and i walked off an old me

Chapter 1

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

Mathieu hears his phone beep from across the room. It’s just a message notification, nothing particularly urgent, but he still scrambles to shut his open refrigerator and hustle into the living room anyway. He’s being ridiculous. It could just be his mom sending him cute dog pictures. It could just be Jasper, sending him a stupid meme he saw on Reddit. But it could also be–

The message on his phone is an Instagram DM from Wout. Was that really necessary? asks Wout. Mathieu tries to imagine his face as he typed it. Maybe it was wry and amused? Arch and annoyed? He is, of course, referring to the story that Mathieu had put up earlier, where he’d reposted a bit of an interview he’d given recently. The pull-quote in the image was of him talking about the upcoming cyclocross season and how he’s always valued the fight in his competitors, ever since his junior days. He was thinking of Wout as he said it. He knows that Wout would know that, too.

Yes, Mathieu replies. He feels an all-too-familiar flutter in his chest. It’s only an exchange of a few words. He shouldn’t be feeling this much. He hasn’t been this stupid about anyone since he was a teenager. There had been this one older rider, Roderick, who had a killer smile and a smooth remount, and Mathieu had been half in love with him from the ages of fourteen to fifteen. At the time, Mathieu had convinced himself that it was just hero worship, that it was normal to hang onto his every word and every interaction. He had soft-looking hair that he wore a little longer than most of the other kids, and he had kind brown eyes, and Mathieu thought that was just how all of the younger riders felt about older ones. Even then, Mathieu had been winning practically every race. He didn’t need to talk to Roderick at all, since he usually beat him by at least two minutes, but he’d still wanted to, all the time. Maybe Mathieu should have figured out he was gay a lot sooner.

He watches as the dots appear. Wout is composing a response. Mathieu is glued to his phone screen. He can’t tear his eyes away. The dots disappear, but no message shows up to take their place. Then the dots are back. Then they’re gone again. This repeats a few more times. Mathieu stays fixed to his phone screen. He doesn’t need to. He could go back to constructing his dinner. His phone will tell him when Wout has responded. He can’t quite make himself do that, though.

After a full minute, Wout’s answer appears. Okay. It obviously didn’t take him a full minute to compose that literary masterpiece, but it’s better than nothing.

My date last night was great, Mathieu shoots back. Thanks for asking. That’s something of a lie. It had actually been somewhat stilted. The guy wasn’t an animal person, and Mathieu’s usual opening gambit — talking about his dog — fell flat. They’d ended up talking about cycling, which Mathieu generally enjoyed, but he’d come away from the interaction feeling more like the guy wanted the bragging rights to say he’d dated Mathieu van der Poel once, even if he couldn’t tell anyone until long after Mathieu retired.

This time Wout’s response comes back quicker, Hello, Mathieu, how was your date? Wout says, playing along, and Mathieu finds himself grinning.

It’s been three months, give or take, since they saw each other in New York. Mathieu had been half convinced that Wout would never speak to him again. But a few days after he’d returned to Belgium, Wout accepted Mathieu’s follow request on Instagram, quietly and without fanfare.

Mathieu had been careful about keeping his distance at first. He reminded himself that they were old cyclocross competitors. No one would blink an eye at Wout showing up on Mathieu’s “Following” list. Wout’s account was private, and he didn’t post anything particularly risque — much to Mathieu’s relief and disappointment. There were a lot of pictures of Wout’s dog. Some landscapes of the various places Wout had gone bikepacking or hiking. Lush green fields, rocky mountainous trails. Every once in a while, there was some lens flare and a rising sun between the trees. Sometimes there were selfies with his friends, at restaurants and bars or on a beach. Most of Wout’s friends were men, and many of them were flamingly gay: rainbow accessories, makeup, tight shirts. Sometimes, Mathieu wonders how many of them Wout has fucked. One picture from several years ago was of Wout kissing another man. They were sitting in a restaurant booth, and their hands were linked on the table. The only caption was a simple emoji heart. Mathieu spent a while staring at that one, memorizing every detail of it. The tilt of Wout’s head. The clench of Wout’s fingers. The give in Wout’s lips. It probably said something about Wout that he didn’t delete all evidence of his ex immediately after they broke up. Mathieu always cleared out his phone within the hour.

Wout did, somewhat tentatively, follow Mathieu back. He didn’t post often. Mathieu tried not to comment or like any of them, afraid of being too visible, but he’d enjoyed seeing these little glimpses of Wout and his life.

Their friendship — or this particular iteration of their friendship — had grown out of one of Wout’s stories. He’d posted a video of his dog begging for scraps by the kitchen table. Mathieu had seen it and sent him a DM, You know he’s playing you, right?, before he remembered that he was trying not to step over the lines that Wout had drawn.

Much to his surprise, Wout hadn’t immediately blocked him. Wout sent back an eye roll emoji and the words, You would think I’ve never fed him before. And after that, they were friends, or some version of internet friends. Wout liked sending Mathieu stupid puns and outdated memes about cycling. Sometimes he complained about his work in insanely complicated technical jargon. After the first month, he even gave helpful advice on how to pick up guys. Mathieu hoarded every message. And then he told Wout about the stupid pranks his teammates were pulling on each other and complained about his meal plan.

Wout did ask about his date (even if it took some prompting), so Mathieu says, I invited him over afterwards. Even though the date itself wasn’t great, Mathieu hadn’t felt like being picky, and well, it didn’t seem like the guy would turn down the offer of sex. Mathieu adds, I had a good time. That’s stretching the truth a bit. He had gotten a serviceable blow job out of it at best. But he wants to push Wout a little, see if he can get a rise out of him.

This response takes a while as well. I hope you were safe, Wout writes.

Mathieu rolls his eyes. He already has an older brother. He doesn’t need another one. Yes, I was, he responds.

He waits a while, staring at his phone, but the dots don’t reappear; somewhat reluctantly, he goes back to the fridge. His dog, Lola, nips at his heels. She’s good at reading his moods, and messaging Wout always puts a bounce in Mathieu’s step even if Wout has decided he wants to be a condescending dick.

Mathieu sneaks Lola a kiss and an extra dog treat before he makes himself a sandwich. He imagines Wout puttering around his own kitchen doing the same. Maybe his hair isn’t gelled up, the way it usually is in his photos, flopping over his forehead, messy and unkempt. Maybe he’s in his boxers and nothing else, bare chested and long legged. Mathieu isn’t proud of it, but he has looked up the distance between his house and Herentals, the city where Wout lives. He could bike there and back without meeting the volume requirements for an easy training day.

When he’s feeling particularly vulnerable, he fantasizes about showing up on Wout’s doorstep, maybe with a gift (flowers?) and Wout being so moved by the romantic gesture that he pulls Mathieu into a passionate kiss and invites Mathieu inside so that they can have extremely enthusiastic sex. It’s not the most realistic of fantasies. Mathieu has decided he doesn’t care.

Eventually, a new message pops up on Mathieu’s phone. Good, Wout says. I’m happy for you.

It isn’t much. It still leaves a smile on Mathieu’s face that lasts for hours.

Mathieu can go out on training rides by himself, but he’s always preferred having company to while away the long hours pedaling and pedaling and pedaling. Thankfully, there’s almost always someone on the team around who also needs to get some on the bike in as well. Today, he’s riding with Jasper. Riding with Jasper is great, because Jasper doesn’t need him to be chatty. Jasper can always fill in the blank spaces in the conversation by himself.

It’s cloudy today, gray light and a cool breeze. The days are getting shorter. The team’s training camp is in a week. They’ll all be off to the mountains of Spain. Then it’s the cyclocross season. This is how Mathieu’s life is broken down: one thing after another. Regimented and controlled and optimized.

They’ve stopped at the side of the nearly empty road for a pee and water break. Their route today is mostly flat, not difficult enough to tax either of them. Mathieu still enjoys being able to stop for a while without the pressures of a bike race to keep them going.

Jasper only pauses the stream of his conversation long enough to chug from his water bottle. “So I was telling her, like, this whole thing is getting blown out of proportion. He was the one who got in my face first, and it’s not like either of us punched each other,” Jasper says. Mathieu has no idea what he’s even talking about at this point. Something about his girlfriend not liking him confronting a heckler at a race somewhere? “You know how girls can get,” Jasper finishes. Then he freezes. If he wasn’t wearing sunglasses, Mathieu could probably see how wide his eyes are. “Well,” Jasper mumbles. “Or guys.”

When Jasper had first joined Alpecin, Mathieu had told him the way he’s gotten used to telling people: a mixture of bravado and intense eye contact, just daring someone to say something or start shit with him. This is his team, after all, and if anyone has an issue with it, they can shut the fuck up or get the fuck out. Most people choose “shut-the-fuck-up,” because a reputation for being difficult can follow you around the peloton like a bad stink. Jasper had taken things in stride, though in that jokey way that straight boys liked to do to cover up their discomfort. (” Well, at least I won’t have to worry about stealing your girl by accident,” he’d said. His smile had been too big, too wide, with a desperate please-like-me edge to it.)

“Are guys like that?”Jasper asks. His forehead is furrowed, like he’s genuinely curious.

Mathieu shrugs. He has no idea what Jasper means. He did go out with a couple girls back before he was ready to admit things to himself, but he had been a teenager at the time. It never lasted longer than one date. They had some kind of sixth sense for his complete disinterest. “I don’t know,” he says. He takes a bite of his energy bar and drinks from his water bottle.

The breeze has picked up a bit. If they keep standing around, it might start to feel cold. After the brutal heat of the Tour de France, it’s a relief. Jasper says, “It’s like, sometimes they say one thing and they mean something completely different.”

Mathieu snorts. “Everybody does that. It’s not just girls.” His second boyfriend had been a little bit like that and so has every executive who has ever tried to sell him something.

“Huh,” Jasper says. “Some of the guys joke about how it’s so much easier for you.”

There was a time when Mathieu would have ignored a statement like that, let it drop because he did not want to know what his teammates had to say about his sex life behind his back. But now, he’s feeling a little bit brave, a little bit curious. He knows– he knows that if this goes badly, he can still talk it over with Wout later, and maybe Wout would even have useful advice. He asks, “Because dating guys is so much easier?”

“Well, yeah. Guys don’t make you go through the same bullshit just to get laid, right?” Jasper waggles his eyebrows. It makes him look like an idiot.

Back before, Mathieu would have agreed with him, made some easy, lighthearted joke about men being simpler to pick up. Not because he necessarily knows enough to say whether or not it’s true, but because it’s easier to just to go along with things, to agree and not make a fuss. Not be one of those gay people who don’t have a sense of humor. “It’s more complicated than that,” Mathieu tells him. “Some guys are. Some guys aren’t.” It’s the most he’s ever said about his love life to one of his teammates before. He knows they gossip. He tries not to fuel their rumor mill.

Jasper chews on his own energy bar, his expression lost in thought. “I guess that makes sense,” he says. Then his face brightens, and Mathieu braces himself for whatever Jasper says next. But Jasper just adds on a, “Is it true that dudes are much better at giving head than girls are? I knew this bi-guy once who insisted it was the stone cold truth.” It’s almost kind of sweet compared to some of the shit Mathieu has heard before.

Mathieu decides he’s had enough, though, and he slides his water bottle back into its cage and tucks the rest of his snack into his jersey pockets. “Let’s go, Jasper,” he says. He knows he’s far too fond of Jasper for his words to have the proper amount of bite to them. He remounts his bike, taking off before Jasper is done sticking his foot in his mouth.

“But like, have you done a comparison?” Jasper asks when he catches up.

Mathieu feels strangely touched by the effort, even if it is awkward as hell and borderline offensive. “No,” he says honestly. He’s never thought about it before either. There have been women who have approached him and made offers, but he’s always found those interactions deeply uncomfortable, and he’s never taken them up on it.

“That’s too bad,” Jasper says. “Like, it would be interesting to know the difference for science or whatever.” Mathieu doesn’t respond to that. The easiest way to get Jasper to drop a topic is to let him ramble himself into a completely different conversational topic.

