Spokes (35 page)

"That deal is true, but not why we were there." Luca wasn't letting go--miracle.

"Truth doesn't always matter." Should he let go or hold tighter? "It's possible someone will scream about
how gay we are."

"Possible. Rolf is a fact. Facts help." Luca spoke slowly. "Did you ever talk in magazine about Stu? I never saw
that."

"No. I didn't." Amy had to write her article without him, but had she finished and gotten into the print queue?
"Someone at the magazine was writing about deaths on the road, and my editor wanted me to talk to her, but... I
didn't."

"You talk about something so important only if you see big purpose. Not for keeping my secrets." Luca hugged him so tightly he
squeaked. "Photographer with lens three times longer than my
cazzo
might be on other side of lake taking pictures of us right
now."

"I hope not." Christopher shot a fearful look at the woods and houses across the water. "I'm sorry. I thought that
going to the shrine would only be healing."

"It was. I needed to go. And--" The strength of Luca's words pulled Christopher's eyes back to his face.
"--I needed to be there with you. You needed to be there. I like to think you needed to be there with me."

"I did. But--"

"No buts. Anything that happens, happens. Can't change it."

Where had this philosopher come from? "But--the peloton? What if--?"
What if all your worst fears came true?

"New tactics. Anyone acts stupid, I do what I did in other races. Get so far ahead they can't catch me." Luca grinned.
"They want to make big deal of me being
froscio
, they can lose to the
froscio.
They act professional, they only lose to fast, smart
rider." He went serious. "Not saying we start kissing with tongue at finish line, Christopher. Still must be careful. But not living
afraid every minute either."

"Wow." Stroking brown curls away from Luca's face, Christopher tried to wrap his heart around Luca's words. Could
this be the same man who'd blown out of the sports expo in a haze of anger? "What made you change your mind?"

"Being without you." Luca pursed his lips a moment and broke his pose with a laugh. "Also, winning a lot."

Uh huh. Eighty kilometers on the bike for both of them tomorrow. And one more problem. "I will support you no matter what anyone says about
pictures from today, but... it could be the way your parents find out from a newspaper. You didn't want that to happen."

"Still don't." Luca tucked his face into Christopher's neck in a way he hadn't hidden in, oh, a day now.
"I... should tell them."

"Luca, they love you. You know them pretty well." But Christopher didn't know them at all, and anything he said would be
wishful thinking, not based on knowledge. "And they know you. Do you really think it's a problem?"

"Yes." Luca burrowed more tightly. "Pictures and world are maybe. Parents are certain when I tell them."

"Certain isn't the same as a bad reaction."
Please let the elder Biondis be reasonable people
. "Do you
really want them asking you about pictures in a paper? They might be fine about you but hurt you didn't trust them."

"Yes."

The silence lasted a long time. Christopher could hear the gears turning in Luca's head, and just waited him out.

"What happened when you told your parents? They know?"

"Oh boy, do they know." Choking on a laugh, Christopher struggled to get the words out. "That was the worst experience
ever!"

Luca went rigid. Oh, fuck, wrong way to explain.

"I have never been so embarrassed in my life. Mom and Dad sat me down and tried to give me a safe sex talk. Dad sputtered and Mom handed me a box
of condoms and said I'd probably need them for all my 'study sessions' with Josh McAllister." He snorted again.
"It's a good thing you can't die from blushing or all three of us would have been on the floor. I was eighteen."

Luca drew back to stare into Christopher's face. "So you didn't tell them. They told you."

"Yeah. I think pretending it was a secret got old." He thought back to those days of "library time" and sneaking
around. "My grades weren't very good, in spite of all the time we spent 'studying.' They got better once we could
actually open the books. Then studying was studying and a date was a date."

"Did they like Josh?"

You mean 'Will they like me?
'
Or 'could my parents like you?
'
"Yes. Although they thought the multiple eyebrow piercings were a bit weird." He pulled Luca closer. "They will like you,
because they trust my judgment, and you will be the first man I ever bring home and say, 'I'm keeping him.' They'll
love you. Because I do." He stared into Luca's eyes, willing him to believe, and when acceptance softened the lines around his eyes and
mouth, Christopher sealed his declaration with a kiss.

