Page 105 of Don't Brake My Heart
‘Take it easy, champ,’ she said with a smile I could hear in her voice. ‘I’m not going anywhere. You’ve got time to tell me all about it later.’ She smoothed my hair off my forehead and I leaned my head on her shoulder with a groan.
‘You are going somewhere – after Paris.’
Her sigh was eloquent. ‘We can try to make it work. Maybe I can look for work in Eur—’
I shook my head, vehemently enough that it hurt and I had to squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. ‘No.’
‘No?’ I loved that doubtful tone.
A smile touched my lips. ‘I will not accept you making sacrifices just because my life is a circus. I’ve started looking for a place in California for the off-season.’
That stole the wind right from her lungs. She gawked at me, another expression to add to my favourites. ‘Youwhat? What does Tony think of this?’
‘It’s not his life,’ I said with a shrug. ‘It’s mine and I want you in it. I just won a fucking stage of the Tour de France, but the thing I really want? More than all of this?’
I clutched her shoulders while I let the dramatic pause have its effect.
‘I want to make you happy. I want to hold you and ground you, treasure that clever brain of yours and sometimes make it shut up so you can just enjoy life. I want to be wherever you are as much as I possibly can. I’m yours, Leesa,’ I said emphatically. ‘I always have been and unless you tell me to fuck off, I always will be.’
Leesa
My brain had well and truly checked out for the evening. No thoughts for the cameras pointed right at us, sniffing out a story even more thrilling than Colin taking the stage win despite his awful crash less than a week ago. I wasn’t even worried about stealing the limelight when, really, the news should be him and not… us.
I didn’t care about anything except the words spilling out of him, raw and untainted by his usual bravado, the words I understood now he’d been working up to all week. He loved me – enough that he was willing to upend his own life so I didn’t have to sacrifice mine. There was no ‘Let’s try this out long-distance.’ No, that wasn’t Colin Gallagher’s style.
He loved me and that meant all in. That meant for real – through thick and thin – because that’s the person he was, the person I’d only seen clearly for the first time five weeks ago on training camp, although I’d caught glimpses over the years.
‘I told you it was just a crush,’ he continued, ‘but it was always more than that. I never thought you’d see anything in me. First I was too young and then I was… an idiot.’
It was difficult to believe that, under everything he’d said and done, he’d always been hiding this depth of feeling, but I also couldn’t doubt him, not today – not after everything he’d planned and executed over the past few days. Thinking of the years he’d lived with unrequited feelings for me, there was only one way I could respond – with my own surprising truth.
‘You know what?’ I began, my lungs tight with the words ready to pour out.
‘What?’
‘I love that idiot – so much.’ With the words out, the truth of them only seemed to sharpen. My journey to that declaration had been longer, but I’d fallen in just as deep.
The disbelieving smile that formed on his face felt like a mirror and his breath hitched, which probably wasn’t good for him right now.
‘You’re still with me, right?’ I grasped his face in my hands – dusty, smeared with sweat and tanned from his helmet straps. ‘Don’t keel over now. I’ve got a long future I want to live with you.’
‘You won’t get rid of me that easily,’ he mumbled. ‘And I’ll remember that you said you want to live with me.’ His arms came up and tugged me closer.
‘I have to tell you,’ I whispered in his ear, ‘I’m not a very tidy person.’
‘I can handle that, Kubicka. Now tell me again.’ He lifted his chin to prompt me.
‘What? I love you?’
‘That’s the one,’ he said with a smile, stretching up for a kiss that was soft and slow.
‘None of that now! We need to get him recovered and ready for the podium protocol! My boy! On the podium! You beaut, he did it!’
Instead of listening to his dad and drawing away, Colin’s hand came up to hold me where I was. ‘Screw the podium. Leesa Kubicka is in love with me. I officially wineverything.’
I pushed at him. ‘Go! You’ve worked so hard for this.’
His arm snaked around my waist. ‘I’ve worked harder forthis.’
