3 comments/ 13667 views/ 4 favorites 7. The Patriots Ch. 07-09 By: inspirixis1 CHAPTER SEVEN Ellia missed Micah so much when he was gone. There was a buzz of nervous excitement in the air at work as everyone geared up for the Tour de France, but it seemed flat to her without him. When she was in the support car watching the guys train she couldn't help but notice that it was pretty boring without a certain brown-skinned athlete pushing near the front of the pack. Not that she thought of Micah as a black man anymore. The color of his skin was just a part of his exterior, like how he had brown eyes or how his second toe was a little bit longer than his big toe. It was just a little fact about him, not a definition. Unfortunately not everyone saw it that way. She still heard the occasional slander from the riders on the team and Fabian, the manager, still seemed cold when he talked about him. Even when he wasn't there people still poked at him. It might have originally been because he was black, but she suspected that they continued to do it because they felt threatened by him. At the beginning of the season she had been convinced that Micah would fail as a cyclist, but the more she got to know him the more she realized that would never eventuate. Micah was going to be a star, not because he had some physiological advantage or because he doped, but because he didn't have the ability to be anything but the best. When he trained he didn't seem to be able to coast the way the other guys did. He couldn't simply climb a mountain; he had to conquer it. It was this attitude, this commitment that never seemed to waver, that was taking him directly to the top, and there was nothing anyone else could do about it. Fabian couldn't justify taking him out of the line up because Micah did just as he was told. When he was racing with the team he held back when he was told, he collected water from the support car when he was told, he made a break when he was told, and he protected his leader when he was told. Micah had won the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré for Andrea, the team leader. The third day had been a huge mountain stage and he'd broke away with a small pack early and put the brakes on them as Andrea tried to catch up. Once Andrea was with the pack Micah broke away with him and practically dragged the man up the mountain. It was actually painful to watch. Andrea was so exhausted. Micah kept on looking behind him and yelling at him to keep up. A few hundred meters before the finish line Micah peeled off and let Andrea pass him to receive the glory of a stage win. For the remaining five days he let Andrea sit in his slipstream, doing all the dirty work and protecting him so that he could parade around in the leader's jersey and pretend that he was the star. Micah was the real star. It was Micah who was bound for glory. She hadn't thought she would, but she ended up spending quite a bit of time at his house when he was away. It was way less convenient than staying in her apartment in Milan, but for some reason it felt so much homier to her. She liked being surrounded by reminders of him. She cooked in his spotless kitchen. She slept in his bed and hugged his pillow to her chest. It was convenient in that he had wireless internet, so she didn't have to go to the caffé to check her email or chat with him or Laura. All day long she looked forward to the few minutes Micah spent instant messaging with her. When it was night time in Milan it was the middle of the day where he was in Nebraska and he used his phone to message her while he was at the trials. He was doing well. He made the finals of the 100 and 200 freestyle, which put him in a strong position to get selected for a relay, even if he didn't get onto the team for an individual event. She wanted so badly for him to win. On the day of the 200 final he messaged her while she was cooking dinner. She heard the blip of the iChat program and her heart immediately fluttered, knowing that it could only be Micah calling her at this time in the evening. She brought her computer into his kitchen to multitask. "Nervous?" She wrote. "Yes." "You'll be fine. Just remember to kick." It was a joke. Almost all of Micah's power in swimming came from his kick. If he forgot to kick he's be left in the dust. "I almost forgot. I'll have to bring you next time to remind me." Mm. She liked the sound of that. "To Nebraska?" "Nebraska's okay. It's pretty. Not as nice as Colorado though. Wait, I'll be back in a sec..." She took the break in the conversation to add the snow peas to the stir-fry she was making and to check on the rice. Even though Micah wasn't here she still made all of her meals gluten-free. It was just a habit now. The chat program blipped sooner than she was expecting. "Lucas is soooo dreamy." He'd written. Huh? That didn't sound like something Micah would write. "Really?" She wrote back. "Yes. He has shoulders like boulders and arms like tree trunks." She laughed. "Hi Lucas." "Hey, how did you know?" How could she not know? "Micah doesn't usually rhyme." "No, you're right. I have to remember to tone down my coolness when I'm pretending to be him. So you're Ellia?" "Yes. Nice to meet you." "You're the one who is giving Micah all these pestilent ideas about beating me?" "No. It's all his idea. I merely amended his training program." "Hmm... Do you think you could amend mine? I want what he's got." "What do you mean?" "It's like he has a f-ing outboard motor or something. He is uncomfortably close to kicking my buns of steel... Shit, he's coming back. This conversation never took place." "Okay, bye." There was a pause and then Micah wrote, "I see you met Luka." "Mm." "Lesson one: never listen to a thing Lucas has to say." "So no buns of steel?" "Ha. No." "Damn." She joked. "I've got to go warm up." "Okay, good luck." "Thanks." "Let me know ASAP." She left her computer and finished cooking and ate her dinner. Her stomach swirled with nervousness. Half way across the world Micah was racing in what she thought was his best chance at gaining selection for swimming in the Olympics. She tried to imagine what his world looked like right now, the excitement, the smell of chlorine from the pool, the stands full of people cheering, his brothers and Lucas around him. She wished she were there. She had her laptop open on her lap when he finally messaged her. "2nd place!!" He'd written. "Time?" "1:42.49" "Holy crap!" That was only a half a second off the world record. "I know!" "1st?" "Lucas -- 1:42.40." "So you both qualified?" "Yes. I can't believe it." "I can. Congratulations!" "Will you go with me?" "To London? Of course." Four thousand eight hundred and seventy (plus or minus twenty) miles away in Omaha, Nebraska, Micah's finger hovered over the enter key on the touchpad of his phone. He had written, 'I wish you were here,' but he hadn't sent it. It was true, he did wish Ellia was here, but he didn't know if he should tell her that or not. There had been multiple times each day that he had wished she was with him. He just couldn't get her out of his head. He wanted her to experience this with him. He wanted to introduce her to his family and hang out together between the races. This was her victory too. He wanted to share it with her. He stood and looked at his phone in just his swimsuit, dripping wet and caught in indecision. He pressed send. It was only a few seconds before she replied, "Me too." That made him smile. It made his heart, which was still beating quickly