"I still have to tell them." Luca was halfway to the door when he turned. "Please be with me."

"Of course." He'd already taken three steps.

Luca chose to sit on the big brocade couch in the living room, but Christopher's whirlwind wouldn't be there long. Luca snuggled in
between Christopher's thighs and leaned back into his embrace. "Hold tight." He clenched Christopher's wrist with
his free hand.

Of course. And a kiss for luck.
Here we go.

Luca stared at the phone the way he might have eyed the Mont Crostis road. And hit the button.

"Mammina?"

Of course he'd speak his native language to his mother; Christopher understood little, although the blurts and pauses told their own story. So
did Luca, whose face brightened. When he jumped up to bounce around the room, it was happy bouncing, or relieved bouncing, about as Tiggerish as
Christopher had ever seen, but it wasn't distressed pacing, not with the smiles and some soft laughter, and his outstretched hand. Christopher
took hold, to be yanked to his feet and into a one armed embrace. Luca looked up into his face, still talking at a hundred kilometers per hour, until he
stopped and squeezed more tightly.

"Papa?"

Now his words came slowly--Christopher hugged him tightly and could almost understand. "
...uomo buono... ...
journo
... ...amore... ...s
i...
."

That had to be good--leaping past the bare fact to the worth of Luca's choice. Could he measure up to the expectations of the father
with the biggest knife in the Veneto? Christopher hadn't imagined what failing there might entail--he held on to Luca for a shield.

"...
Si, Papa.
Here." Luca held up the phone to Christopher's ear. "Talk to Mamma. She speaks some English.
Papa doesn't."

Oh Lord. Forcing "Ciao, Senora Biondi," in garbled Spatalian past the lump in his throat used all of Christopher's breath.

"You call me 'Mamma', okay?"

Chapter 30

Where had he put the chalk? Christopher dug in the seat pack on his bike, where the white stick was pretending to be an Allen wrench. Should have put the
stupid thing into Luca's day pack with their lunch.

At least they'd gotten to a good spot before the roads had been closed to traffic. A dawn ride to Como, followed by a train ride to avoid a route
on a major highway, and another eight kilometers on their bikes put them in a prime viewing area outside Brescia, where today's stage, the
nineteenth, would finish. They could have stayed in Brescia; Christopher's press pass entitled him to be at the finish line in prime viewing
territory, and no one would tell Luca to leave. But there might not be much Luca to take home after the journos' feeding frenzy.

Home--he and Luca would be back at the villa tonight. They'd share his reservations in Milan, and then Luca would be bunking with the
team again. They'd have to see how things worked with Christopher following the team from race to race. How long did it take to rehab from a
broken pelvis? Dave Pauwels needed physical therapy long enough that Ron had already emailed travel information for the
Criterium du Dauphine
and the Tour de France and reminded Christopher to change his plane ticket for some date far enough into the future that it wouldn't
expire.

But just imagine Paolo's face if he came in with tea first thing in the morning and found them cuddled up....

Uh, no. Don't imagine that. Christopher would need Papa's butcher knife to keep Paolo at bay.

"Write big." Luca raced him to the road. "Two lines. Write big enough for helicopter to see." He measured out a
meter with his hands.

Christopher duck-walked from letter to letter, stretching "Antano" across the lanes. "Here. You finish." Luca put a
big flourish under his "Clark."

"Let's put Damiano's name too." Their host might not see the graffiti, but it was a small way to thank him.

"Good idea." Luca scrawled again about ten meters downhill from their first sign. "Hope my team remembers who to support in
next race."

"They'll be glad to have you back." Christopher playfully punched Luca's arm. "Mind if I write about
"tactics for a team without a leader"?

"You say, 'help ride tempo for Antano-Clark.' Fastest article ever." Luca grinned at him and lost the humor in
thought. "Not sure who my new lieutenant will be. Laurent, maybe. He's good climber."

