Tour de 7
Summary: It's Europe, and cycling. Set in 2004.
Characters
"Guys, you're about to be on the evening News," Nathan called out the back door. Buck Wilmington laughed at the speed with which a dozen men could cram themselves through the single door and into big den/meeting room of Carmichael Training Systems' winter camp. He laughed, but he followed, because they didn't know all they needed to, and after Jim Williams had crashed out and broken three bones ten days ago, no one was even sure the team would continue.
Oh, Josiah had been sure, but he was the only one; Orrin Travis, Four Corners-Clarion's lead title sponsor, didn't screw around with failed efforts or hard luck cases, and a cycling team without a strong captain was a team that nobody paid to see. As close-mouthed as Travis was, they were more likely to learn what was going on from the news than from their owner.
Buck shouldered his way past Nathan and bent at the waist, propping his elbows on the back of the sofa as the local news anchor rattled on.
"Here we go," Nathan said almost under his breath. Buck cast him a curious glance, wondering when, and how, Nathan had heard about the coverage. Sure enough, a team of riders in the matching dark green, gold and black lycra of Four Corners-Clarion whipped around a fast downhill bend. He watched himself fly by the camera, measuring his form. Pretty good, if he did say so himself. The local news station from Santa Barbara had been out a week ago, shooting footage and doing a few brief interviews, though Buck hadn't expected anything to come of it. His highlight of the experience had been the young segment producer, and it looked like she must've liked him too: he was center frame.
"Lance Armstrong and his US Postal Service team wouldn't have been the only American team in the prestigious Tour de France this year. Because Armstrong won last year's Tour, his team is automatically guaranteed admission, but for teams like Four Corners-Clarion, another American team with similar rankings, backing and international respect--" there were snickers from around the room, "the competition is fierce. Their leader, or captain, Jim Williams, an Olympic gold medalist and a professional of many years, crashed just ten days ago, breaking his collar bone, femur and hip. That has certainly cost him the upcoming race season, if not his career. But Four Corners Oil and Clarion News International have assured us that a new captain is being recruited who, even at this late stage of training, will make American cycling fans proud."
Buck felt a twinge in his chest, anticipation and excitement countering the quiet dread he'd been feeling ever since Jim had been med evac'd to a local hospital.
The news footage changed to some shots of the Posties, then focused in on Lance. "Armstrong will be going for his sixth straight tour championship, which would take the American from an elite group of only five men since the tour's inception and into a world all his own..."
Buck looked around at his teammates. "Doesn't any real news ever happen around here?" he asked, before anybody took it too seriously or everybody started gossiping on who the new captain might be. This could get ugly; both Roberto and Larry, scrawny little guys who could climb like rockets, had been hoping for the promotion, and Josiah hadn't flat-out told them that they didn't have the makings of a team leader yet.
"It's February in Santa Barbara and it isn't raining," Ezra said blandly, playing along. "No."
"Bars," he said. "College girls. College boys," he added just because it made most of the Spaniards squirm. "I'm going." They went pretty much every night, to flirt with women and bond off the bike saddle and speculate over their chances for various upcoming races. Enough people agreed to tag along that Buck signed out the van, and headed upstairs to his room to shower and change.
Buck was glad to be here, and he didn't care who eventually captained the team as long as the guy wasn't the prima donna Williams had been. He wanted to ride the great European tours again, even though this time, those rides would come with a certain poignancy. He shook himself. There would be new people coming in tonight and tomorrow, replacements who would compete just as fiercely, probably a couple of potential captains. The guys had been gossiping worse than anybody Buck had ever heard, but the truth was that no one had a clue who Josiah had even scouted. He'd just headed for parts unknown a week ago, sending Buck and all fourteen of his teammates on ahead to the tender care of this camp.
Seven of the guys, including Nathan Jackson, the team's doctor, piled into one of the CTS vans. A staffer drove and they headed over the pass and down into Isla Vista, the noisy, boisterous college town, and Buck stared out the window, happily distracted by all of the pretty boys and girls who wandered the streets.
Pedro's was a fun kind of dumpy bar that specialized in beer, pizza and trawling for dates, and he nursed a single beer so the ride tomorrow wouldn't kill; dehydration was a bitch. It must have been nine o'clock when he got the strangest feeling of being stared at. He was used to that. In Europe, cyclists were celebrities, and in the States--well, he was a fine form of a man. He turned around after a second to check out whoever was checking him out, and when he made eye contact with the thin blond leaning against the wall, his heart skipped a beat.
"Chris!" He stood so fast his chair fell over, and Chris, damn his cool hide, just stayed where he was and waited while Buck shouldered his way through the crowd.
"Evenin', Buck," Chris said, laconic as ever.
Buck caught him up in a hug that tugged him away from the wall, and Chris, far more reserved, just barely returned it. "Chris, you old dog! It's good to see you, buddy!
"Easy, big fella. Folks'll talk."
Buck laughed, delighted. "What are you doing here?"
The downturn of eyes warned Buck a second before Chris said, "I got Sanchez to take a chance on me."
Buck blinked. ""You're on Four Corners-Clarion? Are you shitting me? That's fantastic!" He hugged him again for good measure. "I haven't seen you on any racing schedules."
"I haven't raced. Well," Chris amended, and a ghost of shadow crossed his eyes, "just myself. Trying to outrun my demons."
Buck sighed and squeezed a thin, strong arm gently. "Looks like you're doing a fine job of it," he offered.
"Maybe," Chris said, a tiny, grudging smile sneaking out. "You interested in blowing this joint and catching up?"
"Yeah!" Then he remembered. "You got a car? Camp's 20 miles from here.
"Yeah."
"Well all right. Let me just say goodbye to the guys." He waded back through the crowd and dropped a twenty on the table to cover the tab and tips. "I've got my own ride back to camp, guys." Rick Langly frowned Chris's way and squinted, the look bringing out his Spanish heritage like few other expressions did. "If I were cruising for that kind of action, Langly, I'd be in another bar," he joked. "That's Chris Larabee, I rode with him on Festiva for three years."
Rick obviously missed most of what he'd said. Buck glanced around the table, reading from the looks on people's faces who knew about Chris and who didn't: Ezra's eyes were calculating as always, assessing, measuring; Nathan seemed like he couldn't decide whether to frown or smile; Rick, Josef and Roberto looked at Chris like they'd size up any other potential teammate or opponent; and Larry looked openly hostile.
"Well," he said anyway, smiling and returning his eyes to Rick's and picking his words carefully for the guy's poor English, "Sanchez brought him. He's good. See ya."
As he headed back Chris's way, a quiet guy with longish hair and a silver hoop earring, obviously a cyclist from the size of his thighs, materialized at Chris's side. "You coming with us?" the guy asked.
Buck frowned, put off right from the start. "Is he with you?" Buck asked Chris, barely giving the stranger a cursory glance.
Chris nodded once. Buck took in their close proximity and decided he didn't like the guy at all. He wanted Chris to himself, to catch up and find out what had happened in the last year to get his friend back in the world, back on the circuit, and most importantly, here on Buck's team. "Where are we going?" he asked instead, ignoring the stranger and hoping he'd go away.
"Coffee shop. Tank up on caffeine and catch up. We haven't been over to the camp yet, so we ought to get there eventually."
"You called over there, huh?" he asked, trying not to flirt. "Tracked me down?" It made him stupidly happy to know that.
"See what I mean, Vin?" Chris said laconically. "Thinks the sun shines out of his ass."
"Well it does," Buck shot back. Vin. He'd see about this Vin guy.
On the way out to the rental car the new guy finally introduced himself. "Vin Tanner," he said, and held out a hand.
"Buck Wilmington." Buck shook it because there was no way not to.
They found a Starbucks in a little strip mall and settled in with black coffees, sweet. Conversation was stilted because of Tanner, but Buck made the best of it and Chris didn't seem to notice. When he'd left Chris, Buck really hadn't been sure the man wouldn't get drunk again and drive off a highway embankment, or run his bike over a cliff. All he'd been sure of was that he couldn't hang around and watch anymore. And now, a year later, Chris looked good, damned good, and if not happy, well, at least he looked alive. An intense fire burned in his eyes, a focus Buck had never seen before.
At one point Chris reached out and grasped Buck's hand across the table, startling him so badly that he almost jerked away. He cast a covert glance at Tanner, who ignored it, if he noticed at all.
Yeah, he and Chris needed some quiet time to talk, all right.
Around eleven, Chris drove back over the mountain while Buck rode shotgun and gave directions. Half an hour later they pulled up to the building that looked like nothing more than a retreat center. "Bikes are in a barn in the back," he said, helping them get the lay of the land. "There's a medical building back there too--I should have introduced you to the team doctor, Nathan Jackson, he was the black guy with us at the bar. Wasn't thinking, but you'll meet him tomorrow. Anyway, in the back they've got trainers, test equipment, the whole nine yards. This guy has a great shop. There's an office off the front hall, you'll both have paperwork to fill out."
"Tomorrow soon enough?" Tanner asked.
Buck looked at the new guy, feeling only the vague leftovers of his shitty first impression; Chris and Vin had met only yesterday morning, when Sanchez had swept Chris up and over to Abilene Texas to look at Tanner one last time before confirming his invitation to camp and a contract, and the two had flown into Santa Barbara on the same plane. They weren't with each other in any way that Buck cared about. "I guess you can wait til tomorrow to fill 'em out if you don't want a room," he joked. "These guys don't believe in liability claims, so I'm guessing they'll make you sign in blood before they let you lie down somewhere. Besides, first ride's at seven and there's a team pep rally before that."
"That'll be good," Chris said softly, and Buck grasped his shoulder. It would be good, getting back out in a group with Chris, riding together again. Really good.
He laughed again, jubilant. "Damn, Chris, how'd you ever get yourself on this team?!"
"Honestly?" Chris began, his smile faint and embarrassed. "I begged. Got my manager to beg. Swore I was in better shape than I was--" he hesitated, "before, and signed on for minimum salary."
Jesus, the man could almost make more working at a 7-11, unless he brought in some prize money. But Buck didn't give a damn; Four Corners had a shot at the Tour de France again this year, and the only thing that had been missing to make it perfect was Chris being there with him. Two years ago, he'd ridden it alongside Chris. They'd worked their asses off for their Italian captain, and as the only two Americans on the team, they had roomed together. The sex between them had become a thing of the past by that point and, much to Buck's amusement, Chris had been more frustrated by its absence than Buck had. But the fact that Sarah been raised in Nice and had a typically French attitude toward extramarital affairs hadn't been reason enough for Buck to wet his wick so close to home. His own attitude about affairs was a little more traditional; he firmly believed you shouldn't have them with one partner when you cared about both. He had returned to his old habits, as friends for a night or two were easy to find when he wanted them. The press in Europe had loved his reputation as a Casanova, while Chris had resented the hell out of Buck's newly discovered ethics. But Chris had grown to respect them. It was rare that he'd tried to seduce Buck, rarer still that Buck let him succeed. Precious when it happened...
They got to the tall counter just outside the front office and Chris looked around, picked up two clipboards with forms already on them, and passed one to Tanner. "I figured they'd put us in local hotels."
"They do, with some. The sponsors are paying for this though, and Sanchez wanted us to bond, or some shit. Hell, only a half-dozen or so of us are native English speakers, and Ezra's the only American who's fluent in anything else, so dinners are pretty funny if you know what I mean. A lot like it was with us on Festiva," he added with a grin.
Chris propped an elbow on the counter and grinned back. "You got a roommate?" he asked, and Buck flushed even though he didn't think Chris meant anything by it.
"Yeah. Quieter than you," he teased, then stiffened when Chris frowned. Buck looked to Tanner and clarified, "He snores."
Tanner, staring at the form and flipping his pencil end over end, barely nodded.
Chris hunkered down over his information forms and liability waivers while Tanner ignored his own, and Buck strolled down the hall to the in-house phone and called the assistant organizer's office. Sharon, one of the very few women around here and pretty as a picture--she'd put in her saddle time in the seventies and still rode today--answered fast enough, and came downstairs. She took Chris's completed form, driver's license, insurance card and contract for photocopying, then took Tanner's barely started form and started asking the questions herself, filling in the spaces as the new guy quietly replied.
"Well..." Buck didn't want to leave them, but it was late.
"Why don't you show me my room and where you are so I can drag your ass up in the morning?" Chris said, reading his mind
Buck chuckled; Chris was not an early riser without a little help, and the fact that Buck had been around to "help" him for years hadn't really gotten them out the door any faster.
"Good thing I know where you're gonna be," he teased, then glanced back down the hall at Tanner. "You think he's gonna be an early riser?"
Chris met his eyes and said clearly, "I can pretty much count on it."
He knew it was stupid, but the ambiguous answer to his ambiguous question unnerved him. He sighed, resisting the urge to take a step closer to his old lover, his best friend, because a lot had happened in a little less than two years. Where before, his affection would have been welcomed in whatever form he chose to offer it, Sarah's and Adam's deaths had changed Chris, hardened him. And it had changed things between them.
The whole grisly mess flashed in his mind's eye, ending in closed caskets and a hellish flight back to the States, a silent drive from Pittsburgh out to Chris's closed-up family home. They had grieved together all too briefly, before Chris's pain threw up an impenetrable wall, built of guilt and depression and alcohol. Months of Chris trying so hard to drown his grief-induced pain. Months of quiet hell for them both, as Buck grieved in silence and watched Chris try to kill himself with booze.
Buck remembered his own efforts at suicide by bicycle; he'd ridden every day on the open roads, for hours. He'd come back from his rides in the early afternoon to find Chris drunk or passed out in the living room or on the porch... sometimes in the bed... Buck had spent August through December of 2002 with Chris, wondering how it was that both of them were still alive. The morning after an uncelebrated Christmas, Buck had realized that he needed to get the hell out of that house and on with his life.
In February of 2003 he had found an opportunity with Four Corners - Clarion. The team was new, and had been Division II at the time, but its title sponsor was throwing money at it and had promised enough long-term support to get it where it would need to be and give them a shot at the biggest races in 2004. With the talent that Sanchez had pulled together, they had raced like demons in every classic, every stage race they could get into, spreading themselves thin to build up the points they needed to climb into Division I, and made it in the fall.
Sometime that summer, he'd called Chris and gotten a disconnect notice, called again every day for two weeks and gotten the same. Buck remembered scanning through obituaries in European papers, scanning the foreign languages looking for one name, not willing to call Chris's sister, not willing to confirm what his gut told him had probably happened. Buck's letters from that point on returned unopened. He'd felt like he'd lost the rest of his family.
Their family's--and he had always considered Sarah and Adam his family too--death had changed them both, making Chris less approachable and Buck more wary, never sure when the friendly needling of long term relationship would shift to something darker, with a streak of cruelty that hadn't been a part of Chris before.
"Buck?"
Chris's low voice jerked him back to himself and the present, and he shook off the feeling of ghosts creeping around in his soul. He was just glad that the last of his family had found him again. "Nothing," he smiled softly. "Just thinking."
Chris took that step closer that Buck had wanted to take, though his face remained impassive. "Put it to rest," he said, but Buck knew Chris hadn't.
Floundering, seeking common, safe ground, Buck said, "You know, if we do okay in April and May, we're shoe-ins for Paris. First time two American teams would be alongside each other in that race."
"Yeah. I could stand to make a little history, pal," Chris said.
Buck flushed. Before, that might have meant something different. Now, he didn't know what it meant.
Tanner walked up before Buck could figure it out. "Sharon says you know where Chris and me are bunking down."
"Yeah, sure," Buck said. "Come on."
He took them by his and Ezra's room so Chris would know where to look for him should the need arise, then led them to the room they were slotted to share. With a casual good night to them both, he left them to unpack and settle in.
Ezra was awake, playing solitaire on his bedspread, when Buck slipped into the room.
"Hey," Buck greeted. "You guys have a good time?"
Ezra shrugged. It wasn't his way to give away too much of what he felt. But then he looked up with those intently analyzing green eyes and said, "So Larabee's our new captain?"
"Guess so," Buck said, "if he makes it."
Ezra looked back to the cards and turned a few more while Buck undressed and pulled on a pair of boxers for bed. "Care to make a wager against him making it?" Ezra offered, and Buck grinned.
"Okay, fine, he's gonna make it," Buck admitted. Chris would be in great form, or he wouldn't have convinced Josiah to let him on. And Chris, even with his reputation for being something of a typical American hothead in a classically European sport, had been good before.
Ezra grinned back. "Just as I thought. The man with him, I recognized him."
"Vin Tanner," Buck said. "Josiah picked him up on the same trip."
"Mmm-hmm." Buck didn't know why, but he enjoyed how Ezra could pretend disinterest even in the things he cared about most. "There was some trouble with Tanner in Belgium," Ezra said. "I don't know how it stayed out of the press. The rumor was a manslaughter charge, or something, then he disappeared for three months, hiding out in Texas or Mexico or other parts south and hot."