from the race, jump with joy. Ellia wished she was here with him too. The desire to see her didn't abate over the week he was at the swimming trials, and only got worse when he went to the track cycling trials. Lucas came with him to help. Micah had entered every event that they'd let him, including the crazy sprint one, which required someone to hold the bike for you at the start line. Lucas was as good a choice as anyone and seeing that the company he worked for didn't seem to care if he showed up for work or not he was happy to come along for the ride. "So what's with this Ellia chic?" He asked one night when Micah was cooking dinner in the apartment he'd rented for the week. Micah shrugged, trying to act indifferent even though he was bursting at the seams to talk about her. "She's a physical therapist for Liquigas. She found out that I was swimming and offered to help, and she kind of turned into my friend." "Just a friend?" "Yeah. At this point." "Is she cute?" Micah smiled. "She's beyond cute. She's incredibly good looking." "Really?" Lucas had one of his big goofy grins on his face. "Mm. You've met her." "Yeah, but only over instant messenger, I didn't exactly get a good feeling for what she looks like." "No, you've met her in person. She remembers you from an orienteering race in Brisbane." "She's Australian?" "Yeah. Apparently you asked her for directions in the middle of a race." "No shit?" "Do you remember her?" "Of course. She probably saved my life. I only tried orienteering once and I remember being extremely hot and not having any clue as to where I was. There wasn't a trail or anything. They just expected you to figure out where to go on your own. Crazy sport." He shook his head and leaned over the counter to steal some carrot pieces. "Can I ask you a personal question?" Micah asked. "Shoot." "Are you and Carlie dating?" "Ah... no. We have an agreement, but we're not dating." "What's your agreement?" "That we'll tell each other if we engage in any... you know... sexual activity." "Oh. How long since you saw her last?" "Almost a year." Micah nodded. "Do you... sleep with her?" Lucas looked up at him sharply, his eyebrows raised in surprise. "Micah! How do you think Carlie would feel if I answered that question?" "Sorry. I'm just trying to figure out what to do about Ellia. She's driving me insane, but I'm pretty sure it would be a bad idea to do anything about it." "Because she's Australian?" "Yeah." "Well they are all a pack of flaming liberals. The most conservative person in that country could probably run as a democrat over here." "That's not what I mean. I don't care if she's a liberal." "I know. You're afraid that she won't want to come here to live?" "Yeah." "So you want to know if I think you should get involved with her, knowing what it's like with Carlie?" "Yeah." Lucas shook his head. "I don't know what to tell you Micah. On the one hand I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. It is so hard to be in love with someone who is so far away... All of the time I spend missing her... How much it torments me to think that she might be talking to some other guy, or worse. It would kill me if she told me that she was seeing someone else. But then on the other hand I would never swap one second I had spent with her for anything else. If you told me I could keep my memories or I could keep my leg I'd choose the memories. And to know that she feels the same way... well, it's pretty amazing." "Thanks, that's no help whatsoever." Lucas smiled again. "I never claimed to be an expert." Micah continued to slice vegetables and Lucas continued to lean over the counter to steal them. The seconds ticked by, but Micah didn't want the conversation to be over. He shook his head. "She is so amazing." Lucas did one of his silent laughs, where his chest shook but almost no sound came out. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I have this overpowering desire to talk about her." "So tell me." Lucas' eyes sparkled with amusement. He did. He told Lucas all about Ellia. He told him about the cute things she did and how much she helped him every day. He told him about the camping trip where he'd almost gotten her killed and how she'd told him about her accident. How good she was at speaking Italian. How she sat on the side of the bed and braided her hair immediately before she went to bed. "How do you know that?" Lucas asked. "She sleeps over sometimes." "And you creep into her room to watch her?" "No, she sleeps in my bed. I only have one bedroom. My whole house could probably fit into this apartment." Lucas' mouth dropped open. "You sleep in the same bed as her? Do you enjoy torture or something?" "No. It's not all the time, just every now and then when it gets too late for her to go home alone. It's just the way we started doing it. The first time she stayed over was a few weeks after I'd discovered the track. You know how sometimes I get a little bit obsessive?" "That's putting it mildly." "Well I was a bit obsessive about training at the track so I was dead tired. I mean I could hardly keep my eyes open sort of tired. It was late enough that I didn't really want her to take the train home alone but I was so tired I wouldn't have been able to drive her, so she slept in the bed with me. That time it wasn't a big deal, I was pretty much dead to the world, but after that she started cutting back my time at the velodrome so I had more energy, and then it got difficult." "You listened to her when she told you to stop doing something you were obsessing over?" He shrugged. "I guess." Lucas shook his head. "You're toast." "What do you mean?" "I've never met anyone who can get you to stop obsessing. You're sitting here with your best friend of twenty-two years, who you haven't seen in months, and I bet you're wishing that you were with her instead." "That's not altogether true. I don't wish you weren't here, I just wish that she was here with us." "I don't see why you're stressing out about whether or not to start a physical relationship with her. You're obviously already in love with her." "But don't you think having sex with her would make it a hundred times worse?" "You are so screwed up Micah. Being in love is supposed to be a good thing. Sex is supposed to make it a hundred times better." "You said you wouldn't wish being in love with an Australian on your worst enemy." "It doesn't matter what anyone wishes for now, it's already done. You're already in. You might as well enjoy the time you have with her." That conversation reverberated around Micah's head for the rest of the week. "It's already done," Lucas had said. It was true that Micah loved Ellia. She was always in his head. Everything reminded him of her. He was constantly wondering what she was doing or feeling. When he was messaging her he felt a thrill when she replied and he could see her words on his screen. He knew that she was staying at his house and he liked it. He liked imagining Ellia safe in his kitchen, on his couch or in his bed. One part of him wanted to let his feelings have full reign. He wanted to tell her that she was the most special person in the world. He wanted to kiss and touch her and make her feel all of the wonderful things he felt when he was with her. But another part of him believed that it would never work, and that he would just be torturing both of them by letting himself slip further into this bright, frighteningly exciting, unfamiliar territory. He didn't want an agreement with someone half way across