Spokes (14 page)

Christopher drove north on Broadway, past half a dozen cyclists who looked to be on their way to the open roads. Luca stayed silent, his smile wry when
Christopher pulled up across the street from the big brick bus terminal. One of RTD's deluxe distance busses was visible in the bay, its cargo
doors open to swallow luggage for thirty-five people, maybe more. Cyclists and the ones they'd leave behind milled around--knots of men
chattered, some hugged sniffling women, one man knelt to cuddle a child, a baby on his shoulder.

"We all leave someone behind for the season." Luca turned from the preparations back to Christopher. "Or part of
it."

"I'm going to the post office now, before work." Getting his passport was the easy part, the ticket somewhat harder.
He'd sent in two extra articles to
CycloWorld
, and he had ideas for more. If he swallowed his pride and let Luca pay, he might make a
second trip. "I'll come see you. I have to watch you race, and wait for you at the finish line."

"Then I go faster, to get to you." Luca snaked his hand over the console to clasp Christopher's hand where he clutched the
gearshift. "
Ciao
, Christopher."

"
Ciao
, Luca." One more kiss was out of the question, and his smile would be nearly as revealing. "Good
luck." He turned his hand over to clasp Luca's from below. "Talk to you soon."

"Soon." Luca squeezed hard and let go. He was out of the car in a trice, yanking his suitcase and pack from the back seat. He leaned
back through the door, meeting Christopher's eyes. His gaze was a kiss in itself, his eyes soft, his lips parted. "Soon."

"Soon," but Christopher was talking to the empty air--Luca had done his teleporting trick again and was halfway across the
street with his luggage, calling greetings to his teammates. Not a backward glance, but he wouldn't, not in front of the team. Backward glances
for Luca were to determine who was following, and he'd never topple for the looking. Christopher didn't even touch the buckle of his
seatbelt.

Rolf appeared from behind a group, waving a greeting to his team captain. Yeah, Rolf would spend months with Luca, hearing his voice unfiltered by any
electronics. Close enough to touch. Maybe sharing hotel rooms--the cyclists and staff doubled up, or tripled or quadrupled in the small hotels
filled to bursting with one team, maybe two. If Rolf gave Luca any shit...!

The first words he'd ever heard Rolf say to Luca had been grief that sounded sexual. Was that just Rolf being Rolf, or did he know? And would he
use it against Luca? When it was a handful of riders and a clerk in a bicycle store, that was one thing, but out on the racing circuit was another. Luca
had no trouble bringing Rolf to heel in the shop, but could he keep Rolf muzzled? A dozen kisses or a thousand were suddenly a small price to pay for
Luca's safety.

The bus filled with a legion of wiry, fit men who trooped up the stairs once the cargo bays shut. They'd ride in comfort to the airport, where a
plane waited to take them to Brussels. Sixty or more bicycles had been broken down into packable components and crated in pods that would disappear into
the maw of a FedEx cargo plane. Luca had waved off parting with his time trial bike and his spare, but had stubbornly clung to his favorite until, he
reported, Paolo had wrested control and delivered the machine to the mechs. Christopher had done his small part to get this traveling circus on the road.
He'd do his best to keep its star happy. He sat at the wheel, watching the bus door close on his lover, and listened to the deep grumble of the
diesel engine when the bus pulled out of the terminal, passing the waving horde of those left behind.

Luca smiled through the glass, his hand raised in a salute that Christopher could only answer in kind, not with the blown kiss that hovered at his lips.
Two windows behind, another pale form gestured through the window, his face bitter, his middle finger upthrust. He tracked Christopher, turning his face
all through the turn onto Walnut Street, leaving no doubt about his target.

Fucking Rolf.

Chapter 13

Eleven hours in the air, plus security, plus a layover, plus immigration, plus, plus, plus. Adding up far too many hours in his head left Christopher
fretting about Luca's travels, but his lover was much safer at 39,000 feet in a Boeing 767 than he was on the streets of Boulder. Left with
little to do and far too much time to do it in, Christopher opened his laptop. Might as well get started on earning that ticket to France.

