Page 152 of Rogue Riders Duet

Isla leans toward me. “I mean, not all of us are built to race, right? Some of us are… sleeker.”

I press my lips together so tightly it hurts because that’s what I’ve been taught.

Let your racing do the talking.

I hate everything about this, feeling like I don’t belong, even though I know I can outride all of these assholes, and hate that Isla’s words still bother me, even when I know better. I hate her, and that she makes me feel like I’m less, like I’m not enough, but I’ll show her where it counts—on the track. That’s a promise I’m determined to keep.

The line shifts, and a few riders move forward. Isla tosses a hair flip as she walks back to her group. Now, all the girls laugh with her when she giggles, and I think that’s it, that the moment is over, the sting already starting to settle in my chest.

Then someone pushes his bike into the space she left behind.

A guy, helmet on, dressed head-to-toe in black, his jersey pushed up to the elbows.

Mason Payne.

He plants himself between Isla and me like a wall, a fucking shield. He stares straight ahead, arms relaxed, like he just drifted into that exact spot because it happened to be open, but for a moment, I wonder.

Did he hear what she said? Decide she didn’t deserve the last look?

I don’t know, but he doesn’t glance my way, not once.

Maybe he just likes that patch of shade.

But he stays there, right next to me, all the way up to the gondola, and even though we never exchange a word, something in my chest loosens.

Just a little.

TWENTY-SEVEN

I’m so exhausted, even my eyelids hurt.

But here I am, sitting cross-legged in the dirt outside the bus with a flashlight clamped between my teeth as I work the bolts on my bike like I’ve lost my mind.

A foregone conclusion.

I tried to take Dane’s word that no one but him and Finn had touched my bike after period mageddon five days ago in Leogang, I really did. However, knowing they left my bike unattended, even though it was just outside the bathroom and for just a few minutes, did not compute.

I told myself it was fine, that I could let it go, but then I rolled it into practice, and I heard it. That whisper in the back of my head telling me something is off.

Something could be off.

The doubt dug into my brain like a thorn, and I barely made two runs before I packed it up and came down to tear it all apart again, every bolt and screw, just to be sure.

Dane gave me a look when I ducked out early. One of those ‘you-good?’ looks I’ve seen a hundred times by now. I waved him off, and told him I was just tired, which wasn’t a lie, but wasn’t the truth either.

When everything is back together, I shine the flashlight along the chainring, scanning for anything I missed, any scratches or misalignments that weren’t there before. My nails are chipped from the hours of this obsessive ritual, and my joints ache from sitting on the hard ground, but I can’t stop until I’m absolutely sure.

At least it helped keep my mind off Mason and Luc. I didn’t see them before I bailed, but I did catch Otis. He was bouncing around the pits as he usually does, and when I asked about Luc, the words blurting out before I could stop them, he grinned and said he was skipping out today, spending his birthday with his mom, which is good. Great, even.

I hate that I don’t have his number to at least text him, though. Wish I could have said something. Grimacing, my flashlight falls out of my mouth, rolling pathetically on the ground.

I glance up at the sky, at the thick and low clouds hugging the peaks.

Happy birthday, Frenchie.

The forecast says rain is coming, not just tonight but straight through the weekend. The track is going to change a dozen times before race day, and every line I studied earlier won’t mean shit by Sunday.

Maybe that should make me care more about practice, but it’s Les Gets. I know this track, love it, even. Not like I know Austria—that one’s special—but Les Gets is familiar, and if it’s going to rain, it’s going to rain. Nothing I can do about that.