We'll Muddle Through (Somehow)

Chapter 1

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

Christophe hears about it for the first time from Tiesj over breakfast.

“Sucks about Wout, doesn’t it?” Tiesj says as he sits down, settling his tray next to Christophe’s.

“Wout?” Christophe asks as he looks up from his app-mandated fruit cup. He takes a moment to glance around the room. It’s already filled up with teammates and staff, at varying degrees of wakefulness, getting ready to start their day. Wout isn’t among them.

“Oh, there was an email about it, and it’s all over social media.” Tiesj’s eyes have gone a little wider. His lips are pulled into a grimace, like maybe he hates that he’s the one delivering the news.

Christophe pulls out his phone, unsure of what could have Tiesj so riled up. Maybe Wout had decided to sit out the Tour in order to focus on the Olympics and had made the announcement official. It would be of interest to the cycling press. That doesn’t seem like enough to put that expression on Tiesj’s face, though.

They’d already been up here in Tignes for altitude camp for a few weeks now, and both Wout and Jonas were as relentless and as focused on being ready for the Tour as a pair of recently-injured professional cyclists could be. The e-mail is right at the top of Christophe’s inbox from Richard. The subject line reads, Regarding the recent news. Christophe opens it with some apprehension. This whole thing has too many shades of Nathan’s sudden heart attack and subsequent retirement, which had definitely left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth when it had happened.

The contents of the email are much less dramatic. It just says that despite the increase in media attention, the organization will continue to stand by Wout and no discrimination will be tolerated. Christophe reads it twice, then translates it into French, just to see if he missed something. But no, each time, it remains frustratingly vague about what is going on here.

Christophe pulls up the team text chat next to look for clues. He isn’t very active in it. He pokes his head in every once in a while, but he can’t keep up with Attila’s memes or the latest interesting rock Cian found on his most recent training ride. Right now, the chat is nothing but a long string of supportive messages from everyone to Wout, who hasn’t said anything in days. At one point, Robert demanded context, and he got linked to a Wielerflits article.

The little article preview is in Dutch. Christophe could at least recognize Wout’s name and the word “betrapt” - caught. His stomach sinks as he opens the link. At the top of the article is a blurry picture, taken at some sort of club. Wout is centered in the image, but there’s a fuzziness to the edges which makes it seem like it’s been cropped and enlarged. He is surrounded by other people, and the lighting is dim.

Now that Christophe is looking at it, he sees exactly why everyone is being weird about it. In the picture, Wout is kissing a man. Wout’s face is clear enough to be recognizable. His eyes are closed. Christophe could run the article through translation, but he doesn’t think he needs to. The entire story is right here in this one photograph.

The man Wout is kissing is similar in height with short, dark brown hair. Most of his face is hidden by the angle and the large, broad expanse of Wout’s hand. Wout looks happy — or at the very least, content. Maybe he kisses men like this all the time. Christophe puts down his phone. He doesn’t want to look at it anymore. It feels voyeuristic.Something he shouldn’t be looking at.

He doesn’t know what is happening on his face, but it must be something, because Tiesj’s expression softens with pity. “Yeah,” Christophe says. “Sucks for Wout.”

Wout doesn’t show up for breakfast. Wout’s swannie does grab enough breakfast for two people before disappearing from the main dining room, so at least Wout is getting fed.

Christophe isn’t the chattiest in the morning, so no one tries to drag him into conversation. He does his best not to stew over the picture. Wout’s never been one to talk about his personal life. Sometimes, his parents show up to races. Christophe had mostly taken his cues from the rest of the team and let it go. Some people were just private like that. Christophe didn’t want to stick his nose where it wasn’t wanted, especially on a new team, and it wasn’t like Christophe was spilling his guts to everyone about his own dating life (mostly because it was pathetic). Wout acted as the team’s main heartthrob, but since the days of podium girls were a thing of the past, he was allowed to be somewhat sexless about it.

Now his ignorance feels painfully naive. Wout has been kissing men this whole time. Probably even fucking them. It tilts Christophe’s perspective, leaving him feeling off-balance and disoriented. Christophe is a professional, though. He can handle this just fine. If things get a little strange with Wout, it’s only because their spring was so weird, between all the illness and injury and Wout’s mid-classics altitude camp.

Christophe is walking down the hotel corridor when he overhears them.

Jonas’ voice is softer but steadier. “The team will have your back, eh? It’s not like you did anything wrong.”