That was more than Buck had heard. "Really? Shit." He still wasn't sure he was rooting for Tanner or not, so the news settled pretty neutrally for him. "Well, Four Corners Oil has enough attorneys to fix anything."
"Tanner claimed he didn't do it," Ezra added. "I saw him in New York at the Criterion in September."
"And you asked him point blank?" Buck choked out, amused and outraged at Ezra's audacity.
Ezra shrugged. "Best to hear it from the horse's mouth. He had asked me about places on this team, so I felt I had the right."
Buck shook his head. "Ezra, you've got balls the size of cantaloupes."
"I'm a sprinter," he replied, like that was answer enough, and Buck supposed it was. This was a dangerous sport; the risks were high and people died every year. Sprinters placed themselves at the fastest positions, jostling the most, risking the most, demanding the most.
"Like I said," Buck said, and crawled under the covers. "Balls the size of cantaloupes."
"I'll have some questions for you, before long."
Buck rolled over and showed Ezra his back, refusing to invite inquiry too early. "Turn out the light."
The room went dark almost immediately, and to the accompaniment of Ezra Standish's steady, even breaths, Buck stared at the closet door for most of the night, envisioning things past.
7 - 7 - 7 - 7 - 7 - 7 - 7
He didn't knock on Chris's door the next morning, premonition or just plain discomfort about the state of things between them stopping him from even walking up that flight of stairs to the room at the end of the hall. But Chris got down to breakfast almost on time, rumpled, already kitted up in nondescript black bib shorts and an old blue and white jersey from their Festiva days. Buck couldn't help but notice the little things: the increased harshness around mouth and eyes, that intense fire that burned this morning just as it had last night... his smooth, hairless legs tanned a sexy, even gold right up to the hem of the shorts he wore. His hair was shorter, Buck realized, wondering why he hadn't noticed last night. Almost cropped, it reminded him a little of a military haircut, and while it suited him, it was more severe than Buck was used to. There had been a time when Chris kept his hair just long enough to make a little ponytail right at the nape of his neck. After Sarah's death, he had neither shaved nor barbered, and his hair had grown long, unruly--a little like Tanner's was now, really.
It was no use speculating, not until he could corner Chris for a talk, and this camp wasn't the place for that kind of talking. Everyone was too professional, too focused on making the cut. No use speculating at all.
Everybody checked out their bikes at 6:45, then went to the trainer bike stations and mounted up so Nathan could patch them to heart rate monitors and electrical output indicators and basically wire them up until Buck felt a little like Johnny Mnemonic.
When Buck complained, Nathan just grinned. "Not gonna get out of it that easy, Buck," he said, his manner already friendly with everybody but Ezra. "This ain't your grandaddy's bike racing, you know."
Nathan and Josiah had known each other for years, it seemed, from when Nathan had been ((souvenier)) on the team Josiah rode with in the early nineties. When Sanchez had been given the chance to run this team, he had hired Nathan away from an underfunded and understaffed team in South America.
"Don't know how you survived in Colombia," Buck muttered.
"Me neither," Nathan joked in reply. "Felt like I was working in the nineteenth century down there, barely felt like I was a doctor at all."
"Resorted to poking and prodding," Buck continued the line.
"Mercury thermometers," Nathan shot back.
"You're gonna get spoiled, boy," Buck warned.
Nathan nodded happily. "You bet your ass. Now get your pedal rotations up, my grandmother could put out more wattage than you are right now."
When they got onto the open road, with Sanchez in a convertible driving the pace in front of them, something shifted. They rode in a bunch and Chris was right beside him and it was glorious, as if the traumas of the last two years had never even happened. Buck caught himself flicking his elbow to get Chris up front, to make him work harder just like he'd always done, and Chris slid by without a look or a word, dropping into place with his rear tire two inches out from Buck's front tire. Perfect fit, just like always.
Vin stuck close to Chris too, maybe closer than Buck would have preferred, but it gave him a chance to get to know the guy a little: at twenty-five, Vin was just four years shy of Chris, three years younger than Buck, and seven years younger than Lance Armstrong, from the same state but hundreds of miles west--"from the butt crack of Texas, a town called Abilene," Vin proclaimed cheerfully-- and wanted to carry the Lone Star forward when retirement took Armstrong out of the game.
"Big shoes to fill," Buck said.
"Yeah well, everybody's got to dream," Vin replied.
Involuntarily, Buck glanced across at Chris, saw the slight tightening of his face: Chris had had a dream, one Buck had shared in, one that had turned to ash and death.
"Yeah," he said anyway, trying not to let it get him down. Chris was doing something with his life again, doing what he did best, and six months ago Buck wouldn't even have hoped for that.
Sixty or so miles into the ride, Sanchez came in over all their radios. "There's a turnout a little ways up, we're stopping to pick somebody up."
Sure enough, right around the bend one of the training vans sat parked with its hazard lights on. "The new kid," Sharon announced laconically, as Buck and the others pulled in; she talked less than anybody Buck knew who wasn't actually mute.
"Kid" was right. Shit, where were they finding these guys? "You're pulling our legs, right, Josiah? He can't be more'n 14 years old!" Buck exclaimed.
"I'm JD Dunne," the kid replied with all the cocky arrogance of youth, "and I can ride. And I can climb. And I'm nineteen. Nice to meet ya, old man."
"Old man?" Buck huffed.
"Buck," Chris ordered him, "leave it."
Buck looked over his shoulder, then measured the rest of the guys in the group; Chris was definitely slated for the vacated captain's seat, so he backed him up by not arguing. "Yeah, all right."
Dunne was already on his bike and peeking once more at a route map. "Thanks, Mr. Larabee," he said, and grinned.
"Don't thank me yet, kid," Chris said, his voice as cool as ice, and Buck bit back a grin. Chris was going to put the hammer down and ride the legs off this little upstart, and send him home with his tail between his legs.
Well, Buck was all for that.
The problem was, the kid wouldn't give up. His tactics were crap, his sprinting was wild, and everybody gave him room on the down hills because he was so squirrelly they were sure he'd crash and burn, but somehow he made it home.
By the time everyone returned to camp and got cleaned up, it was 3:00, and Buck noticed that Dunne was following Chris around like a gangly puppy. Buck couldn't help it; the kid was cute, with that obvious case of hero-worship. Nineteen. When Buck was nineteen, he'd been far more focused on Chris's ass than on grand Tours. And here this kid was, following Chris around and taking his shot at the shortest path to glory. Well, good for him, just as long as it wasn't Buck he was trailing after.
The compound was vaguely U-shaped, with a long dormitory/office building in the front beside the horseshoe drive. Behind it ran the bicycle barn and mechanics' hall, squat and narrow and old-looking, but climate controlled and clean as a whistle. Toward the back of the compound, another building, a sort of Quonset hut, stretched a good 50 feet, and housed a clean room, two medical examination tables, and various stationary bikes hooked to every machine known to man: heart rate monitors, resistance measurers, wattage output meters, electrodes, EKGs, anything and everything people could think of to test the mettle, fitness and guts of a professional cyclist.
In the courtyard between the three main buildings was a sprawling yard, lush and green, edged with leafy scrub oaks and dotted with old-fashioned, wooden picnic tables, and that was where folks assembled after showers and before dinner, to relax. Most of the Four Corners - Clarion members and hopefuls had grabbed three tables near each other, and Buck surveyed the men. Josiah Sanchez, the team's coach, or director sportiff as the Euros liked to call them, sat at the next table over, talking quietly with Nathan. Three of the other guys, Rick, Joey and Roberto, sat with them. Larry, Frank, Victor, Perez and Lambert filled out most of the third table. Vin had slid onto the bench beside Chris, across from Buck while Ezra sat beside Buck, reading downloaded newspapers on his little notebook computer. Poor little rich kid, Buck thought with growing affection; Ezra was a hell of a sprinter who worked twice as hard as he liked to admit, one of those guys who loved making difficult things look easy. JD had edged onto the narrow space at the end. Buck reckoned everybody at his table would make it just fine, even the kid if he learned some control, though Chris was ignoring him for all he was worth.
After a few minutes of silence put the jitters into JD, the kid jumped up. "I'm gonna go get a drink. You want anything Chris?"
"Nope."
JD cast hopeful eyes around. "Anybody?"
"Grab me a soda, kid," Buck said, happy to give him something to do.
"Look at that child," Ezra observed as JD trotted away. "Were we ever that young?"
Buck grinned. Ezra was only twenty-six himself. "Hell, Ezra," he said, "on my good days I'm still that young."
Ezra's fine eyebrows--Buck was sure he tweezed them, he had that obvious look of vanity about him--rose high. "I didn't say 'acting' that young," he said haughtily, sarcasm riding soft and smooth on his southern accent.
Buck laughed at the joke, agreed with it in fact. He liked to work hard, and he liked to play hard, and he'd never made any apologies about that.
A foot tapped his under the picnic table. "Ezra's got your number, eh, Buck?" Chris teased with a smile. Buck smiled back, still a little uncertain about where they stood with each other but loving the moments like these when that old spark would burn.
Vin, a little apart from them, just watched everybody, seeming to soak up the way folks interacted. One of those types that needed to really test the waters before diving in.
"What do you say, Ez? You got everybody's number?"
"Well, some are easier than others. Vin, you're certainly a dark horse. And Chris... well, I thought Armstrong was the only legend still riding, these days."
Chris frowned. "What?"
Ezra looked to his computer screen. "'On the Shoulders of Giants' -- that's my favorite bit of journalistic liberty that I've seen so far, by the way -- 'Chris Larabee, the bad boy of bicycle racing, has returned to the professional circuit to lead the rising star of American teams, Four Corners - Clarion. An aggressive cyclist with a typically American flair, personal tragedy pulled him from racing nearly two years ago, and it was thought by many that his career was over. Not so. He has returned seemingly from nowhere, ready to make history by participating alongside another well-known American Team, the US Postal Service, in the world's most famous and challenging stage race, the Tour de France...'"
"Where did you get that?" Buck demanded. Chris had only shown up yesterday, for pete's sake.
Ezra looked up. "The Clarion, of course. Shall I continue?"
"Hell no!" Buck slammed the computer closed. "Gonna ruin my appetite. Hero my ass. Bad boy... you should've seen him, Ezra--"
"Buck," Chris said sharply, flatly.
Buck glared Chris's way. The one word was definitely an order, one he was supposed to understand, and he did. This wasn't the first time Chris had called him to heel, and he was beginning to chafe at the attitude, especially since Chris seemed to run so hot and cold. It wasn't like him, never had been, not before Sarah, not during, not even after. Chris had never needed to control others, only himself. "Yeah?" he answered, not quite challenging, but not backing down either.
"There was a paragraph about you too, Buck," Ezra added, trying to break the tension, and Buck perked up. But JD came back then, and Chris looked away, and the computer remained closed.
Media background coverage wasn't going to make Chris happy, but hell, the man had to expect it. He wasn't some naïve kid just getting into the game. Buck resolved to watch, and learn, and help Chris handle it if he could.
FC-C FC-C FC-C FC-C
A couple of days later, JD fell spectacularly in a sprint, taking three of them with him. JD himself took the skin off his arm from elbow to shoulder blade and from knee to ankle, while Rick, who'd been right alongside him, slid on his back and hurt his jersey more than his body. Buck landed on the kid's bike, tore his shorts wide open and bruised his hip badly enough to know he'd be icing it for awhile when they got back to camp. Chris ran into Buck, just barely managing to keep himself from topping the pile, but from the grunt Buck figured some part of Chris had impacted with Buck's derailleur. The sensitive piece of equipment that moved the chain up and down the rear wheel's gears had a tendency, like handlebars and pedals, to poke the living shit out of people in a crash situation.
Vin, Buck noted, swerved quick enough to avoid the wreck, and with the rest of the team, he pulled to a stop at the side of the road twenty feet ahead.
Buck groaned and tried to pick himself up when he spotted Nathan jumping out of the team car and running back with a medical kit, looking everybody over on his way. "Anybody need help right now?" he asked, meeting people's eyes.
JD dragged himself to his feet and muttered and embarrassed, "No, I'm fine."
"Son," Chris said, "maybe you want to let him--"
"I'm not a kid, all right?" JD yelled, pain pushing his embarrassment right over into anger. "I said I was fine! What the hell gives you the right to tell me what to do?"
Chris just stared at him for a second before dropping his eyes. Then he picked up his bike and hobbled to the side of the road, pretending to check it for damage as Buck watched.
Buck peeked down at his hip, fingering the gash in the fabric that exposed the side of his butt, and the mildest scrape of skin; the bruise would be spectacular, but the leg elastic hadn't torn apart, so the chamois wouldn't try to travel. "I'll be okay until we get home, Nate," Buck said, meeting the man's concerned, dark eyes. "I'll ride with JD in the back," he added, and glared at the kid in a 'don't argue with me' kind of way.
JD was sullen as hell, but after Nathan sprayed instant skin over Buck's hip and JD's right side, he got on his bike and hung back when Buck waved him behind. They watched the group pull ahead of them a couple of hundred feet before Buck said anything at all. "Chris had a son once," he began soberly, "and a wife. He them both in a fire. Anybody who knows his reputation has to know that. You know it, don't you?"
"Yeah," JD ventured, slow.
"So if you respect him so much, why are you acting like such a shit?"
"I wasn't, I--" JD sucked in his lip like he was going to cry, and just as quickly hardened his jaw. Damn, the kid was so young. "It was a stupid crash," he said.
"Yeah."
"I've only been around a few days and do you know how many stupid things I've done in front of him and Josiah?"
"It's gonna happen," Buck said, experience weighting his voice. "You're gonna make mistakes. Best you can do is make as few as possible, because we're gonna be in races over the next few months that are important, kid. Too important for your ego, you understand me? And mouthing off like some spoiled brat when Chris is trying to help you isn't gonna win you any friends, or his respect, or improve your chances of being one of the guys who gets picked for the team if we make it into the Tour de France."
JD flushed and hung his head, even as his legs ticked over on the pedals in a regular, barely conscious cadence. "He thinks I'm an idiot."
"He thinks you're young," Buck lied. "And he was trying to be nice to you. And that ain't something that comes easy to him, anymore. Sometimes..." he paused, thinking about it as they pedaled along, "sometimes I think that fire burned half the soul right out of Chris."
He let JD chew on that for awhile, and waited for the inevitable questions. "He was one of the best," JD started.
"Yeah."
Then, "People said he'd lost it. They said he lost his heart for racing. They're wrong."
"Yeah," Buck said soberly, "they are."
"So what's his story? Really?" JD just rode along, keeping the pace high and expectantly waiting for an answer, and because the memory played so vividly behind Buck's eyes, he realized he wanted to tell it. Maybe even needed to tell it.
"I used to race a lot of triathlons in Missouri, that's my home state, until this guy who owned a bike shop sponsored me for some races. I met Chris when I started in on the classics circuit, you know, all those east coast one-day races. I guess I was 15 or 16 and that would have made him almost 18. We just clicked, and he was on a little low budget local racing team out of Pennsylvania. He talked to his manager, who talked to my mom, and then I was riding with Chris for Vee Dub Paint Manufacturers. He's just a regular guy, JD. A regular guy who knows how to race a bike better than he knows anything in the world," he added with a laugh. "He raced and won, and I turned into a pretty darned good lead-out guy, and we kind-of shook up some of the older folks."
Buck glanced up the road at the team, maybe a quarter mile ahead of them now, and took a slow breath. "We went to Europe, and went pro, and both got picked up by Festiva. And we were still good. Then he met Sarah. Some things got easier, some harder. We did our first tour together three years ago, and again two years ago with Festiva, and I guess you know the rest."
JD was staring at the group ahead of them, watching the brightly colored jerseys fade into the distance.
Buck's hip was starting to burn like hell.
"No, I don't," JD said, panting a little as Buck picked up the pace. "I just knew that he kind of came up out of nowhere, and that I wanted to be like him. Then after the fire, he just disappeared."
Buck pondered what to say before continuing. "He didn't disappear. He just quit racing for awhile. He needed some time."
"How come you quit too?"
That was one of those questions Buck wouldn't answer, at least not completely. The memory was still so bitter, and so sweet. When he'd been staying with Chris, after the funeral, he'd realized that cycling was the only thing he found to work out his frustrations with life, with loss, and with Chris himself. The riding, hours a day every day, had done a lot for his legs; his muscles were rock-solid and packed serious horsepower.
Then on that particular Wednesday he'd told Chris flat out, "I took a job on a new team. I leave in four days. I'll stay in touch." Chris had left the room without a word, and a minute later Buck heard the shower running. He didn't have to pack immediately, didn't have to leave until Sunday, but he'd have preferred some kind of response from Chris.
