Spokes (13 page)

"We, the Team Antano-Clark, only knew Stu at the very end of his life, but he was one of us all the same. A shrine overlooks Lake Como,
il Santuario della Madonna del Ghisallo
, the shrine of cyclists. There we remember our lost ones.
Caddero sulla strada inseguendo un sogno de Gloria. Che raggiunsero nella luce del sacraficio delle loro giovani esistenze.
We will place his name
among cyclists." Luca stepped back. Christopher wove his fingers back into Luca's.

***

That night in bed, Christopher lay against Luca. "What you said at the funeral today, what did that mean?"

"I said the words on the statue at the chapel at Ghisallo," Luca told him. "It means 'They fell on the road,
following a dream of glory. They reached the light in the sacrifice of their young lives.'"

"That hurts to even hear." Christopher turned his face into Luca's shoulder.

They hadn't made love since before the crash, between grieving and Christopher's wounds, which looked more like embroidery and less
like carnage now. Luca had been there every night, and even now, he touched with the gentle hands of comfort, not the demands of a lover.

"It helps too," Luca assured him. "There is something larger."

Not really. Dying in a dumb accident didn't have any greater glory to it. Christopher kept that thought to himself, because to say it would doubt
Luca's certainty that he was doing something good. "I'm still happier every time you text me after you ride. Then I know
you're okay."

"I know. That's why I do it. I don't want you to worry about me."

"How can I help it now?" Christopher propped up on one elbow so he could look into Luca's eyes, nearly black in the dimness.

Luca cupped his cheek. "I can't stop riding."

Whoa. "I'm not asking you to. I wouldn't." Christopher jerked back at the implication. "It means too much
to you. But now I'm scared for you in a way I wasn't before." A flash, a split second. A man on a bike one minute, a body in
an ambulance the next. Nothing left but a bloody patch on the ground. If he closed his eyes he could see Stu, lying too still on a gurney. And in the next
second, Stu wore Luca's face.

"I'm skilled. I'm careful."

Both true, but not enough. Stu'd been careful too--the car's driver had not. "You're careful as you can
be, but you can't plan for everything. Didn't one rider have a career-ending crash because he hit a turtle?"

Luca snorted. "Jack still hears about that turtle."

"How do you plan for a turtle?" Or a careless driver? Or a ruthless opponent? Torn between laughing and crying, Christopher sat cross-legged in the dark.

"You don't. You plan what you can plan, avoid surprises if you can, and if you do crash, hope you and the turtle are both okay.
Christopher, what happened to Stu was an accident. Not usual." Luca sat up, coming close enough for his breath to whisper across
Christopher's cheek. "If all I think is how not to crash, I ride slow, and I crash sometime anyway."

"Yeah. Hundred percent accident rate." Luca lying still and pale, never to send another text, never wanting to try some new, exotic
restaurant.
Road rash, think of road rash, that came from pile-ups, part of the hundred percent, and Luca would still be with me.

"Right. Part of the sport. Christopher, feel." Luca took his hand, guiding Christopher's fingertips over roughened skin.
"This was Paris-Roubaix four years ago. And here." Another place where the skin rippled, this time on Luca's shoulder.
"Tour of Burgos, six years ago." Moving Christopher's hand to his outer thigh, Luca said, "Some is Tour de France
from last year and some is Gent-Wevelgem three years ago. Mostly Gent-Wevelgem,
pave
eats skin. But Christopher--" He
pulled Christopher's fingertips across his lips. "I'm still here."

"Yeah, you are."
Luca is here now, with his warmth, his smile, his solidity.
Christopher turned to find Luca's mouth.
They toppled in the dark, Luca going over backwards to bring Christopher on top of him. Their mouths welded together, and Christopher licked his relief at
Luca's survival.

Not just alive but lively, and still missing the damaged places, Luca hugged Christopher close, wrapping him tightly with his thighs. More embrace than
offer--Christopher wouldn't try to enter. Stiffening rapidly, he thrust instead against Luca's groin, meeting him push for
push. No worry, no thinking, just here, now, kissing, feeling touching. High wattage no matter how they used it--Luca ground against Christopher.