Wout — and it has to be Wout; they’re in Wout’s room — lets out a frustrated breath. “I wish everyone found out about this a different way.” he says.

Christophe feels a small start in his chest. Has Jonas known this whole time? Christophe knows they are close. He had just hoped that maybe he and Wout were also close enough for that sort of thing, too. Out of everyone on the team, Wout is Christophe’s closest friend, even if Christophe isn’t Wout’s. It’s not like Christophe would have been an asshole about it if Wout had told him earlier. Jonas says, “It’ll all blow over in a few weeks. The team will make a statement, get some quotes from the guys, and then all the questions will be about the Tour.”

There’s a long moment of silence. Christophe knows he should give them privacy, but his curiosity gets the better of him. All he has is what the rest of the world has — a photograph and some speculation. He wants to know more.

Eventually, Wout says, “They’re going to ask me about him.” They’re talking inside Wout’s room. The door is partially closed. Christophe can’t see Wout’s expression. Wout’s tone is flat, neutral, leeched of feeling.

“Is that so bad?” Jonas asks. “You could make a story out of it. Your grand love affair, interrupted by people who can’t mind their own business.”

Wout scoffs. “Maybe if it were true.” He sighs, and his tone softens. “He was just some guy. He was cute. I was feeling, you know, lonely, I guess. It’d probably be easier if I was dating him.”

Cyclists, especially road cyclists, have a reputation for being programmed, arranged like chess pieces from the team car, over the long, grinding hours of a road race. In reality, it’s all about split-second decisions. Faith in your legs and your instincts.

Which is why Christophe knocks on the door. “Can I come in?” he asks.

A pause. Then Wout says, “Yes.”

Christophe pushes his way into Wout’s hotel room. Wout is sitting on the bed. His hair is a mess, not even combed. Jonas is sitting on the wooden chair next to the desk, looking calm and sympathetic. Christophe takes a deep breath, then he says, “You could say it was me.” That gets him two blank, confused stars.

Christophe says, “If you need someone to pretend to be the guy in the photograph, you could say it was me.” He only saw the picture for the first time half an hour ago, but it had etched itself onto Christophe’s brain like an itchy scab. He can’t stop picking at it. Specifically, the fact that the guy in the photograph could be mistaken for Christophe. The hair was a little too short, and his shoulders were a little too broad, but that could be written off as a trick of the light or the awkwardness of the angle.

Wout had been out there, kissing men in clubs. Men who weren’t so different from Christophe. Christophe could process that later, once they’d gotten past the immediate crisis.

Jonas shrugs and shoots Wout a sidelong glance. “You did say it would make things easier.” Wout’s jaw works the way it always does when he’s thinking through all his options. “Why?” he asks. His eyes focus in on Christophe like he’s sizing up a stage profile.

“It’s for the good of the team. If we pretend it’s me, you’ll have an easy answer for some of their questions.” Christophe shrugs. It had made so much sense just a few minutes ago. Now he just needs to articulate it. “We can have a simple story. Repeat it until the end of the Tour. Then break up.”

Jonas and Wout share a glance. They all know Wout would be getting asked about it day-in and day-out. People always wanted to ask Wout about the most inane shit. Christophe just hopes that with him there, some of the worst reporters would keep their mouths shut and their rampant speculation to themselves, so Wout could focus on building his form.

Wout sighs, rubs a hand over his face, then looks at Christophe again. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks.

When Christophe left Cofidis, he knew he was being brought onto the team to work for others, to work for Wout specifically. He’d been asked at the time if he was okay going from being a leader of a team to a domestique. The French press in particular had been annoyed with his decision to leave a French team for a Dutch one. At the time, it had felt like a huge, scary risk. Now, here he is with his classics wins, his stage in the Tour de France, his European championship, being asked if he is willing to play pretend for a few weeks, just to help the team — the man – who made that all possible. “Yes,” he says.

Chapter 2

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

Christophe is secure enough in his sexuality to admit that he’s attracted to men. He likes the way they’re shaped, the way they smell. The cut of a collarbone and hair on chests. He’s also spent a good part of his life ignoring it. As a professional athlete, he’s used to being surrounded by male bodies — sometimes naked, sometimes not — and through overexposure, the low buzz of attraction had become simply background noise.

Sticking with women has always been easier and simpler. On every level. Christophe could simply place that part of himself on a shelf (in a closet, if he wants to make this metaphor really tortured), and leave it there.