So it was with no little surprise that Buck looked up from a Velo News magazine to witness Chris, naked, shaved, hair curling and dripping water down his shoulders, walking out of the bathroom and right into his arms.
Chris had only ever made the first move, since Sarah. Most of the time Buck had rebuffed him, which said a lot about Chris's courage, that he would try, and try, and ask again. Seeing his friend in that living room, wet and wanting, the tan marks from cycling faded almost to nothing, face expressing a need for intimacy that Buck knew was about goodbyes, he had no intention of rebuffing Chris this time. They had cuddled on the couch, Chris naked and Buck clothed, then jacked each other slowly to orgasm. Then they'd retired to Chris's bedroom and gotten consecutively more complex, until Buck found himself buried in Chris, calling out sweet words straight from his soul. They had spent two days in bed, then on Saturday afternoon Buck had awakened from a nap to find that Chris had vanished from the house. He hadn't returned, and Buck had left to join Four Corners - Clarion without even seeing him again.
"He was my best friend, kid," Buck said, finally answering a little of JD's question. "And I knew his family, Sarah and Adam, real well. It was my apartment they were in..." he swallowed. "Chris wasn't the only one who needed some time to recover." That he'd spent all of that time in Pennsylvania with Chris wasn't JD's business. That for months they'd barely talked, then for weeks they'd done nothing but talk, then for days they'd made love again like it was the first time, then Buck had still left, that wasn't anybody's business either. Buck wondered still if the lovemaking had been because Chris thought he could afford it, since Buck was leaving.
A bend in the road called him back to the present, to the steady cadence of his legs, and the burn of his muscles at thigh and hamstring and ass.
"Kid, you want to be like Chris, I'll tell you a secret right now. Chris thinks before he does things. He always has. So just pay attention. And listen to the guys who've been where you haven't yet, okay?"
They rode in silence, maybe two or three miles, and Buck had returned to his own thoughts, about how things had been, about how uncertain things seemed now, about how guarded and unreadable Chris could be, when JD said, "Okay."
"Huh?"
Beside him, JD grinned and shook his head, his longish hair flying. "Okay I'll listen. Geez, maybe you ought to try listening, yourself."
After getting over his initial surprise, Buck had taken a shine to the kid. He was just now figuring out why. "Come on," he said, standing up in the pedals, "let's see if we can catch them."
They didn't catch up, but they were only a couple of minutes behind by the time they arrived back at the camp, breathing hard and sweating. Buck got off his bike and limped to prop it on the side of the barn before dragging JD with him to the medical building.
Chris was already there, stripped almost naked, with Nathan poking at a purple bruise just above his hipbone.
"Derailleur?" Buck asked.
Chris grinned at him. "I bent it?"
Buck shrugged a shoulder and eased himself down onto a bench while JD paced a few feet away, head down. "It got me home."
Nathan spotted the blood dripping down JD's arm, profuse enough to soak his gloves. "I knew I should have bandaged him up on the road," Nathan muttered.
"Nah, Nathan," Chris said blandly, and plenty loud for JD to hear, "it'll do him good to suffer a little. Help him pay more attention maybe."
As soon as Nathan stepped away, Buck leaned closer to Chris and whispered, "He's embarrassed as hell about that fall."
"He's gonna get kill himself," Chris replied, frowning. "Maybe somebody else."
"I talked to him. He's just got a case of hero worship on you, pard. He'll calm down when he stops telling himself you think he's an idiot."
"Who says I don't?" Chris sat back then, and tilted his head. "Jesus," he breathed. "Get out of those shorts, I'll get you some ice."
Buck looked down, only just remembering his hip again. Pain was like that, in his business; you could forget it, until somebody actually reminded you of it. Pain came with the job.
Chris walked over to a freezer and pulled out largish ice packs, grabbed up a blanket from a shelf beside it, and came back before Buck had even removed his jersey.
"Come on, strip," he ordered.
"I can ice through the lycra," Buck replied, frowning at him.
"What's the matter, you afraid to let people see you naked?" More quietly, Chris added, "That'd be a first."
"You flirting with me, Larabee?" Buck grinned. Chris opened his mouth to reply, but it was Tanner's voice Buck heard first.
"You two all right?"
The shutters slammed down on Chris's face, and Buck wondered again at how easily, how quickly Chris could turn hard or cold.
"I'm okay," Buck said, stretching his hip out a little before he unzipped and slid his jersey off his shoulders. Nathan would want him bare to check the cuts on his back anyway. "Nate's looking at JD right now."
Vin glanced briefly toward JD who had straddled a bench across the room, his arm soaking in some concoction in a in a low sink while Nathan wrapped gauze around his leg. He spared longer looks and a deep frown for Buck's side and Chris's hip.
"Come on, there, Buck, let me give you a hand," Vin offered, reaching out and hauling Buck up off the bench.
Buck accepted, skinned his ruined bib shorts off and sat back down, naked, enjoying the way Chris fussed over him even though it was all business, now. He wrapped the blanket around him, rolled up a little as he was told, eased down onto the packs and held his breath against the cold.
"I'm gonna go get something to eat," Chris said, and stepped back. "See you later." He got up then, shorts still low on his hips from Nathan's prodding and his own ice pack, and walked out.
"Catch up with us," Vin invited, and followed Chris out.
Buck looked back toward JD, worried about the kid's attitude, but Josiah was there now, had pulled up a chair and was talking quietly to him, and JD looked pretty calm. Buck waited until Nathan came over and threatened to put leeches on his bruises, gently rubbed in liniment instead, found him a new pair of shorts, two sizes too big so the lycra would hold the ice packs in place, and warned him to wear a thermal jacket for the rest of the afternoon.
Obeying orders, he dropped the ice packs only long enough to grab a shower, and caught up with the rest of the guys as they were finishing dinner.
He got a nice combination of jeers and sympathetic hisses when he showed off the injury, and Buck sat down to eat, noticing how Chris glanced at his butt. Why the hell aren't you making a move, Wilmington? he asked himself. Habit, he thought--he hadn't made a move on Chris in five years, since he realized how serious Chris was about Sarah. And something else.
Chris and Vin seemed unnervingly close, though Buck would bet a thousand bucks that there was nothing sexual between them. Still, Chris's closeness to Vin left Buck with mixed emotions, joy that the man had let somebodyin after all this time, that strange off-kilter discomfort of what wasn't going on between Chris and himself, what they weren't talking about... and a strange kind of sadness, because just seeing Chris stirred up the old memories.
He was used to reading Chris like an open book, understanding all his nuances, but he'd lost that, and didn't know how to get it back. But on the road... as two other teams entered the camp and began to join in the rides, as real competition started up, Four Corners - Clarion rode like one man. It was beautiful.
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A week of hard labor went by before everyone left camp for Houston to meet their primary sponsor, sign addenda to contracts, get fitted for new colors, and get some press, Clarion style. Clarion had a long reach outside the Lone Star state, and apparently was run by Travis' daughter -in-law who was more than happy to use her influence to advance her benefactor's sports interests.
Buck, sitting with his teammates in the lobby of the Four Corners Oil Building in downtown Houston, was only just beginning to understand just how big "big oil" really was. Even though he'd been with the team for months, he'd been racing in Europe almost the entire time, had never been invited to Texas, never seen the inside of this building and--stupidly, he now decided--he hadn't done much research beyond finding out that his team was well-funded enough that his paychecks didn't bounce. Still, there was only so much sitting and waiting a man could do before he got bored, and Buck had passed that point half an hour ago. He'd taken to watching the people bustling in and out, suits mostly, some interesting enough to follow with his eyes, and the occasional skirt rarely failed to catch his imagination. But the most striking person he spotted was a woman, and what a woman: platinum blonde, her hair all coiffed and sophisticated, she took ground-eating strides in high heels and revealed just enough leg and cleavage to make a man want to see more of both.
With nothing else to entertain himself, Buck got up and started to follow her. "Beautiful," he said, loud enough to get her attention. "Day. Beautiful day." He smiled broadly, but reduced the wattage when a wary suspicion veiled pale, light-colored eyes. He'd seen that look too often, and knew before she spoke that she wasn't likely the type for fun and games. "Ma'am," he said, and extended his hand. "Buck Wilmington, at your service."
"Yes, I know who you are," she said, and cracked a professional smile. "Mr. Wilmington." Her grip was firm. "I'm Mary Travis. I own Clarion Press, and I've arranged for the interviews with your team, the new cycling kits, and the photo shoots tomorrow before you leave for Europe in a few days."
"Photo shoot? Interviews?" Buck blustered, backpedaling.
Her smile turned more genuine, amused, and Buck relaxed. He knew that look, too. "Mr. Sanchez didn't tell you? I'm sorry. Would you mind? I was just going for a cup of coffee." She waved her hand toward the wall of mini-restaurants where a Starbucks logo hung prominently.
He stood in line beside her, tossing his friends a "thumbs up" as he dutifully answered her questions. "Mrs. Travis," he interrupted when she paused for breath, "I thought we were leaving for Belgium tomorrow."
"Oh. No, that would be Mr. Larabee and Mr. Tanner. Mr. Tanner... well, there are some logistical details, paperwork and such, regarding an incident in which Mr. Tanner was involved in the EC last season, that need to be taken care of." Buck thought again of Ezra's gossip, and wondered just how good this company's lawyers were, that she'd reduce manslaughter charges to 'paperwork.' She waved her hand again, as if dismissing trivia, and Buck felt the hairs on the back of his neck try to rise. She wasn't much good at bluffing.
"And Mr. Larabee?" Buck asked, tilting his head and trying not to sound too curious; where ladies were concerned, he wasn't much good at bluffing, himself.
"We're planning a short press junket to introduce him as the team's new captain." She turned and stared at the rest of Buck's friends, most new, one so very old and relied upon, and asked, "How long have you known him?"
"Oh, I've known him a real long time, ma'am."
"Ma'am," she repeated faintly, clearly amused with him, so Buck settled more firmly into his role of entertaining her. "Forgive me, but perhaps it's better to ask you than bring up a painful subject with him... you gave up your place at Festiva when Mr. Larabee left. Why?"
It was all still tender around the edges, like barely mended skin, and Buck looked across the lobby at Chris, still so distant, so detached from life even after all this time. "Well, when you've known someone as long as Chris and I have, you get involved in each other's lives. I was his boy's godfather. It wasn't just his tragedy."
Her hand, cool and soft, touched his wrist. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah." Buck watched her staring Chris's way again, and realized she really wasn't any good at bluffing. "You wouldn't be headed for Europe yourself, would you? Covering the races, maybe?"
"I haven't done much on the ground reporting in awhile, but I had considered it."
As far as Buck knew, Chris hadn't even looked at a woman since that day they'd heard the news, hadn't picked up anybody in a bar, hadn't even jacked off. Nothing. Buck hadn't been nearly so determined to punish himself. He smiled again. "Well you ought to. You know, Chris, he knows anywhere people bike like the back of his hand. Maybe I could ask him to show you around a little."
She didn't stop looking at Chris. "Thank you, Buck. That would be very nice."
Maybe nice for everybody, Buck thought fondly. Even if it was just a couple of dates with a beautiful woman, it might help the man he knew inch further back into life. Buck didn't think for a moment that she was "the one." But she was sophisticated and pretty, and she obviously had eyes for Chris. Maybe that would be something.
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They met "Judge" Orrin Travis two hours later, and all Buck could think to say about Travis' office was that sixteen athletes, the judge, two secretaries, Sanchez and Dr. Jackson all fit comfortably with no need to rub shoulders. The man himself, however, seemed to take up all the extra space in the room.
He got a good impression of Travis; the man seemed solid, and had the steely eye of someone who didn't waste his breath talking bullshit. "I have a great many interests in a great many places, gentlemen, and this sport happens to be one of them," he said, standing behind a cherry wood desk that must have been seven feet long; Buck could easily have great sex on that desk and his feet wouldn't even have to hang over the end.
It was a pretty good pep talk; reminders on who Sanchez was and his impeccable racing history, his more successful history as a director sportiff; Nathan's work with two Colombian teams before choosing to return to the States and a Native American wife, as much as cycling medic could call a particular country home; Travis' own visions.
"My son was a cyclist," he said, though Buck figured everybody in the room but JD must know that. Steven Travis had ridden with the best, one of the first Americans to hit every major tour in a single season, back in the late 80s. Old by cycling standards, he'd been in his early forties by the time he'd met, married, and widowed Mary Travis--Buck had asked some of his own questions. "I've developed a love for the sport that makes me want to see Americans continue to win, continue to dominate, and continue to carry the standard that men like my son, and the other American greats, have carried to date." He paused, looked around the room. "Armstrong won't last forever. I'll expect this team to work diligently to replace him when he retires from the sport."
Yep--a no bullshit kind of guy. Buck liked him right off.
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The photo shoot that morning was hilarious. Truth be told, it was hard to find something wrong with a fit body in lycra; snug brightly designed cycling shorts and matching jerseys showed everything a man had to offer, in pretty much every way, from lean bellies to tanned skin to hard muscle to, well, to a nice package, and the New York photographers treated them all like they were models for beefcake calendars, shooting them singly, in twos and threes, then as a group.
Buck was confident he'd be the centerfold, if there were one, and asked for prints.
Chris left for his personal interview with Mary Travis just after, while most of the other guys came down to the staging area in the underground parking garages, sectioned off with chain link and white tarp, to look over their new bikes and disassemble them for travel. Riders and mechanics mingled easily amid the clutter of gears and wheels, handlebars and tape. It was nearly noon now, and Buck wondered if Chris was going to join the team in the makeshift bike barn or ask the widow reporter out.
The subject of dating arose, and Buck proceeded to top the last story about a guy and two French girls with a favorite oldie of his. "Well, they were twins if that paints a picture for ya. And these two little fillies they looked better walking away from a man than they did walking towards him, if you know what I mean?" Various jeers, ranging from disbelieving to interested, met his question, so he smiled broadly and continued. "And this golden hair smelling like sage just tumbling down their backs to their sweet, buttermilk--"
An arm came around his throat and jerked him backwards, landing him on his ass and off his balance, supported almost entirely by the man holding him. "My past is my own, Buck," Chris said, voice flat and dead sounding. "It's not yours for conversation."
Mary Travis had a hell of a big mouth. "She asked," he grated, trying to get in a full breath.
Chris's grip tightened until Buck couldn't suck air in. "Guess you didn't hear me."
Buck wondered for a second if Chris was really going to strangle him, and if the guys standing frozen around them were going to let him. Finally reaching up to worm a hand under Chris's elbow, he conceded, "I hear you, and I'm sorry Chris, but what the hell am I supposed to do when people ask?"
He was abruptly released, and he fell back further, barely catching himself on his elbows. "Nothing."
Rubbing at his throat, Buck turned in time to see Chris push through the big swinging doors, then cast a scorching glare to his so-called teammates. "Thanks for the help there, fellas," he snapped. "Randy, you mind finishing this?" The young mechanic, skinny and pale, nodded mutely. "Thanks." Buck strode out without another word and holed up in his room, trying to decide how to handle this mess.
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Josiah had made them all gather for dinner, because Travis wanted to join them. Fair enough, the man had promised to put up millions of dollars over the next few years, and if he wanted to buy them dinner then they wanted to accept.
Buck waited until Chris found a seat, then picked the chair farthest from him, not even giving him the dignity of a glance. Fucker. After, he slid out of the hotel's restaurant and across to the bar, hitting on a pretty blonde like his life depended on it--hell, maybe it did.
After, though, Chris walked up with Vin, JD, Nathan, Rick, Roberto and even Ezra. "We're going out drinking," he said, his voice giving nothing away. "Come on." It was more an order than an invitation, and it rankled as much as anything else had.
Buck looked past Chris to Vin. He'd already heard different from other folks, that the British lawyers had said to keep Vin stateside a couple more days, and that Chris would wait and go with the team so they could present a united front to the European press, which until this morning had suited Buck just fine. "I thought you and Vin were headed off to Belgium," he said, cold.
(("Change of plans." We're just headed for some dive a couple miles away called Elmo's. Eight o'clock."
What's Elmo's?" Buck asked, pretty sure he wasn't interested in being in the same room with Chris for quite a while longer.
"A real Texas kind of place. Check your guns at the door, sawdust floors, hell, last time I was there they had this mechanical bull--"
"You picked it?"
Vin looked surprised. "Nah. Chris did."
Finally, Buck met Chris's eyes, and saw the old grief, boiled over into anger, driving a tic at the corner of his jaw and a hardening in his eyes. He'd probably asked the concierge for the roughest, toughest shit-kicking bar in town. He'd be drinking hard and stirring up trouble, maybe landing everybody in jail the night before their flight was supposed to leave.
Fucker. "Well, you can count me out," he said stiffly, "because if I decide to commit suicide I'll do it myself, all right?" To his new lady friend he grinned broadly. "You wanna get out of here?" She grinned and nodded. "Well come on, girl!" Buck pushed Chris aside, grabbed the pretty thing up and headed for his and Ezra's empty hotel room.