Luca was looking to the future. Good. He didn't brood in the night any longer, between Christopher's attempts to wear him out and his
own peace of mind. He'd chased Christopher up and down the roads around Como, their speed depending less and less on what they'd done
the night before. Yesterday they'd ridden the very steep road from Bellagio, on the shore of Lake Como, to the shrine on the mountaintop.
Christopher'd sent Luca on ahead and finished his nine and a half kilometers of straight up a good hour and a half after Luca reached the summit.
It was a hell of a lot harder a ride coming at Ghisallo from the other side. Christopher told himself he was doing his route research for the Giro de
Lombardia in the fall. But Luca had waited for him, and together they'd mounted the small metal plaque etched with Stu's picture and
had a moment of bowed heads before the bronze bicyclists. Their descent took less than fifteen minutes, and when they got back to the villa, Luca okayed
Christopher's article about the crash and Rolf's death.

Tomorrow night Luca might lie awake thinking of Rolf and how only one of them would ride with the team for the end of the race in Milan, but last night
he'd slept the sleep of the well-loved. That tactic might work again.

No news is good news.
Most of a week had passed without any incriminating pictures popping up, though Christopher hadn't finished holding his breath. The best news was
the calmness with which Luca's parents had greeted his dud of a bombshell. "You wait to say until you find nice young man,"
Mamma Biondi had said. "But we knew." Christopher kept finding Luca shaking his head over this.

His cell phone
queeped
from his pocket. "What are you doing for this stage?" Ron wanted to know.

"I'm hanging with a crowd and an interpreter." Christopher looked for his interpreter, who was emptying out the bread, sliced
bresaola
, and olives from his pack onto a red-checked picnic tablecloth next to whatever the cheerful woman with the tinfoil packets was unwrapping.
"We're about eight kilometers from the finish line. I'll have a 'race-watching Italian style' piece plus
stage results."

"Heard rumors you've been slacking."

Well, hell. He'd watched every minute of the stages, had Luca's expert commentary, and turned in at least one, sometimes two pieces a
day. And-- "You clearly haven't checked your email."

"I just got to the office, okay?" Tapping sounded in Christopher's ear. "Let's see what you have
here..."

It had taken two days of work on top of the race coverage to get Luca's interview the way he wanted in print, and the video portion
wasn't done yet. He'd sent it, because post production was beyond what he could do. "Just to keep
you
from slacking, I
marked some spots in the interview that need race clips. Go chase down permissions. Most of the footage is network or from the streaming service I cited,
but it needs to go where I've marked it." Christopher would extract some effort from that "slacker"
comment--how many words and how many exclusives did Ron think one writer could produce? Maybe he was making it look too easy.

"You... How did you... Oh buddy," Ron sputtered, and read words Christopher knew--he'd written
what Luca had spoken.

"'I met Rolf Knecht at racing camp, where smartass Belgian teenager had to admit Italian coach offered advice he
couldn't get at home. He was tireless rider then, fierce competitor, and we would race whole field but only mattered to beat each
other...' He talked to you about the crash... He hasn't talked to anyone..." Little mumbles into
the silence while Ron finished reading were going to rack up the roaming charges. "I don't know how you got an exclusive like this, but
I think we'll keep you."

Totally worth it.

"Just remember that all racing isn't Antano-Clark."

Hey! Christopher'd been very careful to be balanced, and had only mentioned the team once in the last week, to note that they'd
remained in the middle of the team standings even without their stars. Standing in the middle of the road, he shot a selfie with a crowd and, oops,
"Antano-Clark" in the background. But his blue, white, and black Garmin jersey ought to balance it out. Christopher sent the picture
anyway.

"I didn't think it was." Just the part that mattered most.

"You're doing okay. I gotta finish this. Can I get it into...." Ron signed off, mumbling issues and layouts.

Luca had worried about being too recognizable in his own logo-plastered top, but with his hair braided into a tail, jeans, and sunglasses, he was pretty
well disguised, even in Christopher's plain turquoise jersey. So far, none of the group around them had identified him. Guess he was highly out
of context, being beside the road and not on it.

The advertising caravan came and went--the shower of promo provided Christopher a can of energy drink, and Luca had a new, logo-bedecked cap to
hide under. But the riders...