Spokes (6 page)

"Sounds good." He must have grown up with what became his profession. "Your family, too?"

"My father is butcher, his father and many fathers before him. Our town has bicycle camps; close to the mountains, can ride to plains or hills
all in one day, teach people to ride like pros. Or dream they ride like pros. My mother made breakfast for one of the camps, twenty hungry Americans,
Belgians, French. I cleared plates."

"But you didn't ride with them?" So close to paradise!

Luca finished his bite of
carpacchio,
a slice of buffalo slick with olive oil and a caper on top. "I rode. That was my pay, and part of my
mother's, for me to ride with foreigners, learn from coach who won stages of
Tour de France
and
Vuelta de Espana
. Won
other races, too, had great
palmares
.
Learned much."

"Enough to ride with the Italian junior national team." That was an early note on a long list.

"You check my p
almares
?" Luca paused with a forkful of gnocchi halfway to his lips.

"I checked everyone on Antano-Clark." Christopher found the last tortelloni. 'Best Young Rider' in three major
races had also grabbed Christopher's attention; what Luca had done with the white jerseys that came with that particular honor? "But I
remember the details of yours. So, this camp--people came from all over to learn to ride?"

"All teenagers--we rode during morning, lecture in afternoon, sometimes watch clips from races, learn what was good, what was bad, naps
for hot time of day. Worked on technique after sleep." It looked like some good memories--Luca smiled into the one glass of a light
Chianti he was stretching out through dinner. Not part of anybody's training diet, but he'd ordered it anyway. Part of his
culture--Fausto Coppi would have had three, he'd said, and Jacques Anquetil might have finished the bottle.

"A lot of different nationalities--is that how you learned English?" Christopher wondered.

"Also school, a bit, but yes."

Feeling stupid and terribly mono-lingual even after three years of Spanish classes, he still had to ask. "How many languages do you
speak?"

Luca silently ticked them off, considering. "Four well, two a little. French and German, have to talk with teammates. Enough Flemish to insult
Belgian riders. Important to insult them so they understand. A little Spanish, talk with Columbiano riders, they understand enough Italian. Many riders
speak some English."

Maybe Flemish was what Luca had used on Rolf in the shop, but Christopher wouldn't ask. "Sounds like a great way to grow up."
Idyllic, and he could have had that, had he only known to ask for it. His parents had always accommodated his interests, but he'd come to cycling
late, and they thought that at twenty-six, he could pay for his own indulgences. "And in the evenings?"

Luca looked up from the dessert list. "Free time. Healthy teenage boys, courting pretty girls in nearby towns." He bent again to the
page, though surely he knew what was in tiramisu.

"Did--" Christopher would ask it. "Did anyone court the butcher's son?"

The flickering candle on their table and the intimate lighting made Christopher doubt what he saw, but Luca's soft answer of
"Yes," went with the flush on his cheeks.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked." In the countryside of Christopher's mind, two lithe young riders
pedaled to a remote barn with a cozy hayloft, or found privacy among grapevines with green clusters of unripe fruit hanging down. "I
didn't mention our evening to anyone, but my buddy figured it out."

Luca put the dessert menu down with the air of a man who'd never taste anything sweet again. "Thank you. Christopher, I--I do
not want the closet, but--" No wonder he'd fled after making the invitation; Luca had to be terrified of his own boldness.
"But where I grow up, it is not right to be--to want--but I do. At home I could greet you or any man with kisses on cheeks,
right, left, hello. No meaning but friendship. But for anything more, no. Here, people look funny if men kiss men's cheeks, but for more, no one
cares. One big reason I came to American-based team."

Running his hands through his hair like that in his agitation was not keeping any doors shut. "Some people do, but not so many. Especially around
here; no one gets in your face about it."

"If I stayed here, no problem. But races are in Europe, where
paparazzi
stalk cyclists and top riders live in homes behind tall walls.
What I do will not stay on one side of ocean only. So I live, not in closet, but like--" The handwaving didn't quite
translate. For the first time, Christopher heard Luca grope for a word. "Like--
frate.
Religious man. No hair." He set
his hands atop his head, pulling his hair tight to his scalp.

"A monk?"