Mouth to mouth, heat to heat, desperately seeking... Frotting madly against Luca, Christopher bathed in the vitality that came off Luca in waves,
splashing against his fear, dissolving his terror that Luca, too, would be taken by the road. The big vessels in Luca's neck thrummed with life
beneath Christopher's tongue.

In their bucking, Christopher slid down Luca's body. His cock poked against Luca's belly and was suddenly free, scraping against
Luca's ballsack and under, along his taint. Oh for some lube just then, if Luca would allow him in...

Nope. Even the possibility brought his lover to a halt. Luca froze mid-kiss, mid-thrust. "No, Christopher--"

"No, not if you don't want that, of course not." But damn, damn, damn, damn. Better roll over some other way. Christopher
slid down farther, removing even the hint of penetration. Sucking Luca's cock into his mouth, he teased away Luca's budding panic with
his tongue. Rigid at first, but relaxing under Christopher's attentions, Luca regained his rhythm.

No question but that Luca was alive--thrusting into Christopher's mouth, his buttocks flexing against Christopher's hand.
Squeezing the big muscle wrung whimpers from Luca, so did Christopher's tongue over the velvet shaft in his mouth. So alive--everything
burst from Luca at once, a half-choked cry and jets of semen that splashed salty against Christopher's palate.

Oh, God, how he wanted, needed. Groin tight, Christopher hung on to his self-control. To lose himself in Luca's body--but no, he
couldn't have that. He'd make it good, treat his lover well--but Luca wasn't ready. Might never be ready, not for
years, not until his next job as a
directeur sportif
of some team yet unformed kept him in the team car for every stage of every race.

"Come up here," Luca murmured eventually, and Christopher rose to cover him again. Held tightly in Luca's arms, opening his
mouth to Luca's kisses, Christopher worked his arms under Luca's shoulders. Reaching far enough to weave fingers into Luca's
curls, Christopher flexed his hips, feeling his balls rub against Luca's sack and half-mast cock. His shaft lay between their bellies, rubbing
through the slight ooze of his precum.

Luca twined a leg around Christopher's, his callused foot scooting between Christopher's knees. One leg, not enough to be mistaken for
the invitation he hadn't made earlier: he wrapped himself without opening up. Why couldn't Luca trust Christopher to honor his word?
Maybe one leg was trust, as much as Luca could give. He held nothing back with the rest of his body. Mouth, hips, clutching so tightly Christopher might
have liked a little more breath, he lifted himself against Christopher, meeting him thrust for thrust.

Hot skin, slick with sweat, slipping. Hot breath, gasped against the pulsing column of Luca's neck. His throat bobbed with a desperate
swallow--Christopher drew his tongue across the flexing ridge to the big strap muscle standing out against Luca's skin. Flicking and
thrumming just as Luca had done to him moments ago, Christopher ground against his lover.

A quick slap and two strong hands clutched his buttocks, pulling Christopher down hard enough that anything between them would have been squeezed out of
the dimension. So tight on his buttocks it hurt, but hurting was okay, hurting was alive--the wordless noises Christopher mingled with
Luca's panting could only come from a living man--and the semen he shot between their bellies was blood temperature--the heat
of a living man. Pleasure when he'd only expected to be numb, cradled when he feared to be alone, alive when he'd come so close to
being--not. All in Luca's arms.

Chapter 12

Christopher frowned at the two square pictures lying on top of the paperwork and birth certificate he'd need to take to the post office. Three
extra shots at the drugstore had at least given him the chance to open his eyes, quit squinching his mouth, and not lift his shoulders to the point of
looking like Quasimodo's brother. His passport would look marginally better than his driver's license.

"Everyone looks like criminal at border crossing." Luca offered cold comfort from behind, his arms wrapped around
Christopher's chest. "Pictures are good enough; quit obsessing." He poked at the document Christopher hadn't quite
finished filling out. "Sooner you get papers done, sooner I buy you plane ticket."

"I should be buying my own plane ticket." Turning to nuzzle Luca, whose chin rested on his shoulder, Christopher rubbed against a newly
shaven cheek. "Do I fly to Paris, or Brussels? Antwerp? And catch a train to where?"

"No room to land big jets near Antwerp,
Americano
. Brussels, yes. Passport office goes on own schedule, so maybe
Firenze
." Luca nibbled back--he and Christopher got their lips around some right angles for sideways kisses. "If they take long
time."