Sure enough, it only takes Jasper a minute to start complaining about some UCI regulation or another. It’s like every other ride they’ve done together, Jasper’s steady stream of conversation washing over them, and yet, Mathieu feels lighter. He got to be gay - obviously, undeniably gay - around a teammate, and everything is fine. Jasper didn’t freak out. The world didn’t end. Mathieu will count that as a victory.

Alpecin has their training camp. Mathieu spends two weeks in the mountains of Spain with the rest of the team. He does well. His legs are strong. He bonds with his teammates. It’s not really a vacation, but it’s still a nice break from his usual routine. His days have a pleasantly busy structure to them, so much so that he doesn’t miss being glued to social media, just scrolling and scrolling and scrolling from lack of anything else to do.

In fact, he doesn’t think about Wout at all right up until he’s talking to the team about his upcoming cyclocross season.

“I think I could start the season earlier,” Mathieu says. He shifts in his chair. They’re all jammed into Christoph’s hotel room to discuss it: his trainers, assorted team managers, Christoph and Philip. The room is too small for all of them, but they manage to make do.

Mathieu knows that everyone here will back up his decision. They trust his judgment. They know as well as he does that he’s on a reduced cyclocross schedule as it is, and he cut his road season short so he would have more time for recovery. His cyclocross coach already has his tablet out. “The race before Mol is Herentals. That’s a week after the end of camp.” Mathieu has raced Herentals plenty of times. For most of his life, it’s been nothing more than just another Belgian city. It’s Wout’s Belgian city, though. If Mathieu goes… “I want to do it,” he says.

His coach nods. “With the shape you’re in now, it should be an easy enough add for you. We’ll still want to keep an eye on things after camp to make sure everything still looks good, but then we can work with the race organizers and make a public announcement. Give the fans something to be excited about.”

Christoph holds up a hand. He gives Mathieu a concerned, searching look, “You know I won’t stop you, but I just want to make sure that you’re not overdoing it.” Like in 2022, is the unstated, but well-understood, implication. “We can, of course, make changes to your classics schedule after the World Championships, depending on how you feel. We just want what’s best for you.” His forehead is furrowed in fatherly concern.

Mathieu appreciates it, but he knows his body. He knows his legs. This isn’t about Wout. Or, at least, it’s mostly not about Wout. He didn’t even know Herentals would be the race added when he proposed the idea. “I’m sure,” he says.

“Good,” Philip says, stepping in. “Then that’s settled. I’m sure the Herentals organizers will be thrilled to hear the good news.” The starting money won’t hurt, either.

After that, everyone snaps into action. There are people to contact, schedules to arrange, statements to prepare. This sort of thing has been part of Mathieu’s life for almost as long as he can remember. Everyone in his life works towards one goal: optimize his value as their asset.

He wonders, for the first time, what a meeting like this would be like if he wasn’t simply adding a new race to his schedule. If he told them he wanted to come out publicly. He knows there are contingency plans for if he got outed by someone else, but everyone has assumed he’d want to stay in the closet until retirement if not for the rest of his life. Mathieu had assumed that he would want that to be the case, too, right up until he ran into Wout in a darkened club in New York City.

Mathieu goes back to his own room and sits on his messy, unmade bed. He thinks of pulling out his phone, sending a message to Wout, letting Wout know he’ll be in town. He decides against it. It’s not official yet. If something happens, if Mathieu has to cancel, then Mathieu has been getting his hopes up for nothing.

Jasper, his roommate, is off somewhere else. Maybe hanging out with some of the other guys out on the hotel patio. He breathes in the silence while he still has it, listening to the quiet background whir of the overhead fan.

If he were another guy on his team, he could use this momentary reprieve to call his wife or girlfriend, someone who would be waiting for him to come home. For a while there, he had told himself it was fine. He liked the freedom of being single and unattached. Maybe it was even true at the time. He feels the distance between who he was then and who he is now, and in the emptiness of this hotel room, he can admit to himself that he feels uncomfortably aware that he’s alone.

Mathieu’s resolve not to bring up his change of schedule to Wout lasts all the way through the end of camp. Wout posts a few dog pictures and even a short video of him lifting his dog into his lap with one large hand, but he knows Mathieu’s at camp and doesn’t message him anything in particular. Still, Mathieu feels so homesick at seeing them, he begs his pet sitter to send him at least another ten photos of Lola, which she thankfully obliges.

When he gets home, he has a short call with the team’s PR person to finalize the messaging around his season. Normally, he would just do this by email, but he has some questions that he wants to ask her that aren’t officially on the agenda.

“So,” she says. “We’ve got everything settled from our end. Is there anything else you’d like to cover?” Her name is Melanie. Mathieu has known her since he was twenty-two. He came out to her when he was twenty-three, nervous and sweaty-palmed. She hadn’t even blinked, just asked him if he wanted to put out a statement about it. When his answer was an unequivocal “no,” she jotted it down in her notebook and carried on without making a big deal out of it.

Mathieu takes a deep breath. “I know the team has a contingency plan for if I get outed,” he says. She’s made references to it over the years, just small, offhand comments here and there. “Is there one for if I want to come out voluntarily?”

Melanie blinks, just once, but the rest of her face remains calm and professional. “Not yet,” she says. “Is that something I should put together?” Mathieu fiddles with the band around his wrist. Lola noses at his knee, like she can sense his agitation. “I’m not sure. Maybe?” He bites at his bottom lip. “And could you not tell Philip or Christoph? At least not until I’m ready to tell them.”

“You know they’re the ones who sign my paychecks, right?” she says, but she also smiles, and he knows she won’t say anything until he gives the okay.

“Thank you,” Mathieu says, feeling almost sick with relief.

The video from her webcam isn’t the best. Mathieu still thinks he sees her eyes soften. “Hey, just so you know, whatever you decide, I’ve got your back.” Mathieu nods. His throat feels tight. He’s not sure he can get out any words.

Thankfully, Melanie doesn’t seem to expect a coherent response from him. “I’ll talk to you later,” she says, signing off.

Mathieu sits there for a moment longer. He pets Lola’s soft head with one hand and tries to get his heart rate under control. He remembers the abject terror of his early years, after he realized. He’d been scared all the time, convinced that everyone could just look at him and know. Wout had, after all. The cycling world that had been his home for the entirety of his life had suddenly turned into a minefield. Did he look at the other guys too much? Not enough? Was his voice going to change, take on a fey lilt and give himself away? Some of those early fears have abated, but the anxiety of being found out and exposed has always lingered.

He knows, on some level, what the consequences of being out would be. Everyone would look at him differently. The insults would become more pointed. Every article, every headline about him would come with an asterisk. There would be a new question to expect every interview. The real question is: would it be any worse than the constant worry, the way he’s always looking behind his back, waiting? But he only gets one chance to decide, and once he does, there’s no going back.

He shuts his computer. He doesn’t want to think about this anymore, and he doesn’t have the time for it anyway. He has a race to prepare for.

Mathieu knew, of course, that Wout still rides his bike. He posts pictures of him and his friends out on coffee rides together, helmeted up and kitted out. Mathieu also knew that Wout competed in amateur cyclocross races. Wout told him back in New York and he messages Mathieu about it from time to time, mostly to complain about bunny hops. So it shouldn’t be a surprise for him to open up Instagram and see that Wout has posted a photograph of himself after a race.

On most levels, it’s a boring picture. There’s no interesting angles or lenses or even a filter applied. Wout has his arms thrown around two of his friends. His smile is bright and blinding, all white, shining teeth. That’s normal enough. What’s less normal is the fact that Wout is covered head-to-toe in mud. Maybe his kit was blue at some point, but now it’s more brown than anything else.

The mud is streaked along his bare arms, his bare shins. It’s caked onto his bib shorts and splattered on his face. Mathieu has seen Wout covered in mud before - must have, considering how many times they’ve raced each other — but something about seeing this version of him feels different. It’s a reminder that even after all this time, even after everything that’s changed, Wout is still a ’crosser. He’s still that boy who chased after Mathieu through muddy fields for both of their entire childhoods, Mathieu wants, with a sudden, vicious longing, to go see one of Wout’s races. He could try to hide himself in the sparse crowd and cheer Wout on as he fights his way through the pack, finds the best lines through the mud and sand and dirt, and winds his way around tricky corners. In all likelihood, the speed and quality of competition would be far below what he’s used to, nothing anyone would pay to see. Mathieu wants to see it anyway.

Almost as much, he wants Wout to attend one of his own races. He wants to know that Wout is out in the crowd, watching Mathieu slaughter the competition. He wants to know he has the weight of Wout’s full attention on him. He wants their worlds to converge again, if only for a little while.

You should come to the Herentals cross, Mathieu sends him. I can get you tickets if you need them. He distracts himself by flipping through Netflix, looking for something new to binge watch. He’s halfway through the first episode of Squid Game when he gets a response.

Wout writes back, I already have tickets.

Mathieu’s heartrate jumps up at the sight of it.

I go every year, Wout continues. Does this mean you’re starting early? In his excitement, Mathieu had forgotten that his attendance hadn’t been announced officially yet.

It’s not a big deal. If Wout was inclined to leak information about Mathieu to the public or the press, they’d be having a very different conversation right now. Mathieu types out, You know my schedule. He hadn’t known Wout kept those types of tabs on him, and the revelation spreads a giddy warmth through his limbs.

Everyone who follows CX knows your schedule.

Mathieu could respond to that, but he’s more interested in the other tidbit Wout had dropped. You go every year? Mathieu doesn’t always do Herentals, but he’s done it enough times that he feels — betrayed, maybe — by the fact that he could have ran into Wout earlier, by the knowledge that it had taken so long for their paths to cross.

Was mostly excited to see Fem and Lucinda. Wout types, unhelpfully. Then he adds, They’re prettier than you.

Mathieu could take that as an insult, but mostly, he’s pleased to know that Wout thinks he’s pretty. Aren’t you gay? he asks. He’s not sure if Wout means to be flirty. He likes it.

Gay. Not blind.

That particular message provokes a laugh from Mathieu. He wishes Wout was here, joking and laughing with him. He wishes they could get back that closeness, that intimacy that they’d developed when it was just the two of them, alone in a foreign country. He hates that now all their interactions are mediated through a phone screen. Can I see you? Mathieu asks, then adds, At Herentals. It’s the first time he’s broached the subject of meeting in person.

The dots appear again, pulsing and pulsing.

When Wout’s answer shows up, it reads, I’m not sure. You’ll be busy. This must be how Mathieu’s competitors feel, chasing and chasing, and despite all their efforts, their target just gets further and further away.

He doesn’t want to scare Wout off, but he doesn’t want to pass up this opportunity, either. Just to say hi? Mathieu replies, and he’s grateful that it probably sounds less whiny in text.

Wout doesn’t respond for another minute, long enough for Mathieu to be convinced that Wout is going to leave him on read. But then a message does pop up. OK.

The morning of Herentals comes in cloudy and gray, but there’s a hint of sunlight peeking through. Mathieu’s first race of the season always comes with a wave of nostalgia. The afternoons from the sidelines, cheering on his father, mixed into the rowdy crowds. Then his own races, slogging over sand and through mud. Packs of boys, then men, chasing each other in circles for an hour. Mathieu has been enjoying the road and his successes there, but the fields of cyclocross still feel like home.

There’s already a sizable group of fans waiting for him when he gets to the course. They crowd around the team bus with craned heads and wide eyes. Their phones are out, snapping pictures. Maybe he shouldn’t like it so much, but he enjoys the adulation. He doesn’t feel the need to court it with antics the way Tadej does. He still enjoys it all the same.

He does a quick pass of autographs and selfies, always keeping a lookout for Wout out of the corner of his eye. No sign of him yet. It’s still early. Wout is probably among the spectators surrounding the course, and they’re just a blur of coats and scarves and hats. Mathieu has to go through his pre-race checklist anyway: affixing his number to his jersey, pulling on his kit, sliding on his shoes. He’ll have time to hold Wout to his promises later.