But he couldn't stay there. Eight o'clock turned to nine, and Buck realized he'd never forgive himself if he let Chris drag the whole team down. He apologized to the woman for rushing her out, caught a cab to the bar and walked around it, casing the joint a little before slipping in behind a guy with a huge cowboy hat. There they were, over in their own corner. Buck sidled along the wall, sat with his back mostly to them, and waited. Just in case. Just to be sure.
Chris had a whiskey bottle in front of him and was getting louder and more aggressive by the minute, until a couple of rowdies behind him finally took issue. Then all hell broke loose. Buck ducked over to the bar, apologized to the bartender in advance and asked him to get the waitresses to pull people out of it and keep it from turning into a free for all.
Then he cursed under his breath and dived into the fray.
He caught more than his share of hits as he tried to block his way through the crowd, and Vin, hair flying, laughed when he looked up and saw him.
"Chris said you'd probably show up!" he hollered.
Fucker! "These guys likely to call the cops?" Buck yelled back.
Vin laughed again. "This is Texas, pard!" was all he said, and frankly, it really was that kind of bar. When finally Buck got to Chris, he grabbed him by an upraised fist and spun him around. "Outside! Now!" he shouted, and when Chris looked like he was going to argue about it, Buck dropped down and tackled into his belly, pulling him up in a fireman's carry and heading out the back to let him cool down in the alley.
Chris was furious but silent, his mood black as pitch, so Buck filled up the time keeping Chris relatively corralled as the man paced up and down along the wall, pausing occasionally to kick at it with the side of his motorcycle boot. Buck winced each time, knowing if Chris broke a bone he'd be in almost as much trouble with Sanchez as if he'd gotten himself arrested. Buck never got too close, never had and never would when Chris got this tangled up in his grief. While Chris had never raised a hand to him, grief and alcohol did terrible things to a man, and Buck didn't want Chris to do something they'd both regret.
Finally, when he started to calm down, Chris asked snidely, "You done, mother?"
"What the hell makes you think your past isn't mine, that I wasn't there every single step of the way right beside you, you selfish shit?" he almost shouted, then pulled up short. He hadn't expected any of those words.
"Still on that?" Chris asked frigidly. "I figured."
"Fuck you, Chris."
"You don't usually take things so personally," Chris said, completely unmoved.
"Yeah, well you don't usually drag me down on my ass in a room full of people I'm gonna be working with." Buck swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, furious when he saw the dark streak on his knuckles that could only be blood. "Is this what you're doing with your time? Going out drinking, getting into fights? How the hell did you convince Sanchez you were up to snuff?"
And Chris, just like that, deflated. He leaned heavily against the brick alley wall and hung his head. "I don't. I haven't. I hadn't drunk more than a beer since..." a pause, "since the day after you left," he said, low. "I saw you riding the Tour duPont with Four Corners," he went on, as if he were talking about nothing. "You looked so good."
It was one of the first televised races Buck had ridden with the new team. Buck wanted to feel good about both announcements and what they meant, wanted to feel proud, for Chris, for maybe helping Chris somehow even unawares, but right now, all he felt was weeks-old frustration and months-old pain.
Chris didn't say anything else. After an eternity of silence, Buck swiveled around and tramped back into the bar.
Tables and chairs had been righted. Ezra and one of the guys from the group they'd been fighting with stood at the bar, obviously negotiating damages. It was all so civilized. Buck sighed and went to an empty chair at the table where the team sat. "Anybody order me a beer?" he asked, ignoring the looks Vin, JD and Rick sent toward the back door.
"Got it covered, pard," Vin said, and waved to the waitress.
Conversation started back up slowly around the table, and Buck had drunk about half his beer and was almost ready to get the hell out of this place when a hand landed on his shoulder. "I thought you were trying to fuck her," Chris said, out of the blue.
The rest of the men at the table quieted, not the tense silence of just after the fight, but an expectant, 'okay what's the real story here?' kind of quiet.
Buck did nothing to break it. "Mary Travis," Chris said. "I thought you were trying to fuck her."
"So what if I was?" he demanded, surly.
"So nothing," Chris said softly. "Come over here for a minute."
"I got no reason to go anywhere," Buck said, planting his ass more firmly in the chair.
Chris surprised him by sighing, running a hand through his hair, and dropping heavily into the empty chair beside him. "I thought you told her... what you did... I thought you told her that to work your way into her pants."
It took a second for the words to make any sense, and when they did, Buck was stunned. Shocked. Furious. "You think I'd do that?" he asked, though he barely had breath to voice the words. "You think I'd trade on their memory just so I could wet my dick?"
Chris dropped his eyes, and that was answer enough.
"Fellas, I'm done for the night," he said shortly. "See you on the plane tomorrow. Chris'sll settle my tab," he added, glaring Chris's way. Fucker!
He paid a hundred and fifty bucks for his own hotel room, and only ducked into the room he shared with Ezra at 8:30 the next morning to pack up his clothes and get ready for the flight. Leaving early, going through security an hour before the rest of the guys, and finding a bar a ways away from the right departure lounge let him avoid everybody until boarding time, and once on the plane he barricaded himself between Ezra and the window.
Chris came back and tried to talk to him over Ezra; Buck ignored him. "Hey, Ezra, how about letting me have your seat for a minute?" Chris asked.
Buck dropped a gentle hand on Ezra's wrist. "Hey, Ezra, how about not?"
"I despise being in the middle of things," Ezra huffed. "Which of you is more likely to make a scene?"
"Me," Buck asserted, and met Chris's eyes belligerently.
After a moment's hesitation, Chris sighed. "Him," he muttered.
"Then, Mr. Larabee, I'll be staying where I am, thank you."
And that got them all the way to Brussels.
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Chris, Vin, Rick, Joe and JD rode the Tour of Flanders, and it was like a bad joke. Vin crashed out, Chris and Rick had mechanical problems that forced them to quit in disgust by the half way point, and only JD finished, unspectacularly, right in the center of the peloton. Chris gave JD shit for being too stubborn to quit, a sure sign that he was warming up to the kid, and JD grinned like a lunatic, an equally sure sign that he was thriving under the increasing attention of the experienced men around him.
Paris-Roubaix, the "real" first of the spring classics, was hell: cold and rainy, with a limit of no more than five members from any one team, Josiah decided to get creative at the last minute.
"Buck, Vin, JD, Ezra, and Rick are in. The rest of you, pull up a comfy chair and watch the show."
Buck scowled when nobody complained; of all the races, this was one with the most history and one he liked least. But he could see some logic in it; if Chris really was going to captain this team, and if they were going to make it into the Tour de France, now wasn't the time to risk him to accident or injury. Buck just wished Josiah thought the same of him.
Buck and Vin caught a streak of luck and wound up in a break away of nine, and working together, managed to stay ahead of the larger group for most of the race, one hundred and sixty-five miles through mud and rain, over cobblestones that felt like somebody was taking a jackhammer to his joints. It was days like these that made Buck wonder why the hell he'd ever loved bike racing in the first place.
Ezra and Rick had abandoned in the first forty miles, and Buck kept wondering why he didn't do the same. JD was struggling somewhere in the main pack, or so Josiah had told him over the radio.
A couple of miles from the finish line, the teamwork that had kept all nine men ahead of the peloton broke down completely as each tried to set himself up to win. Guys started attacking, trying to launch off the front of the small group and gain the lead. They were stupid wastes of energy but opposing team members just didn't cooperate so close to the finish line. The pace slowed, and suddenly handlebars, shoulders, elbows and knees started bumping and shoving, jockeying for position. It was dangerous, and aggressive, and it demanded specialized skills to pedal a bike at forty miles an hour in an exhilarating combination of motocross and chicken, all with only two square inches of rubber on the pavement.
Not much of a sprinter, he was still a pretty good lead-out man, and after he confirmed that it was Vin on his wheel, he held firm to his line. At fifty meters from the finish line, feeling like his heart was ready to explode out of his chest, he veered right to let Vin slingshot ahead of him for the final sprint. Two guys from Once jostled him almost off the road; he laughed out loud, loving the fight, even as he put his head down and watched the wide white stripe of the finish line flash beneath his tires.
Two guys from Four Corners finishing in the top ten was damned respectable, and maybe Vin had done something special and pulled a place out of the sprint.
He coasted to a stop and Randy grabbed his bike for him as he unclipped and dismounted. He looked first to the leader board-- nope, Vin hadn't made the top three. But he had come in fifth, and he wasn't much of a sprinter himself. Buck looked around for him, laughed aloud when he realized that he could barely make out the green, gold and white of their team jersey through the mud, and grabbed Vin up in a hug. Patting him on the back he laughed, "Fifth? That the best you could do your first time out?"
"Well, at least I wasn't at the end of the line eating mud with you," Vin tossed back. Together they turned toward the team trailers, sidestepping reporters and fans until they could get clean and dry. Buck rounded the corner of Fasso's trailer and stopped dead in his tracks. Chris sat with a pristinely clean Ezra and Rick under the all-weather fabric awning that extended from the side of the team trailer. All of them wore team track suits and jackets, all of them sat in fold-out camp chairs with accompanying fold-out ottomans, and every one of them held a beer.
"Took you guys long enough," Chris greeted, toasting him with the bottle.
Buck and Vin toasted Chris right back with their middle fingers.
Nathan, grinning and warm and dry, stood up and ushered them inside the trailer. "JD's doing good back in the pack," he reported, and Buck reached to turn up the volume on the team's secure-line radio receiver. "How are you two?"
"Great," Vin said, peeling off his skin-tight gear: he had to unroll his leg warmers like women's stockings, and unclip shoes so muddy you couldn't tell the color anymore.
"Terrible," Buck said over him. "Freezing my ass off, I want a shower before you poke at me, all right?" He wasn't far behind Vin, peeling off his wet jersey and skinning down the suspenders of his bib shorts. He remembered to pull off the heart rate monitor before following Vin into the tiny shower area that stretched the breadth of the trailer. It didn't have much in the way of comforts, but it did have three trickling showerheads, and the water was warm. Geez, they'd gotten grimy. Vin had a stripe of mud from the backs of both thighs, up over his behind, and then straight up his back to his neck like a buckskin pony. Realizing he was probably no better off, Buck stuck his head under the spray.
"Get my back, will you?" he asked, and Vin turned, scrubbing a washcloth from his shoulders to the base of his spine.
"You're on your own for the rest," Vin joked.
"Bet your ass I am," Buck replied, then turned and did the same for Tanner.
Something made him look then, he couldn't say what. Through the clear plastic curtain he could see Chris, arms crossed, leaning against the wall just inside the trailer's closed door. Water and rising steam clouded Chris's expression, and for the second time in recent weeks, Buck felt uncomfortable naked.
"What?" Vin asked, turning to look at him.
"Nothing. Just Chris, getting an eyeful of us suffering," he said, though why Chris was really looking, Buck had no idea.
Showered, clean if not dry, Buck and Vin donned fresh kits--shorts, jerseys, leg warmers and jackets--and went to see if the press would talk to them for making the breakaway. The local media liked a new American team, liked the hyperactive enthusiasm most Americans interacted and the happy way they accepted defeat. And they loved Vin's grimy hair. Already on the monitor beside the team trailer, Buck could see news replays of Vin crossing the finish line without a helmet, hair dark and mud-caked and animal.
Hmm. Maybe there was a Four Corners calendar to be considered, after all.
Everybody who had ridden spent an hour with Nathan, getting checked for the normal stuff: cuts, abrasions, road rash, shin splints, frostbite, muscle damage. Between his tender mercies and those of the team's masseur, Buck felt like Superman by dinnertime.
Mary Travis joined them.
Buck sat further from her than he did from Chris, who he still hadn't quite forgiven, but dutifully looked at the pictures she passed around. There were three of Vin, near or at the finish line, and yeah, that uniformly dirt-brown jersey and that muddy, flying hair was going to get him included above the fold in any paper that respected the sport. The only clean-looking thing about him was his teeth, flashing white in a grimace as he pushed across the finish line.
She got chatty with Chris, who soberly rebuffed her; Buck made a note to tell her he hadn't gotten around to asking Chris to show her around, sometime when Chris was around to see him with her. Fucker.
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The spring race schedule was a clutter of cramped hotels, races and road trips. They spent uncounted minutes on trainers before actual races, warming up; minutes more cooling down, going through drug testing, sucking up IVs and hundreds of hours of actual racing; Buck got into the habit of dropping behind Chris after he'd pulled for awhile, and falling into that contented, zen-like space of watching the muscles of Chris's ass flex and relax, flex and relax. It was why he'd taken a shine to men all those years ago, seeing those tight butts in lycra, defined thighs and pumping muscles. Hell, he was surprised there weren't more gay guys on the circuit. He wondered if Chris looked at his butt when he was in front, dragging Chris's sorry ass up a hill....
Of course, Chris's wasn't the only fantastic butt in a peloton, or even on their own team, and Buck tended to spread the joy around. Chris caught him looking more than once, and his usual reaction was to frown or glare at him, but Buck didn't care. It was one tiny part of the pleasure he took in this sport, and he'd be damned if he'd give it up after all these years.
Buck continued to dedicate some of his spare time to trying to teach JD how to race a bike without killing himself. The kid had real talent, but he had the survival skills of an infant. I don't care how great the mechanics are, they're not the ones riding. You check your bike. Every day... it doesn't matter how fast you are if you can't stay in the saddle... how many times do I have to tell you, downhill ain't all about speed, it's about skill--you try to be faster instead of better and you could be out of the race and the whole season, maybe broken up, and then I'd have to think of something nice to say about you... how many times have I told you not to tap your brakes like that? You keep stretching the cables, and you won't have good control when you need it... Inevitably, JD would do everything Buck told him not to, pay the price, and then change his attitude. Buck felt like all he did with the kid was lecture him, but there wasn't anything to be done for it; he was that green to professional racing. Everybody else chipped in when they could, and JD learned fast. He learned hard, but he learned fast.
As they rode and trained and raced through the spring classics, Buck found that no matter how distant Chris might sometimes seem off the bike, when they rode together they were pure poetry. And it showed, in the way he didn't need direction to know which way Chris would dodge, when he'd attack, or when it was time to put the hammer down and drive everyone else to exhaustion, so Chris could attack and get away. Vin was great too, on the bike and off, a quiet presence with a soft accent and looks that attracted women like flies. Buck played at envy, complaining that until Vin came along he'd been the handsomest man in professional bike racing. Vin would just laugh, and promise that he was no competition for Buck's enthusiasm in that department.
Vin spent far more time at poker with Ezra and Chris, actually. Hell, the whole team could get suckered in after a meal, even Josiah and Nathan--though the coach and the doctor swore they attended just to be sure everybody bedded down by ten o'clock on pre-race nights. When team members played, the stakes were always low; if Ezra could find some bar or lounge or con members of rival teams into games, well, the stakes would go as high as he could push them. And when Ezra got that certain look in his eye, the guys knew better than to ante up.
=====
((The officials for the Tour de France were constrained by their own rules to inform selected teams before giving out press releases, so when Josiah came into the hotel dining room on May 22, grinning like he'd just won the lottery, Buck started whooping before the he could even get the words out.
"We're in, aren't we?" he demanded, shoving back his chair and jumping up and down. "We made it!"
"Surprise," Josiah said, ironic, but Buck just clapped him on the shoulder and went to drag a confused JD out of his chair.
"The officials have told Josiah, kid; our team made the cut and we're in the Tour de France this year."
"Wha..." for a second Buck thought JD might pass out or something, so he kindly patted the kid's cheek a couple of times. JD batted his hands away, grinning like a madman, and did a little whooping of his own. Buck glanced around the dining table, taking in the pleased faces and sparkling eyes, and when he met Chris's look he just froze. That look said a lot, but Buck had no idea what: muted pleasure, cynicism, sadness... anger. Buck ducked his head and glanced away before he let that look suck the joy out of this moment for him.
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The next morning he received a personal delivery; apparently the photographer had taken him seriously when he'd asked to see the prints, and he held in his hands a manila envelope with page after page of images. When he saw the pictures of himself and Chris he stopped, caught up like someone's fist was squeezing his heart. Chris looked somewhere between angry and amused but there was so much more there... they looked carefree, playful. He found a picture of Vin that was different but the same, less complex maybe, but Chris was actually smiling, showing all his teeth like he was happy.
Buck sat on his bed and just stared at the picture, and jumped out of his skin when Ezra's quiet voice said from right behind him, "You really don't have to worry about Vin, you know."
Buck shuffled the two pictures back into the pile as casually as he could and said, "I never worry about anything."
"Buck."
The one word, flat and calm, called him, and he turned to meet Ezra's open look. "Yeah?" he asked, feeling the axe about to fall.
