“It was kind of a last-minute thing. And I knew you were at work.”
“Fuck man, that’s what personal days are for! I would’ve called in. I was only doing a half day, anyway. How’d it go?”
“It was totally G-rated in every way. Nice, though. Went to the beach.”
He groaned and shook his head. “You’re fuckin killing me. I don’t want to hear that you went to the beach with two hot chicks and it was G-rated. Let me guess—you ended the day with ice cream cones with rainbow sprinkles.”
“Something like that.”
“You’re pathetic. Seriously. You’re taking this whole ‘giving up dating’ thing way too far. It’s offensive, if you want to know the truth.”
“Are you offended?”
“I am. I’m getting stood up and you’re swearing off women. What—do you think being celibate is going to help you win races?”
“I don’t care about winning races.”
“Yeah, everyone knows that.”
And when we got to where the race was being held, I was again reminded of the fact that most people here thought of me as an outsider. I knew that a lot of the guys I raced against didn’t consider me on their level—despite the fact that I’d beaten a good many of them—since I wasn’t affiliated with a club and I didn’t wear Spandex or eat that energy gel shit. Most of them didn’t have the balls to say anything to my face, though, which was fine—I didn’t care what they thought, I wasn’t here for them. The one person who didn’t seem to mind giving me a hard time, though, was this kid Parker. I had never beaten him before, which was a fact that he reveled in. Maybe today would be the day.
“You been training, Graham?” he yelled to me as he rode by on his carbon fiber bike that probably cost almost as much as my truck.
“That’s a nice color pink,” I said, nodding at the thick pink stripe going across the front of his Spandex jersey. “Really good color for you.”
It was, in a way, the sort of good-natured banter that happened when people competed against each other, yet there was this undercurrent of something else, like it could quickly deteriorate if either of us took it there. There was something about Parker that made me simultaneously want to be his friend and also deck him. It was an odd juxtaposition of feelings to have toward someone I didn’t really know at all.
The race was three 10-mile laps through mostly singletrack, a lot of rock gardens, some pretty big roots. As usual, I started toward the back of the group, but midway through the second lap, I started overtaking guys.
“Fucking bitch,” Todd growled at me as I zipped around him. I was not, however, able to catch up with Parker in time, though maybe if the race had been a little longer, I would have. He was definitely tiring toward the end, but was able to sprint the last 10th of a mile and make it to the finish line before I did.
Chapter Twelve
Chloe
I recognized Riley right away, standing out front of the restaurant in another polo shirt—dark gray this time—and beige Bermuda shorts. He had his hands in his pockets and he looked nervous, which, for some reason, put me at ease a bit. I knew he was about a year or two older than I was, but he looked so young, with his clean-shaven face and naïve expression. I realized as I walked up, before we’d even exchanged one word, that I was comparing him to Graham.
Stop it, I told myself. I arranged my face into a smile. “Riley?” I said.
He snapped to attention, as though I’d startled him. “Chloe? Um, hi.” He held his hand out. “Yeah, it’s me, Riley.” His palm was clammy, but he smiled, showing off those perfect, white teeth, most likely the result of expensive orthodontia. No one’s teeth were naturally that straight and uniform.
We went inside, only to follow the hostess back out to the outside seating area.
“Have you ... have you been here before?” he asked, and immediately started blushing as though he’d just blurted out something terribly embarrassing. It was an odd turning of the tables; usually it was me who was blushing and feeling foolish. I felt a strange, almost maternal feeling come over me. I wanted to make him feel comfortable, not because I was trying to impress him or wanted him to like me, but because he appeared to be so painfully out of his element. I’d only been on a few dates—which had all either ended disastrously or unremarkably—but I’d always been the one feeling nervous or shy.
“I haven’t, but my mother talks about it so much that I feel like I may as well have!”
He laughed. “Yeah, same here. My mother treats shopping and going out to restaurants like it’s her job. And matchmaking. She’s been trying to set me up on dates since I was about 12 years old.” He leaned toward me, looking around first as though he were afraid that someone nearby might be eavesdropping. “I’m sure it’s pretty obvious and everything, but I’m gay.”
“Oh,” I said, genuinely a bit surprised. Well, that explained why I was feeling so at ease! I knew plenty of gay guys from art school, though they were all a good deal more flamboyant about their sexuality than Riley was.
He waved me off. “You don’t have to pretend to be surprised. I’ve only been trying to tell my mother for about ... oh, the past eight years or so ... that I’m gay, but she refuses to believe it. She just thinks I haven’t met the right girl, despite her claiming not to be homophobic in the least.”
I had to fight back my own laughter. “My own mother actually thought it might be possible for me to fall in love with you and follow you back out to California. Because she and my father think that I’m wasting my time in art school and that I should, how did they put it? Explore my options.”
“Yes!” Riley clapped his hands together. “Exactly! Except my mother keeps referring to the option exploring in terms of how many dates she can set me up on. It’s so tedious. So, you’re in art school? Tell me everything about it! My parents forced me to go to Stanford, my dad’s alma mater. But I’d always wanted to go to art school! I admire you for going against what your parents wanted. It’s not always the easiest thing, is it?”
“No, it’s not.” It was nice to talk to someone who had a similar family situation.