Mathieu goes through his routine as usual. He doesn’t even check his phone once. He’s sure he doesn’t do anything differently than normal, but his father still fixes him with a scrutinizing gaze as Mathieu pedals away on his trainer.

“You’re distracted today,” his father says bluntly.

Mathieu shakes his head. He’s used to being the center of his father’s attention. He’s even used to the steady stream of criticisms and corrections. What he’s not used to is having secrets from his father, and well, Mathieu has been keeping this thing with Wout to himself. “It’s just the first race. Nerves,” he says.

His father’s eyebrows raise. “You don’t usually get nervous before the first race. These races are just warm up for the championships. And you said your condition was good coming out of training camp. Your back isn’t bothering you.”

Mathieu shrugs his shoulders. “You know how it is. A mechanical or a crash. Anything can happen,” Mathieu deflects. He knows his own strength. He doesn’t believe in playing at false humility. It’s still the truth. A badly timed slipped chain or crash could be as bad as missing the podium.

“And then you’ll recover.” His father gives him a pat on the shoulder. “You always do.”

Mathieu can’t tell him the real reason he’s nervous, of course. That Wout will be out in the crowd, watching, and Mathieu wants to impress him. He bites at his bottom lip. He came out to his father when he was nineteen. He hadn’t planned it out, hadn’t managed to find the perfect time and place to say something. His father had been delivering one of his usual lectures about how it would be good for Mathieu to get a girlfriend, someone nice and stable. Maybe he was too young to be seriously thinking about marriage yet, but that would be an important consideration down the line, especially when it came to the children. His mother would be expecting grandchildren eventually, of course. He could wait until the end of his career if he was worried.

Mathieu blurted it out before he could think it through, just a simple, “Dad, I’m gay.” His father had gone silent all at once. His body, usually in motion while he was giving one of his lectures, had gone still. Mathieu remembers the terror that had gripped him, his sudden certainty that this would be it, this would be the moment his father would stop loving him.

His father blinked. “Are you sure?”he asked.

Mathieu nodded. His throat stung. “I’m sure,” he said. He’d known. on some level, for years. He just hadn’t been ready to admit it to himself.

His father looked at him. His lips were pursed. His eyes were sharp and a little cold. Mathieu had managed to earn his father’s respect by being strong, by winning, and now all of that was going out the window. But then his father had nodded and said, in a low, gruff voice, “Okay.” He gave Mathieu a stiff, one-armed hug, and added, “This changes nothing. You’re still my son.”

Mathieu maybe cried a bit after that, and his father was stiff and awkward around him for a while, but then they’d found a new equilibrium. Mathieu only introduced one of his boyfriends, the first one, to his parents. He had been worried sick about that for weeks. He had no idea how they would react when they were confronted with concrete evidence that Mathieu was attracted to men, that he dated them. In the end, it had been fine. They had a pleasant if also very stiff dinner. His mother made some half-hearted attempts at conversation about his boyfriend’s hobbies. His father talked a bunch about cycling. His boyfriend at the time had tried to smile through it, even though it was obvious that he was uncomfortable around them. Mathieu had broken up with that guy two weeks later for unrelated reasons, and none of his other boyfriends lasted long enough to reach the “meet the parents” stage.

Sometimes, Mathieu wonders if his father prefers it this way, with Mathieu’s preferences carefully hidden away where his father didn’t have to see them.

He doesn’t like following that train of thought, so instead, he says, “Do you remember Wout? Wout van Aert?” His father did always seem to have an encyclopedic memory for Mathieu’s competitors, even the ones Mathieu has already forgotten.

His father’s brow furrows. “He was one of the boys you used to race against when you were children, wasn’t he? Podiumed on one of your Junior World Championships? I think he was a little small but had some potential. Shame he didn’t continue on. Why do you ask?”

Mathieu says, “I ran into him recently.” He pauses, considering his next words. “He said he would be here today.” Maybe that’s a neutral enough statement, and his father won’t be surprised when Wout shows up at the bus, looking for Mathieu.

What his father says next surprises him. “Are you dating him?” his father asks.

Mathieu ducks his head, avoiding his father’s eyes. “No.”

His father lets out a thoughtful hum. “But you’d like to be?” he asks.

Without intending to, Mathieu looks up, startled. His father has a wry, knowing look on his face. “You’re my son. I’ve known you your entire life. I know I haven’t always been the most– the most welcoming of parents about this sort of thing, and I’ve tried to stay out of your love life, but I know that moony-eyed expression you’ve been carrying around for the past few weeks.” Mathieu winces. He was so sure he had been managing some subtlety around this. Maybe he wasn’t as sneaky as he thought.

“It might not be anything,” he says.

His father says, “It’s no business of mine as long as you stay focused. You’re in the prime of your career. You need to take advantage of that while you still have it.” This part of the speech is familiar enough. They’re back to their usual patterns.

Mathieu breathes a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Dad.”

Another pat on the shoulder, gentler this time. “Eh, I know you might be distracted anyway. I know what it was like when your mother was around.”

“Gross,” Mathieu says, making a face, and his father laughs.

The race itself is easy. Mathieu stays with the pack for the first lap before pulling ahead, going clear on the steepest hill on the course and maintaining his lead for the rest of the race. There is one minor hiccup when he thinks he sees Wout out of the corner of his eye and loses focus just long enough for his front tire to skid out, and he goes crashing to the ground.

He recovers quickly and clears the finish line with half a minute to spare. Then he has to hang around what counts as backstage after a race after that, mopping off the worst of the dirt, getting ready for the podium. He tries to see if he can find Wout in the crowd as he goes through all the pomp and circumstance.

The crowd remains, somewhat stubbornly, a sea of indistinguishable faces and winter hats. Mathieu refuses to let himself be disappointed. The day isn’t over yet. Wout said he’d say hello. He gets handed a large, plush duck while on the top step. He has no idea if he has somewhere to put it in his house. Maybe he can donate it somewhere.

Getting back from the podium to the team bus is also an ordeal. It seems like everyone wants to tell him an inspiring story or got him to write a paragraph with their autograph or take a million different selfies with him. He does his best to smile through it, but he just feels tired and antsy, and besides from that one (maybe illusory) glimpse earlier, he hasn’t seen any sign of Wout.

Next to the team bus, there’s a tent for the mechanics and swannies, a row of Mathieu’s bikes lined up. They’re already in the process of cleaning the bikes and loading them into their van, the familiar sights and sounds of the team’s machinery at work. Mathieu’s father is already here, mingling among the team’s staff, which isn’t a surprise. Wout is standing beside him, allowed in behind the barriers used to keep fans out, which is.

“I see my son has decided to grace us with his presence,” his father says with a wry grin on his face. “I’ll leave the two of you to it.”

Wout smiles back at him, wide enough to show off the smile lines on his face. “It was good to see you again,” he says with genuine warmth. He’s wearing a dark jacket and a dark beanie that covers up his distinctive hair. He could easily be mistaken for any other spectator here, but Mathieu would know that smile anywhere.

“Hey,” Mathieu says to Wout. He’s also smiling now, wide enough that he probably looks a little bit goofy. He can’t find it in himself to care.

“Hey,” Wout says back. His smile softens, but it doesn’t fade.

Mathieu leads them behind the bus, which is where he usually goes when he doesn’t want attention. He’s not sure why he feels the need to hide Wout away — if anyone did photograph them together, it would be easy enough to explain away. Just old friends and former competitors catching up.

“So, what were you and my dad chatting about?” Mathieu asks. That seems like a safe enough topic to start with. It’s either that or talking about their dogs.

“He was mostly asking how my parents are doing these days.” Wout lets out a small laugh as he says it. “They used to chat all the time back when we were in juniors, apparently.”

Mathieu tries to draw up a memory of Wout’s parents, but he can’t. “I didn’t know that,” he says.

“I didn’t either.” Wout shakes his head. his hands into his pockets. He doesn’t look out of place here, next to the team bus, but for the last few months, he’s only existed for Mathieu as a too-vivid memory of a foreign city and a collection of pixels on a phone screen. Now he’s here, in the flesh. Mathieu suppresses the urge to poke Wout in the arm, just to confirm his physical presence.

“I’m glad you showed up,” Mathieu says. “I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to find you, with, you know.” He gestures towards everything else. The support staff. The fans.

Wout’s smile turns wry. “Yeah, it was easy enough to figure out where you’d end up eventually.” He bites at his bottom lip before continuing. “You looked great out there. Really strong.”

Mathieu doesn’t need to hear it from Wout. The race results speak for themselves. He still preens from the compliment. He wanted Wout to watch him, to admire him, and Wout did. It feels as amazing as he thought it would. “Thank you,” he says.

They stare at each other, neither of them sure what to say. It’s not quiet, not in the least. The sounds of the crowd, the other buses, the mechanics chatting as they pack up their gear. Mathieu studies the angles of Wout’s face. Though the sunlight is weak, there’s a starkness to it, something that gives Wout a vivid, realer-than-life coloring. Mathieu wants this reality of Wout, the three-dimensional reality of him that no lens can fully capture. Wout stares back. Mathieu has no idea what to make of his expression.

Then Wout clears his throat. “Well, I’ve said ‘hi.’ I’m sure you’re tired and want to go home. Congratulations on the win,” he says. He takes a step back, making his way to leave.

“Wait.” Mathieu reaches out and grabs hold of Wout’s arm. His bare palm gets nothing but the plasticky shell of Wout’s jacket, but it’s the closest thing they’ve done to touching today.

Wout stops, turns back towards him. His dark eyes are careful and expectant. The words die in Mathieu’s throat.

The corner of Wout’s mouth quirks upwards. “It was good to see you again. In person. I really should get–”

Mathieu interrupts him before he can try to make his escape again. “Wout, I– it’s been months, but I want– you should know that nothing has changed for me. I still– I still want that with you.”

Wout tenses up underneath Mathieu’s hand. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I thought we agreed this was a bad idea.”

“You decided it was a bad idea,” Mathieu counters. “You were convinced I would forget all about you when I came back home, and I didn’t.” He steps in close, close enough to breathe in Wout’s scent again. He doesn’t quite smell like he did in New York. Mathieu doesn’t know if that’s because Wout’s not wearing the same cologne or if his memories have become warped over time. Maybe both.

With this newfound proximity, Mathieu can see the way Wout’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. He wants to sink his teeth into it. Wout says, “What we have is good, isn’t it? We’re friends. We can keep being friends.”

“I don’t want to just be your friend. I don’t think I’m ever going to stop wanting more than that.” He reaches up to cup Wout’s cheek, to feel the slightest prickle of Wout’s five o’clock shadow against his fingers.

Wout sucks in a harsh breath, but he doesn’t pull away. He blinks his eyes open, staring right at, right through Mathieu. “Nothing’s changed, though. I’m not interested in going back into the closet. Not for you, not for anyone.”

Mathieu wants to protest that everything has changed for him, but it sounds pathetic, even in his own head. What has he done, really? Talked to a few people who already know. Considered the possibility of coming out more seriously than he has before. Pitiful half-measures in the face of the difficult decisions Wout made. “I could still–”

Wout shakes his head. “Don’t.” The word comes out sharp enough to cut.

Mathieu winces to hear it.

He watches as Wout sighs. Wout’s shoulders sag. His voice shifts into something softer and gentler. “Hey, you’re getting out there. You’re dating. There are plenty of other guys out there who wouldn’t mind sneaking around a bit if they got to date Mathieu van der Poel.” He tries to smile, but it’s a pale, pained shadow of the real thing.

“None of them are you,” Mathieu says. Maybe that’s– maybe that’s too much honesty. Mathieu can’t help it, though. Wout is right here. Mathieu is touching him. He can’t imagine wanting anyone else half as much.

He presses a kiss to Wout’s cheek so he can feel that stubble against his lips. When Wout doesn’t pull away, he drifts over to the corner of Wout’s mouth. Then he slots their lips together. Mathieu has spent so much time fantasizing about the perfect, plush bow of Wout’s lips, kissing the real thing makes his head spin.

