Page 109 of Broken Breath
I nod, brushing past him. “In bed.”
“Wait…that’swho you’ve been talking about?” I hear Otis ask right before the door closes, somewhere between shocked and delighted, but I don’t stick around to hear Luc’s response.
The lobby is already buzzing with riders, backpacks slung over their shoulders. I break into a sprint, ignoring how flustered I must look.
Dane is out cold in his bunk when I slip into the bus, which is a relief. I don’t have the emotional capacity to revisit last night’s fightorexplain why I look like this.
Does he know I kissed his best friend? Will he be able to tell somehow?
Fuck.
I take the fastest cold shower known to man, two minutes, tops. As I towel off, I notice something strange. My hip doesn’t ache as much as usual. The pain is still there but dulled, like someone turned the volume down a little.
Huh.
Maybe it was the soft bed.
Or the warm company.
That thought sends an unwelcome tingle back between my thighs and somewhere stupid in my chest. I shove it down, hard, and take a couple of painkillers anyway, just in case.I’m not about to jinx a good morning.
Then it’s the binder, a roll of socks, and a fresh hoodie with the hood up. Armor locked.
I grab a bottle of water, an energy drink, and an apple from the refrigerator and shove everything into a drawstring backpack. Then I hesitate, open the refrigerator again, take another bottle, and grab a sticky note from the notepad wedged by the stove.
Off to track walk. Drink water.
I stick the note on the bottle, then set it carefully on the little shelf next to Dane’s bunk, within arm’s reach for when he wakes up. He doesn’t even stir.
The gondola station is at the edge of the pits, part of the ultra-modern setup that screamsAustria’s racing royalty.After France, this is the biggest downhill stronghold in Europe, and it shows.
The gondolas are small, four-person max, but I catch an empty one and slide in alone, tucking into the corner.
As it climbs, the view hits—rugged peaks, trees like splintered glass. I trace the track lines carved into the slopes like veins, and the buzz in my bones builds again, the one I understand.
Past Alaina loved riding here.
By the time I reach the top, I spot the crowd of riders already on the hill, but they’ve only made it a few hundred feet down the course.
Feet flying over loose gravel, my brain shifts into race mode, flipping through terrain memory and junior race flashbacks. I know this mountain, know its teeth, and I immediately start picking lines, making mental notes, locking into the rhythm of the trail like I never left it.
By the time I hit the second segment, I’m in step with the pack. It feels weird doing this alone. Dane has always done track walks with me, his voice in my ear, his stride beside mine, cracking jokes and pointing out lines.
Everyone else is with their teams, clumped together in branded jackets, half-bent over trail features with someone squatting next to them drawing in the dirt, strategizing.
I step around a berm. This particular banked curve is cut tight but low in the slope. My eyes flick across the trail, and that’s when I seehim.Finn is standing a little higher up, talking to his teammates, one arm crossed, the other gesturing toward a rock section like he’s mid-analysis.
His eyes meet mine, and everything stills. We stare at each other for a second too long, but then he blinks and looks away.
That’s it.No nod. No smile. No hey.
Nothing.
He turns back to his team and keeps talking like I don’t exist, and his hands weren’t on my skin, his mouth on mine. Like he didn’t whisperfuck, baby girlinto my neck.
My next breath is ragged as another kind of pain slices through me. I know it was a mistake, but I didn’timagineit. I didn’t hallucinate the way his chest felt against mine, the way he looked at me like I was something hewanted.
But now he can’t even sayhi?
