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“Nah, I think I’ll pass.” The woman bent and lifted her bike, the flashing red of her taillight still blinking in time with the pounding of my heart. The front wheel was misshapen and thehandlebars crooked, disallowing the bike to be rolled forward. Instead, she heaved it onto her back, unable to hide the grimace from the effort.
“Sinc—” the man tried to stop her, but she brushed him off.
“Leave it, Kyle.”
He turned to me. “You should be charged with reckless driving, ya little—”
“She’s just a daft tourist. Let her be.” She shouldered the bike into a more comfortable position and started walking down the side of the road.
“At least let me give you a ride,” I tried again.
She didn’t turn back. “Thanks, but I’ve seen how you drive.” There was no humor in her tone.
Scene 2
Dillon didn’t stay for the medal ceremony or after party, instead slipping back to the hotel alone. She emptied the resort’s ice bin into the jacuzzi-sized bathtub and proceeded to soak away her frustrations in the frigid water.
It was the first time she hadn’t finished top ten in longer than she could remember.
She hadn’t expected to win the Hamoa Beach standard. Not after getting sent arse over tits over the hood of a car two days earlier.
But it wasn’t a satisfactory excuse. She’d been fit enough to compete, and as the current number-one-ranked professional triathlete in the world, coming in thirteenth out of a lousy field of forty—in a race that wasn’t even sanctioned—wasn’t acceptable. Borrowed bike or not. Car or no car.
But whatever. It was water under the bridge. She could lick her wounded pride over the rest of offseason, and apply her focus to winning the races that actually mattered—continuing to do whatever it took to make it clear toBritish Triathlonthat, even at twenty-eight, she was still their leading contender to bring home a gold medal. The Los Angeles Olympics were three years away. Her previous wins of bronze and silver weren’t enough to show for a lifetime of dedication to a sport that had taken more from her than it had ever given.
Wincing as she dragged herself out of the tub, she paused in the mirror to take a brief assessment of the state of her body: pruned road rash from ankle to shoulder, bruising along her ribs, swelling from hip to clavicle. She had to hand it to herself—just the fact that she’d managed to swim, bike, and run in that condition was no walk in the park.
She leaned closer to the mirror, examining the start of a black eye. As if the damage from the bike accident hadn’t been enough, she’d been kicked in the face by another competitor at the beginning of the swim. It was definitely going to turn color.
All said, maybe finishing thirteenth wasn’t so bad after all.
Without bothering to grab the towel folded into a fancy origami sea turtle, she gingerly pulled on a pair of running shorts and top, and left a puddle of footprints as she crossed the bungalow to the balcony. There, a hot tub steamed into the balmy autumn air, the panoramic view dissolving into the sleepy island coastline.
At least her sponsors hadn’t skimped on the accommodations.
Her coach, Alistair, would have scolded her for going straight from an ice bath to the heat of the jet-streamed water, but he was seventy-two hundred miles away, back in London. Which meant she could do damn well as she pleased.
There hadn’t even been enough time for the stiffness of her muscles to thaw before a pounding at her hotel door echoed to the balcony. She didn’t bother with an acknowledgment, knowing it was Kyle, who would let himself in without any indication she desired company.
“Well, not floating belly up, I see,” he strolled to the railing and leaned over the side, sucking in the ocean breeze as if he hadn’t been born in the coastal town of Withernsea.
Dillon rolled her eyes. She knew he was only half kidding. It was true, she took losing harder than she should. She always had.
Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser, Henrik had instilled in her.
Henrik.
Her first coach.
The person she detested most in all the world.
She pushed the thought aside. What did it matter what he had ever said?
Kyle turned to face her. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Sinc. It’s not like you DNFed.”
DNF—did not finish. Never in her pro career had she dropped from a race. It simply wasn’t an option.
“Shut you! You’re only going on because you coursed a decent time.”