the world. He wanted stability. He wanted someone who would always be there, who he could share his life with and build a family with. He didn't see the point in starting something with her just to enjoy the time they had together. The problem was, he couldn't see himself with anyone but her. He used to look at women with interest, but now they might as well have been guys. Even when girls tried to flirt with him at the pool or the track he didn't feel the slightest inclination to flirt back, let alone do anything else with them. And these were more appropriate women for him. They were US citizens. There was one girl who was from Wyoming, driving distance from his parents' house. She was smart and sporty and pretty and she seemed to be interested in him. She would have been ideal, except that she wasn't Ellia. When all of the racing was said and done, he and Lucas packed up and went to the airport to go their separate ways. "So are you excited to get back to see her?" Lucas asked as they returned the rental car. "I don't know Luka. I'm still not convinced it's a good idea. I don't want to get in the position you're in with Carlie." "Yeah. The law makes it really difficult. Basically the only way she could come to live in the States is if I married her, and how can you commit the rest of your life to someone you've never lived with? We've never even lived in the same country as adults." "She can't get some sort of working visa?" "I don't think so. We looked into it but it's really hard. She'd have to already have an employer to sponsor her and the employer would have to demonstrate that she is the best-qualified person for the job. Being that she is a journalist, which is a tough field, and that she's in her first year out of college, that's a difficult thing to prove." Micah signed the paperwork for the rental car and they waited at the bus shelter for the shuttle to their terminals. Lucas was thinking out loud. "It might not be as hard for Ellia to get a job in the States. There have to be a lot of physical therapy jobs around, and she has some pretty specialized experience having worked for a pro. cycling team. Gracie probably has some contacts." "Maybe." "She moved all the way to Italy so she must be somewhat adventurous. Maybe she would like to try living here?" He hadn't considered that moving to the US would be something that Ellia might actually like. Maybe he would try bringing it up with her. Maybe there was a way forward after all. CHAPTER EIGHT Ellia waited nervously in the international arrivals lounge. She didn't know why she had such a bad case of butterflies in the stomach. According to the arrivals monitor Micah's flight had arrived fifteen minutes ago, so he should be coming out of customs and immigration any time now. She watched each person come around the frosted glass separator, dismissing them quickly and looking behind them to see if he was next. And then she saw him, and the strangest warmth bloomed in her chest. Her fingers tingled and she couldn't help the huge grin she knew was plastered on her face. She felt strange, like she was high, like that feeling of blissful weightlessness you get when you take a narcotic pain killer. Micah was smiling too. His lips were spread into one of those big grins he did where you could see both rows of teeth. He was wheeling a trolley with his backpack and the hard-sided case his bike fit in and he walked directly to her and encased her in a hug. His long arms wrapped around her and squeezed her tightly to his firm body. She squeezed him back while she breathed him in. "Hey," he said while they were still hugging. "Hi." "I missed you." She closed her eyes and squeezed him tighter. "I missed you too." As she was driving him home he told her all about the races. He'd qualified for the 200 freestyle and come in fourth place in the 100 free, which didn't qualify him to race it as an individual event, but he hoped it would be good enough to get him in a relay. He'd clearly had a good time racing his bike on the track. He couldn't stop raving about it. He'd competed in the sprint, which was the one where you compete side by side with your opponent. "It is so whackey," he said. "For three quarters of the race you are just trying to force the other person to take the lead, so your going so slowly you feel like you're about to fall off, then it's a mad sprint to the line. Obviously I sucked at it. I got eliminated on the second round." 7. The Patriots Ch. 07-09 She had known that the sprint was a long shot for him. It takes years of experience to get good at the tactical part of the race. He had excelled at the 1km time trial though. He had won it and smashed the US national record, gaining him automatic selection. When he had finished explaining all the races and had been silent for a while Ellia asked, "Happy?" She glanced at him and he smiled. "Yeah. It takes the pressure off. They won't announce the road cycling team until after the Tour de France and obviously I'd love to make the cut, but if that doesn't happen it won't be the end of the world." He didn't have to wait long for the tour, they were leaving for it in two days time. This year the prologue was an 8 km individual time trial circuit around the streets of London. "My dad is going to be at the prologue," Micah told her when they were back at his place and she was folding her laundry in preparation of going back to her apartment. "He's at a conference in Glasgow right now, and he's going to stop by London on his way home." "That's cool. You probably have a good chance of making the top twenty on that circuit. It's probably the best stage for him to see." "Mm. Do you want to meet him?" "Your dad? Sure. Why not?" "Okay, I'll let him know. He's going to cook dinner the night before." She had felt casual about it at the time she accepted the invitation, but as the time came closer she became nervous. It was stupid of her, it's not like she and Micah were in a relationship or anything, but she couldn't help wanting his family to like her. She couldn't help but feel nervous that she would fall short of his expectations, or that she would accidentally say something that was culturally offensive without realizing it. Every now and then she would say something stupid without thinking and Micah would take offense, but he was good about forgiving her. He knew she was just stupid when it came to that sort of thing. His dad might not be so forgiving. London was humming with excitement. The city was using the Tour de France prologue as a practice run for what it was going to be like with all the crowds for the Olympics. There were raucous parades and police officers everywhere, blowing whistles and asking the crowds to calm down and keeping the roads moving. There were even officers mounted on horses clopping around the bustling streets. On the day before the prologue she scheduled all of her massages a little earlier than usual to give them some extra time to hang out with his dad in the evening. She called Laura to get her advice on what to wear and she got a good dose of teasing. "What ever happened to not getting involved with this guy?" "Come on Lou, this is important to me, don't make me beg..." Her original aspirations to keep her friendship with Micah platonic were forgotten. Everything was forgotten when it came to Micah these days. Logical thought was no longer possible. It was drowned out by all of the warm gooey feelings he gave her. He knocked on her hotel room door at precisely four thirty. She was