"I thought we'd become friends," Ezra ventured warily.
"Well, friends know there's a line you don't cross," Buck said, pushing a little. Ezra's comment, out of the blue, scared the shit out of him, and he wondered what he'd done to give himself away--worse, to give Chris away.
"I think of it as more a gray area than a line. And frankly, I don't like to depend on people," Ezra said slowly, as if he were carefully choosing his words. "I make it a point to learn everything I can about men I'll have to rely on. It's hardly common knowledge, but I heard it enough times to believe it. You and Chris were lovers?"
Buck said nothing, refusing even to blink.
"Vin and Chris aren't," Ezra continued, politely not waiting for an answer. "I asked him if he slept with men. He said no."
"What the hell would you expect him to say?" Buck snapped, frowning.
"Vin Tanner?" Ezra sighed. "From what I've learned of him, I'd expect him to tell the truth, and damn the cost to himself. So he's lucky he's straight, otherwise I think he'd get fired unjustly from an American team, possibly from European teams. And I think he'd get hurt if he tried to come between you two."
"There's nothing between Chris and me," Buck said softly. Then, because Ezra was a friend, and had proved himself a tight-lipped one, added, "not anymore."
"Hmm." Ezra sat down on the edge of the bed and reached for the photographs, leafing through them until he got to the one of Buck and Chris that Buck had been looking at. "I'd bet differently, but then, I'm not much of a gambling man."
And with that perverse comment, Ezra rose from the bed and headed for the bathroom. Buck cleared out of their room, spooked. At the nearest bar, he picked up a sweet woman who wanted to be friends for a night, and didn't come home until almost dawn.
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The whole team skipped the Tour of Spain and spent a month in France, riding every single stage, every mountain they'd see on the upcoming Tour de France, every downhill-- particularly the downhills, as pretty much everybody worried that JD would get overexcited and crash out, and Chris needed him for the climbs. Buck ratcheted up the tension on JD, determined to see the kid make it through. He couldn't say why, but American teams liked to embody the word team--all for one, one for all, and that shit--if JD was going into the Tour, Buck wanted the kid to cross the finish line at the Champs Elysées with the rest of them.
Everyone got more tense as the day approached, and time for personal distractions dwindled. Buck found himself staying in at night rather than trawling for women, waiting until Ezra fell asleep (or pretended to), then going into the bathroom to jack off so he could get a decent night's sleep. Only Ezra's fastidiousness kept Buck from just pulling it out in his own bed; Ezra probably wouldn't say anything, but the imagined wrinkled-nose look of disgust on his face was a real erection killer.
JD was shaping up. His climbing skills were incredible, but at 5'7" and 130 pounds soaking wet, it wasn't like he had much to pull up the hills. And he positively shone under the praises of his elders. He had turned 20 in April, so they ribbed him about being able to kill himself without being able to buy booze in the States, and Buck secretly hoped the kid had what it took, because no matter how prepared you thought you were, in a 2,000-mile bike race with the best and fittest athletes in the world, your first time wasn't like anything you could imagine.
The Tour prologue ran on July 5, and for the first time in history two American teams would ride it side by side. The final nine riders were picked: Chris, of course; Buck and Vin were the big rollers, domestiques whose powerful legs would defend and support Chris on the flats and early parts of mountain stages, or act as lead-out men for Ezra, whose form had peaked perfectly. Ezra was probably the only man who would attract attention for the team this year in the sprint finishes. The true climbers were Roberto and JD; Roberto had run the tour four times and never been in question, while Josiah just had a good feeling--and a lot of nudging from Buck--about him. Larry Willard, a lanky guy from Sweden whose accent was so thick as to be incomprehensible, wore SPF fifty and always burned, but never tanned; Yosef Entamin hailed from Russia and was good all around. Frank Masterson almost hadn't made it, not because of his skills--he was the oldest guy on the team, at 33, and probably the best all-around domestique of any team. But Frank's fiery Spanish wife had also been living in Paris at the time of the fire, and his family and Chris's had been tight. Chris couldn't get close to him--envy, Buck thought, and memory--and Josiah had worried about potential problems on the road.
Joey, Rob, Victor, Perez and Lambert would be on the sidelines or in the team cars this time around.
July 1st saw them picking up stakes and going to Paris, checking into their American-style hotel--Travis really was Texan through and through, and wanted his boys to have the best, right down to bigger showers and lots of hot water wherever it was available.
The mechanics set up trainers in a big continental suite, along with Nathan's test equipment; they spent hours pedaling on those trainers, letting Nate calibrate for maximum heart rates, VO2 maximums, and wattage output. As things to more tense, the guys compared the one distinctly feminine-seeming part of their routines: waxing or shaving.
"Buck." Nathan drew him out of his momentary distraction, waving a needle at him. Nathan ran his own anti-doping tests, as Travis had made one thing abundantly clear: not only would he fire any racer found with illegal or banned performance-enhancing drugs in his system, he'd prosecute for possession if the laws permitted it. Four Corners would be a clean team, and it would aim to be the best, just like the pre-eminent American team before it.
Chris, with Vin alongside, cornered Buck that night after dinner. "Take a walk with me," he said, like it wasn't a request.
Buck sucked on his lower lip for a second, then nodded. "Okay."
"Fetch Ezra too," Chris added, surprising Buck, but Buck did as he was told and they all wandered toward the back of the hotel, where various team trailers were parked all in a line, then meandered around chain link and security guards until they reached the relatively empty street beyond.
"What's up?" Buck asked.
"Any of you think you've got a top ten finish in your legs for tomorrow?"
"Possibly," Ezra said promptly.
"Don't know, to tell you the truth," Vin answered, both more circumspect and more honest.
Buck thought about it. "Top twenty, maybe." He glanced sidelong at Chris. "Yosef might have a good chance, too."
"Yeah," Chris agreed. "I'm wondering, if we could talk to Josiah, could we convince him to put everything into the prologue time trial tomorrow, so we can put on a good show for the States, and Travis, maybe even get a better placement for the team time trials next week. Nobody's expecting us to win anything, so we don't really have to save ourselves right off."
"What do you know that we don't, Chris?" Ezra demanded. "Is Josiah waffling?"
Chris shrugged. "I don't think so. He wants us to pace ourselves, save for something later because everybody's expecting Armstrong or Mayo or Tyler Hamilton to win the prologue. But I'm thinking we burn everything we've got--sacrifice everybody to get the lay of the course, then we go out and bike it like hell. Maybe I could place high. We could sacrifice Yosef and Frank and JD so they could give us the best way to ride it, but they'd have a few days to recover before the first mountain stages. Then you, me and Vin go all out. Ezra, you keep yourself back, save it for the sprints over the next few days. But the rest of us could try for a top ten and make Orrin Travis a very happy man."
"We should have talked to Josiah already," Buck said quietly, trying to gauge Chris's motives.
Chris shook his head and grinned. "Nah. He'd have second-guessed himself if we'd given him time. Come on, let's go corner him right now."
They had walked down the street and turned a corner for their clandestine meet, so they walked back through a different chaos of trailers, fences, bikes. Adrenalin pumping, they started telling stories. By the time they all got back to the hotel lobby, Buck and Vin were laughing over some stupid joke at Chris's expense, while Ezra even broke out a smile. Just as they reached the stairs and Buck finished the punch line, which included Chris soaking wet in a farm drainage ditch, his bicycle's frame bent and himself reeking of, well, farm drainage, a pair of arms wrapped around his middle and lifted Buck completely off his feet.
"My hot-blooded American," a heavily accented voice breathed into his ear, and Buck felt a thrill like he hadn't since the day he'd seen Chris at Pedro's bar in California. He wriggled out of the strong grasp and turned to offer a proper hug.
"Imano, you horny bastard! What are you doing here?"
"Racing, same as you. You knew my team was riding, you must have looked forward to seeing me?" The disappointment was feigned, and Buck grinned. Big, broad-shouldered, tanned, very Italian, with a full mouth and strong jaw and intense brown eyes--he'd definitely have made the centerfold of any calendar print--Imano grinned right back and picked him up again.
"Hey, pal, don't damage the merchandise!" Buck laughed, trying to pull free.
Imano ignored him. "Mmm, a man with your charisma should not be permitted to be American. You must have Italian blood in you somewhere."
Before Buck could even try to stop him, Imano had grasped his jaw and kissed both his cheeks, using the French greeting that wasn't quite so normal between men. "Bello," he whispered, that sultry voice tweaking Buck's nerves like harp strings. "You haven't changed a bit. Maybe better looking. Fitter. I watched you walk in, you know, and said not a word until I got a vision of your ass, my friend."
Buck actually caught himself flushing. "It's a curse," he asided to his teammates, trying to dismiss Imano's very Italian-ness. "Anybody who goes for a perfect male body comes after mine." To Imano he demanded, "Would you cut that out?"
"Oh, if I could get you alone for an hour..." Imano teased.
Buck noticed Chris glaring openly, Ezra looking bored, and Vin pretending not to listen, so he shoved Imano back a foot. "Cut that shit out, man. I'm serious. I get enough flack just for dating so many women, I don't need you starting even more rumors."
They wouldn't be rumors. Buck and Imano had gotten together for a couple of months last fall, something sweet and intense that Buck had really needed after pulling up stakes and leaving Chris in Pennsylvania. They'd been riding roughly parallel circuits, Four Corners on the lesser events to build up points and reputation, Imano on the well-established Banco Roma team, riding with the same flair and flamboyance with which he did everything else.
Imano was unusual in professional cycling, in that he swung both ways and made no bones about it. His nickname, Superman, had nothing to do with his racing skills. He loved energetically, vigorously, and often. Buck couldn't even fault him for it, because he was incredible in bed.
Imano blinked thick, long Italian lashes, pursed his full, pouty lips, and tilted up his strong, square jaw. "You know you want me," he said, loud enough to be heard, to be misunderstood as his outrageous, flirtatious self.
"I'm serious," Buck snapped, trying to put a growl into it. He knew that Vin, at least, was hearing everything, and Imano was laying it on too thick. "Cut that shit out now or we'll take it outside, you understand me?"
Imano was unfazed. If anything, the rejection incited him to greater heights. Stepping right up against Buck, he hugged him again and whispered, "I don't care about your sponsors or your teammates, my friend. I just care about your beautiful body and big heart and the delicious love we could make."
"Yeah, yeah," Buck said, putting on a longsuffering air. Chris's look startled him, a dark, threatening stare he didn't completely understand. Chris and Imano had gotten along well, years back.
Ezra said, bored, "This is exactly how you behave toward women, you know," which made everyone laugh, including Imano.
"No wonder he is so popular with the ladies then," Imano retorted.
"Imano Pantaliano," he introduced himself to Vin. "Ezra, are you still as crafty off the bike as on it?"
Ezra shook hands and smiled. "No, not at all. But we do have a friendly poker game going, maybe you'll join us sometime along the route."
Imano laughed joyfully. "And lose my winnings before I even earn them? Thank you anyway, Ezra." He turned to Chris, and Buck watched interestedly as Chris stayed so cool and hard, and Imano just widened his already sexy smile. "Chris Larabee." Then he used his other hand to squeeze Chris's shoulder, said only, quietly, "It is good to see you back."
"Thanks, Imano," Chris said, grudgingly Buck thought.
Imano turned back to Buck, grabbing him up into a hug before Buck could duck away--not that he tried too hard. "I'm in room 211," he breathed, and Buck sucked in a sharp breath. It was tempting. Damned tempting. Too tempting. Imano was one of a handful of people who had known about him and Chris, his eye for things like that too sharp and his imagination too vivid.
"You're worse than an octopus, you know that, don't you?" Buck groused, and pushed Imano's hands away again.
"Ah, rebuffed again. How will I go on?"
"Guess you'll have to find yourself another woman to marry, and keep her happy this time," Buck ribbed him. Even back in the fall, Imano had spoken of his desire for a new, real love. He was looking again for marriage, and children--but until then he was playing the field like he was being paid to do it.
"It's not keeping them happy that's the problem, my friend. It's staying happy with them."
"We need to talk to Josiah," Chris said, effectively ending the reunion.
"See you, Imano," Buck said cheerfully, genuinely glad to see his old lover again.
"Let's go." Chris herded the four of them onto the elevator , effectively blocking Imano from joining them.
As the doors closed, Buck jostled Chris a little. "He's a good man, Chris. Save all that pissed off for the pedals."
"I've got plenty of pissed off for the pedals," Chris bitched. "I don't need some flamboyant faggot crawling all over you in the hotel lobby, bringing us attention we don't need."
"Hey," Buck snapped, calling Chris to heel, "he's a friend. And he always was, to both of us, so just cut that shit out." Chris of all people had no right to be slinging mud.
"Jealous, Larabee?" Vin observed, laconic, and Chris stiffened in anger.
"Lay off, Vin."
Vin just shrugged, and Buck looked between them, from Vin's small, amused smile to Chris's grim visage. He was missing something, but they had the prologue time trial to the Tour de France tomorrow morning, and now wasn't the time to care.
Josiah was wrapped in a kimono and incense burned on the dressing table. It was obvious he'd been meditating, so Buck figured this was the best time. He urged Chris forward with a tilt of his head.
"Josiah, we're thinking that since we dark horses this Tour, maybe it's a good idea to burn ourselves out on the time trial, get a little attention for the team that way."
"I was hoping we'd make a nice showing in the sprints," Josiah countered mildly.
"And we will," Chris said. "We don't waste Ezra tomorrow, just everybody else. If we can get a top ten placement tomorrow, as Americans we'll get good press, and Travis will love that."
Josiah appeared to ponder for a moment, then said, "Everybody think that's a good idea?"
They all nodded.
"Well," he said philosophically, "I believe in trusting the team leaders. To a point. And it can't hurt. Sacrifice JD, Joey maybe, they can tell us what the course is like. Our big rollers run last--Buck, Vin, Ezra--then you, Chris."
Buck was surprised that Josiah was so agreeable. "Uh, thanks," he said.
Josiah smiled. "On our debut Tour, we can afford to screw up a little. Now go on downstairs and get some sleep. 8:00 call for warm ups and medical checks."
The four of them headed for the stairs up to the fourth floor, and Buck peeled away from Ezra as soon as they hit their hotel room door.
"I'm going to take a shower," Buck said.
"One can never be too clean," Ezra replied. There was nothing insinuating in his tone, but still Buck smirked; yeah, old Ezra knew what he did in the bathroom every night.
That wasn't going to stop him, though. He slipped into the shower, turned on the water, leaned against the tiles and thought of Imano and the two months they'd shared together last fall. Touching himself to that memory was sweet, because they sincerely liked each other, and yet understood each other to. His orgasm was as good as his own two hands could give him, and after he toweled off and pulled on a pair of shorts, he stepped out of the bathroom and crawled into bed.
Still, it was hard to sleep; the most important prologue of the hardest race known to man was to begin in a few hours. He dozed, woke, tossed and turned, and listened to Ezra's steady, even breaths.
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Seven a.m. came early, though he had ended up sleeping well. It was Ezra nudging him out of the bed. "Come along, Wilmington," he said quietly. "It's time to shine a little."
The team gathered for breakfast, and Buck felt an involuntary smile cross his face at the warm look Chris gave him.
"You ready to drag your ass a few miles this mornin', Buck?"
Buck grinned and nodded. "I think I can turn the pedals over, yeah."
"We'll see," Chris said, but it was friendly, almost flirtatious... damn. Not now. The tension rose as various guys were called, biked up the starting ramp, and took off. JD, the youngest and on a wildcard team, was among the first ten to go, and he wrecked on a turn but jumped back on still turned in a reasonably respectable time of 17:08 minutes.
One by one, Buck watched his team members roll off the starting ramp, and the tension wind up in him even though he'd been here before. Vin stuck close to Chris, and the two of them seemed ridiculously calm. The final order for them was Vin, Ezra, Buck, then Chris. After Vin left, Buck felt a hand rest squarely between his shoulders.
"You'll be all right," Chris said softly.
Buck smiled thanks, a little embarrassed. "Don't know why I'm wound up."
"Because the kid wrecked," Chris surmised. "Again. Because it's been awhile since you and I have been here together. Because it's hard. Because it's the Tour de France and everyone's wound up."
Buck turned, saw something precious but guarded in Chris's eyes, and smiled. "Yeah. So, you want me to give it everything?"
"Everything and then some. Josiah'll radio back and let me know where your trouble spots were."
"He's done that with everybody."
"Yeah," Chris agreed, "But you and I ride the same. The others, they're gonna do things differently, take different lines. You know."
It warmed Buck immeasurably, that acknowledgment of the physical evidence they'd both been seeing for the last three months. "You getting soft on me?"
"Soft?" Chris tried to make it a joke. "Over your hard head? You're up in five minutes." Then, after a brief hesitation, "Make Sarah proud."
