The Breakaway(55)

As Abby had predicted, Sebastian and Lincoln were way out front… although, to their credit, they’d been eating actual food at lunch, not just lab-engineered food-like substances. At three thirty, she had just finished checking the mileage to the hotel and was congratulating herself on having successfully avoided Sebastian for the entire day when she saw him standing by the side of the trail, holding his handlebars and frowning at his front wheel.

Abby waved her mom on ahead and let her bike coast to a stop. “Flat tire?” she asked.

He gave a curt nod.

Payback! was Abby’s first gleeful thought. She scolded herself for being petty, and reminded herself that, as the trip’s leader, she needed to display calm and expertise.

Abby unclipped her feet from her pedals, climbed off her bike, and leaned it against a tree. She saw that Sebastian, who was still stubbornly refusing to wear his reflective pinny, had managed to figure out his quick release and get the front wheel off the bike. He had his two tire irons seated underneath the rim, but that was as far as he’d managed to proceed.

“Need a hand?” Abby asked. Clearly, he did, but she’d be damned if she was going to jump in before he explicitly requested her help.

“No,” Sebastian said.

“Okay, then.” Abby watched him, sipping from her water bottle.

“I’ve got this. You can go,” said Sebastian, as one of the tire irons slipped free and fell to the ground. He muttered a curse, then said, “This isn’t a spectator sport.”

“I’m not spectating,” said Abby, who decided that she would have given large amounts of money to be able to climb on her bike and pedal away. Even when he was sweaty and grumpy; even though she knew he’d slept with hundreds of other women—maybe thousands!—she still found Sebastian annoyingly attractive. “We’re not supposed to abandon our riders if they’re having mechanical difficulties.” She kept her tone casual, watching as his lips compressed, wondering if he’d read any of the small print on the Breakaway literature. Her guess was that he hadn’t even read the large print.

“Fine,” he said shortly, and continued to wrench, fruitlessly, at his tire.

“I wouldn’t want to ditch you in your hour of need,” she said.

“This is not my hour of need.”

“That’s fine. No worries. I’ll just keep you company until you’re back on the road.” Abby sat at the base of a tree, unfastened her helmet, and pulled her hair free of its scrunchie, shaking it loose, then smoothing it back into a ponytail, watching Sebastian struggle and curse. When he’d finally gotten his tire free from the wheel’s rim and pulled out the deflated tube, Abby extended her hand.

“Give me your tire. I’ll check it for glass.” She thought she would relish every second of Sebastian’s struggle, but what she’d realized was that she just felt sorry for him. And, still, attracted to him. He was wearing a white bicycle jersey that had gotten sheer with sweat in the vicinity of his shoulders, and in his Lycra shorts, his legs looked like the Platonic ideal of male legs.

His face was stony as he handed Abby the tire, more or less shoving it at her with a muttered word that might—if Abby was feeling generous—have been “thanks.” He wasn’t looking at her. Abby wondered if that was on purpose as she ran her fingers carefully along the inside of the tire, eventually finding a tiny shard of glass.

“Here’s your culprit,” she said, after she’d carefully worked it free.

Sebastian grunted. Abby pulled a dollar bill out of her jersey’s back pocket, folded it in half horizontally, then placed it inside the tire, against the spot where the glass had poked through. Sebastian rummaged in the bag fastened to his seat post. He’d just extracted a fresh tube when Lincoln, who’d gone off to use what Jasper called the facili-trees, came strolling out of the woods.

“You haven’t gotten that changed yet?” he asked, wiping his forehead.

Sebastian didn’t reply.

“He’s not in a very good mood,” Abby stage-whispered.

“That’s an exciting change of pace,” Lincoln stage-whispered back.

“Both of you be quiet,” Sebastian grumbled after he’d attached the nozzle to his pump, put air into the tube, then threaded the valve stem through the wheel. “And for God’s sake, stop staring.”

Abby ostentatiously turned away. “I have averted my eyes,” she announced, and sat down again, face tilted toward the sky. Lincoln sat beside her and offered her a strip of fruit leather. She gnawed at it while Sebastian kept up a steady stream of curses and imprecations. Finally, he got the tube inflated and in place and worked the tire back onto the wheel.

“Well done!” Abby said, giving him a cheesy grin with a thumbs-up on top. Sebastian glared at her. Then Lincoln frowned at him pointedly, and Sebastian’s expression became contrite.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice a low rasp that Abby felt in the pit of her belly.

She swallowed hard. “It’s fine. Just let me know if there’s anything I can do to make this a better experience.” The words were barely out of her mouth before her mind served up a scene from that night in his bedroom. They’d been lying on their sides, facing each other, kissing. He’d had his hands on her hips and one of his legs between her legs, the top of his thigh angled so that she could grind against it. Get on top, he’d said. I want to see you. She’d done as he’d urged her, and he’d reached up, cupping her breasts, holding them in his hands, groaning, God, you’re beautiful.