wearing exactly what Laura had told her to wear, the dark blue sleeveless dress that was made out of soft t-shirt material with the belt around her waist that was supposed to go with her beige trousers, and her summer sandals. "Are you sure?" Ellia had asked as she peered into the bathroom mirror with her phone to her ear. "I feel kind of stupid. Who wears a belt with a dress?" "It accentuates your curves without making you look like a tart. It makes you look more... fruitful." "Fruitful? I don't want this guy to be thinking about my fruitfulness, I want him to respect me." "He will. It's a subconscious thing. All parents want their kids to choose fruitful partners subconsciously." "Oh," she said, disappointed. "Hey, I didn't mean it like that," Laura said gently. "I'm sure he's going to like you just the way you are... what are you doing with your hair?" "I don't know, what should I do?" "Um... part it in the middle and pull it back into a kind of messy, loose bun. Let a couple of strands fall loose around your face, and no makeup, okay? Unless you have a zit, do you have a zit?" "No." "Okay, good. And I don't think you'll need jewelry either. That dress is cut to draw the eye to your neck and you have really pretty collar bones so don't cover them up." "I was going to take my wrap incase it gets cold." "Yeah that's fine, just put it around your shoulders though, don't cover up your neck unless you have to." "God, what would I do without you Lou?" "Ah! You would be lost, just the same as I would be without you. Now go and win some hearts over." She reminded herself that Laura had way better fashion sense than she did and that the belt wasn't stupid before she opened the door. Micah was wearing some of his Italian clothes and he looked like some sort of well-dressed movie star, only better. When they had gone to Gianni's shop to pick up the clothes, he'd made Micah do a sort of fashion parade to make sure everything fit properly and hung the way he wanted it to. Gianni was a true artist. The clothes he'd made didn't make Micah look like someone else; they made him look more like himself. The cut and style were precise and yet also casual at the same time. The fabrics and colors were understated but individual. "Look, you roll the cuff like this, yes? I put a button here for you." Gianni demonstrated how to roll up the sleeves of the linen shirt to make it look more casual. "You look sporty, yes?" He did look sporty... and sexy as hell. They walked the three blocks to the underground and crammed into an over-full train for four stops. She almost didn't make it out of the train in time at their stop because people started streaming in before she could get out. Micah reached into the train, grabbed her hand and yanked her out from the masses of people. She stumbled into his side and he put his arm around her to steady her. "Okay?" He asked. "Yeah." As they exited the station he put his hand in the small of her back to guide her in the correct direction and it sent little sparks of delight all over her body. She walked as closely as she could to him without stepping on his feet and relished the moments when their arms would brush against each other. When they got to the apartment his dad was staying in and he opened the door Ellia just about had a heart attack from the surprise. She had been expecting his dad to be black. It made sense that he'd be black, but he wasn't. He was a hugely tall and broad white guy with blonde hair, and blue eyes that looked uncannily familiar. His dad smiled and pulled Micah into a hug, dwarfing him with his massive shoulders, and then he turned to her. "You must be Ellia," he said in a voice that could have been Micah's except it was a little deeper and scratchier. He sounded a lot like Micah did first thing in the morning. He smiled as he held his hand out to her. "Yes." She allowed her hand to be engulfed by his big warm palm. "I'm glad you came." She thought that perhaps Micah was adopted, or that this guy might be his step-dad, but those hypotheses were quickly dismissed. They didn't really look alike but there was no doubt that they were related. Not only did they have the same voice, they had the same understated mannerisms, the same need for everything to be precise. Sam, Micah's dad, was quiet but affectionate. He patted him on the back and told him that he was excited to see him race. He teased him gently. He said, "I never thought you would be one to make me feel underdressed Mikey." She asked him about his conference in Glasgow and he told her about his work. He was a physicist too. He was a professor at a university just outside of Denver. He asked Micah if he'd thought more about applying for graduate degrees and Micah dodged the question. "I don't know where I'll be next year. I hope I get a contract where I can come home, but what if I don't? I don't want to waste everyone's time if it turns out that I have to stay in Europe for another year." His dad studied him for a moment, his piercing blue eyes focused directly on his son, the cogs in his brain turning. Then he nodded. "Okay." He'd cooked a dinner of chicken with a salsa made out of nectarines and spicy peppers, a green side salad and a grain dish with fresh corn in it that she'd never heard of before. It was called quinoa. Micah didn't ask about it, he just ate copious amounts of it. She guessed his father knew how to cook gluten free. Sam asked her about being a physical therapist and told her that Micah's sister was also one. Then he said, "You look like you might be an athlete yourself." "I used to be a triathlete, but I was injured and decided to give it up." "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Micah's grandparents met at a triathlon. They did triathlons for years when I was growing up." "Really?" Micah asked. "Yeah, Grandma Judy was mad for them. I always thought you'd make a good triathlete Micah." "Really? Why didn't you ever say so?" "Do you think you would have listened?" Micah smiled. "Point taken." They chatted comfortably like that for hours. Sam gave her some wine and she relaxed and stopped worrying about saying something that would offend them. When they left the sun had gone down but the sky was still light. "Do you want to walk instead of taking the Underground?" Micah asked. "It's not that far." "You're not worried about your legs?" He smiled and shook his head. "I guess you look like your mom?" She asked as they walked the shadowed streets, the thick, warm air moving around them slowly. There were still quite a few people out, revelers getting their fill before the prologue tomorrow. "Yeah. My brothers look more like my dad." He was silent for a few seconds, and then he said, "I used to be jealous of them." "What, for looking like him?" "For inheriting his build. I think it makes swimming easier for them." "Mm." "They're both fairer than me too. There was a time when I wished I had their skin." "But not anymore?" He shook his head. "When I was in freshman year at high school they taught us about genetics in Biology, you know dominant and recessive genes and all of that?" "Mm?" "Well the teacher, Ms. Phillips, was giving examples using eye color and some kid put up his hand and asked about skin color." He shook his head. "I have no idea what possessed that woman to make such a stupid statement about something that is so sensitive, but she told the whole class that the offspring of parents with different colored skin should be an average of their parents' skin tones. So a child with