Wout doesn’t quite kiss back, but he doesn’t resist either. Mathieu figures that if this is the last and only chance he has to experience this, he may as well savor it. He stays there, kissing Wout for as long as he can until Wout puts two hands on his shoulders and gently separates them.

“Look,” Wout says in a patient tone of voice. “I know you’re still getting used to having a gay friend for the first time in your life, and that you’re figuring things out that a lot of other guys deal with much earlier, but when you find someone else, you’ll realize that’s all this is. It’s not–”

“Don’t tell me how I feel,” Mathieu snarls. Maybe he is an idiot, peeling himself open for Wout to turn him down again and again, but he’s not some baby gay virgin who’s never dated or fucked a guy before. He knows this is real.

Wout blinks at him. Another breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He sounds like he means it.

“Tell me this,” Mathieu says. His voice is starting to crack with emotion. “If I were just some guy you met. Someone normal. Someone who was out. Would you date me?”

He can’t make that happen. He can’t rewrite the whole trajectory of their lives, but he needs to know Wout’s answer. If this is just Wout’s way of turning Mathieu down gently, then they need to get that out in the open so that Mathieu can go back to licking his wounds and move on. But if there’s a chance, no matter how slim, that somewhere down the line–

Wout’s brow furrows in confusion. “Yes,” he says, simply, like it’s an obvious matter of fact. “But you’re not.”

Mathieu takes a step back. If he stays too close, he’ll probably try to kiss Wout again, and he’s had his heart stomped over enough times today. “So where does this leave us?” Mathieu asks.

Wout sighs. “I don’t know,” he says. For the entire length of their reconnection, Mathieu has let Wout take the lead, set the pace. It feels like a surprise to learn that Wout doesn’t know what he’s doing here any more than Mathieu does. “This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have-”

“Don’t say that,” Mathieu bites out. He wants to get ahead of all this before Wout says something really stupid, like how he regrets ever meeting Mathieu in the first place.

Wout, thankfully, shuts his mouth. His teeth click together as he does so.

Mathieu says, “Even if– even if I fucking hate you a little bit right now, I don’t regret any of it. My life is better with you in it.” He stares Wout directly in the eye, daring him to voice a contradiction.

Wout doesn’t. Instead, he lets out a sigh. He rubs at his forehead and says, “I’m sorry.”

Mathieu swallows around the lump in his throat, but he doesn’t look away. “I’m not,” he says

Wout doesn’t stick around for much longer after that, but he does say goodbye to Mathieu’s father with a promise to tell his parents that he was asking after them. Mathieu has no idea how Wout charmed Mathieu’s father in less than half an hour when Mathieu has been trying to do that for most of his life with only mixed success.

Mathieu sticks to only a perfunctory goodbye to Wout before escaping back to the safety of his car. As much as he wants to stay close to Wout for as much time as possible, he also knows that it would hurt to have Wout physically present and resist touching him.

Even though he tries not to, his mind drifts back to the taste of Wout’s lips. He’d been wearing unflavored chapstick to protect against the dry, winter air. There had been a hint of potatoes and grease in this breath from the Belgian fries that they sell at concession.

Mathieu closes his eyes and tries to commit every moment of it to memory, etching it so deeply it won’t ever fade. The memories of New York City have taken on a hazy, unreal quality. Bits and pieces of it have slipped away, like a dream upon waking. If this is the most of Wout he’ll ever have, he wants to preserve it, fix it in amber.

He goes home and takes a shower. One of the best parts of the cyclocross season is being close to his own house, with his own bed and his own shower. He already scraped off the worst of the dirt. He does another pass to make sure he got the rest of it.

When he gets out, he has a message from Wout. I meant what I said about being friends. I like being your friend. I want to keep doing it

Mathieu lets out a snort. His heart still feels tender and sore, like it’s sporting a fresh bruise. But he’d wondered if Wout would ghost him after everything that happened today. He’s relieved to see that Wout has’t. Maybe it’s not everything he wants. It’s still better than nothing. I like being your friend, too, he replies, and it’s even the truth.

Chapter 2

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

Even by his usual standards, Mathieu has a monster cyclocross season. No one can touch him. Most of the races go the same way. He works his way through the pack over the first couple of laps. Maybe he’ll wait a bit longer depending on his mood, but when he goes off the front, that’s usually race over. No one else can touch him.

To be honest, he’s been thinking of focusing more on mountain biking in the coming years. When he first started racing, he loved the cyclocross crowds. He liked the roar of their cheers, their passionate shouting. Road racing had some of that, but it wasn’t the same.

He’s not sure he likes them anymore. Cyclocross fans would never be called the nicest or the friendliest bunch, but since COVID hit, they’ve gotten meaner. In past seasons, his back injury slowed him down a bit, and the rest of the field was closer. Now, his win streak has marked him as a target for rage as well as adulation. There’s plenty of cheering still, fans who love him and are excited to see him race. Mixed into that are the jeers and curses.

Sometimes, they throw things in an attempt to slow him down.

It’s all just exhausting and annoying and infuriating, and his friendship with Wout taking a few steps back doesn’t help. They still message each other, but Wout keeps things light, just pictures of his dog and simple congratulations after a race. Mathieu thinks about telling Wout about his frustrations with cyclocross. Wout’s been there. He’s seen how it is. The spectators were nicer in their junior days, and the elite races bring with them a particular extra frisson of malignant energy, but he thinks Wout would understand. It just feels like Mathieu should talk it over with Christoph and Philip, maybe even his father, first. They’re the ones with an investment and input into Mathieu’s career. Wout’s just some guy he knows.

Still, it brings a smile to Mathieu’s face every time he gets a new message from Wout. It’s just a tiny reminder that, even with the new distances between them, Wout is still thinking of him, and it gives Mathieu the time and the space to think about him in return.

Hulst starts out as a race like any other race. Maybe there’s a bit of extra buzz in the air, since it’s a World Cup race, and it’s the first race Mathieu has in the Netherlands all season. He isn’t interested in the World Cup standings. He’s not doing enough races to contest it, and the full timers are busy waging their own war without him. The sky has a cloudy gray cast, but it’s not as cold as it should be in the depths of winter. It’s also the last race of the year, his third in three days, and his fourth in the weird, hazy space between Christmas and New Year’s, when the cyclocross season is at a fever pitch.

He’s won the last six races, an almost unprecedented achievement, even for him, but the back-to-back-to-back racing is a drain, and not just on his body. The racing was great. The time on his bike felt as good as it ever did. Everything else, on the other hand — from the fans to the haters to the press — feels like a drain on his time and his energy and his attention. He’s already looking forward to the few weeks between Zonhoven and Benidorm, when he can just spend some time in Spain training away from the crowds.

Mathieu notices them during warmup and during recon. There’s a particularly loud, vicious group of hecklers just past the pits. He tries to handle it the way he usually handles it, by keeping focused on the race ahead of him. They’re loud, and they’re mean, but they’re not very creative. It’s a lot of “fuck you”s and “you fucking suck”s and once, a bad attempt to insult Mathieu’s mother. Mathieu has never quite managed to tune out the insults. He’s gotten better at handling the wall of noise over the course of his career — the COVID years without crowds were deeply unsettling to ride. But somehow, his ears are just better at picking up the negative comments. They get lodged in his brain.

The hecklers are still at it when the race starts. During the first lap, he’s still caught up in the bunch, and he’s too busy trying to gain positions to catch anything they say. Second lap, they start trying terrible puns on Mathieu’s name, most of which are variations on the word ‘pole.’ It would almost be funny if it weren’t so annoying. By the third lap, Mathieu has pulled ahead of the pack and is riding his own race at his own speed. One of the hecklers throws a half-full beer cup at Mathieu. Maybe it’s meant for Mathieu’s head, but it doesn’t even make it halfway to Mathieu’s wheel. Mathieu is more insulted by the waste of perfectly shitty beer than the attempt to slow him down.

It’s the fourth lap when things start getting really ugly. Mathieu figures he’s heard the worst of it, but as he goes by he hears it, loud and clear above the surrounding noise of the crowd: “Faggot!”

He doesn’t mean to react. He wants to ignore it, pretend he never heard it. He wants to keep going. ride his own race, win in a dominant fashion and shove the victory into their stupid faces at the end of it. What he does instead is jerk his head in startled surprise. It’s a mistake. He knows it’s a mistake. He doesn’t fall or crash or lose time, but it’s a mistake all the same.

When he was younger, Mathieu won almost every race he competed in. For the most part, it was great. Mathieu loved riding his bike. Mathieu loved winning. Mathieu loved being able to combine those two things.

On the other hand, he didn’t enjoy how some of the older boys, resentful of the drubbing Mathieu gave them time and time again, liked to pick on him before and after the races. They’d make fun of Mathieu’s hair, Mathieu’s accent, and Mathieu’s face — which at the time, had been covered in acne. In hindsight, Mathieu can see that they were just intimidated and scared and upset that Mathieu was so much better. They wanted to assert their superiority over him in other ways. As a kid, it was terrible. Every time they approached, Mathieu’s face would burn, and his stomach would sink. His parents said he should ignore them, that they’d stop on their own if they didn’t get a reaction. That didn’t work. Even with his head down, eyes straight ahead, they would follow him where he went and yell out insults if there weren’t any adults in earshot to tell them off.

What he did learn, however, was to never show a reaction to what they were saying, because as soon as they saw a wince or a flinch, they would pick at it, double down and get more vicious.

The bullying only stopped when Mathieu moved up into the more prestigious boy’s divisions and they failed to make the cut. In some ways, that’s the most important lesson he’s learned: be so good no one can touch you. If you’re the best in the world, it doesn’t matter what anyone says.

Fifth lap. This time, they know how to get a rise out of him. The “faggot”s are joined by some “cocksucker”s. Mathieu grimaces, but he keeps pushing.

Sixth. Mathieu is well clear of the group and has started lapping some of the stragglers. The hecklers have sensed blood, and they’re yelling even louder. They’ve started throwing more things. Mathieu only catches snippets of words in the rest of the din, but he hears one particular phrase loud and clear: “Someone should have bashed your face in already, you fucking homo.” His chest burns with rage for the rest of that lap, thinking of it, this group of assholes finding some innocent gay man and beating the crap out of them because they’re pathetic losers who probably can’t even look at themselves in the mirror when they wake up in the morning. He uses it to fuel his legs, pedaling and pedaling and pedaling. He knows they’re talking shit. They don’t know anything about him. They’re just drunk and mean and angry.

When he heard about the bullying, David’s suggestion was to fight back.

On the seventh lap, Mathieu takes a line close to the barricades. It’s not a difficult section. Straight. Not a lot of mud. No technical features. He can see the hecklers gearing up to yell something else. One of them launches a jar at him. It glances off his shoulder. As he rides by, Mathieu turns his head to the side and spits right at them. He thinks he sees it catch one of them in the cheek just as the asshole opens his mouth to call Mathieu a faggot again.

Mathieu wins the race convincingly. No one else comes close. During the first post-race interview, a reporter asks him about the spitting incident. It wasn’t aired on the broadcast, but with the number of cameras pointed at Mathieu at all times, someone got a clear shot.

“What did they say to you?” the interviewer asks as a follow up.

Mathieu keeps a hard, tight-lipped smile. “I’m not going to repeat it. You’ll have to ask them.” He knows they’re just fishing for an interesting story, and his domination this year isn’t particularly interesting.

He gets hustled through warm down, through the podium ceremony. His father gives him a half-hearted lecture about decorum and public perception. It’s not very convincing, since there’s the faintest hint of an approving smile at the corners of his lips.

Mathieu goes home. He takes phone calls from Philip and Melanie, assurances that the team will have his back, especially if the expected UCI fine gets issued. He has supportive texts from friends and teammates. He responds to almost all of them with simple thanks. If he’s feeling particularly whimsical, he uses a sticker.