"
Si
, a monk." His hands came down to lift the wineglass to his mouth, and the remaining puddle of red disappeared in two
gulps.

"Would it really be so bad for people to know?" Christopher could speak discreetly.

A shadowed V appeared between Luca's formerly straight brows. "For world, maybe not. For home, very bad. One bad crash, or scandal with
team, and I'm back in the Veneto with big knife and side of beef, trying to sell
bistecca
to people who do care."

Put that way, Luca did have a big point, but-- "Did you ever actually want to be a butcher?" Christopher had never had the
slightest desire to follow his father's footsteps in the business world.

"No, but it's what Biondis in our town do." Luca looked genuinely puzzled about the choice.

"Except for the one who got on a bike and rode away very fast." Christopher wouldn't push, but he did want Luca to see the
bigger picture. "You can choose about riding back."

"I plan to ride up and down France, Belgium, and Italy for many years. And even so--" Luca peered into his wineglass as if
mystified by its emptiness. "My family shouldn't find out from newspaper."

"That would be awful."

They skipped dessert after all, but there might be something sweeter than gelato once they got home. The evening was cold enough that they'd have
the bike path along the creek to themselves if Luca wasn't quite ready to head back to Christopher's place.
Paparazzi
didn't lurk around Boulder much; if anyone jumped out of the bushes by the creek, they'd probably want wallets, not pictures.
Christopher hadn't reckoned with Luca looking down.

"A brick street!" he exclaimed. "Not good as cobblestones, but almost! You didn't say you worked by brick
street!"

"Uh, Luca, this is a pedestrian mall, there's usually hundreds of people; we can't just sail back and forth in the middle of
downtown..." Christopher found himself talking to empty air.

Suddenly Luca was back, having whipped around a raised garden in the middle of the mall. "No good to practice on mountain bike--need
skinny tires. Trade!" Luca put one hand on Christopher's handlebars.

"We'll get in trouble, Luca."

"Look, late, no people, no one cares. No one here to care, just you and me." He shook the handlebars gently.
Get off. Now.

"So now I'm your domestique
.
" Christopher yielded his old road bike. A few people walked the mall, diners leaving
restaurants like themselves mostly. Luca wouldn't squash any--he could navigate through the throngs that crowded the bike races without
coming to grief.

"If you ride with me. Else you are
soigneur
." He was gone again.

He was probably to the end of the four block brick mall before Christopher got the gears sorted out and moving on the mountain bike. It wouldn't
be so bad to play soigneur
:
they acted as valets, medics, masseurs, spare sets of hands in general, and rode in the team cars during races.
He'd give Luca a massage at first opportunity, for sure. Once he brought the man to a halt.

If
he could bring the man to a halt. Maybe he shouldn't expect more than a kiss or two from his skittish companion. Christopher eyed the cross
street nervously for traffic and shot across it as fast as he could on a bike built for ruggedness rather than speed. He wondered how many times Luca would
lap him before calming down enough to consider a kiss. A man used to living like a monk might need a lot of laps.

Luca shot past, laughter trailing in his wake. "American cobblestones too smooth!"

"Too new!" Christopher shouted at his back, pedaling without hope of catching up.

A shrill tweet pierced the night--the very sound Christopher had been dreading. Luca was on the way back when one of Boulder's finest,
patrolling on a bicycle himself, blew his whistle repeatedly until Luca stopped. Christopher hurried from the other direction in time to catch the end of
the tooting and the beginning of the harangue. Luca looked stunned at first, but his face grew stormy. His deep breath signaled disaster.

"He's terribly sorry, officer," Christopher inserted before Luca could uncork invective in five languages or worse, in the
one the officer was sure to understand. "He's on a pro team, the brick looks like cobblestones, he needs to practice, it looked safe
with no people, he's from Italy where they do this all the time...." Gabbling out the apology with one eye on Luca to beg him
for silence, Christopher thought he'd hit a good note and repeated it. "One of our pro teams."

"So you're one of the Garmin-Sharp guys?" The officer glowered but his voice said "intrigued."
"Thought you knew better than this."

"Antano-Clark," Christopher and Luca said in unison, and before Luca could explain, Christopher took over. "They're
new; they haven't been in Colorado very long, sir." A second's pause, then Christopher repeated, "He's
from Italy." Luca stayed blessedly silent.