one white parent and one black parent should come out brown. It kind of makes sense, that's how it worked with my brothers, but I have the same skin tone as my mom. In fact, if I don't wear sunscreen in summer I get darker than my mom. "So, obviously, I freaked out. I became convinced my mom had an affair and my dad wasn't really my dad. The only person I told was Lucas, he was skeptical but he's the sort of person who can't resist a secret scheme, so we collected DNA samples and sent them off to a lab for analysis." "You did a paternity test?" "Sure. It's actually pretty easy to do. The only problem was paying for it, but Lucas got a no-questions-asked loan from his older brother which I paid back over the next year." "So?" "So he's my dad. We share 50% of our DNA. Once I established that I stopped worrying about my skin." "Did you complain to the teacher?" "Lucas did. I was always too shy for that sort of thing. She kept me back after class one day and apologized to me and I didn't know what to say. She was crying. I asked Lucas what he said to her but he just shrugged and said, 'I just told her she was wrong.'" "He sounds like a good friend." "Yeah. He promised to never tell anyone else. You're the only person I've ever told. Not that it's bad or anything, I just think my parents would get upset if they found out." She felt honored that he trusted her with his secret. She reached out and touched him on the shoulder and he looked down at her. "It's okay, you can trust me. I won't tell anyone." "I know." Ellia didn't know her way around London all that well, but she was aware that Micah was not taking them the direct route home. He took them through some narrow streets and stopped at the turn on the racing course that would take the riders onto the back straight that went past Downing Street, where the prime minister lived. "This is the turn that will win or loose the stage," he told her. "Turn fourteen." Some of the barricades that marked the racecourse were still up from the practice session that day, but the streets had been reopened so they just stood on the curbside and looked. "Do you know your line?" He nodded. "I think I can pull it off." He didn't make a move to leave, so she just stood and continued to look at the turn. She thought he must be thinking about the line he wanted to take, but then she felt his hand on her back. She looked up at him and found him staring at her with an intensity that took her breath away. His dark eyes were wide and filled with that focused determination she'd seen when he was training. Only now he wasn't looking at the top of a mountain, he was looking at her. His thumb gently rubbed the space between her shoulder blades and she felt her chest erupt with emotion. Her heart was beating quickly as she tilted her chin towards him and he leaned down to close the space between them. Then Micah's lips were on hers and she forgot everything but the feeling of him. He guided her to his body with the hand on her back and the other one trailed lightly over her face and neck and down her bare arm. He touched her lightly with his fingertips and her skin burned with pleasure. His lips were soft and warm and they caressed hers slowly and sensuously and made her feel like her heart might explode. She knew the feeling of his skin and muscle and bone under her hands, but she didn't know this feeling. She'd never felt his hard chest through her over-sensitive breasts, or his muscular thighs pressed against hers. She'd never run her hand up his neck and over his short, scratchy hair before now. She didn't just feel his body, she felt him, Micah. She'd never felt so much of another human all at once. Micah moved his lips across her cheek and kissed her ear and down the side of her neck. "Ellia, you are so incredibly beautiful," he murmured. She couldn't say anything. All she could do was to clutch him closer, to nuzzle into his neck, to breath in his scent and allow him to intoxicate her deeper. She didn't know how long they stood there like that. By the time the police officer asked them to move on she was kissing his neck. Smelling him was no longer enough. She needed to taste. When she looked up she was surprised to find that the world had continued to move around them. One of those red double-decker buses was rounding turn fourteen and people were passing them on the footpath. Micah took her hand and they walked towards the hotel. "Sorry," he said ruefully. "For what?" "That wasn't very romantic. I've been thinking about kissing you for a while and I was working on get up the guts to ask you on a date first. Never did I picture kissing you in the middle of a sidewalk after you'd just met my dad. You're just too beautiful Elle, I couldn't resist you any longer." She squeezed his hand. "Micah, that kiss could have been in the middle of a war zone and I still would have liked it." "So will you do it then? Will you let me take you on a date?" She smiled. "Of course, but it will have to wait. The next three weeks are pretty busy." He sighed. "Damn Tour de France. Why do they have to make it so long? Do they think we have nothing better to do with our lives than to sit on a bicycle for three weeks?" She laughed. "Do you know how many people would die to be in your position right now?" "Ah, yes, just about every man on the planet." "What? Not every man rides a bike you know." "No, but I'm pretty sure every man would want to know how it feels to kiss you first hand." She looked up and he was smiling down at her contentedly. "Get out of here," she joked as she swatted him on the chest. He caught her hand and leaned in quickly for a playful kiss. "Not a chance." CHAPTER NINE Ellia tried as hard as she could to act normally around Micah and the rest of the team the next day, even though her entire world had been flipped on its head. He came by her room to get his breakfast just before seven o'clock and she let him in. She went to her esky to get out the food that she'd cooked for him the previous night and when she turned around with it he was right in front of her. He put his hands on her arms and leaned in to kiss her. He kissed her lips and then her nose and her cheeks. He kissed her neck and said, "Ellia, I should have warned you." "What?" She asked breathlessly. "I have a little bit of an addictive personality." She smiled. "Really? I hadn't noticed," she said sarcastically. "Mm." He kissed up her neck to her ear. "I think I might be addicted to kissing you," he whispered. "I'm not complaining," she replied softly. He kissed her on her lips again and then he pulled away and took the bag of food out of her hands. "Thank you." He leaned in quickly to kiss her again and then stepped back. "I have to get to the tactical meeting." "Okay, I'll see you down in the warm up area." He nodded and turned to leave, took one step then pivoted back and snuck in another kiss. "Mm," he moaned. "So good." "Get out of here," she said as she reached out to hit him playfully in the arm. He caught her hand and brought it to his lips and kissed her palm. Her breath caught in her throat from the unexpected burst of sensation and he smiled at her. "I'll see you in a bit." She had to force herself to calm down as she packed all of the gear she wanted to take down to the start line. Micah was probably out riding the course one last time before the time trial this afternoon. She couldn't stop smiling. Micah was the first on the team to race. The time trial was done in the reverse order of the seeding, and since he had