Five minutes went fast, and soon Buck was breathing deep and strong for oxygenation, the referee holding his seat to keep his bike up as he clipped in and put his head down, imagining the finish line. He only ever imagined the finish line, never the distance between here and there; it was what gave him the extra speed, and on short time trials, he was damned good. Make Sarah proud. He'd be even better, today. Maybe good enough.
The director counted down with the clock: cinq, quatre, trios, deux, un--and he put the hammer down, feeling the muscles in his legs become their part of a two piston engine. The pedals resisted, the gear ratios so high it felt like he was turning turbines to power a building, but all he really had to do was accelerate, and keep accelerating. Crowds in the Tour de France were like no others, noisy and shouting, a cacophony that could distract a man or drive him forward. Make Sarah proud, he thought to himself, and tried to feed off all the noise.
Twelve kilometers wasn't so long. It was practically a sprint, and everybody knew it. As it happened, he was a pretty good sprinter if he said so himself. He risked it all, taking the turns as sharply as he dared, feeling his rear wheel slip more than once and praying that, if he went down, he'd slide into hay bales and not the steel barricades. Every pedal stroke was for Chris's ride, to give him all possible information about each turn, pits or potholes in the road, grease spots and debris to avoid, because Chris would start out only four minutes or so after Buck finished.
By five miles his lungs were burning, his legs deliciously warm as he kept his cadence high, his body bent low over the aerobars, and his heart rate pegged near at 201 beats per minute.
"Stay in the saddle," Josiah kept repeating through the two-way radio. "You're pushing too hard."
"Yeah, yeah," he panted. It was hard to keep his butt on the seat, hard to ease back from that place just past the edge of his abilities and talents, especially when the first time check told him he was in the top four riders. He hadn't expected that. But Josiah was the boss, because Josiah had better perspective than the guy on the bike. So he kept his ass on the seat, increased his cadence a little more, cut the curves as closely as he dared, and finished in a very respectable fifth place.
That would change. The stronger riders, last year's winners, still had to run the course.
Buck toweled off and stretched a little, liking the dense bunching of his quadriceps and butt after a push like that one, and waited with the others for Chris. Chris made it in third place, and together, they walked the interview line as a team, Buck's Midwestern accent massacring his French but he tried hard, because they liked that, here. JD didn't even know how to order a beer in French, but he was a kid, the youngest rider in the Tour in fact, and the translators were kind to him. Ezra, who had set the early time to beat for first place, got the most attention, but then Ulrich, Millar, Armstrong, Leipheimer, Mayo and Hamilton and a couple of other guys knocked them all down the standings. Still, Chris wound up ninth, and Ezra seventeenth. It was a superb showing for the team to have two in the top twenty, good enough that Travis called to congratulate them, and Josiah took them to a French restaurant to celebrate.
While they waited in the restaurant's foyer, hands squeezed his upper arms gently, not too intimate. Imano Pantaliano's voice whispered "Congratulations, beautiful," into Buck's ear, and he knew it wasn't coincidence that the man had shown up in this particular restaurant.
"Hey, Imano." Then he maneuvered them into a corner, away from the others. "You shouldn't be here."
"I have nothing else to celebrate, and won't until my captain starts winning. So I thought I'd celebrate your victory."
"I'm serious," Buck said, even more quietly. "You shouldn't be here."
"Still hiding from your puritanical American press?" Imano teased.
They both knew the answer to that. "Four Corners is Texas oil. Shit kickers. Clarion is liberal press, yeah, but Americans, they're still not big on the whole guy on guy thing. Nobody's gonna fall in love with me if they find out I swing both ways," he said, "and sure as shit, Travis would find a way to break my contract if this came out."
"I understand," Imano said, in that soft and commiserating way he had that said he really did. "You need your work more than your love life. But still, we could see each other." A smile, all white teeth and flash. "We could slip away. We have before."
Weirdly, Buck knew he'd be using Imano. Not so weirdly, Imano knew it too, and didn't care one bit. A free spirit, that's what they'd have called him in the States. In Italy, they just called him oversexed, and frowned with feigned displeasure. Buck smiled at the thought, at the possibility. It would be good, really good to spend a night with this friend, to touch a man's body again and feel the differences, the harder muscle, the more direct needs... the sweet kisses to neck and shoulder that Imano liked to give as much as Buck did. He hadn't been with a man except for Imano since Chris, couldn't find the interest or the motivation. It seemed like a waste of his energy, too much trouble, and too transitory a pleasure, so unlike his more intimate connections with women.
"Yeah," he heard himself breathe, barely more than a whisper, "I'd love to see you too."
"You have things to celebrate tonight," Imano said, turning his head to cast a cool, arrogant Italian eye over the rest of Buck's teammates. "Tomorrow will be a media nightmare. I'll make an opportunity after Stage 2."
Buck smiled again and took a step back. "Thanks for understanding."
"Il mio Americano caldo, I understand a great deal." Louder he said, "Congratulations to you and your team. It was good to bump in to you."
"Thanks."
Vin had snuck up on them, but it must have been only a second ago. "Thanks, Imano," Vin said. "Sorry you guys didn't do better."
"We aren't time trialists, Vin; our team is made for the mountains. I could tell you about us sometime..."
"That's like offering to show you his etchings, Vin," Buck laughed, taking another step back. "He's worse'n me and not nearly so particular, if you know what I mean. Whatever you do, don't let yourself get caught alone in a room with him."
Vin grinned good-naturedly when Imano eyed him speculatively. "Guess you're right, Buck," Vin said, self-deprecating as always, "he'll go for anything." Then, "Josiah's got our table."
Dinner was noisy and highly energetic in that way only a crowd of friends could make it. After, when the two minivans got them back to their hotel, Buck headed straight past Ezra and into the john, where he turned on the shower. The sound of Ezra's laughter was almost embarrassing.
The first stage of the Tour de France was like nothing else in the world: 188 bicyclists on 20 pound bikes wearing lycra shorts and no protective gear, ready and willing to push and shove, to use shoulders or elbows, handlebars or pedals or feet to get the room they needed to do their jobs. Whoever thought professional cycling wasn't a full contact sport had never ridden inside a peloton.
The team performed as one person, maintaining a wall around Chris and Ezra for the first hundred kilometers, protecting them from most of the jostling, crashes and risks associated with so many testosterone-pumped men. Vin hung back a little too, saving what energy he had left after the time trial for the bunch sprint. With two lead out men as strong as Buck and Vin were, Ezra stood a decent chance, because when the gloves were off and the veneer of sophistication dropped away, Ezra was the most cutthroat animal Buck knew.
Josiah had done something different with the radios, making them open to everyone; instead of having to say something to Josiah for Josiah to pass along to JD, for example, Buck could talk and JD could hear him directly. It was interesting, hearing the chatter of his teammates, and the silences. Vin, concentrating for the most part, said barely a word, and Chris was worse. JD nattered on and on, and Buck wondered if Josiah's idea was a bad one after all.
"Hey, Chris, how you doing?" Buck asked as they ticked off kilometer after kilometer.
"Like sitting in a rocking chair," Chris replied amiably. Yep, they were golden in the saddle. "You need a break?"
"Nah." He felt strong himself, led on in part by the promise of a sweet, intimate night to come, and more by the sheer energy of the first stage of the Tour. Not many people were this good; not many people made it in, or made it through.
He dropped back a little, just to ride alongside Chris, to watch the faint smile and intimate look Chris occasionally threw his way. It was funny to Buck, that the film crews read their relationship like any other team captain's and his helpers, like Armstrong and Hincapie, like Hamilton and Sastre. A sobering thought struck him, that maybe it was all they were, now.
Chris frowned at him. "What?"
Buck shook his head. "Nothing. Remembering," he amended.
Chris surprised him by taking his hand off the handlebar and touching him lightly on the elbow. "I remember too," he said as softly as the whir and click of two hundred bikes allowed. "It was hard."
They were remembering different things, Buck realized. That was all right. Better, really, for the team's radio chatter that Chris had probably forgotten about. "You drop way back and look unthreatening for a couple-three days, you might get yourself in a mountain breakaway and steal the yellow jersey for a day," he taunted. The odds were a thousand to one, maybe more.
"I'm going get one, Buck," Chris said, and the certainty in his voice couldn’t be denied. Chris had something special going on, something to prove. Well, that was good for his biking, and good for the team.
At 167 kilometers they passed the flame rouge, the 1-kilometer marker, and then things got a little hairy. Josiah's voice sounded over the radios, calm and cool. "Time to go, guys. Buck, Vin, lead out Ezra. Everybody else hang back and stay out of trouble.
The sprint finish was one of the most dangerous parts of a race, with 40 or more guys trying to overcrowd the width of a 20-foot road, handlebars slamming into each other, not by accident, shoulders and elbows trying to force room where there wasn't any to give. They all fought their way forward, a thick line of human muscle and metal frames on asphalt, accelerating to 35 miles an hour. Buck could feel the drag on his wheel, could see Vin right beside him, out of the corner of his eye. Ezra was right behind Vin, probably out of the seat and pumping hard.
He put his head down, pedaled faster, shoved an opponent away on his right side and sensed Vin just to his left. They'd already made their plan, to cut right and left and let Ezra shoot right up the middle. At 500 meters from the finish line, the pace was 30 miles an hour, maybe more. Four hundred, and the group kicked the pace higher, bike wheels inches or less from each other, one mistake and the whole field could wind up skidding down the pavement. At 300 meters, bikes were getting wobbly as the riders practically pulled them off the ground. At 200 meters, Buck heard as clear as day, "Thank you, gentlemen."
He peeled right and coasted, while Vin peeled left. Riders dodged around him, but it wasn't Buck's job to get out of their way. He looked up, legs pumped hard and dense, lungs heaving, to watch Ezra's headlong sprint alongside greats like Zabel Petacchi, O'Grady and Cooke.
Ezra came up short, but not by much. A third place finish by an American on a barely known team--well, Buck surmised, looking behind himself and finding the bright green and gold of his other teammates' jerseys, and of Chris, maybe they were just that good.
* * *
It took another day for Imano to get close, close enough to give him a friendly hug and slip a hotel key into his hand. "Le Hotel des Roses," Imano whispered. "I'll be waiting."
Buck slipped off early that night, making no excuses, just nodding goodbyes and heading out of the lobby before dinner.
The hotel's name was on the key, and less than three blocks from Buck's team's own digs. It was easy to find, a couple-three hundred years old with thick stone walls and inset windows, and climbing roses that covered trellises on three walls and in part of its courtyard. Buck found the room with no trouble, and Imano, waiting for him, both joyful and gentle.
They sat quietly on the room's little sofa and sipped from wine glasses his friend had filled.
"So I've seen Larabee on television," Imano said. "He's in very good form."
"Yeah. And the team's doing great. We're gonna show well this year, I can feel it."
"As are we. My captain is looking to be King of the Mountains and take home the polka dot jersey." He dropped his hand to Buck's thigh, gentle. "It's good, that we'll be traveling so near each other these next few weeks."
Buck watched the strong, dark hand, and after a second he covered it with his own. "I don't know. It's the Tour. There's lots of press."
"And Larabee's back with you."
"It's not like that."
"Yes it is." It was a statement, not a question.
"No, it's not," Buck asserted quietly, then rubbed his fingers along the back of Imano's hand. If he and Chris were together, he wouldn't be here tonight; the guy had to know that. "Some things work out, some things don't. Chris..."
"Will be wildly jealous when he realizes you're seeing me." Imano laughed, deeply entertained at the lover's drama he thought he might stir up."
Buck laughed at that. "Nah. It's not the same, Imano."
"You still love him." Also not a question.
"Doesn't matter," Buck answered honestly. "There's too much history between us." He paused, thinking, while Imano waited for him. "Sometimes we're okay, other times... he's said some things. We both have." This was going to turn into a pity party fast. "Hey, listen," he said brightly, trying to change the subject and the mood, "I didn't come here to moon after old lovers, I came here to spend a nice night with one. Stop depressing me!"
And Imano did. Immediately. Like a knight sweeping the damsel off her feet, like, pretty much any aggressive Italian man Buck had ever known, Imano moved in. And it was sweet, to be the passive one, the one touched and gentled, the one stared at with affection--even if that affection was only going to last a few hours, it was real, and bright in those dark brown eyes.
Damn, he really was beautiful. Buck let himself be pressed back against the sofa arm, felt hands moving over his clothes, under them, gentle and determined and questing.
Their lovemaking was like the warm summer night, fresh and sweaty and languid. Quiet. Imano tugged him up from the sofa after awhile, and escorted him to the bed. Stripped him gently, eyes wide open and smiling and kind, and tumbled him back onto the mattress with a little laugh.
Buck wasn't usually a catcher either, but he was tonight, as passive and receptive as his nature could permit, soaking in his friend's attention, his skill, the quick-rising passion that flared like a shooting star, brilliant and bright and hot, and short-lived but so intense while it lasted. They stayed wrapped around each other for most of the night, dozing, rising to the occasion once more, and sometime before two a.m. Buck sighed. "I need to go."
"Stay," Imano countered. "We'll make love again, and have breakfast together. You'll have plenty of time to catch up with your team. Live for the moment, my friend."
Listening to Imano was a little bit like hearing himself, when he was trying to convince some woman that her very best choice was to spend a night with him. It was amusing, and sweet, and part of the reason they got along so well. "I can't." It would be harder to leave later; better to do it now, in the night, before they'd fallen asleep and awakened curled up around each other, before any more intimacy could take root or the press could sniff out their whereabouts. Before Ezra would ask questions.
Imano sighed, and thankfully, didn't state the obvious. "It was wonderful to see you," he said instead. "Wonderful to share a night of pleasure."
"It was great to see you too. Next time I'll kick my roommate out and we'll go to my place."
"Promises, promises."
He could do it, with the right combination of threats and bribes: convince Ezra to find somewhere else to bed down so they could have a different room, a different kind of sweetness. "We'll see. The race is heating up anyway. We may not have time for this kind of thing."
Imano laughed out loud and rolled onto his back, displaying his athlete's body so sexily, Buck wondered if the man were posing. "We'll make time. I'll find another place. Tomorrow. Not so late, or our coaches will kill us."
Buck laughed. "Yeah." He rolled over, pressed his friend into the mattress and kissed him deeply, thoroughly, and then pulled back and smiled. "Thanks. For everything."
"Thank you, my friend." Imano stayed where he was while Buck gathered up his clothes and dressed, leaving the spare key on the dresser. "See you in the peloton."
"Count on seeing my butt," Buck laughed, "because I'll be ahead of you."
FC-C FC-C FC-C FC-C
Stage 3 was hard, in ways Buck hadn't expected at all. Chris was moody right from the start, and the synch they shared previously on the bike had abandoned them. Fortunately the day was slow, and Josiah wanted to keep Ezra out of the sprint finish today to let him recuperate. So they all rode in the middle of the peloton, no one worried about attacks at the front and the inevitable breakaways, and Buck made a point of keeping Vin between himself and Chris, just so he could avoid the pissed-off looks and acerbic comments that kept coming out of nowhere.
At the 35 kilometer mark, JD, in front, rubbed wheels with a rider from Russia and both fell flat-out. Because the team was riding so close, JD brought Buck, Vin and a swearing Chris down, not to mention six or more folks from other teams. That would get some airplay.
Nathan was not amused, and kept JD at the side of the road for precious seconds when their team car caught up, making him bend and move for each joint, worried about the kid's abraded shoulder and torn up knee. Chris, Buck and Vin had already hopped back on and ridden away, but listened to Nathan's quiet orders through their earpieces. Buck looked across to Vin, who shook his head; he was fine. Buck tried making eye contact with Chris, who ignored him.
At 100 kilometers, another crash happened, worse this time, blocking half the road and again taking out Chris, JD and Larry; Buck, Vin, Frank, Ezra and Roberto, further left or farther back, avoided it, but waited for news that their captain and their youngest had gotten back on their bikes, then waited longer to pull them back to their position inside the peloton.
Buck breathed a sigh of relief that he thought he heard echoed throughout the team; after the stage, Chris practically dropped his bike on Randy and headed for the team trailer, not to be seen again. Everybody else wiped off sweat and blood and worked the rope line, Buck all the while wondering if the kid had pissed Chris off that badly, or if something else was wrong.
Imano had failed to find another room, the town was so overcrowded with Tour spectators, and Buck couldn't hide his disappointment; there was something special about the process, the ritual of packing away grief in the arms of a friend. Of replacing it with something sweet, and good. So Buck stayed with the team all evening, and crashed early that night.
Stage 4 was, if anything, worse than Stage 3. No wrecks, no crashes, but a nervous JD wrung himself out fetching water and food, and Chris, for reasons he wouldn't talk about, used up a lot of energy on attacks, getting himself into a breakaway group of six and getting a few mentions by the commentators. When they got to the team trailer, again, Chris was gone.