"I'll give you a break this time then. Consider yourself warned. This is a pedestrian mall..." The cop admonished
them a bit longer. "Are you understanding any of this? Is he...?"

"I. Speak. English." Luca clipped each word, all lilt gone from his voice.

"I'll make sure he does, sir."

"Okay then." The officer turned to Luca. "Save it for the
Tour de France
. And win it." He waved them down
the cross street.

Glad to escape, Christopher led Luca back toward his home in silence. They brought the bikes inside and had them propped against the wall before Luca
exploded.

"
Poliziotto ignorante! Idiota,
he did not know who I am! Any village in Dolomites everyone would know all riders by face, speak to them by
name! Be glad for wanting to ride there! This one with his tweet tweet, win the
Tour de France
but don't ride here! Tweet!"
Punctuating his wrath with a blow to the air, Luca didn't even seem to see Christopher. "Antano-Clark trains to peak for the
Giro d'Italia
! 'Win the Tour!' he says, like that's only bicycle race in world!"

"It's the only bicycle race in his world, Luca. Like for people who don't know horse racing, it's all Kentucky
Derby, or all car racing is the Indy 500." Daring to come a few steps closer when Luca stopped striking out at the world, Christopher had to
point out a few contradictions. "You liked Boulder because people didn't know your face and follow your every move. At least he knew
that much and let us off a couple of hundred dollar fines for riding on the mall."

"That much?" Maybe Luca's confusion was partly from not knowing what the Indy 500 was.

"Yeah, I said we'd get in trouble. Look, Luca,
I
know the
Giro
and the
Vuelta
are just as important as the
Tour
, and I know that Paris-Roubaix is a huge race, and that the Fleche Wallonne is a Classic. And that you won a white jersey there three
years ago and what a great honor that is." Luca would win no more "Best Young Rider" awards; he was twenty-eight now, two
years too old to qualify.

Christopher slipped Luca's coat from his shoulders, playing the soigneur. "And I also know, Luca," he said, discarding their
jackets and coming to stand close, his voice gone low. "If you were standing there wearing it, I'd still want to take it off and kiss
you."

Chapter 6

"Take it off...?" Luca repeated, his anger transformed into something less frightening, at least for Christopher. Last time
he'd seen that expression, there'd been a real deer in the headlights.

"We could leave it on at first, if you wanted." Spooking Luca out the door looked like a real possibility. Trying to control the urgent
spike of lust at the thought of Luca wearing nothing but a white prize jersey, Christopher held out his hands but didn't come closer.

"I want..." But Luca's eyes flicked to the open drapes in the wall behind the paisley-covered futon, now folded to a
couch.

Doubting the proximity of any determined photographer with a long lens, Christopher drew the drapes, heavy enough to keep out the morning sun--or
curious evening passers-by. He flicked the table lamp on and doused the overhead light, asking, "Better?"

"
Molto bene.
" Luca took one hesitant step closer.

Christopher could settle his hands on Luca's waist now, their faces near enough for their breaths to mingle. Luca was about two inches shorter
than Christopher's own 5'11"--not reaching down to meet his lips might just kill Christopher before Luca decided
about that first kiss.

Nearly thrumming with tension, Luca tipped back, inviting Christopher's mouth, pausing before a final decision. Hands on shoulders, he could
bring Christopher closer or thrust him away, and a long wide-eyed stare made Christopher fear he'd be pushed back. But Luca lifted his face that
small fraction that said Christopher could lean just far enough to brush his lips across Luca's, slowly, once, twice. "I
won't do anything you don't want."

Suddenly Luca lunged against him, as if that one assurance was enough to break all the barriers and strip the
frate
of his hair shirt. He knocked
Christopher backwards onto the futon; he had the presence of mind enough to splay his legs rather than knee Luca. Quickly mouth to mouth again, Luca parted
his lips, demanding that Christopher do the same, and he was only too glad to comply. With Luca's lithe upper body crushed to his chest, his
tentative embrace became a total enwrapping. Christopher gripped a fistful of soft brown spirals, not to pull but to feel the softness crush against his
palm. It was the only soft thing about Luca--slender, wiry, and erect, pushing against Christopher, grinding their erections against one another.