the lowest ranking on the team he went first. It was hot and humid and he wore one of the cooling vests as he sat on the trainer and turned the pedals to warm up. She was supposed to be on hand for him in case he needed her to help him stretch or to rub out his muscles but after a few minutes he called her over and said, "I need you to go away. It's nothing personal, I just can't focus properly with you around." "Oh. Okay." She didn't know if that made her happy or sad. "Will you have time to see me at the finish line?" "Yeah, I think so. Depends how slow you go." She smiled at her joke. "I'll try and make it quick then." He smiled back. She walked over to the finish line and bummed around nervously. It was still almost an hour until he'd start and he'd spend almost the entire time on his time trial bike. He'd spent a lot of time on that bike. He'd fought over that bike. In May the team had spent a few days in a wind tunnel, measuring aerodynamic efficiency and adjusting each athletes position on their time trial bikes until the optimal position was found. The mechanics had recoded the exact dimensions and they were angry with him when he'd shown up three days ago with his bike configured differently. He'd taken his time trial bike to the velodrome in the hours of private practice time he'd purchased and decided that he liked to be slightly higher on the frame. He'd refused to let the mechanics return the bike to the configuration that the wind tunnel experiments had shown were the most aerodynamic. 7. The Patriots Ch. 07-09 Ultimately Guiseppe had given in and let him ride the way he liked. Micah wasn't a contender and Guiseppe had figured he'd probably come in somewhere near the bottom of the field anyway. A few seconds here or there for a domestique wasn't worth an angry athlete. The finish line was the usual mob of excitement. Journalists and cameramen and team trainers and people with team passes all milled around and crowded the riders after they crossed the line. She wondered where his dad was. She hadn't thought to try and get him a team pass to get back here. She didn't know his phone number but it wouldn't be difficult to find it. She got her phone out and opened the internet search engine and typed 'Sam Watson Colorado School of Mines,' and pressed enter. The first hit was a profile of him at the physics department at the university. He listed himself as a nuclear physicist and reported that he was interested in nonlinear integrable systems and nanostructures, whatever that meant. There was a phone number and an email address. She tried the phone number but it was his office line and she just got a recorded message, so she decided to email him. "Do you want to watch from the restricted area? I can get you a pass. Ellia." She typed her phone number underneath incase he got the email in time. About thirty seconds later she got an automated response from his email account saying that he was out of the office, but then a few minutes later she got a call. He wanted to watch with her. She snuck back to the team trailer, being careful to stay out of Micah's sight, and took one of the team passes back to the finish area. Sam was waiting for her by the East entrance, his gargantuan frame making him easy to spot. They made their way over to the media area where all of the feeds from the different cameras where being displayed on huge monitors as they were cut and doctored into the official broadcast. "I've always hated watching the kids race," he said. "It makes me so nervous. At least with Micah's cycling I don't really understand what's going on so I have the comfort of ignorance." All of the messing around with trying to get his dad into the restricted area had taken enough time that Micah was already behind the starting area with a camera focused on him. The guy in front of him, someone from team Astana that she'd never heard of before, started and Guiseppe said something to Micah and then pushed him towards the ramp that lead to the start line. In the starting gate he sat upright on his bike and closed his eyes. He had a good minute and a half before he'd start and he sat perfectly still with his eyes closed. She had no idea how he did it. All of the other athletes fidgeted on the start line. They checked the aerodynamic booties over their shoes, they unzipped and zipped their jerseys, and they shook their muscles out. Even Ellia and Sam were fidgeting as they watched. But not Micah, he sat still and kept his eyes closed until the warning buzzer sounded, then he leaned down into his racing stance and looked straight ahead, cool as a cucumber. He looked like he got a pretty good start, as well as you could tell from the TV footage. Unless he crashed or had some sort of incident it was pretty much impossible to gauge how well he was doing until he came through the timed markers. When he came through the first marker she felt her heart drop. "Shit." "What?" Sam asked. "He's gone out way too hard. He's 31 seconds faster than anyone else was at this marker." "Oh." He shrugged. "Maybe he's just faster." Poor Sam was delusional. She guessed that the belief your child was capable of anything was probably a symptom of being a parent. She stayed glued to Micah's screen, frustrated that the motorcyclist could only get footage from behind him. She wanted to see his face. At the second marker he was 48 seconds faster than the previous leader and she couldn't believe it. He went out so hard that he should be dying right now, but there he was, gaining ground. He was coming up on the entourage of the rider in front of him and they moved to the side to allow him to pass. He powered past the motorcyclist with the cameraman for the guy in front of him and passed the Astana cyclist as if he was standing still. There was a murmur around them as more and more people turned to watch Micah's screen. Ellia watched with her mouth gaping open as he took a very slow wide line into turn thirteen then powered through turn fourteen so quickly and on such a tight line that he must only have had millimeters to spare on the inside of the turn. He was at top speed less than a few meters down the back straight. There was a unified gasp from the other onlookers. "Oh my god." Ellia put her hand over her mouth. "What?" "Nobody else has tried that line." "Is that good?" She nodded. At the next time check he was 59 seconds faster than the previous leader. "Come on." She grabbed Sam's arm and led him out of the media area and over to the gate that Micah would come through after he crossed the line. "But I was watching..." "You don't want to be caught in the media crush to get over here in thirty seconds time, trust me." He only had a kilometer or so left until he finished and she bounced nervously on her toes and hugged her arms around her as they waited for him to come into view. She was only half listening to Phil Liggett going insane with excitement over the loudspeaker. "Watson is riding at a blistering pace, after overtaking Jourdan he hasn't let up one iota..." Her eyes locked on him when he rounded the last turn and stood in his saddle to accelerate down the straight towards the finish line. His mouth was gaping open, his eyes were narrowed, and his brown skin shone with perspiration. Time seemed to slow down as he neared her. He wasn't looking at her. He didn't seem to be looking at anything at all. She could see the muscles of his thighs flexing, pushing against his skin with every turn of the pedals. The crowd was going wild. He sat back