When choosing a saddle for your distance rides, comfort is paramount. A seat that has you standing on your pedals on the flat to
just, please, don't touch my butt!
isn
'
t going to do your training a bit of good.

If he was being totally scrupulous, he'd credit Luca here, but the exact words weren't the same and the context was different. Sort of.
Christopher hadn't forgotten why he'd been the only one to bottom since they'd first fallen into bed.

Since no two humans have the exact same configuration of pelvis, thigh, and weight, if the saddle that came with the bike is comfortable, count
yourself fortunate. Most of us have to try a few before we find the perfect blend of length, width, and material to rub against our tender parts.

Sounded kind of like buying sex toys. If
CycloWorld
wanted a revision, they'd say so. But they'd liked the slight edginess
he'd brought to other articles; he didn't expect any pink editorial balloons here in markup. If they ran any edits past him. His words
had been changed before, his first clue coming when he opened the covers of the new issue.

Fitting a saddle properly depends on not only on your personal geometry but your riding habits. A recreational rider will spend more time with full
weight resting on the seat than a pro will: those legs aren't just peddling the smoothest, most powerful circles,
they're wrapped around your back while you're sucki--

Whoops, gotta stop letting private thoughts get into the text. Stu would have had a field day proofreading that. If he'd just walk through the
front door, Christopher would even let him read the raw text. One time. Christopher deleted the TMI and started over. Every
CycloWorld
piece would
get three additional rounds of proofreading, just in case.

...most powerful circles, they
'
re taking as much as 40% of the rider
'
s weight, even when not actively pedaling.

And his elbows are taking the rest, while his glutes, back, and abdominals are propelling his stiff cock in and out...
Christopher set the laptop aside. This article just was not going to get written until he made love with his Luca-memory and could sit up with the ghostly
presence of his arm over Christopher's shoulders and his voice whispering details about saddles.
"Cut-outs distribute weight better..."
mingled with the
zzz
of his zipper.

Giving himself over completely to the reasons why weight had to be directed away from the perineum by a saddle but attention completely given to it while
in bed, Christopher relived their morning's farewell. The herbal, grassy scent of Luca's shampoo clung to the
pillows--Christopher buried his face and conjured his lover.

Would Luca do the same, dream of Christopher and touch himself in solitude? Would he ever get any solitude? Would he ever be alone when he could pick up
the phone and whisper his doings across the miles? Would Christopher be somewhere private when Luca called to speak his need?

He'd have to be. He'd just have to be where he could do
this--
could wrap his fingers around his cock and make believe
it was Luca's mouth doing all the lovely, filthy things he'd whisper about. Oh my, what he'd murmur
back--he'd make Luca take the same desperate, needy grip and listen to
I
'
m pushing into you, fuck, your hole is so hot
and other things that he might only accept from four thousand miles away.
God, Luca...

When he could peel one eye open, the clock glared 9:37 and darkness looked in the windows. Luca would still be somewhere over the Atlantic, a few hours
from Belgium. Organized chaos waited on the other end--Luca mightn't have a moment to call for hours. A text, maybe. His night would be
gone, eaten by the sun; he'd get off the plane into bright morning light and another bus to the starting point of the race scheduled for
Saturday.

Maybe Luca could sleep like a cat, anywhere, any time, draped over anything. He'd gotten very, very good at sleeping draped across Christopher.
But he'd be jet lagged, exhausted, and needing to be fit and rested for his first race as GC of Team Antano-Clark. If he didn't call,
it would be fatigue, or time zones. If Christopher slept through the chime of the phone... Shit, no. He cranked the volume to
"obnoxious" and searched the web for an app to display the time in Paris; that should stand in for all of Western Europe.

Luca's life would be eight hours ahead of Christopher's, his day winding down when Christopher's was dawning. Sleep might be
a thing of the past on race days--if he could shake another ten dollars a month out of the budget for a streaming service, he could watch Luca
race real time. Maybe that would be his energy gel budget redirected--he gave his road bike a sour look. No riding, no sucking down two bucks of
goop per ride.