When all of the logistics are handled, he goes and finds a corner of his bedroom and sits in it, folding himself into the smallest ball he can make of himself, Lola comes by and tucks herself up against his side. He’s exhausted. The adrenaline of the race has faded, but the anger and the hurt and the shame still linger. He’s not sorry he did it. He’s not even sorry that this will blow up into a big thing, because everyone hates that he’s been winning and will keep winning. He still feels like shit.

His phone beeps with a notification he got a new message. He fishes it out of his pocket so he can put it on mute. Maybe it’s not the best instinct, but he just wants to push the world away for a while so that he can wallow in peace.

As he unlocks his screen, he sees one of the messages is from Wout. Are you okay? Wout asks.

Mathieu takes a deep breath. He’s spent the last few months wishing Wout was here with him. He wants Wout here with him now more than ever, even if he feels, and probably looks, pathetic. No, Mathieu sends back.

I’m guessing I have some idea of what they said to you.

Probably. Mathieu sighs. The shouts are still ringing in his ears. They’re not special, not unique. He wants to be the kind of person who lets the hate slide off his back, who can face all this shit without emotion. But he’s not. No matter how many times he hears them, they still sting.

I’m sorry. Wout doesn’t follow it up with any of the platitudes Mathieu has heard before, mostly from well-meaning Americans — it gets better; the best revenge is living well, That sucks.

Mathieu’s only explanation for what he types next is that he’s too tired to be careful and distant. I’m glad I don’t have to explain it to you. Thank you for being my friend, he sends. Wout could have blocked him and walked away from Mathieu’s shit months ago. But he’s still here.

Wout’s response to that comes back quicker than Mathieu expected. I do understand. I heard a lot of shit when I was still riding. Then another message pops up, following that one. I’m here for you.

A lump forms in Mathieu’s throat. He feels sick with the relief and gratitude. He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he sends Wout a single thumbs up emoji.

He thinks Wout understands what he meant when he gets a thumbs up in return.

Mathieu puts his phone on mute, closes his eyes, and lets himself drift. He knows he has Wout on the other end of the line, keeping him tethered to Earth.

As a rule, Mathieu doesn’t read his own press. He avoids seeing what people say about him on social media, good or bad. It gets into his head, makes him obsessed for days and weeks on end. He doesn’t like the person he becomes. It’s better just to avoid it all entirely.

This time, it’s a little more difficult to avoid. He gets regular updates from Melanie on what the current narrative is. His father gives interviews about it. As much as he’s keeping his head down, the details somehow always manage to filter through. Some people insist that he’s a disgrace to the sport. Some people are asking him to spit on them. At no point does Mathieu regret anything that he did, but the fallout sucks all the same.

He knows wading into the discussions will just make things worse. The more he tries to defend himself, the longer this discussion will drag out.

This is what it’s like to be in the middle of a media firestorm, all eyes on him and everything he does. There’s only a couple days before the next race, but in the depth of the holiday season, everyone is looking for a distraction. Yes, there are people talking about the behavior of the hecklers. How they shouldn’t have been throwing cups and hunting abuse.

There aren’t enough. Mathieu is angry. The more he thinks about it, he just gets angrier.

As timing would have it, he decides to do it on New Year’s Eve.

He had an early dinner with his family to celebrate, his parents and David and David’s current girlfriend. It was pleasant and nice. Comfortable. But with a race tomorrow, Mathieu’s home early, just him and Lola.

He ends up reading another argument about how he’s the public figure, the one wearing rainbows. He should be the one who is above all of this. But these assholes weren’t there. They don’t shred their body day after day for the entertainment of drunk assholes. They don’t know the weight of hiding, of being careful, weighing every word, every interaction. They don’t know what it feels like to do all of that and still get showered in homophobic abuse anyway. He has another race tomorrow. He feels certain that this whole thing will blow over if (when) he wins it. But does he actually want it to blow over? No one knows all the awful shit they said. No one knows how he felt when he heard it.

For a whole decade, he’d been thinking that staying in the closet made him safe. And maybe, in a lot of ways, it had. But it hadn’t protected him in Hulst. He was just as vulnerable, just as easy to hurt, as if he had been out. Maybe even more so, because now he can’t defend himself in the court of public opinion.

Mathieu distracts himself by switching over to his Instagram. He’s not quite jealous of all the New Year’s partying. He’s looking forward to being on a bike again. But he does get the tiniest bit of FOMO, seeing all the posts and stories go by on social media.

Wout posted a blurry, badly-lit clip of a drag show to his story. He’s out with his friends, most likely. Mathieu thinks about some stranger there kissing him at midnight, and his chest burns.

Wout can do that. Wout made a life for himself where he can kiss another man at midnight, and no one will question it. Mathieu grits his teeth in jealousy, and he doesn’t know if it’s more because of this nameless, faceless man or over Wout himself. Maybe both.

That’s probably the moment he makes a decision, but it doesn’t even feel like a decision at all. It feels like something he needs to do.

He flips his phone over to camera mode. The lighting in his living room isn’t the most flattering. His hair, the other thing people seem uncommonly obsessed with, isn’t sticking out in any weird angles. He wonders, for a moment, of what sort of video the PR team would put together. There would be meetings to discuss “angles,” how to preserve Mathieu’s image as the face of the team. They’d put him in a studio, maybe, have someone on the social media team feed him safe, easy questions so that it can be edited into a nice little montage later. He doesn’t– he can’t wait that long. He can’t put himself through that.

So he presses down the record button. His mind goes blank as he tries to figure out what to say and how to say it. He figures it’s better to just start talking. “Uh, hi. I want to uh, say something.” He licks his lips and takes a deep breath. “I’m gay. I like men. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but it still is for some reason. I just– I’m tired of having to hide it. I don’t want to do that anymore. So I guess, this is me saying it to everyone.” He’s run out of steam at this point, unsure of how to end it. “Um, and happy new year,” he finishes before stopping the recording.

He posts it to his Instagram without a caption before he can lose his nerve. And then he puts his phone into “Do Not Disturb” mode and goes to bed.

Maybe he should have a fitful, restless night after that, but he drifts off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Mathieu wakes up to twenty missed calls and at least sixty missed text messages. He almost never gets voicemail. Today, his voice mailbox is full.

In the clear light of morning, Mathew tests the shape of his decision in his head. It still feels solid and sturdy. He doesn’t regret it anymore then he regrets spitting at those hecklers.

As he flips through his text messages. most of which are variations on either congrats or wow, what the fuck was dropping that bombshell on New Year’s Eve, you dramatic bitch., he gets a phone call from Melanie. He answers it.

“If I wasn’t already intending on working today because of your race today, I would be super pissed that you’ve given me a shit ton of work on a holiday,” Melanie says.

“Sorry,” Mathieu says, though he’s not sure how much he means it. He is sorry that he has dumped a ton of work in her lap, even if he doesn’t regret how or when he did it.

“Well, I did put together a plan after you asked me about it. I need to throw half of it out, thanks. Part of that packet was an official statement from the team stating that you have the team’s full support. I’ve got journalists blowing up our phones looking for something like it, but I didn’t want to release it until I talked to you first.”

Mathieu asks, “Have Christoph and Philip signed off on it yet?” He’s sure at least eight of the missed calls are from them. They’ve known Mathieu is gay, but it’s never been a subject of discussion beyond that initial conversation, even in the most oblique terms.

Mathieu always assumed it was an “out of sight, out of mind” sort of thing. As long as Mathieu didn’t make it their problem, they didn’t care. Well, Mathieu has now made it their problem. “They did,” Melanie says, “If you’re asking how much shit you’re in, they’re only pissed that you didn’t give them any forewarning, especially after the spitting incident. Good job making everyone forget that ever happened, by the way.”

“If Christoph and Philip are okay with the statement, then I think you should release it.” Mathieu knows that she’s partially asking if he wants to take a look himself. He doesn’t want to. Melanie is good at her job. The thought of having to read over a bland statement about how the team thinks it’s fine that he’s gay makes him sick to his stomach.

He thinks he can hear the tapping of a keyboard on the other end of the line. “Okay,”she says. “We’ll send that out as soon as possible. Post it to our social media channels, too.”

Mathieu closes his eyes and breathes out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

“Speaking of social media, I would avoid it until things calm down. I know you have a race today. Probably better to focus on that if you can.”

Mathieu hadn’t even glanced at his social media notifications yet, He’s sure they’re a shit show, same as the rest of his phone. Well, that seems like one way to have people shut up about the spitting incident. “That bad?” he asks.

She snorts loudly enough for Mathieu to hear it. “Especially without the confirmation from official channels, there’s been accusations that your account has been hacked and the video you posted was a deep fake. But it should fizzle out once we confirm it. And when you do interviews, today.” she sighs. “This really would have been a lot easier if we’d worked it out, first.”

When Mathieu thinks of going through the whole process, meetings and camera crews and media coaching, he feels sick to his stomach. Better to rip that band-aid off at once. “Not for me,” he says.

“Well, you may have a different opinion after today. Good luck out there. I’m sure we’ll have more to talk about later.”

They say their goodbyes and hang up. Mathieu doesn’t have the time or energy to reply to all his messages, but he does drop a, no, I was sober, into the group chat. He refuses to explain himself any further.

His father’s message reads, Call me as soon as you read this. Mathieu ignores it, because he can get a lecture on proper media management after he eats some breakfast.

Jasper sent him a string of exclamation points and variations of the “shocked” emoji. Mathieu rolls his eyes at it, but he doesn’t bother to respond.

He also has a message from Wout. Mathieu almost chickens out of reading it. He knows Wout has a lot of opinions about this sort of thing. He might have some choice words about how Mathieu went about it. But he also knows how much he’s going to need Wout and his support through whatever comes next. The message is short and simple. I’m proud of you.

Mathieu doesn’t break out into tears or anything. His chest does feel a bit tight. He can’t respond to Wout either, but he thinks Wout understands.

He eats his breakfast. Then he calls his father.

“About time,” his father grumbles.

Mathieu distracts himself by packing his bag. “I’ve been busy this morning,” he says. His father never has much patience for excuses, but it’s the truth. Mathieu has been busy.

“I can’t imagine why.” his father says dryly. Then he sighs. “Mathieu, why the hell did you do that?”

Mathieu has heard variations on this question from his father for most of his life. He’s been expecting it from the moment he posted that video. “I don’t think you know what it’s like, having to hide it. I just– it was so exhausting. I didn’t want to have to do it anymore.”

His father is quiet for a moment. One of Mathieu’s strongest memories of childhood are moments like this, awaiting his father’s judgments after a fuck up. It was worse when Mathieu had to be in the same room as him. Right now, Mathieu doesn’t even have to look at his face. When his father does speak again, his tone is different. “I didn’t realize you felt that way.”

Mathieu closes his eyes. The only sound in his kitchen is Lola at her food bowl. He takes a breath. “I don’t think I realized I felt that way until recently, either.” So much of his life, he’d been going off the assumptions of how his life should be, how his career should look. Wout had changed his perspective, for better and for worse.

Another moment of extended silence. Then his father says quietly, “I hope you know that I’ve only ever wanted what is best for you. I had to make you tough enough for this life, and I never knew how to help when it came to this. I know how cruel people can be, and I wanted to protect you.”

“I know, Dad.” Mathieu swallows. He takes another breath. “I’ll see you at Baal.” He needs to get ready for his race today. The thought of being out in public fills him with a mixture of defiance and discomfort, but his dad did make him tough and strong. He can do this. He won’t be afraid to own his own decisions.

“I’ll see you there,” his father says.

There’s something different in the air at Baal when Mathieu shows up, something that feels both electric and dangerous. He’s used to everyone’s eyes on him when he shows up to a cyclocross race. He’s a big name. A star. The weight of all that attention feels heavier today.

Mathieu does his best to keep his head up and his eyes distant. There are new rainbows in the crowd. Not the simple four bands of the UCI, but full-colored pride flag rainbows. When Mathieu had been pulling on his kit, he’d zipped up his jersey and realized that, for the first time in his life, the rainbow bands across his chest had taken on a new significance. People would look at them and associate them with something other than Mathieu winning a bike race a year ago.

