentally ride the Giro d
'
Italia...

His typing didn't disturb the sleeping train. Luca looked uncomfortable, although he moved with a little pressure here and a soft shove there.
Now his neck no longer looked like a chiropractor's nightmare, and his head rested on Christopher's shoulder. No one could see; the
couple across the aisle slept, one in the other's lap, and the seats came up high. Christopher pressed his cheek against Luca's head, a
flurry of curls tickling his nose and lips. The familiar scent of Luca's hair called back memories of nights spent stretched out on a futon.

You
'
re not
really
expecting to have sex with him,
Stu whispered.

"You always were an ass when it came to my sex life," Christopher told him. This time he'd hold Luca through the grieving.

Chapter 27

Either Luca was letting Christopher set the pace from the train station to the villa, or he was even more stiff and slow than he wanted to let on from
sleeping more or less upright after getting banged up in the crash on top of a long, brutal ride. Still it was a long ten miles with too much uphill.
"We could have taken a cab, don't you think?" If only for the luggage. Luca's suitcase had shoulder straps hiding
in the back, so he was effectively toting a backpack twice the weight of Christopher's.

"With bicycles? We look like tourists." Luca accelerated to take point. Christopher shut up and pedaled. They left the water in the
valley behind and headed into higher country.

He stretched the few remaining kinks out of his body once they reached the villa. Luca keyed in a code and unlocked the gates to let them in. The gates
were the only breach he could see in the stone walls, eight feet tall and forbidding. Or maybe 2.5 meters and forbidding.

"Whoa. This is Damiano's?" Christopher tried to take in the two story stone house with the mottled, red tile roof that looked
old as the hills it nestled into. Sharp hills, covered in green, towering over the narrow lake that looked glacier-gouged, blue, deep, and icy. The house
melded into the landscape, as if it had formed itself to shelter men from the very bones of the land. Gardens, green and lush, and the shrubbery manicured
to bareness to five feet above the ground, surrounded the house. An aqua jewel of a swimming pool twinkled in the sun, and beyond that, the lake sparkled.

"Beautiful and secure. Same house on other side of hill on big lake, another eight hundred thousand euro and no walls. But Lago di Pusiano is
very pretty." Luca swung aboard his bike for the ride to the house. He disarmed the alarm system and touched another button to open the garage
door, hidden at the side of the house. A bright red, five-door hatchback waited within. Christopher recognized it as a BMW 116i only by reading the
nameplate, but that had to be one sweet vehicle. Maybe they'd have reason to take a car somewhere. Right now they could leave the bikes in the
garage and wrestle the bags upstairs.

"In here." Luca led him into a spacious bedroom that might once have been two, bright and sunny and full of a king size bed made up
with a blue and white swirled duvet. He dropped his own bag. "Unless you don't want to share...?"

"I want to share." How had they come to this careful asking of the questions that shouldn't be questions? "I
remember needing to be wakened in the night, after Stu. I'll be here."
I might need to be wakened myself.

Oh, I think I could give you a good kick in the butt.
Christopher could feel the smile he'd thought buried months ago.

Shut up, Stu.
He opened his arms to Luca, grateful to be touched, to be allowed to touch, even if only for comfort.

***

The kitchen was well-provisioned, as promised. Damiano's housekeeper had also stocked the fridge with fresh greens and fruit. Christopher heated
up delicious frozen dishes in a microwave curiously modern against the plaster-and-stone walls.

"Why does everyone think they need to feed me?" Luca inquired around a forkful of cheese and spinach
malfatti
.
"I'm man who starts with cow and big knife and ends with steak dinner."

"Maybe we like feeding you?" Christopher wanted to kiss whoever made the
malfatti
and the delicate cream, tomato, and basil
sauce they floated in. If the tiny dumplings tasted this good after a trip through the freezer, they ought to be good for sainthood when fresh. Luca still
only ate half of what Christopher put on his plate.

But that was the only jest Luca made. For days he was withdrawn, coming up to eat when Christopher prodded him, visiting the sauna and the hot tub that
lurked under a portico in the back of the house when Christopher led him to it. He accepted a massage after two days, when the bruising had eased up, and
wouldn't talk about anything. Christopher had obligations--he spent hours watching the race coverage and writing something that sounded
enough like he was there that Ron didn't question him, other than to bemoan the lack of really good quotes from racers. Luca wouldn't
watch the coverage with him, retreating to look out over the lake.

"Let's go for a short ride," Christopher urged him. The hills wouldn't be so tough without a backpack, and
they'd get tougher for not being ridden.

But Luca only set his bike on the motorized roller-platform that tilted to give pretend hills and equally false descents. Damiano's state of the
art equipment wasn't doing Luca the kind of good he needed. The rollers might be fine when the weather turned, but there was a beautiful
countryside begging to be ridden, and Luca wouldn't venture past the villa's door.

Nights were equally quiet. Luca snuggled into the curve of Christopher's body and twined their fingers together. Maybe he slept and maybe he
stared into the darkness, but he wasn't thrusting his butt backwards into Christopher's groin, and Christopher for damned sure
wouldn't thrust forward where he'd never been welcome before and wasn't being invited now. Climbing Mont Zoncolan in his
head, reliving limbs gone to granite and vision faded to blank, kept his lust contained. He hadn't been up for sex after his accident either, but
he'd needed the comfort that was all Luca offered then. A tiny kiss on the bump of Luca's spine was just for comfort.

Paolo called after three days, and Luca didn't share the conversation, conducted in Italian and then taken out in the garden. Fucking complicated
situation. Christopher hadn't forgotten for a minute that they'd left something important dangling. Paolo had gotten more words in the
few minutes than Christopher had gotten since they'd arrived. He remained at the kitchen table with his laptop and notes spread out.

Okay, if Luca was in a talking mood, they could clear the air of this much. When he came back in, Christopher gave him a few minutes. Maybe he'd
talk first. But he only poured a glass of mineral water from the two-liter green bottle in the fridge.

"How's Rolf's family doing?" Christopher finally asked.

"Their hearts are broken." Luca set the glass down on the marble counter. "It was good Paolo went to them. His stories are
comfort." His smile carried a career's worth of sorrow. "He told them we were friends again. They hate me a little less
now."

"Did they hate you because you and Rolf had some yes?" He could hate Rolf for that, for touching his Luca. For doing--whatever
they'd done. Even ten years ago when they were skinny teenagers learning their sport.

"I don't think they ever knew. They never said." Luca rocked in place, a faint shadow of his whirlwind agitation. Because he
wasn't upset or because he was too drained? "They think I sabotaged Rolf's bike before important junior race.
That's enough for hate."

"Uh, yeah." Jumbled thoughts rolled through his head: one secret safe as Luca wanted, but an accusation of betrayal? "Did
you?" Fuck all the secrets, he might as well ask.

"I wanted to. Would be easy. Raise the seat a centimeter, or drop it a centimeter, screw up power delivery through the legs. His brother found me
touching Rolf's bike, still thinking, still planning, and deciding no. He shouted and I jerked my hands away. Looked guilty. And Rolf rode
poorly, placed thirty-second. But not because of me." Luca clenched and unclenched his hands, rubbing his thumbs across his fingers.
"But maybe because of me. I don't know. But I didn't change his bike."