Or else he could write another article.

Too wide a saddle will chafe; too narrow will feel like straddling a 2x2. Most good cycling shops have a device to measure the distance between your
ischia (the sit-bones in your tushia), which will rule out a number of choices. Don't take these measurements as aspersions on the width of your butt, which might be quite narrow in the fashion sense, but use them as a guide to
comfort. A man as slender as Rolf Knecht of Team Antano-Clark finds his pelvic geometry works well with a saddle as wide as the Cassowary HT, while
Antano-Clark GC Luca Biondi plans to flex his muscles perched on the narrower K-Aero.

Consider the padding: too much may migrate between your sit-bones, while just-right might mean no padding at all. Once you
'
ve established correct width, you might be surprised how little padding you require for comfort.

Saddles are high-wear components, enduring contact with your sweaty hind end and scuffing, whether on your garage wall or the road once you
'
ve come off. Take a good look at the covering, which might be leather, various high tech fabrics, even Kevlar...

Christopher added a table, sorting fifteen saddles by width and price range.
CycloWorld
needed to cough up any special advertising interests so
those units could be included in his rah-rah, and then they had one, maybe two pages, depending how many ads they crammed around the text, of real-live,
useful editorial. He hit "Send" on the email and glowered again at the clock. One a.m. was the absolute earliest he could hope to hear
from Luca, and that only if he texted the moment the pilot gave the "all clear" to turn on electronics after touching down.

He hadn't texted during the layover. It was only six hours since he'd left, really, but Luca had shot off a couple of teasing messages
on the bus to the airport this morning. **
tell post office to hurry passport**
he'd sent, and when Christopher promised to beg for speed,
Luca sent a smiley with **
good. I miss you already**

But he had a plane full of snoopy teammates to cope with during the layover, whatever customs issues had to be handled on leaving the country,
and... Maybe there were a hundred other things that needed to be done on the way to Belgium. Had he and the directeur sportif defined their
strategy for the upcoming race?
Yes, they had
, his memory supplied,
but maybe something changed?

Testing his phone once again, Christopher verified that the ringer would wake him, the upstairs neighbors, and the folks across the street too. He
daren't miss Luca's summons, but a yawn creaked his jaw. He and Luca had been up early, entwined together for joyous antics that had
enough desperation to undo the three hours of sleep sex that good should have equaled. And Luca wouldn't call for a couple of hours at least.

Christopher snuggled up on Luca's pillow and tried to forget how alone in the bed he was.

***

The phone screamed him awake around two a.m. with the single shriek of a text. Once Christopher dropped the two feet he'd levitated, he jabbed
"read".

**On way to middelkerke flight ok some good news!*

**Tell!**

**New york man got on plane at layover. We talked more. Signed. **

**KEWL! What r u endorsing?**

**Lots, tell you in phone call. Can buy 3 plane tickets ;)**

**Woohoo! Go champ!** Getting such a great endorsement deal wasn't just money, it was validation of his lover in the highest echelons of racing.
Had to be worth five minutes per stage just in confidence.

**For what they pay must win every race. Got some sleep**

**Good. Feeling ok?**

**Need to stretch, lie flat. Still 20km to town**

Twenty kilometers that wouldn't be a problem on his bike if Luca were rested probably felt longer than the trip over the Atlantic if he had to
sit up straight the whole way. Luca
never
complained. **Massage?** From Paolo, not Christopher, damn it, but if it helped, it helped.

**Good idea. not so fun as you**

** :D think of me**

**Not with rolf or paolo in room :p **

Shit, he was rooming with Rolf. If he gave Luca a hard time, Christopher might have to flap his arms to get to Belgium, but get there he would, and
there'd be some ass-kicking.

Christopher paused, thumbs over the keyboard. This was Luca's lieutenant, charged with leading him until it was time for a breakaway,
who'd fetch and carry and make sure Luca was in a position to win. And why did the same man who'd flipped him off on the way out of
town support him at Stu's funeral?