"Where's that?" Christopher dropped his pen to wind his fingers through Luca's hair.

"Eh!" For a scolding, that didn't have a lot of juice. "Beautiful city in middle of Italy, full of art.
Michelangelo's
David
. Old joke about I tell you to meet me by big clock and you go to marble man with no clothes. 'Where is
that?' Hah!"

"Oh. Florence. Right." That might need a connection--he'd have to check.

"Maybe I call this town
Macigno
and expect you to find it on map?" Luca asserted his challenge with fingers dug into
Christopher's armpits. Damn but that tickled! He twisted in his chair, trying to evade, but Luca's grip was too firm.

"On an Italian map, sure. You DO that!" Christopher's voice rose an involuntary octave when Luca found a particularly
sensitive spot.

"Okay,
Americano.
"
Luca left off tickling to hold tight once more. "I teach you languages, one word at a time.
Macigno
means...?"

"Boulder," Christopher could finish that sentence. "Now if I can work it into conversation...."

"Soon. First I teach you verbs. Here is more important sentence.
"
Tu sei il mio amore.
"
Luca buried his
face into the crook of Christopher's neck and wouldn't come out for kisses or nibbles.

Rubbing his fingers into Luca's scalp, Christopher puzzled over the words first, and then his understanding. Did Luca really say that? Could he
really mean that? Maybe the words weren't quite as cognate as they sounded. Maybe Christopher was hearing what he wanted to hear; maybe he was
only translating his hopes. Best to be sure. "What does that mean?" he whispered.

"You translate." Luca squeezed an instant too hard and then jammed the pen into Christopher's left hand. Not that he could
write that way, but he could get the message. "Finish your papers. Then we go to bed. I have to be up early."

Damn, that's what Christopher was trying to forget--how early Luca had to be up, and why. "You have your passport and
everything? Your plane ticket?"
Your ways to leave and get an ocean away where I can
'
t reach out to you in the night?

"I have everything, Christopher. What I don't have, Paolo has, and what Paolo and I forget, the team has, or can buy." Luca
lifted a hand to caress Christopher's face. "Everything except you, and for that, we need passport. Write."

Oh. Yes.
Christopher wrote. And then they went to bed. Later, much later, when Luca's breathing went soft and steady, Christopher murmured, "I
love you too."

***

Luca had arrived on his mountain bike last night, and now he would leave it and Christopher behind. "You keep it for me, okay? Ride if you
want." He turned from the bicycle leaning against the wall to hug Christopher at the door.

If his apartment was home to Luca's bike, then surely Luca would come back for it. The racing season loomed long. There might be a lot of
mountain biking in Christopher's future. "I will. You come back for it, you hear?" Filtered through Luca's
freshly-shampooed curls, Christopher's desperation might not be apparent.
Come back. If you can't come back to me, at least come back safe. But come back to me.

"I will." Luca's own desperation muffled into Christopher's neck. "I will miss you every day. Call you
when I can. Text you after riding."

"No holding back on what really happened, either." Christopher fully expected Luca to gloss over pile-ups and shrug off leaving half
his hide on the cobblestones. "Don't make me find out the real story from
CycloWorld
or ESPN. I'll only worry more if
I do."

"No holding back," Luca agreed faintly, as if he'd been outflanked already. "But you worry over nothing."

Stu's memory was so fresh as to be knives. In fifty years his death would still not be "nothing." "I hope so."

They'd used their time well this morning--Christopher ached pleasantly from their love-making--but he couldn't hold
Luca enough to make up for the weeks, maybe months, before he could get to Europe for days that would be all too brief. Their mouths met, in melding more
than kissing, with brushes of lip to lip, tongue to tongue. Luca opened gladly for him, inviting Christopher to enter, to stay.

But time ticked on, and Luca came up for air. "Need to go meet team, Christopher."

Going back to bed sounded better, but Luca had somewhere to be. "Okay." Not really--once they left the apartment,
they'd have to maintain the sort of polite distance that meant a closet door stood between them. Christopher grabbed Luca's pack and
locked up.

Not inches: paces separated them. Luca must have teleported to the passenger door of Christopher's aged Vibe, his suitcase at his feet.