down into his racing stance and pounded out the final two hundred meters to the finish line. There was confusion all around her as journalists and cameramen pushed their way towards him. Where was Fulvio? He was supposed to be the one from their team to guide the riders through the media storm and back to the trailer. Micah was over a minute faster than anyone expected him to be. Fulvio must not be here yet. Ellia ran forwards towards him to beat the mob. Micah lunged at the finish line, then put on the brakes as he suddenly seemed to register the scene before him. He wobbled on his bike. Oh shit. "Micah!" She waved her hands and caught his attention. He turned his front wheel towards her and that was probably the last voluntary action he made for the next minute. She caught him while he was still upright, but it was already too late, he was already falling towards her. She braced for what she was sure was going to be a painful encounter. One hundred and seventy five pounds of Micah and his time trial bike were about to fall on top of her, all under the watchful eye of the world's nosiest sports journalists and their cameramen. She felt his weight bearing down on her, but then it lifted. "Wowww... Mikey, easy." Sam was on the other side of him, holding him up by the torso. Ellia grabbed the handlebars and steered them through the gate to the relative calm of the other side. An official joined her side. "Caravan three please." She counted the caravans and guided them to the third one. "Drug test Micah," she said. "Just wait and I'll get Fulvio over here." Micah didn't look like he comprehended anything that was going on. He looked sick. He was blinking rapidly and panting hard in between awful moans of pain. She pulled out her radio. "Fulvio? Where are you?" The official was urging Micah to go into the caravan. He unclipped his feet and tried to stand using his dad for support. "I got caught over in media 1, where are you?" "I have Micah at caravan three. He needs to be tested, I need you here right away." "Okay, I'm coming." She looked up and the official had one of Micah's arms slung over his shoulder, taking him from his dad and guiding him into the caravan. "Hey! What the fuck do you think you're doing?" She yelled. "Get your hands off my athlete." "He must be tested..." "And he will be, with one of our trainers present." "Where is this trainer? How long do I have to wait? I have many riders coming." He argued in a thick French accent. "You'll wait as long as you have to wait. You're not taking him alone." "You come then, yes? We do this right away." "No." Sam struggled to get Micah back off him. Micah groaned and closed his eyes for a few seconds then a wave started in his abdomen passed up through his chest, shoulders, neck and finally his mouth opened and he projectile vomited yellow stomach bile all over the official's neck and chest. "Ah! Sale, bon à rien macaca!" He cried in disgust. Ellia's eyes bulged with anger. She ripped the official's vomit-covered identification tag off his shirt and wiped it on her pants so she could see his name and number. She already had her phone out and she typed exactly what he had said along with his name, Cyrille Lefevre, and employee number. "Vous venez de faire un trou du cul grave erreur," she spat back at him as she pressed the ID tag back into his hand. Fulvio appeared beside them, puffing. "Sorry. I wasn't expecting him to be so fast and I got caught in the crush." He looked around the four of them, Micah hanging from his dad's side, Cyrille covered in vomit with a mixture of anger and fear on his face and Ellia who was mad as a cut snake. "What happened?" "Cyrille here thinks it's okay to call Micah a macaca." Sam's face darkened and he seemed to grow a foot taller as he turned towards Cyrille. "We're requesting a different tester," Fulvio said. "Call your superior immediately." Cyrille disappeared into the caravan. "Who's that?" Fulvio asked in Italian. "That's his dad," she replied in English. Before long Guiseppe appeared and then they were surrounded by officials and they whisked Micah away. "Don't worry, Guiseppe is a good guy, you can trust him," she told Sam. "Right. Sorry about that, I didn't realize..." "No, it's fine. It's better to know if someone is prejudiced. It's better that someone else tests him." She led him back through the crowds to the team trailer. "Does that happen often?" He asked. "Not that I've seen, but I'm not usually at the finish line. I'm not in charge of drug testing." "No, I mean... do people call him names?" She sighed. "Yeah. Every now and then." Sam shook his head. "He didn't tell us. Why wouldn't he tell us?" Ellia felt uncomfortable. She didn't like talking about racism. "I don't know. Maybe he just prefers to ignore it." When she got back to the area the team was set up in she took his dad up into the trailer and put him front of a TV with an English broadcast while she changed into clean pants. She got some food out for Micah and handed it to his dad. "I have to go back out to help the others warm up," she told him. "Micah should be back within a half hour. I'll be right outside if you need me." Sam smiled at her and nodded. She felt kind of bad for abandoning him in a trailer full of Italians, but she didn't have much choice and he seemed okay with it. The next forty minutes dragged and dragged. All she wanted was to be inside the trailer watching the TV coverage with Micah. She heard murmurs that his time still hadn't been beaten. It was possible it wouldn't be beaten at all. It was possible that he might start his first Tour de France in the yellow jersey. When she finally stepped out of the heat and into the air-conditioned interior of trailer Micah was back and sitting in front of the TV with his dad. He smiled at her. "Hey. I need to get my toothbrush out of my bag and it's locked in the hold, will you unlock it for me?" "Yeah, sure." She motioned for him to follow her. Back outside she unlocked the hold and he leaned in and rummaged through the team's luggage to find his bag. They were sectioned off from the general public and a few people stood at the barricade and tried to get Micah's attention. He found his bag and pulled out a toothbrush and toothpaste. "Thanks for looking after my dad," he said as she locked the hold. "I didn't even think to get him a pass back here." "No worries. I didn't think of it either until I was standing alone at the finish line waiting for you." There was a pause while they stood and smiled dumbly at each other. "Hi," he said softly. "Hey." She shook her head. "Turn fourteen." He smiled wider. "Did you like that?" "If you win it won't have been turn fourteen that won it, it will have been turn thirteen. Nobody else has the guts to take that turn so slowly, it's counter-intuitive." He nodded. "I think I said the f-word in front of your dad," she admitted. "Not very lady-like." He laughed. "Don't worry about it." "You should go sign some autographs, show some good will to the fans." "Huh?" He looked around innocently, as if he hadn't heard the people standing beyond the barricade yelling his name. "Oh. Come with me?" She followed him over to the barricade and held his toothbrush and toothpaste for him while he sign jerseys and cycling caps. The fans asked him questions and he answered vaguely yet politely. "That was weird," he said when they were going back into the trailer. "I've never signed autographs before." She smiled. "I think maybe you should try to get used to it." They watched the