His father doesn’t try to give Mathieu any more lectures, not even about the race. For him, this counts as being supportive. He also helps with crowd control of the fans. There are so many more of them than normal, pressing in close, hoping to get a look at Mathieu. Mathieu had plenty of experience feeling like an animal at the zoo, someone deserving of staring and gawking. Now a new descriptor had gone onto the little plaque: here’s the one gay cyclist. Admire his rainbow coloring.

Mathieu does spend a little bit of time doing the rounds of signing autographs. Almost no one says anything about it, leaving the whole thing as the giant pink elephant everyone is pretending isn’t there. But one man does fumble out a, “Is it true? Are you really…?”

Mathieu feels his stomach sink. “Yes,” he bites out, and then he goes back underneath the team tent to sulk until he’s summoned for interviews.

Of course Sporza is the first publication to show up. Mathieu has been doing this long enough that he’s familiar with most of the journalists on the cyclocross circuit. This is Sporza’s usual guy. He’s middle of the road as far as reporters go. Neither particularly good or particularly annoying.

He talks to Mathieu’s father first. That’s possibly because Mathieu’s father ran interference or because he wants to dig for interesting family drama. Mathieu’s father has been talking to the press for longer than Mathieu has been alive. He knows how to handle them.

Then it’s Mathieu’s turn. There’s a gleam in the reporter’s eye that Mathieu isn’t a fan of. He gets the sense that a lot of the usual cyclocross reporters are bored with Mathieu’s dominant season, and they’re hungry for a different narrative. Mathieu has handed them an incredibly juicy one on a plate.

They have their usual greetings and introductions before the camera man starts recording. Mathieu keeps his face as neutral as possible, even though he feels like crawling out of his own skin.

The reporter starts with, “Obviously, the biggest story of the race — maybe even this season — is your decision to come out publicly via social media. Can you walk me through your decision to do so?”

That seems to be the question of the day. Why the fuck would you go through any of this when you don’t have to? Mathieu could give a safe, easy answer, but instead, he says, “I realized that I was hiding who I am, because I thought it would keep me safe, but it didn’t. It started feeling like a cage.”

The reporter’s brow furrows. “What do you mean by that?” He was clearly expecting some bland media-polished answer, so Mathieu’s burst of honesty has taken him off-guard.

“Keeping a secret like this, it makes you paranoid. You end up worrying about who knows and who doesn’t. Who might say the wrong thing to the wrong people. You worry about every action you take in the public eye. It’s been like this for a decade. And then — and then you still get the most awful shit thrown at you anyway.” He knows he’s letting real emotion leak through, when he’s gotten better at keeping his real feelings under wraps around the press. Then again, he’s been throwing all that caution to the wind for the last twenty-four hours. Might as well go all the way.

The reporter stares at Mathieu with wide eyes. He manages to gather his composure enough to ask, “So the spectators you spat in the last race…”

“Yes,” Mathieu says. the reporter stares at him expectantly, but Mathieu refuses to elaborate. He’s already given up enough of himself today. No need to give up any more.

The race itself goes the way most of the races have gone. Mathieu wins it with minutes to spare. He shakes hands with a few of his competitors. No one says anything, but there’s more significant eye contact and respectful head nods thrown in Mathieu’s direction than usual. It’s like they want to be cool about it and also communicate how cool they are at the same time. After the day Mathieu’s had, he appreciates the effort. If he has to have one more conversation about the topic, he thinks he might scream.

Of course, in his first interview after the race, a reporter (not the Sporza one, someone else) asks, “As a gay man, what are your thoughts on–”

Mathieu cuts him off. “I want to talk about the race,” he says, “not my personal life.” He feels certain that this sound bite is also going to blow up into a big thing, to be replayed ad nauseum to go with his coming out video on the evening news and social media. It’s worth it to see the questioner look chastened and for the remaining questions to be bland and easy, the kind he could answer in his sleep.

He doesn’t want to deal with fans, but it’s hard to say no to the wide-eyed kids. One of the parents says to him, “I think it’s really brave what you did.” Another says, “I don’t have a problem with it, of course, but I think you should have kept it to yourself. There are children who follow you on Instagram.”

After that particular comment, Mathieu decides he doesn’t want to spend any more time with fans today.

There’s another three days before his next race in Koksijde. Some optimistic part of Mathieu hopes that the whole thing will have blown over by then.

It doesn’t.

Mathieu spends three days dodging interview and profile requests from every publication in the region and several outside of it. Melanie sighs and tells him that it will be good for him and his image to put his story out there, Mathieu has spent his entire adult life (and not an insignificant part of his childhood) in the public eye. He thought he was used to it by now. Apparently, he was wrong.

Kosijde goes mostly the same as Baal. Mathieu wins it handily. Some of the reporters look like they want to ask more questions about the spitting or the coming out, but are afraid Mathieu is going to bite their heads off. Good. They should be.

After the awkward incidents at Baal, Mathieu dodges some of the kids, even though he knows he’s disappointing a lot of them. That means he gets a lot more propositions from his adult fans.

It’s nothing he hasn’t dealt with before. He considers dealing with it part and parcel of being a big name professional athlete. What is somewhat surprising is the way in which the usual gender ratios are flipped. Mathieu didn’t expect any women to still be offering. Maybe they’re hoping to turn him. He doesn’t know.

There is one guy with a sweet smile and a warm laugh who catches Mathieu’s eye for a moment. He’s not pushy about his offer, just lays it out and waits for Mathieu to make a decision. Mathieu’s first instinct is to do what he’s always done: brush him off in a way that makes it clear that Mathieu is flattered but straight.

Before he can go through with it, he realizes that he doesn’t have to do that anymore. Everyone knows about him now. He could invite this guy home in front of the entire race, and he wouldn’t be telling them anything about himself they didn’t already. His third thought is that he’s always considered picking up fans from races more than a little tacky, regardless of gender or sexuality, and he doesn’t want to start doing that now.

When Mathieu turns him down, the guy just says, somewhat ruefully, “Hey, I had to give it a shot, didn’t I?” His smile tilts, a charming enough expression that almost makes Mathieu start second guessing his decision.

By the time Mathieu gets home, he’s exhausted, and not in any way because of the effort he put into the race. He just wants to hide away from everyone for the next two weeks — and also the rest of his life — if at all possible.

Chapter 3

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

Mathieu loves his house in Spain. He loves the weather. He loves the roads. He loves the teammates who are in the area — they are almost always up for training rides. He loves the food and his neighbors.

This time, he avoids as many of them as possible. He’s normally attached to his phone, but spends most of his first week in Spain pretending it doesn’t exist. He doesn’t want updates from Melanie of his father or from Jasper about what they’re saying about him in the press. He doesn’t want to feel the weight of everyone’s well-meaning concern. So instead, he spends all his time training, eating, and sleeping. He even finds time to read a little, something he’s been meaning to do more of. There’s one book on making money on the stock market and another about secret messages hidden in the Vatican. They’re both surprisingly fun. He really should pick it up as a full time hobby.

Every morning, he checks to see if Wout sent him anything new. Every morning, he sees that Wout hasn’t. Mathieu could send him something first, but every time he does so, he sees Wout’s message about how Wout is proud of him, and Mathieu feels like shriveling up with shame. When Wout sent that, he probably thought Mathieu was very brave.

It’s hard for Mathieu to feel brave when he’s hiding out in Spain refusing to speak to anyone.

He’d thought, or maybe just hoped, that coming out would feel freeing. At least, he thought that maybe the trapped feeling would go away. But now that he’s done it, it just feels like the walls around him are closer and more stifling than ever.

During Mathieu’s second week in Spain, Jasper shows up on Mathieu’s doorstep.

“What are you doing here?” Mathieu asks, glaring. He wasn’t expecting company. His house isn’t a mess or anything. He just didn’t think anyone would make an appearance when he clearly doesn’t want to see anyone.

“I sent you like four text messages. It’s not good for you to go out riding by yourself. What if you get a flat or something?”

Mathieu snorts. “It’s not like you can fix a flat either. We’d end up doing what I usually do and call someone from the team to help.”

“Oh, do you have a phone that works? Could have fooled everyone.” Jasper shoots back. “Come on, let’s go for a ride together. You get so grumpy when you’re under socialized.”

Mathieu grumbles a bit, but he still goes and pulls on his kit, fills his water bottles, loads his jersey with snacks. Jasper fills him in on what their teammates have been up to. Gianni ate something bad and got the shits for a few days. Maurice is now obsessed with ASMR videos. Quinten learned how to make his own memes and won’t stop spamming the group chat with them. And, of course, they’ve been talking about Mathieu.

“They’re all, like, supportive,” Jasper says. “They’re just confused why you didn’t tell anyone. And some of them have been getting questions from the rest of the peloton at their races, but the team has given them some talking points to use if they’ve ever put on the spot.” They pull on their helmets and cleats and head out. It’s a beautiful Spanish day. The sky is a clear blue with only the faintest wisps of clouds. Jasper does what he usually does and keeps up an entire conversation by himself.

Mathieu hates having to admit it, even to himself, but he does feel better with Jasper’s company. On solo rides, he can get bored or restless. His brain can sometimes fixate on all the wrong things. All the things he should be doing. All the things he shouldn’t be doing. Jasper’s string of semi-sensical anecdotes is the perfect distraction from all of that.

When they get back to Mathieu’s house a few hours later, Jasper says, “Hey, we should go out tonight, you know, celebrate me being in town.”

Mathieu narrows his eyes. “Wait, where are you staying while you’re in town?” He would normally love hosting his friends, but this isn’t exactly a normal situation.

Jasper chugs from his water bottle, rolls his eyes, and snorts. “Relax. I’m crashing with Maurice. I wasn’t sure if you were even going to answer the door. He’d have come today, but I told him it was better not to overwhelm you with people when you’re in a sulk.”

“This isn’t a sulk,” Mathieu insists before realizing that yes, he is in a sulk.

“Uh huh. Well, we’re going to go get you de-sulked tonight. I may not get any of this gay stuff or whatever, but even I know that it’s not good for your mental health to, like, hide away in your man cave.” Jasper gives Mathieu a generous slap on the back, and Mathieu can’t even say that he’s wrong.

So they go out. It’s just to a local bar. Caters to a younger clientele, so it’s a bit overpriced and the decorations are a little tacky. The drinks are good enough to make up for both of these things, which is why Mathieu keeps coming back.

Jasper gets the first round and the second, Mathieu gets the third. Just like he has for the rest of today, Jasper avoids talk of Mathieu’s coming out video and subsequent fallout. It’s nice. It’s a weight off Mathieu’s shoulders not to have to think about it, even if it’s only for a little while.

At some point, Jasper gets pulled into a conversation with one of the other patrons about sprinting theory or something, and Mathieu is just tipsy enough to actually go through his phone. He ignores most of the messages in favor of pulling up his Instagram feed. Looking at pictures seems far easier than answering his emails. The first picture Instagram brings up is of Wout bumping noses with his dog. Wout is closed-lipped and smiling, and his nose is wrinkled up in amusement. His dog is leaning in, body language curious and relaxed.

Mathieu gets swamped with a wave of longing, just from seeing Wout’s face again.

Before he can stop himself, he finds himself sending Wout a message. I missss youou.

It takes a few minutes to get a response back from Wout, and when he does, it reads, Are you drunk?

Mathieu blinks at it, confused, until he realizes he misspelled two words in a sentence with only three words in it. No, just tipsy, he writes back.

Make sure you drink enough water and get enough sleep.

I’m fine. Mathieu tells him with a mixture of annoyance and fondness. He’s become somewhat acclimated to Wout’s mother-henning at this point, but it can still be frustrating to be on the receiving end of it.

Then Wout adds, Are you alone? Then another message pops up. You shouldn’t be alone right now. It’s the second message that tips Mathieu fully into irritation.