Buck cornered him at the hotel. "What's up, Chris?" he asked.
"Fuck you," Chris snapped back, and pushed past him.
* * *
Imano had found another room, somehow. "I had to work hard for this, throw my weight around," he laughed when Buck and he finally came up for air and propped on the pillows. "Lucky for us, they know who I am."
Buck frowned. Lucky for Imano. Bad for Four Corners? He couldn't shake the thought that any second now, someone would catch wind of this, either his teammates or the press, and in either case, no good could come of it.
"I don't think I can do this again," he breathed, after a long, slow bout of sex that was a sweet and welcome as the last.
"Your captain jealous?"
Buck frowned. "Chris doesn't even know. No one does."
Imano, Italian through and through, took matters of love and sex philosophically. "Well it was a delicious two days, Buck," he said. Then he grinned. "And there's always August."
"Thanks," Buck said again. He rose and dressed, grinning as those contented brown eyes gobbled up his naked body and that beautiful face pouted as parts were covered up. For old time's sake, and because Imano was a good guy, Buck dropped one knee to the bed and bent over his naked friend, and kissed him long and lingeringly. "I mean it. Thanks."
Then he slipped out the back of the hotel and made his way back to his temporary home. When Buck eased his key into the lock and silently pushed open his hotel room door, he was surprised to find a light on. He closed the door and stepped around the little entry way, looked to the empty beds, and--
"Hey."
Buck almost jumped out of his skin. "What are you doing here?"
Chris stood in a corner by the window, in profile, ostensibly staring out at the street below. "Gave Ezra a hundred bucks to swap with me tonight. Told him I needed to talk to you."
"Well, you wasted your money, we could have talked at breakfast in a few hours."
"Not that kind of talking. Where were you?"
"Out," Buck said, sidestepping the question.
"I keep thinking about Pantaliano."
"Yeah?" Buck said, giving nothing away.
"That where you were tonight? With him?"
"Chris," Buck said tiredly, stepping around him and into the small bathroom to start the shower, "what does it matter? "
Chris hadn't moved, hadn't even turned his head, so Buck did his best to ignore him back and started stripping off his clothes.
"It matters," Chris said.
Buck wasn't inclined to agree. "Go roust Ezra and send him back here where he belongs, and just go back to bed." He closed the bathroom door and stepped into the little stall, stuck his head under the weak stream of water and soaped down, shampooed, rinsed, all the while aware that Chris stood eight feet away, still probably staring out the window.
He dried off and wrapped a towel around his waist before opening the bathroom door, and sure enough there Chris stood, still leaning against the wall by the window, but now he stared hawkishly Buck's way.
"You wouldn't have used Sarah's memory just to get laid," Chris volunteered.
"It took you four months to figure that out?" Buck asked, almost disgusted. It figured, that Chris was still on that, worrying it like a dog with a bone.
Chris smiled then, the look soft and sweet, and welcome. "It didn't take four days. I mean, I should have known all along, but... you left. That made things different, and they still are."
"They were different before, Chris," Buck said, glad now more than ever that he'd spent the night with Imano, glad that his body felt cared for and nurtured and loved, because this conversation was going to be hard. "They were different the minute we saw that news coverage about the fire."
"You should have called me out, after I grabbed at you over Ms. Travis."
"You should have apologized," he shot back.
"I'm sorry." The words were immediate, and sincere.
"Chris, no shit, what are you doing here tonight?"
Buck was wary, waiting for the rest of the revelation, but when it came it was still unexpected enough to drive the breath from his lungs. Chris stepped up, wrapped his arms around Buck's back, and squeezed.
It took a second for him to recover, to respond, then he was hugging back just as tightly, just as desperately. It had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done, to go back out into the world without Chris, but he'd seen it as clearly as words on a page; if he didn't, maybe neither one of them ever would again. And now here he was in a tiny French village, in an ancient hotel room with Chris in his arms, who held him so tightly it was hard to suck in air. But what air he did get was filled with the smell of Chris, healthy sweat and familiar shampoo, and that indefinable scent that he'd recognize anywhere.
After what seemed like hours, the desperate embrace began to change. Arms loosened without letting go. Palms flattened out on his bare back and Buck mirrored the movement. Slow, stroking, short touches started well above his waist and moved to his shoulder blades and back. Then more, a little longer, until finally fingers touched the tingling skin of his neck and electricity shot down his spine.
"I need this not to be just because you think I fucked another guy and you don't like to share," Buck whispered.
"It's not about Imano," Chris breathed back. "Not just about him."
Their breathing changed; Buck could feel it in the rhythmic rise and fall of ribs against his, and in the soft sound of air near his ear. Slow. Deep. Important and pregnant like the touches that kept moving higher. And lower.
"Chris?" he finally asked.
"Let me come back," Chris whispered, and Buck shuddered, at the request, at the tone, at the emotion so clear in Chris's voice.
"You bastard," he hissed, almost angry.
"I know," Chris agreed, barely more than a breath. "I know I'm a bastard. Let me come back."
Buck couldn't say yes, because saying yes to something like this, something so fickle, so obviously driven by Chris's jealousy, was going to hurt in the long run. But he wouldn't say no, because it was Chris asking, and he knew love when he felt it.
He pulled back so he could meet the deep green eyes, wide open and honest and desirous. "Damn you," Buck said, and kissed him.
As dominant and passionate as Imano had been, Buck was now. He demanded everything, his desire driven in part by a pain that had been with him since the fire. And Chris--Chris gave even more than Buck asked for. Supple, overt, desperate and clinging, Chris seemed frantic to renew seal between them, opening himself heart, body, mouth, mind. Buck intimately understood what Imano was really looking for, because he held it in his arms: the certain knowledge that here was where his heart lay. And for now, just until morning, he decided not to question it.
Chris's mouth was full and soft, touching him in intimate places. Chris's hands, calloused from hours gripping handlebars or meeting pavement, stroked softly up his inner thighs, touching so tenderly. Buck, patience waning, tipped Chris to his back and rolled off the bed for his suitcase and protection and slick, and when he turned back to the bed, his cock jumped and he thought he might climax at the sight of Chris, lying there, knees spread and pulled up wide, head turned toward him. It wasn't the wanton posture, the exposed position, or even the dark rosy cock that jutted out over Chris's concave belly. It was the look on Chris's face, half-frowning, eyes open and questing and needing.
Buck settled a knee on the bed between Chris's legs, moving into position, slicking, preparing, watching heavy-lidded eyes and biting his lip to keep from saying "I love you." It wasn't like they didn't both know.
Later, as deep inside Chris as he could be, he framed Chris's face with his hands and locked eyes, moving in a rhythm as old and easy as ocean waves, as familiar to their two bodies as rain to the spring.
Climax landed, simultaneous and shattering. Buck didn't question that, not with the look in Chris's eyes and the tiny sounds he made, swallowed-down moans that sounded almost like choking. They'd always been good together.
"Breathe," Buck panted, as he often did, wondering if Chris was like this with anyone else, if Chris lost himself so completely with other people. Buck knew that for himself, he didn't. Hadn't ever. Couldn't. He didn't even know how. As pleasurable and warm and intimate as lovemaking was for him, with almost any partner, none of it was like this.
Chris sucked in a sharp breath of air, his muscles seizing with the influx of oxygen, which made Buck jerk and gasp from the added stimulation. They didn't blink, didn't look away, and through the haze of passion all Buck could see was the sea-green of Chris's eyes, the tension that marked his pleasure. Finally, finally, Buck dropped his head, breathing in the strong smell of Chris where neck met shoulder, as orgasm vibrated through him and pulsed into Chris.
Silence. Sweet silence, as Chris's legs relaxed and settled further into the mattress, as Chris's arms continued to grasp tightly, hands kneading the muscle of Buck's back and buttocks, breath slowing. Buck shifted slightly, felt the pressure of Chris's fading erection against his belly, the clutch of Chris's muscles around his own. He needed to move, but Chris's arms, caging him gently, made pulling away seem like a sin.
"Chris..."
"Don't let go."
Buck wanted to curse him. He couldn't trust that this was anything more than Chris giving his heart a little air for who knew why, or for how long. It must be about Imano, and that bothered Buck more than he wanted to say. He sighed against the sweaty throat and gently pulled out, rolling them onto their sides. "I won't," he promised, then added for his own protection, "not tonight."
Tomorrow and the next day, well, that remained to be seen.
* * *
Magic in bed translated to magic on the road, and on the next several stages the team did great. They didn't take any yellow jerseys, and there weren't any unexpected upsets that might steal the Tour away from its leading contenders, but they rode well, they rode hard, and somehow Chris convinced Ezra to trade rooms with him, so every night after medical and drug testing and massage, they fell into bed together.
He hadn't realized quite how much he'd missed his lover, or how sternly he had told himself that this would never be again. But each evening after dinner, they hightailed it to their room as early as they could. Chris would slowly take off Buck's clothes, and Buck would stand still for it, enjoying the attention, the serious look on Chris's face as he laid old, familiar touches to armpits, nipples, navel, thighs. Back. Buttocks. Buck could barely breathe, the touches were so intimate, so important.
Chris seemed no better, like he was unearthing buried treasure. By the time they made it to the bed, they were hard and needy, erections bumping as their mouths did, until one of them surrendered to be plundered or sucked or stroked, and orgasm struck like a storm.
They urged each other out of bed on the morning of the first mountain stage, manfully resisting the urge to shower together, or jack off, or do any of the other things they'd gotten back to doing. Chris was a dark horse, not someone the real contenders would worry about in the long run. At breakfast, there was a lot of joking and bullshitting about taking the tour and ruining Lance Armstrong's chance to make history, but it was crap and everybody knew it.
Josiah, on the other hand, had a real plan. He gathered them together after breakfast and asked, "Anybody on this team want to see Chris in a yellow jersey?"
JD hooted and cheered.
"Only if I have time to lay side bets," Ezra said, bland as always.
Vin just shook his head like he didn't believe it, and Buck was right there with him on that score.
But Josiah was determined. "Here's what we're gonna do. Chris, you're no threat to the top five, and at least this time around they know it. So I want the team to attack in the first ten miles, I want Buck and Vin in front doing all the work until they can't keep up the pace anymore, then I want JD, Rick, Larry, Roberto and Yosef to pull Chris the rest of the way in. Speed is crucial. Burn yourselves out if you have to. Cooperate with anybody who decides they want a chance today as well. Chris, you only need four minutes to get the lead, and if the top dogs don't care about you, you could be in yellow tonight. Got it?"
"Got it!" they said, as one man.
It was unlikely as hell; chances were, they'd try and fail then try and fail again, but the guts were in the trying. On their trainers, they warmed up before the ride, kicking up the pace a notch; Buck could tell it by the way the sweat built on foreheads and mouths. Four Corners - Clarion, if they could pull it off, would be doing something special; only six Americans had worn the yellow jersey before, and Chris's lucky number was Seven.
Or a hundred and seventy-seven--that was the number of guys left in the race. The morning was a wash of wind and bright colors the constant whirring noise of spinning tires and clicking derailleurs and jostling riders. As they had planned, their big rollers--Buck, Vin, Ezra too--drove the peloton speed up a little, and then let Chris and his climbers attack, launching themselves off the front with incredible bursts of speed. Chris and the breakaway was followed, of course, but not by guys who were in contention for the overall lead, just by guys who wanted the stage win. And while a stage win would be nice, would be special, Buck wanted Chris in the yellow jersey. He wanted it badly.
After about 50 miles, Buck had to drop back; he was exhausted and his legs felt like limp spagetti. Vin fell back a few miles after that, leaving the hills for the tiny climbers like JD and Rick and Roberto. Sitting back, staying in the front to try and keep the group's speed down just a touch and give Chris every chance to gain time, Buck grinned widely when a couple of the Postal guys joined him and laughed knowingly. Buck rode alongside Vin for as long as they could control the guys behind them, counting down the seconds gained, watching the time splits as the breakaway group Chris was in snatched back one minute, two, three. Five.
When Chris's group reached the thirty kilometer mark, Josiah said over the radio in that soft voice of his, "I think you've got it, guys," and Buck all but cheered right there and then. Chris must be at least six minutes ahead of the peloton, and still gaining time as the ten or twelve guys with him worked together. Of his tiny group, Chris came in seventh, but he'd gained over five minutes in the overall classification, and had taken the lead by 45 seconds.
He'd done it.
Buck and Vin, still dragging their asses up the last climb with the rest of the main field, barely crossed the finish line in time to see the presentation, to see Chris press kisses to the cheeks of the models who handed him the stuffed lion and the flowers, and zipped him into the presentational yellow jersey.
An hour later his own yellow jersey, in his size, screen-printed that very afternoon with Four Corners' logo and colors, was delivered to the team trailer. Chris put it on and didn't take it off all afternoon, not after showering and changing in to jeans and flip flops, not during dinner or Josiah's breakdown of the day. His unconscious impression of a banty rooster garnered him good-natured laughter and claps on the back from his teammates and he enjoyed every second of it.
JD had perfected his own rooster impression, because as the youngest man ever to ride the tour, he was getting more than his share of media coverage. "Wait! Shut up! Listen!" he'd yell, diving for the remote and turning up the volume on the television every time his face appeared. "They're talking about me!" Worse than any amateur, JD's enthusiasm was nonetheless catching, and between the yellow jersey and JD's antics, the whole team was revved up like a jet engine.
This was precious time for a cyclist, up in the thin atmosphere near the very top of the game, and Buck so loved the broad smiles that kept breaking out on Chris's face, and the excitement on JD's, that he didn't tease too much.
But he did "ooh" and "ahh" a lot, purposely mimicking a high school girl on her first date with the captain of the football team, at Chris's performance and JD's excitement, and damned if Chris at least didn't blush. It was easy between them, as easy as it had ever been. Then, sometime near ten o'clock, Josiah ordered them all off to bed.
Buck carried his enthusiasm into his and Chris's hotel room, and pretty much assaulted his partner as soon as they closed the door. "Let me wear it," he said, and still he was shocked when Chris looked at him for a long second, smiled, then peeled the yellow jersey off.
Buck stripped off his team tee shirt to slide the jersey on, zipping it up and staring down at himself. It was strange, weird, important somehow, to be even this close to it; with Buck's size, unless he won a prologue one day he wasn't likely to see one of his own.
"What're you grinning at?" Chris asked.
He hadn't realized he was. "Nothing. I just look better in it than you do." The fit was tight, and the words a lie, but it made Chris smile again, and reach to run a fingertip down Buck's waking cock. "I can always count on you."
Buck grinned, but the moment felt so complex, so shaded with meaning, he wasn't quite sure how to respond. Tempted just to reach out and rely on what he knew best, he hesitated, then muttered, "Of course you can, Chris," like it was nothing.
"I know. Always have," Chris replied, and the words didn't sound hard-won. They sounded simple and honest and real.
The exchange was easy, and unnerving, and Buck did reach then, to change the mood and give them both a little distance from the words. He kissed Chris's lips open, teasing, backing off and pressing in again, until Chris laughed a little and shook his head.
"You think you're playing me, don't you?" Chris asked, all sexual energy and smiling challenge, then dropped to his knees.
And then there was no question of who was playing whom. Buck stiffened, watching as Chris pleasured him, not even lifting his hands to cup his lover's head. Let Chris take the lead; it was where he belonged. Finally, he couldn't keep still though, and stroked gentle fingers through Chris's hair, rubbing smooth skin of temples with his thumbs, sliding his fingers down to feel Chris's lips stretched around him, moving with him, for him.
He came, almost shocked by the speed of it, it descended so quickly. Shudders raced through him, forcing up a groan that he tried to bite back for the sake of this old hotel and its thin walls. Chris was having none of it though, and shook his head a little, sucked harder. Buck finally gave up and clapped a hand over his mouth to muffle the noise.
When he could see again, he caught Chris smiling up at him, one hand still between Buck's legs, the other fingering the hem of the yellow jersey Buck still wore. "That ought to teach you you to respect the yellow jersey more," Chris teased, and Buck just chuckled.
"I respect it plenty. But that didn't hurt."
Buck led Chris to the bed and pushed him down, feeling whimsy and deep emotion he didn't want to look at too closely. Slowly, thoughtfully, helped Chris out of his jeans. "Lift up," he whispered, and Chris smiled, and obeyed. Buck tugged them down the long, smooth, heavily muscled legs, thinking again that he was spoiled, that no one else would ever be good enough.
"I love your legs," he whispered, then bent low to press his mouth to the bulging knob of quadriceps just above Chris's knee. He ran his hand down the hairless skin, feeling the tendons still tight, the muscles still hard from the day's ride, and pressed his fingers gently, kindly, into the meat there in a minor attempt to ease it. "Love how smooth they are, love that you wax instead of shave..."
"I do it for you," Chris said, and it sounded matter-of-fact.
