Page 59 of Don't Brake My Heart
‘I understand you competed in the Unbound gravel race in the United States last week and were awarded the “mud prize”. Can you tell us about that?’
‘I’m sorry, what?’ My brain was racing ahead of my sluggish body. ‘I mean, I was at Unbound, yes.’ The scrappy fight of gravel racing had always brought me alive. ‘But I’m not sure what prize you’re talking about.’
‘Oh.’ The reporter glanced down at her phone. ‘It just says here: “Leesa crossed the line with her face and body totally caked in mud, earning the coveted ‘mud prize’.”’
‘Where is that?’ My media training – from the team and also from the marketing degree I was slowly completing – deserted me.
‘It’s on your Wikipedia page,’ the reporter admitted sheepishly.
‘Oh, I—’ Anotherhuh?was all my brain could manage at first. Then, in my peripheral vision, I noticed Colin shifting against the wall and, when I glanced at him, he was looking right at me, his tongue tucked into his cheek as he visibly swallowed a laugh.
I should have known. He wouldn’t have been here without someone to humiliate and, as usual, it was me. I’d been proud of finishing that notoriously tough race, but he’d made it all about the mud, the childish idiot.
‘I think someone thought it would be funny to update my Wikipedia page with something that doesn’t exist,’ I managed to reply, sparing Colin only a brief, sharp glance.
The reporter gave an awkward laugh. ‘Sounds like you had a big fan watching your race.’
A fan?Yeah, right.
Chapter 22
Leesa
The tattoo studio didn’t have the grim torture-chamber aesthetic I’d expected. The walls were white with a bold black pattern of interlocking swirls. I glimpsed a rounded retro desk and a curving floor lamp.
The artist himself appeared as soon as we walked through the door. A big guy, he had a full beard – bushier than anything Colin was capable of growing – a neck full of tattoos and several solid silver rings on his fingers. The thick nose ring was little more than an aside to the rest of his appearance.
‘Colin,’ he said gruffly, a smile somewhere under the beard.
Colin was folded into an enormous, muscly hug, the clap to his back more effective than chiropractic adjustment, while I watched on in dismay, reassuring myself that it wasn’t my turn next to find myself under those hands.
I was wrong.
The man turned to me. I truly hoped I’d correctly inter-preted his expression as a smile, because his eyes were a little wild as he pressed me in a hug. ‘Velcome. You must be a friend of Colin.’
‘This is Leesa. She might take my appointment, if she can get up the courage.’
Shooting Colin an ‘I’m going to kill you!’ look that I hoped contained the threat to end our friendship, I ignored his quelling hand gesture that only wound me up more.
‘Vould you like to come through?’ Norbert asked. He rolled up his sleeves as though he were about to beat someone up – or perform surgery. Tingles shot to my hairline.
Colin turned to me and lifted his eyebrows. The question was clear: ‘You or me?’
‘You know I can’t— Without thinking about this—’
Norbert laughed heartily. ‘A first-timer? Let’s see what she’s made of.’
A petite older woman with a tousled bob poked her head into the studio from an adjoining room. ‘Ciao, Colin!’
He greeted her with a kiss on the cheek that reminded me of how much of his life he must have spent in Europe. She was introduced as Olga and I was distracted, admiring the elegant barbed wire on her upper arm as she greeted me, until she asked, ‘Are you Colin’s girlfriend?’
I straightened. ‘No.’
Olga pouted. ‘Aw, I’d hoped you might be here for matching tattoos. Little hearts.’ She patted Colin’s cheek, which had turned ruddy Irish, like his father’s.
‘Your first crush, Bua?’ Norbert asked with a grin.
I opened my mouth to remind them that I was standingright here, but a photo on the wall snagged my attention. It was a black-and-white shot of a woman, naked as far as I could tell, and turned away from the camera, the sensitive parts hidden in shadow. The light accented the folds and curves at her waist. One of her hands – nails manicured into short points – was tucked under her arm and a few strands of hair fell down her back.
