Page 153 of Broken Breath
Then someone pushes his bike into the space she left behind.
A guy, helmet on, dressed head-to-toe in black, his jersey pushed up to the elbows.
Mason Payne.
He plants himself between Isla and me like a wall,a fucking shield. He stares straight ahead, arms relaxed, like he just drifted into that exact spot because it happened to be open, but for a moment, I wonder.
Did he hear what she said? Decide she didn’t deserve the last look?
I don’t know, but he doesn’t glance my way, not once.
Maybe he just likes that patch of shade.
But he stays there, right next to me, all the way up to the gondola, and even though we never exchange a word, something in my chest loosens.
Just a little.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Alaina
I’m so exhausted, even my eyelids hurt.
But here I am, sitting cross-legged in the dirt outside the bus with a flashlight clamped between my teeth as I work the bolts on my bike like I’ve lost my mind.
A foregone conclusion.
I tried to take Dane’s word that no one but him and Finn had touched my bike after period mageddon five days ago in Leogang, I really did. However, knowing they left my bike unattended, even though it was just outside the bathroom and for just a few minutes, did not compute.
I told myself it was fine, that I could let it go, but then I rolled it into practice, and I heard it. That whisper in the back of my head telling me something is off.
Somethingcould beoff.
The doubt dug into my brain like a thorn, and I barely made two runs before I packed it up and came down to tear it all apart again, every bolt and screw, just to be sure.
Dane gave me a look when I ducked out early. One of those ‘you-good?’looks I’ve seen a hundred times by now. I waved himoff, and told him I was just tired, which wasn’t a lie, but wasn’t the truth either.
When everything is back together, I shine the flashlight along the chainring, scanning for anything I missed, any scratches or misalignments that weren’t there before. My nails are chipped from the hours of this obsessive ritual, and my joints ache from sitting on the hard ground, but I can’t stop until I’m absolutely sure.
At least it helped keep my mind off Mason and Luc. I didn’t see them before I bailed, but I did catch Otis. He was bouncing around the pits as he usually does, and when I asked about Luc, the words blurting out before I could stop them, he grinned and said he was skipping out today, spending his birthday with his mom, which is good. Great, even.
I hate that I don’t have his number to at least text him, though. Wish I could have saidsomething. Grimacing, my flashlight falls out of my mouth, rolling pathetically on the ground.
I glance up at the sky, at the thick and low clouds hugging the peaks.
Happy birthday, Frenchie.
The forecast says rain is coming, not just tonight but straight through the weekend. The track is going to change a dozen times before race day, and every line I studied earlier won’t mean shit by Sunday.
Maybe that should make me care more about practice, but it’s Les Gets. I know this track, love it, even. Not like I know Austria—that one’s special—but Les Gets is familiar, and if it’s going to rain, it’s going to rain. Nothing I can do about that.
There’s nothing left to do on the bike either, but I can’t seem to make myself go inside. I know it’s because Finn is in there, hanging out with Dane like nothing is wrong. Afterall, I can hear them, even from here. The low hum of conversation, Finn’s rough chuckle occasionally carrying through the bus’s thin walls, landing like a punch to the ribs each time.He sure as hell isn’t laughing like that around me anymore.
Whenever we’re together now, which only happens when Dane is there as a buffer, Finn’s mouth shuts, and he makes a show of keeping space between us, like I’m radioactive and he’s trying not to get burned.
And even though I tell myself again that I deserve it, that I’m the one who ruined everything,it still fucking hurts.
I dig my boot into the dirt, grind my heel until I hit rock beneath, thinking if I press hard enough, it’ll distract me from that wound.