Buck looked up, and saw the answer clear in Chris's eyes. "Aww Chris," he said, his voice thick with emotion.
Chris sat up, wrapping a hand around Buck's neck to pull him forward for a kiss. Soft mouth, moist, silken inner lip, agile tongue that promised so many things, and delivered on every one. He pulled back, eyes wide open and honest. "Hell, Buck, that's nothing," he said haltingly.
Buck looked down Chris's body, naked, smooth, the faint tan line that Chris tried so hard to eradicate at the middle of his thigh, the rosy hue of his cock as it filled.
"I think you're a little overdressed," Chris said, chuckling softly.
But Buck shook his head. "No. No, I'm not. Just lie back and let me love you, okay?"
With a look of barest confusion, Chris did. Buck needed to see that flush of skin, to touch and stroke and hold, to imprint his feelings so deeply onto this man that they'd stand out like a tattoo, that whenever Chris looked in a mirror he would see Buck on him. It wasn't that difficult a task, he thought, and bent to it.
FC - C FC - C FC - C-- FC - C
A banging on their door preceded Vin's hollered, "Drag your asses out here, can't you hear the phone?" and Buck jerked, sat straight up in the bed.
There the phone was, on the floor, where Chris had doubtless dragged it on the first ring, thinking he was hitting the snooze alarm. Damn, they'd been wiped last night.
Buck hustled Chris into the shower and pulled on his bib shorts before opening the door and bellowing, "Some people are trying to get ready around here!"
Vin looked shocked for a second, then laughed until he curled around his arms and almost fell to the floor. "You are so full of shit, Wilmington," he croaked out, wiping tears from his eyes. He finally pushed past Buck and into the hotel room like he didn't care what he might find there, and kicked at two sets of dirty clothes piled together near the one unmade bed.
Raising a smartass eyebrow, he said, "Lucky lycra don't wrinkle, aren't you?"
"Get out of my room before I whip your ass for you."
"You're gonna be kissing my ass when you realize what time it is," Vin said, still grinning, and held out his wristwatch.
Buck's jaw dropped. The team would be halfway through breakfast by now. "What did you tell 'em?" he asked, going a little light-headed.
"That you were both high last night and didn't get much sleep, so Ez and I left you in your rooms to catch some extra 's."
So at least two people on the team knew the score pretty exactly, and didn't seem to care. Buck felt a grin stretch his face.
Still, Four Corners - Clarion had gotten a yellow jersey, a couple of white jerseys for JD, and Ezra would finish in the top twenty in the sprinters' category if he made it through the mountains. By this time next year, they'd be a force to be reckoned with.
But first they had to get through the day. No two ways about it, Chris was exhausted from the last couple of days, and it hadn't been a day in the park for Buck, either. Chris lost seven minutes, and the yellow jersey, on Stage 8, after five and a half grueling hours of cycling. But they still had plenty of reason to be proud, because an unknown American team wearing the yellow jersey in a race that the captain of the only other American team was going to win was the kind of event that would make the French lock American teams out for the rest of the century.
Buck towel-dried his hair after a quick shower in the trailer, so drained physically that he knew Nathan would have an I.V. in his arm before supper, feeding him glucose to rehydrate his system. He hated needles.
Ezra, beside him, continued complaining; the man hadn't stopped since they had crossed the finish line.
"Told you that last climb wasn't going to be so bad," Buck chided.
Ezra glared like he wanted the look to drill holes through Buck's head. "Not so bad? Four thousand, three hundred feet on an eight percent grade? You were there, weren't you?"
"Yep," Buck said cheerfully, "I was there. Remember? You were staring at my ass the whole climb while I pulled your lazy butt over the top."
"Scoff if you will," Ezra said snidely, "but it was a damned hard day."
Buck conceded the point with a tired "Yeah," and opened the little cabinet, poking around for sweatpants.
As Buck stepped into the sweats, Josiah stuck his head into the trailer, holding a clipboard in his hand like a shield. "I'm juggling a few people tonight," Josiah started without preamble. "I want to put JD in his own room, let him get some extra rest so he's more ready to win "best young rider" now that Chris is out of the yellow jersey."
Ezra raised his eyebrows and his lip nearly curled back off his teeth in distaste as he tucked his towel around his hips. "He does have several more years."
Josiah smirked and shook his head, almost paternal. "Yeah, Ezra, and so do you. And yeah, you can have a room to yourself once we're out of the mountain stages. Make you happy?"
"Infinitely more so than I was a moment ago," Ezra said, and smiled brightly.
"Okay then, I'll get the rest of the guys at dinner." He made a note on his clipboard and stared at Buck with clear, open eyes. "Buck, you mind if I put Chris in with you?"
Buck cleared his throat and felt a goofy grin trying to rise, and squashed it beneath thoughts of crashes and old age. "Nah, that's all right. He and I used to room together all the time."
Ezra clicked his tongue against his teeth several times as he watched Josiah walk away, then turned far more guile-filled eyes on Buck. "I wonder when he'll send you two your gift," he said dryly.
The grin broke out then, stretching Buck's face. "I reckon he just did."
"Animal," Ezra muttered. "Six hours in the saddle and you still need to have sex."
"I am what I am," he called happily as Ezra walked away.
"As am I," Ezra shot back. "And what I am, is glad to be out of your room."
Buck smirked as Ezra ducked out the door; the man just loved having the last word.
But at dinner, when Josiah announced the rest of the room changes, Chris frowned openly, and stared at his plate for the rest of the meal. Buck, sitting right beside him, tried to catch his eye, but Chris refused to look up. Vin, on Chris's other side, gave a "beats me" shrug, Nathan was pretending not to notice, and JD honest to God didn't. The rest of the guys, if they cared, were better at hiding it than Nate was.
They skipped the video review, Chris cornered Josiah and started whispering back and forth with him, and Buck, uncertain, followed JD up to his room just to have something to do. "You're a baby," he teased. "You need adult supervision, boy, not your own room. You'll pull out your Gameboy and goof around all night, won't you?"
JD shocked him by retorting, "Gotta be less tiring than what you and Chris get up to."
Huh. Not so blind after all. Or were they being that obvious? He said nothing until he closed the kid's bedroom door behind him, then began with, "Listen..."
"Don't," JD cut in. "Whatever you're gonna say, I don't want to know." He was grinning ear to ear though, obviously happy to have gotten one over on Buck.
"You don't want the play-by-play?" Buck teased, trying to relax.
"Ick!" JD yelped, face screwing up in distaste. "Just because I'm cool with it doesn't mean I want to think about it."
Buck snorted. So Vin was cool with it, Ezra was cool with it, Josiah was cool with it, and JD was cool with it. The rest of the guys, so far, didn't appear to know, and that was fine too. Now all Buck had to wonder about was Chris... "You sure? It's fun stuff, and stuck around all these guys, it's probably the only way you'll ever lose your virginity."
"Oh, hardy-har -har," JD said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "My virginity got handled plenty long ago."
"You just keep tellin' people that," Buck said sagely, nodding. "Some of 'em will probably believe it."
JD lost his patience and shoved Buck on the shoulder, making him stumble a couple of feet along the wall. "Would you just--go to your own room?" JD growled. "I'm trying to relax here, and all you're doing is giving me nightmares. Ick," he repeated, for good measure.
Buck waved him off, laughing a little. "Whatever. Okay, 'night kid."
He slipped out of JD's room and stood in the hallway for several minutes, trying to decide whether to go back to his room. His and Chris's room, now.
Not yet, he decided. The last few days had been precious, and probably, everything was fine. But in case it wasn't, he wanted to hold on to the warmth in his belly for just a little while longer. The bar over which this restaurant was built seemed like a good idea. One beer wouldn't hurt him.
There were probably eight other teams staying in this hotel, and a third of their members had crowded into the bar, relaxing with friends, talking with friendly competitors, or trying to pick up women. And-- "Hey, Imano!" he greeted, and walked over to his friend's table. "You scoping the action, pal?"
"Aren't I always?" Imano replied, as reliable as ever. "Have a seat."
Buck grabbed a beer from the bar and settled back, and the two of them chatted over the events of the preceding days.
"Well, Four Corners is through," Buck said, "at least, for now. Got more than we figured we would, truth be told."
"You're good riders, all of you," Imano complimented, expansive and generous as always. "And you rode well."
"Thanks, man. So, when are you gonna make a move? Ain't like you to sit in the pack and be quiet like this."
Imano leaned forward and grinned. "We see a stage victory in the not to distant future. After the jersey has exchanged hands."
Buck counted out the upcoming routes. "Mies?"
Imano looked at him, face bland, then turned to survey the room. "As good as any other."
"Hey, don't worry about us," Buck said, hunkering down. "Just do it before we get back to the flats."
Imano nodded. "Sprinters," he said, in much the same tone he'd use if he'd stepped in a pile of animal droppings. Buck grinned. The company was easy, and his beer was half gone when Imano glanced up and smirked.
"What?" Buck turned around, and didn't have to ask again what had amused Imano so. Chris stood just inside the double-doorway, arms crossed over his chest, as still as a statue. "What?" Buck repeated anyway, pretending ignorance.
"What do you Americans call it? The green eyed monster?"
Buck grinned broadly then. "I've seen him jealous, pard, and this isn't it. There was one woman, years ago--he'd call someone out just for looking her way. And Sarah..." Buck paused, remembering, holding those treasured images dear. "He wasn't so macho with her, but it was cute as hell, watching him posture and put himself between her and other men. This," he waved his hand in Chris's general direction, "this ain't it."
"Then invite him over," Imano challenged.
Shrugging, Buck turned and caught Chris's eye, then tilted his head. Chris fulfilled his expectations, sauntering over like he owned the place and pulling out a chair next to Buck.
"Imano," Chris greeted, and commandeered Buck's beer.
Buck looked to Imano, whose gorgeous brown eyes laughed openly at him now, before turning to Buck's team captain. "Chris. Congratulations on the yellow jersey."
"Thanks."
"And your young man, Dunne, he shows great promise."
"Thanks," Chris said again. "You guys up to something?" The question was neutral, and Imano cast Buck a careful glance before answering.
"We'd like to see a stage victory in the mountains," he said casually, interpreting the question professionally.
"Maybe after the big guys get themselves settled in the top slots," Chris mused. "We'll help, if we can."
Imano's curved eyebrows climbed. "We can count on you?"
Chris shrugged. "No reason not to." He glanced Buck's way. "Is there?"
Buck refused to react; Imano would enjoy it too much. "I already told him he could probably get some help from us. I guess, as long as Lance gets the yellow and we can keep dragging Ezra over the mountains."
"All right." Chris emptied Buck's glass and stood. "I'm going to bed," he announced. "Imano." His pause was far longer as he stared at Buck, and Buck wondered what it was Chris saw, what Chris expected to see. "Buck," Chris finally said, and slowly walked away.
"Jealous," Imano snorted, as soon as Chris was out of earshot.
"He said he'd help, didn't he?"
"If I give him a reason not to," Imano pointed out. "He is very European, you know? He says a great deal with very few words."
"He didn't say any such thing," Buck derided. They were professionals. They didn't play stupid games like that.
"You think not? Come to my room tonight and see how much help we get from your captain."
"Better not," Buck mumbled.
"No, bello, better not indeed." A pause made Buck turn back around and meet Imano's dark eyes and bright, flashing teeth. "My teammates would never forgive me for putting pleasure ahead of profession."
Buck hesitated. Chris wouldn't change racing strategies just because of his feelings. Neither of them worked that way. But just in case, he said, "Maybe I ought to head on up to bed."
Imano laughed, a broad rolling sound filled with honey that carried across the whole bar. "Yes," he said, nudging Buck's foot under the table, "maybe you'd better."
Buck actually felt like he might blush, and it was such a strange, foreign feeling, he found himself laughing too. He got up, squeezed his friend's shoulders and whispered, "Ride safe tomorrow, stud," then strolled on out of the bar.
Buck barely got the door closed behind him before Chris opened his mouth. "I don't want you seeing that guy again," he started.
"Yeah, I think we both got that," Buck snorted, more amused than outraged. "He said you were jealous before you even walked into the bar."
Chris tensed, and glared. "I've been jealous since Santa Barbara, all right?" he snapped.
"Bullshit," Buck shot back. "I've seen you jealous."
"Obviously not, if you keep acting like such a--"
"Don't say it," Buck warned, low.
Chris sucked in a deep breath, then muttered, "I flew into Santa Barbara that night thinking you'd be happy to see me."
"I was."
"In a fucking pick up bar, you were happy. I had to go trawling for you."
Buck wasn't sure he believed Chris, but tracking back over the last few months, he couldn't find any evidence to the contrary. "Chris..." Buck sighed, stripping down for bed. Tour de France, he kept telling himself. You didn't mess with that. This was a bad time, the wrong time.
The only time.
"What are you trying to do here, Chris? Really?"
Chris held his gaze for a long moment, silent and pensive. "Some things, I can't fix," he said slowly, as Buck got further than his shirt. "I reckon we both know that."
"Yeah," Buck prompted.
"Some, I don't know how to fix."
"Like what?"
"Like this."
Buck, still holding his shirt in his hands, glanced furtively around the room. "Didn't think there was a 'this' to fix," he said, then frowned, amended, "I thought we were doing okay, considering."
"Considering." Chris pursed his lips, obviously unhappy. "It's not good enough."
Buck felt his heart thud, hard. "Chris? Just say what you're gonna say."
"Haven't I done enough? Why do I have to say anything, damn it?"
It was just like Chris, to be pissed about an argument he'd started. "Because you were the one who disappeared in Pennsylvania," Buck accused, low. "You were the one who was gone when I woke up, and all I could think was that I'd never see you alive again. You were the one who acted like an ass when you did show up again, and you've run hot and cold ever since."
"You call this hot and cold?" Chris demanded, gesturing around the room. "This is as hot as I know how to get, you sonofabitch!"
"Then we've got a problem," Buck growled.
"Fuck it." Chris pushed his hands through his hair and stormed into the bathroom, and a second later Buck heard the shower start. They'd both showered three hours ago; this was a stalling tactic if Buck had ever seen one. He stripped down and crawled into bed, staring at the ceiling.
Chris came out a few minutes later, still dry. "What do you want?" he grated.
"What have you got?" Buck shot back, just as wary, and he watched Chris deflate a little.
"I don't know what I've got," he said, low. "I don't know what's left. I'm jealous as hell and I hate it when you see that guy, and I love you and you know that..."
Whatever else Chris said, Buck didn't hear it. I love you and you know that. He'd known that once. Hadn't known it was still true. "No I didn't," he said blankly.
"What?"
"I didn't know. You said I knew you loved me."
Chris frowned. "Then you're an idiot," he snapped, and Buck had to laugh. Yeah, that was Chris on form. "Listen. When something bad happens, that's the best time for family to draw together. I know I was pretty damned slow, but I'm back now. I'm right here."
Huh. He hadn't thought of it like that. "You don't mind me waiting to exchange rings until you actually prove we can share a hotel room together for the next two months without killing each other, do ya?" he asked, but something inside him knew the answer. Chris at his worst had never been harder to handle than Buck at his best, and as long as they were in on the same page, in the same team, the same saddle...
Things were looking up.
* * *
The next twelve days were hell. Only Vin and Ezra did anything spectacular, as Vin threw himself into the sprint lead-outs and Ezra worked hard to get a stage win. It didn't happen, but they were spectacular enough that they got mentioned. A lot. Buck figured it would only take another year or so for the team to really come into form.
And at the end--sore, tired, with a view of a huge crowd and the Eiffel Tower, Buck shoulder to shoulder with Chris, Vin and Ezra on Chris's left, JD and the others crowded behind them where they all had a decent view of the podium. Lance Armstrong, in the yellow he'd fought so hard for, took the podium to claim his sixth straight win and his place in the history books. But Armstrong had done it. If he risked coming back next year, and if he won, he might write a whole new page just for himself.
"I don't think I could handle the pressure," Chris said quietly.
Buck elbowed him gently in the ribs. "You love pressure. You thrive on pressure."
"Not like that. Sure, I like being the best." Chris nodded once toward the podium. "But I don't want the reputation. The bullshit. His wife leaves him for three hours, and The Enquirer covers the story. Can you imagine how public his sorry life is?"
Dutifully, though they were far outside the range of any cameras, they put their hands over their hearts as the National Anthem began to play. "What are you saying, Chris, that you don't want to win?" Buck asided.
Chris shook his head. "I'd love to win. I will win, you and I both know it. Next year, maybe. One of the next three or four, for sure. But I don't want all the bullshit his life must be like. I'd never tolerate it, and if Travis is smart, he'll dump my ass as soon as I win the Tour for him."
Buck grinned. "Easy way to handle that, pard. Just tell him we're together."
Chris smirked. "After the win. After I cash a few endorsement checks, how's that?"
"That's perfect."
THE END
Sequel: Everybody Wins