What the fuck does Wout know about being alone? It’s not like he’s here right now. I’m not, he sends, and then he puts his phone away. Looking at it again was a mistake.

When he looks up again, he notices that a man has taken Jasper’s seat. Mathieu blinks in surprise.

“Hello,” the man says, “I, uh– your friend sent me over here. I thought–” He blushes. It’s a cute blush. He’s handsome in a slightly gawky way. Built wider than most pro cyclists. He has the mass of someone who works out. He has a thick Spanish accent when speaking in English.

“Did he now,” Mathieu says. He scans the room until he catches Jasper’s eye. Jasper gives him a thumbs up and an exaggerated wink.

“You are the cyclist, right? The one who just came out?” The man’s eyes are wide and curious.

Mathieu stiffens up. He’s hiding out here because he doesn’t want to talk about it. Not with his friends, not with the media, not with absolute strangers in bars.

The man notices and backs off immediately. “I mean, I saw some of the news articles and thought you were cute. And then I saw you here. Thought I would give it a shot. Your friend said I had a chance.” He isn’t Mathieu’s usual type. Mathieu’s type leans towards other cyclists, lean and wiry, with strong legs. This guy is handsome enough, dark stubble coming in across his chins and cheeks, and large dark eyes, so Mathieu can credit Jasper with having decent taste. Jasper has never met any of Mathieu’s boyfriends. Jasper has never been Mathieu’s wing-man before. But that was because Mathieu wasn’t out.

A nagging voice in the back of Mathieu’s head that sounds suspiciously like Wout whispers that he’s doing this for all the wrong reasons. Mathieu tells that voice to shut the fuck up. Why shouldn’t he reap the benefits of coming out? Besides, Wout isn’t even here. Wout’s back in Belgium and thinks Mathieu is some lost little lamb. Wout hadn’t even bothered texting for the last week and a half.

Mathieu tilts his head and smiles. “My friend was right. I am interested.” He holds out a hand. “Mathieu.”

The man’s smile brightens. He shakes Mathieu’s hand. His palm is warm. His grip is strong. “Diego,” he says.

Mathieu wakes to a splitting headache. It throbs in his forehead. As he comes awake, the ache spreads behind his eyeballs. His mouth feels gummy and dry, a sure sign of dehydration.

The bed next to him shifts as another body climbs out of bed. Right, Diego. Before this, Mathieu has only ever had two one-night stands in his life, and the second one was that guy he went on a date with a few months ago.

It was a good night. Diego had been good with his fingers and his mouth. Clearly experienced. Polite and patient. Made Mathieu come first. Mathieu had enjoyed himself. It was nice to do something like that without worrying about someone seeing him, someone recognizing him or Jasper and connecting the dots. Everything about it was good, at least on paper.

It doesn’t feel good to Mathieu. It doesn’t feel like anything at all.

Mathieu sits up and rubs a hand over his face. Diego pulls on his jeans, then his shirt. His back is nice. Muscular and defined. When he was younger, Mathieu maybe would have begged for his number, tried to date him. With the perspective of age, he can see that this isn’t anything other than it is.

“Thank you,” Diego says. He flashes Mathieu another smile.

Mathieu tries to smile back.

Diego takes it as the dismissal that it is. “I’ll find my own way out.”

Mathieu nods. He sits in bed for another few minutes, even as he hears Diego rattling around downstairs, then the opening and closing of the front door. He breathes in the silence and reminds himself that this was what he wanted. He can hook up without feeling like he needs to be executing some sort of special ops mission, just like any other single guy on the team. He got to have nice, uncomplicated sex. He should be delighted. He should–

He checks his phone, mostly on instinct. There’s a new message from Wout. Did you get home okay? Mathieu stares at it for a while. He wants to tell Wout about the hookup. He wants to tell Wout how he’s feeling.

But Wout doesn’t deserve that. He clearly only cares about Mathieu in the most cursory of ways and maybe he’s only doing that out of some sort of misplaced nesting instinct. He doesn’t want to hear about the rest of Mathieu’s shit. He thought Mathieu did the good thing, the brave thing. He doesn’t want to hear about how much Mathieu regrets it.

Yes, Mathieu replies. He tosses the phone back onto the bedside table, then gets out of bed and prepares for his morning shower.

Benidorm is in two days. He still has training to do.

The day of Benidorm arrives sunny and clear. Mathieu feels a low, terrible sense of dread as he leaves the house. He’s not sure why. His legs feel fine. He’s had two weeks to get over this whatever feeling that’s been lurking since, well, he wants to say Koksijde, but really since Hulst.

The race course is packed, once again, with fans. More so than even the races back in Belgium. The good weather has people out and about.

Mathieu’s day starts fine. The interviewers, realizing now that they won’t get anything out of him, stick to the same note questions. How does he feel about the course today. Does he think he can continue his winning streak. What does he hope to get out of this before the World Championships. Mathieu answers them all with ease.

The race starts less fine. Mathieu’s chain drops in the first lap, leaving him scrambling to make up positions. The crowd is a wall of noise, a sea of eyes. Mathieu usually welcomes the attention. Look at what I can do. I’m the best in the world, and I know it. Today, it feels like an uncomfortable itch along his neck and spine. In the screams from the crowd, he can pick out his name, mixed in with declarations of love and hate and encouragement.

Benidorm is a fast course. Mathieu embraces it. He likes pushing himself to the edge. He likes the way the agony in his legs and chest can throw the world into sharper focus. He pushes himself now. Pushes and pushes and pushes until the world narrows down to just him and his bike and the course. He doesn’t have to think about the rest of the world out there waiting for him.

Mathieu has to burn some of his reserves to recover from his mechanical, and even when he does get back to the front, he can’t shake off his chasers. There’s this one section, not quite full of corners but tight winding turns.

He does see the pole, is the thing. He’s trying to cut the corner as tightly as possible. The pole is covered in soft foam. He takes the inside line. He thinks maybe if he can just clip it a little–

His shoulder slams into the metal pole underneath the foam. At the speed he’s going, it sends him ricocheting off to the side and into the barriers. He has a moment of disorientation as he checks himself over. Nothing seems broken. Other riders go flying by, ignoring him. He’s lost positions, and he’s lost time. He’s not going to win this. He wishes he could care. He stands up and remounts his bike, rejoining the race.

He doesn’t even make the podium. He gets a lot of questions about how he feels about the end of his winning streak. They’re hungry for an emotional reaction from him, for yet another narrative to pile on top of their existing ones. Mathieu doesn’t give it to them. Crashing out of a race and losing is one of the most normal-feeling things that’s happened to him in a while.

On his way back to the team bus, an obviously drunk man rushes up to him. “I’m glad you lost today, you disgusting freak. They shouldn’t even let homos like you compete.” His voice is slurred with the alcohol.

People have been coming up to Mathieu and saying weird shit for a good chunk of life. And yet, this one hurts more than the loss, than so many of the jeers. His chest burns with rage. His attention narrows, the way it does in a race. He could take this asshole. Mathieu doesn’t have the bulk of a fighter, but he knows he’s strong, and he’s capable. He’s taller than this guy. In better shape. He takes a step forward.

A hand grabs his shoulder, stopping him. It’s one of his mechanics who was accompanying Mathieu back to the bus. He shakes his head. “This asshole isn’t worth it.”

That’s just enough for the rest of the world to come flooding back in. Mathieu becomes aware all at once of the eyes on him. He’s already garnered attention for the spitting incident and his sudden coming out announcement. There’s not quite a crowd gathered here, and yet there’s a dozen phones pointed at him, excited to see how this plays out.

Mathieu grits his teeth and turns away. He doesn’t resist as he gets shepherded the rest of the way back to the team bus.

His hands are still shaking when he drives home.

Mathieu spends the rest of the evening pacing around his house, full of a nervy, restless energy he can’t shake. Even going for a run only settles his mind for a half hour at most. Lola seems concerned about Mathieu’s mental state, but she can’t do much more than present her furry head for petting.

It’s not just the incident with the guy or his loss today. Or maybe it is. Mathieu can’t tell, and he hates that he can’t tell.

His phone is full of platitudes about how he’ll bounce back next time. Trying to make up for the loss by saying how strong he is. Just got caught out by bad luck.

And then there’s Wout, who sent, Are you okay? That crash looked rough.

Mathieu wants to tell Wout that he’s fine. He finished the race. Got fifth place even with the crash. He was checked over by his usual swannie. A few bruises and some soreness aside, he’s still fighting fit and ready to race back in Belgium next week.

But he’s not fine, is he? And he wants– he wants to hear Wout’s voice again. Not really, he sends back. Can I call you? He feels certain Wout is going to shoot him down. Wout seems to love shooting him down. And Wout only wanted confirmation that Mathieu didn’t break all the bones in his body.

He almost doesn’t look when his phone beeps at him, informing him he has a new message. The curiosity wins out, though. When he checks, he sees that Wout has sent a simple, Okay.

So Mathieu calls Wout. He holds the phone to his ear and listens as it rings and rings.

Wout picks after the third one. “Hey,” he says. “What’s going on? Are you going to be able to finish out the season?”

Mathieu closes his eyes and lets the familiar rhythms of Wout’s accent roll over him. “I’m– I didn’t have any injuries from the crash.”

Wout’s quiet for a moment. He can do the math on why Mathieu is really calling. “Something else happened,” he guesses. Mathieu’s only surprised that it wasn’t splattered over social media already.

“It was just some drunk asshole,” Mathieu says. “I am just–” He takes another deep breath. “I think I wish I hadn’t done it.” The confession tastes bitter on his tongue. It’s cowardly of him, and Mathieu hates thinking of himself as cowardly.

He isn’t sure how he expects Wout to react. His father likes to give lectures when Mathieu has let him down in some way, an itemized list of all the ways Mathieu has failed and all the ways he can do better. Wout’s not quite like that, but Mathieu feels as though he has let Wout down on some fundamental level. But all Wout says is, “I understand that.”

Mathieu’s stomach churns with both frustration and relief. More words spill out. “I don’t know. I hoped that posting that stupid video would make things better. Or, I don’t know, I didn’t think it would make anything worse.”

Wout make a soft, thoughtful humming noise of agreement. “It’s always been a catch twenty-two. Both options suck. There’s no easy answers.”

“And that’s why you decided to stop.” Mathieu says. Since they’ve started talking more, the memories of racing Wout have been coming back in bits and pieces. Sure, Mathieu beat him most of the time, but Wout had at least been at the level of the Sweecks, and they’re still racing. Wout could have made it in the elites. Mathieu is sure of it, even if he hasn’t seen Wout ride a bike in a decade.

“It would have been simpler if it was just one thing I could point to.” Wout sighs. His voice gets a little rawer, a little rougher. “I think I was more okay with hiding it until I met this guy at school and started dating him. Before then, it was all just theoretical. Keep your mouth shut when your teammates call things gay. Nod along when they talk about girls’ boobs. Don’t correct them when everyone assumes one of your female friends is your girlfriend.”

They’ve only talked about this time of Wout’s life in generalities before. Mathieu finds himself fascinated. He’d done all of those things to varying degrees himself until he’d gained the confidence and the clout to come out to his teammates. That, at least, had made his life easier. Mathieu asks, “And then?”

“It was like, things were fine at school. I could be with him and not feel like I was a giant weirdo, and then I’d go back to racing and everything would be terrible again. I probably would have kept going if my parents hadn’t noticed how miserable I was and asked me if I really thought cycling was worth my happiness.”

Mathieu has felt greedy for more information about Wout’s life for months. He gluts himself on every detail he gets now. “I’m sorry.”

Wout says, “I think I felt bad because my parents had put so much time and money into making it possible for me to race at all. And I was so close to being able to make it happen.”

“Why didn’t you come out?” Mathieu asks. Like I did, is the unspoken addition. “At least to the team, I guess.”

“It’s like, I already felt so alone when I was there, you know? And everything was already so much better at school. I met some of the other queer kids, made friends with them, and it was a relief to be able to talk about it openly. I was also kind of stupid in love with my boyfriend at the time. Convinced myself I was going to marry him. He couldn’t come to my races, and he wasn’t interested anyway.”