At least, until this whole situation with the kiss and the photograph and the pretending to be dating. Now he has to consider it in the context of Wout, who is also attracted to men, apparently. Christophe still doesn’t know what to make of that.

Before they went to team management with their new and updated plan, Jonas had offered up the option of saying that it had just been a platonic gesture between friends. But given the intimacy of the picture, and the grim, mulish expression that crossed Wout’s face at the suggestion, that wasn’t an option.

Which is how Christophe and Wout end up in a room with Merijin and Tobias, their media guy, on a video call with Richard Plugge. The cameras — both the team’s and Netflix’s — have been ejected, much to Christophe’s relief. He’s glad he doesn’t have to worry about a semi- permanent record of this conversation being preserved somewhere.

“If the two of you are committed to this particular course of action,” Richard says, “then of course you have the full support of the media team. Obviously, we would prefer not to get political, but the situation has forced our hands.” Christophe still isn’t great about picking up all of the nuances of English, but Richard seems a little skeptical about their plan.

“Thank you,” Wout says. “Just– I want to get this over with as soon as possible.” His face has that same pinched tightness it gets when he’s trying not to show his feelings.

Richard nods. “And I want to thank you for your willingness to help, Christophe. It really demonstrates your commitment to the team.” All the attention in the meeting turns towards Christophe, which leaves a weird itch at the back of his neck. They ask him to run himself ragged for his teammates every day. Lying to a few reporters seems like no big deal in comparison. He nods, accepting the compliment.

The meeting continues on. They talk about timeline, details, dates. All the things they need to form a reasonable approximation of a real relationship. The story they come up with is this: Wout and Christophe have been dating for a few months now, ever since they raced together during opening weekend back in February. Enough time for things to get serious, but not so long that they have to retrofit an entire year to make it work. He and Wout were separated for a good part of the spring, due to training camp and then Wout’s injury. Things got more serious between them after Christophe crashed out of the Giro. It was between that time and their departure for Tignes that the photograph was taken in a Belgian club.

Tobias assures them that they don’t have to memorize every detail and that they are allowed to refuse or demur on particular questions if they are too intrusive, too confusing, or if they simply don’t want to. Wout nods and agrees, though his expression gets more tense and pointed. He usually has no problem telling off the press. Maybe this topic is one he’d rather tackle head on.

Christophe nods along and tries to envision this fake relationship he’s been saddled with. He could have kissed Wout after his win at KBK, the stuffed donkey squished between their bodies. Wout had been so happy that weekend. His smile had been so bright. His hugs had been so fierce and so warm. It wasn’t difficult to believe Christophe could fall in love with that version of Wout.

Then there was the crash at Dwars. Christophe was sick at the time, puking and shitting his guts out while also recovering from some saddle sores. He didn’t even get to see it happen. He had been napping during the race. He woke up to one hundred and twenty new messages in the group chat and clips of Wout injured and crying on the road. Some awful part of Christophe still wonders if it would have been different if he could have been there, if his presence could have done something to prevent it. He was supposed to be there for Wout, and he wasn’t. Christophe doesn’t like dwelling on the past, but still– that wasn’t a good day.

The day of Jonas’ crash was somehow even worse.

After they get their talking points, they’re sent off to do their morning ride with the rest of the team. Everyone welcomes Wout with big smiles and hearty back slaps. It’s performative, but in a sweet, heartwarming way. No one wants to mention the photograph or what it means.

Jan designed today’s route. He likes long climbs and technical descents. Their training rides aren’t difficult, though. Right now, it’s all about the build, getting their bodies to peak for the Tour. Most of it is just about volume. They go through the typical sort of rotation, switching off who is in front and riding into the wind.

Christophe spends most of his ride behind Wout, staring at the slight curve of Wout’s ass and wondering what it would be like to settle his hands there.

Their bodies are no mystery to each other. Nakedness is common and routine. Touching, too, is just a fact of their lives. Intimacy, on the other hand, the closeness of bodies with real meaning behind it, that’s much rarer. Christophe has hugged Wout so many more times than he can remember. He has pulled Wout close and wrapped his arms around him and felt Wout’s solid chest against his own. What would it be like in a different context?

The problem with these long rides is that it leaves too much time for Christophe to get in his own head. A lot of the time he likes it: his mind wandering through different thoughts and ideas as his body works. Today, he can’t stop fixating on the image of Wout’s hand on that man’s face. It was difficult to tell if Wout’s touch was gentle from the fuzzy, two-dimensional image, but it must have been. Wout treats everyone he cares about with tenderness. More often than not, Christophe has seen him like that with Jonas, even if their relationship isn’t like that. In another world, in a world that they’re constructing, that could have been Christophe’s face he was holding.