coverage from one of the TVs inside the trailer and the nervousness that swirled in her gut got more and more intense with each cyclist that crossed the line with a slower time than Micah. They were down to the last twelve athletes, who were the real contenders for the general classification. There were a few who were time trial specialists who were the real danger. Andrea, the Liquigas team leader, finished 16 seconds slower than Micah's time, putting him into second place, but he was surpassed by the next athlete, the T-Mobile team leader who cut Micah's lead down to 12 seconds. There were only seven riders left. Danilo, one of the other athletes that she was in charge of, wanted her to massage his legs and she grudgingly got up and worked on him on the table at the other end of the trailer. Alessandro, one of the other riders, was watching the Italian coverage and she asked him to turn it up so she could follow without watching. It always felt strange to her to listen to cycling coverage without the voices of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin, but information was information. There were six riders to go, then five, then four, and then three and nobody could get within ten seconds of Micah's time. She was doing a shitty job with Danilo but she couldn't help it. She was so excited and nervous and happy all at the same time. The third to last rider was only behind by a second at the second marker, he tried the same line that Micah had taken through turns thirteen and fourteen and clipped the inside of turn fourteen and came off, sliding head first into the barricade. He jumped up and got back on his bike but had lost so much time that he was no longer a contender. She left Danilo for a moment to watch the last rider, the top seed, in the starting gates. He looked nervous. He blew his cheeks out and un-strapped and re-strapped his gloves. He shook his hands out. Danilo appeared beside her and they watched the last three riders on the course. The only one with a hope of beating Micah now was Sergio, the top seed. He was within a second at the first marker, by the second marker he was a second ahead of Micah's time. He took turn fourteen with the more traditional line and struggled to get up to speed on the backstretch. At the third marker he was two seconds behind Micah's time. He looked heavy as he maneuvered through the last couple of turns. He stood in his saddle to accelerate down the final straightaway to the finish line but you could see that he was already defeated. He crossed the line 7 seconds behind Micah's time. She looked down to the other end of the trailer. Micah was hugging his dad. He looked up at her and smiled. The next hour was a blur of excitement. As soon as they stepped out of the trailer he was mobbed by reporters. Micah was like a fish out of water. He didn't know how to say no to the pushy journalists but he obviously didn't want to answer their questions. He was the first black man to ride in the Tour de France and the first black man to win a stage in a UCI pro tour race, and they wanted to know how it felt. "Ah, it feels good I guess. It hasn't really sunk in yet." They wanted to know how he had burst onto the scene so quickly, if he wanted to dedicate his win, what he'd eaten for breakfast, their questions were never ending. In the end Guiseppe put his hand up in front of Micah and said, "No more questions." He put his arm around Micah's shoulders and led him through the mob, pushing microphones and cameras out of the way. It should have been Fabian, the team manager, who took him up to the podium, but Guiseppe was the one who stepped up for the job. She followed behind with Sam. "Ellia?" Micah looked around for her. "Yeah?" "Do I have to kiss them?" "Huh?" Had she heard wrong in the throng of action around them? "You know, the girls that give me the flowers and stuff, do I have to kiss them on the cheeks?" "I think it would be considered bad manners if you didn't." He screwed his face up in distaste. "Just pretend to kiss them then, just press your cheek onto theirs." "How do I say thank you in French again?" "Merci." And then he was whisked away to the back of the make-shift stage and she, Sam and Fulvio, and his teammates Danilo and Ramon who'd wanted to come to watch, were ushered to a place where they could see from the side. She got her phone out and took photos of him as he was awarded the yellow jersey and laughed as he very hesitantly kissed the girls who gave him the flowers and a stuffed toy lion. When the awards ceremony was over and they saw him behind the stage he had a big smile on his face, all uncomfortable memories of having to kiss unknown cheeks apparently forgotten. "Go and stand with him," she told Sam. She took a couple of photos of them together and then Micah said, "Danilo, will you take a photo with Ellia in it please?" She went and stood beside him and he put his arm around her waist and pulled her into his side. As Danilo snapped the shot she couldn't help wondering if this was the first in a long string of photos together with Micah. He signed more autographs at the metal barricade before he went back into the team trailer. He was the least efficient signer she had ever seen. He listened to what each person asked for and neatly wrote out the messages in his smooth, precise handwriting. A rounded, shy teenage girl stood to the side and waited patiently for him. When he got to her she said her name was Emma. "Emma? That's my mom's name. What do you want me to write?" Emma smiled nervously. "I don't know." "Do you ride a bike?" She nodded. He wrote, "Emma, keep on riding, Micah," and handed the jersey and pen back to her. "Thank you," she said and turned away. "Wait, Emma..." He turned around. "Dad, give me those flowers." Micah gave the yellow flowers he'd been given on the podium to Emma and her face lit up with a huge smile. 7. The Patriots Ch. 07-09 Later, when they'd said goodbye to his dad and were in her hotel suite eating dinner he apologized for not giving her one of the gifts. "I have a bunch of nieces and nephews and I wanted my dad to take the toy back for them and I didn't want you to have to cart around a bunch of flowers and make the rest of the team suspicious about us." Us. There was an us. "That's okay, I didn't expect you to give me anything." "They weren't that nice anyway. I'll buy you better flowers when we get home." "On our date?" He smiled. "Yes. At the beginning of our date I will give you flowers." After dinner he helped her to clean up and then he stood by the door and took her in his arms and kissed her again. "Yours are the only cheeks I am interested in kissing," he said in that deep smooth voice that turned her brain to mush. "Thanks for looking after me today. Dad said you were feisty." He smiled at her with an expression that was somewhere between amusement and admiration. "Feisty? That must be physicist talk for a women who uses foul language on the second occasion she's met her boyfriend's parents." It was out of her mouth before she had a chance to realize what she was saying. "Oh shit, I mean..." Micah cut her off by kissing her again. His tongue slipped into her mouth and stroked against hers, sending electricity all through her body and making her feel weak in the knees. "Stay," she whispered. He groaned as if in pain. "I can't. I need to sleep." He was right, even though she didn't want him to be. "Okay, I'll let you go." "Goodnight Ellia." He leaned in and kissed her on the lips one last time. "Merci."