Mathieu tries to imagine it. He’s never had any options outside of cycling. Not with how good he and his brother were. It would have been a waste of their talent. If he had an escape hatch now, if he could hang out with Wout and his friends, if he could kiss Wout in public and even, maybe, someday think about marrying him, with no media scrutiny, and all he would have to do is give up cycling forever, would he make that choice? It would be tempting for sure. “What happened with him?” Mathieu asks. Wout’s not married right now, as far as Mathieu can tell.

Wout sighs. His voice takes on a harder, hurt edge. “He said I was too intense for him. I think, yeah, maybe I was too intense. I was young and stupid.”

Mathieu doesn’t know what to say after that. A silence falls between them. He can hear the faintest sound of Wout’s breath on the other end of the line. “I don’t know what to do,” he admits, his voice low and quiet, “It all just feels like shit right now.” It’s easier to say it out loud here, when it’s just him and all the confessions between them.

“I don’t think you have to do anything,” Wout says.

Mathieu closes his eyes. All the energy has drained out of him, and he lets himself plop down on the couch. “What would you do in my situation?”

Wout thinks about it for a moment, then says, “Keep going, I guess. Win everything in sight. Fall in love. Do my best to live my life on my own terms.”

Mathieu lets out a watery laugh. “That simple, huh?”

He expects some other cliche about how it’s simple, not easy, but Wout says instead, “If there’s anyone in the world who can do it, it would be you.”

Mathieu squeezes his eyes shut tighter. He feels stupid and small in the face of Wout’s belief. He’s not sure if he deserves any of it. It’s still one of the most precious gifts he’s ever been given. “Thank you,” he croaks out.

“I know it’s been tough, and maybe you will always regret it just a little bit, but what you did is huge and important. Even if you can’t see that right now,” Wout says. His voice is full of so much quiet conviction, Mathieu almost believes him.

He goes back to Belgium. He wins a race. He gets called more names. A young woman shyly comes up to him and asks him to sign her rainbow pride flag and tells him how much she loves him.

He goes to the Netherlands. He wins a race. Some guy tries to throw beer at him and gets shouted down and shoved aside by the other spectators and fans. No one else tries again.

He goes to the Czech Republic and trades in his rainbow jersey for a Dutch national team kit. The day is cloudy and gray. The ground is dry, more dirt than mud. The crowds are massive, even compared to the races back in Belgium.

Mathieu has more interviews than normal. The regular journalists are easier to deal with. They all ask the simple questions. How is he feeling about this race. Who does he think is his main competition. How does he feel about surpassing the record number of elite World titles. He answers them all on autopilot, barely needs to think about it.

After the main press scrum, there’s a woman who manages to intercept him. She almost looks out of place among the gathered sports media, with her pierced nose and undercut, at least a decade younger than most of the men surrounding them. Mathieu doesn’t recognize the name of her publication as she introduces herself. Her accent, in English, sounds British.

He isn’t surprised that she wants to ask him about being a gay athlete. What does surprise him is that she starts with, “What kept you in the closet for so long?”

It knocks Mathieu for a loop. He’d been asked so many times why he’d come out, why he had felt the need to go public. No one had asked him or even particularly cared why he’d kept it all hidden for so long. “I wanted to keep racing,” he says, honestly. “When I realized this about myself, that was the default assumption. That it would be detrimental to my career. For the longest time, I also believed that.”

She nods, scribbling notes in a small notebook as she holds out her phone to record her answers. “And what changed that assumption?”

“I met someone,” Mathieu says. After he forms the words, he realizes how it sounds. He decides he doesn’t care. Let the press obsess over his possible secret boyfriend. “He helped me gain some perspective.”

Her smile at that is small and warm and secret. “What has the experience been like since you made the announcement?”

“Mixed. Mostly bad, to be honest. There’s been a lot of negative attention, lots of people who have opinions and want to tell me about them. But there are some nice things about it. It always felt like a weight on my back. Now I don’t have to carry it anymore.” Mathieu finds he likes her and her dangling multi-colored earrings. He likes her questions. Even though these questions are far more personal than some of the ones from the regular sports media, they also open up more space to be open about his experiences. It makes him want to be honest, to tell the truth about his life.

“What are some things you would like to see change in cycling to make things safer for other gay men?” Her eyes are sharp and focused as she asks.

Mathieu sucks in a surprised breath. “I don’t know. I think it’s up to teams and the peloton to make things safe for those riders. I’m lucky in that I have a controlling stake in my team. That made it possible for me to be out to the team without fear.” He feels almost ashamed all over again, too wrapped up in his own misery and self-pity to think about what it’s like for riders who don’t have the wealth, clout, and success to protect them. Sure, it did cut both ways, because Mathieu’s fame also makes him a target, but never once has Mathieu had to worry about getting ostracized and kicked off of the team for being gay. The same thing might not be true of a mid-tier conti-rider.

She nods, absorbing his answer without judgment. “Do you think your story will make it easier for other queer men in cycling to come out?”

Mathieu bites his lip. He’d never considered that side of it before. He thinks of Wout as a teenager, turning his back on all of this. He should be here right now, racing today. Mathieu is sure of it. “I hope so,” he says.

Mathieu wins the World Championships by a hefty margin, by enough that he can give high fives to the crowd and skid to a stop at the finish line and raise his bike over his head. The victory tastes sweet, the way it always does. It’s a reminder that no matter what other shit the universe tries to throw at him, he’s proved himself to be the best in the world once again.

Afterwards, on his flight back home, he gets a message from Wout. No text, just a link to an Instagram post. Mathieu doesn’t know the rider whose account it belongs to, but he recognizes the red and white Maple leaf kit as a Canadian one.

The photograph in the post is from the track at Tabor. He was just riding past those same barriers with those same logos the day before. The photographer has caught the split second when the Canadian rider leaned into the crowd to kiss another boy. Their lips are pressed together. Their smiles are still visible.

The caption underneath the post reads,

Celebrating a top ten finish in the U23 World Championships with my boo.

For the longest time, I’ve struggled with how to be fully myself and be a cyclist at the same time. There is so much pressure to hide who you are and who you love because it might make people uncomfortable.

But hey, I thought that if it’s good enough for the GOAT, then it’s good enough for me. So here’s my coming out post. I’m bi. I’ve been dating my guy, Ethan, for the last year. It’s a relief to be able to finally say that publicly.

Thanks to @mathieuvanderpoel for paving the way. You’ve always been an inspiration and now more than ever.

Mathieu stares at that post for a long time. He rereads the words over and over again. In the strange, isolated space of the airplane cabin, it feels as though time has stopped for just long enough for him to process it. He keeps coming back to their smiles, to the pure joy on their faces. Mathieu had, in some small way, made that possible. The stupid, impulsive, selfish decision he’d made on New Year’s Eve is making ripples he had never anticipated.

He feels the urge to comment. He wants to acknowledge this in some small way. He leaves a thumbs up emoji, since words don’t feel sufficient. He thinks the kids will appreciate it anyway.

Thank you, he sends Wout. He isn’t sure he would have seen it on his own. His eyes feel wet. He’s glad he doesn’t have to look or talk into a camera right now.

I wanted you to know the good side of it, Wout writes back. I think if someone had done what you did when we were in juniors, maybe I’d still be racing.

A lump forms in Mathieu’s throat. He has entertained the fantasy of going back in time to accept Wout’s shy, tentative invitation to the movies, but only from the perspective of a teenage crush, wanting to hold Wout’s hand and maybe walk him back to his door and kiss him afterwards. Now he allows himself to imagine a lifetime after that. Wout nipping at his heels as they push their bikes through the mud. Wout winning World Cups as Mathieu turns his attention towards XCO and road. Wout and Mathieu coming out together, a team effort. Mathieu not being alone in this.

I wish someone had, Mathieu tells him.

There’s a long pause before he gets another response. Mathieu even wonders for a second if the airplane wi-fi cut out. Then the message pops up. Someone has now.

The sky is overcast and gray. The air is damp and drizzly. The ground is soft and muddy underneath Mathieu’s shoes. He pulls his baseball cap down low over his eyes and adjusts the straps of his face mask. He also raided his closet for non-team branded shirts and jackets, which was more difficult than he thought it would be. Going incognito seems to have worked, though. No one seems to give Mathieu a second look.

It had taken some sleuthing, some wheedling, and some straight up bribery for Mathieu to find out when and where Wout’s next race would be. He’s not entirely proud of the lengths he went to in order to get this information, but he doesn’t regret it at all now that he’s here.

The crowd is sparser than he’s used to. The atmosphere and organization feels looser, more ragtag. Mathieu finds a section near the start/finish line to watch the race begin. In some ways it’s not so different. There are plenty of homemade signs and excited, wide-eyed children. Cheers go up as soon as the riders begin to arrange themselves at the start.

Mathieu manages to pick Wout’s tall, lean form out of the bunch. He’s wearing a nondescript black kit and the number seventeen. Even with the helmet and the wide sunglasses, Mathieu recognizes him. He’s speaking to another rider Wout’s smiling wide. Even from a distance, his smile seems bright enough to glow.

Then the race starts. It’s somehow both slower and more chaotic than a pro race. There’s a crash at the first corner, but Wout doesn’t get caught up in it. Mathieu isn’t used to watching races in person. There aren’t arrays of cameras and drones here to track the race from every angle, more’s the pity.

He scouts out a different spot to spectate from, a muddy pit after some downhill switchbacks. He watches as the first, leading group of ten riders — including Wout — makes their way through it. Wout’s about halfway back, a determined grimace on his face.

The mud turns out to be the deciding factor. Wout’s the only one with the strength and the bike handling to ride all the way through the section without dismounting. No one else can keep up with him. He’s just too strong and in control. Mathieu didn’t think he could be any more attracted to Wout, but apparently he was wrong.

Mathieu sticks to that spot just so he can watch Wout ride it again lap after lap. Wout gains seconds on the group behind him, then minutes. Even though the weakest rider on the pro circuit could probably leave Wout behind in his current form, it’s clear that he’s still in a class of his own here.

For the final lap, Mathieu goes back to the finish line. The conclusion is foregone at this point, but he wants to see Wout win the race. Wout crosses the line with his arms raised, smiling. Mathieu has his camera out. He takes a picture for posterity.

After the podium (no flowers or champagne or stuffed animals, which Mathieu thinks is a shame), Mathieu waits for Wout just to the side of the makeshift stage.

Wout starts at the sight of him standing there, eyes widening and his mouth dropping open. “What are you–” he begins to ask. Apparently, even the face mask isn’t enough to disguise him from Wout.

Mathieu’s heart hammers in his chest. His stomach roils with nerves. “Hey,” he says. He takes off the mask so they can stare at each other face-to-face. “You were really good out there today.”

“Thank you,” Wout says. He still looks confused. “I know the level isn’t quite what you’re used to.” He wiped the mud off his face before getting up on the podium, but there’s still some smudges on his neck.

Mathieu feels a little dizzy just from being so close to him again. “I, uh, I did have a reason for coming here.” He thinks of his younger self, staring down Wout’s big, uncertain eyes.

“Yeah?” Wout asks. His brow furrows in curiosity. He’s taller now, all grown up, but his eyes haven’t changed..

“I had a question to ask you.” Mathieu licks his lips. Everything is different now. He’s made everything different. The memory has faded a bit, so many of the details have been lost to time. But he does remember this: “There’s this movie I wanted to see. Would you- would you want to go with me?”

Wout blinks at him for a moment, but then he gets it. He breaks out into a smile, one big enough that his whole face crinkles up. “Yeah,” he says with an exaggerated faux-casualness. “Yeah, I’ll go with you.”

He’s still smiling when Mathieu grabs him by the back of the neck and kisses him. Mathieu thinks he hears the click of a phone camera as he does so. He wonders if it’ll be all over social media in a few hours. He hopes so. He’ll probably want his own copy.

FIN.