He’s never been the chattiest on group rides, not even when he was on a French team. He lets the conversation flow over him and past him. He takes in the gorgeous views of the snow-tipped Alps all around him. The sky is clear, dotted only with the occasional whispy cloud. He lets himself enjoy the moment, trying to get his mind to focus on the beautiful scenery and not on Wout. At least until Wout says, “There’s something you should know about the picture.”

The way half their group snaps their head in Wout’s direction in unison is almost comical.

“Yeah?”Matteo asks. “What about it?”

Wout’s leading the group. Jonas is riding beside him, a silent but steady presence. Christophe thinks that maybe he should be there instead. Wout says, “There’s going to be a video where I address it. We’re filming it when we get back. You should know, ah, that we’re going to say that it was Christophe who was with me.”

Matteo’s face is incredibly expressive under the right circumstances, Christophe notices. “Right, because it was him,” Matteo says, with simple matter-of-factness.

Wout shakes his head. “Uh, it wasn’t, actually,” he says.

Several heads turn in Christophe’s direction. He has no idea why anyone would think it was him. They all knew he went back home to France after the Giro. He supposes that he’s not one to keep everyone apprised of his whereabouts at all times the way some of the other guys are. Wilco likes to make an announcement every time he gets on a plane.

Wout’s shoulders tighten almost imperceptibly. It’s only because Christophe is used to watching Wout’s back as he rides that he even notices.

“Huh,” Matteo says. He sneaks a look in Christophe’s direction. His expression is hidden behind the wide lenses of his sunglasses. “Sorry, I know I haven’t been here that long, but I thought that— when I saw the pic, I figured— yeah.” Christophe isn’t sure if his English is getting worse, but he has no idea what Matteo is trying to say.

Tiesj pulls up beside Wout and gives him a friendly pat on the arm. “We’ve got your back, yeah?” He also glances at Christophe in a way that feels significant.

Christophe says, “We think it will be easier to pretend it was me. I wanted to help.”

Wout’s shoulders relax a smidgen. “Yeah, It’s just for a few weeks. Maybe we can break up at the end of the Tour, once no one cares anymore.” He turns his head and flashes Christophe a smile over his shoulder. A small one, just a hint of teeth. “Just enough to make sure we’re very boring.”

Christophe smiles back. He doesn’t dislike the press as much as Jonas and Wout (and Primoz, back when he was on the team) do, but he does get a small thrill from the thought of pulling a fast one on them. “The most boring,” he agrees.

After their ride, Christophe and Wout get pulled aside by the video team. They’ve already set up the main meeting room, with its stonework walls and comfortable chairs, for their video interview. Christophe has done some bits here and there for the media team before, but he’s rarely the focus of any of them.

“Okay,” Tobias says, “Ideally, we’d want both of you to say a few words, but this news centers around Wout, and we want to let him pull focus and draw most of the attention, at least early on.” Then he arranges the two of them on one of the couches, side-by-side.

At first, Christophe sits the way he usually would next to Wout: their shoulders brush, but not much else. Tobias shakes his head at the sight of them. “No,” he says, making a squishing gesture with his two hands. “Closer.”

Christophe glances at Wout, who nods at Tobias and shifts a few centimeters closer, so that Wout is one long line of heat along Christophe’s body. Christophe finds himself creating a mental catalog. Here is the hard knob of Wout’s hip. Here is the thick swell of his thigh. Wedged this close together, Christophe doesn’t know what to do with his left arm, which is uncomfortably squashed between them.

“I think you should put your arm around Wout’s shoulders,” Tobias says. He watches them through the view screen of the camera, his forehead furrowed as he studies the footage.

Christophe puts his arm around Wout’s shoulders. Wout tenses up at first, his spine going stiff. Then he takes a deep breath, and through sheer force of will, he relaxes. He also plasters a media-friendly smile on his face, one that doesn’t crinkle the corners of his eyes.

Wout doesn’t have particularly broad shoulders. He’s a cyclist, after all. They’re all lean and narrow, built for aerodynamics. He still has broader shoulders than any of the girls Christophe has dated. He hunches them slightly, like maybe he’s trying to get away from Christophe’s touch.

Christophe tries not to feel hurt that Wout is so clearly uncomfortable. Maybe with this whole situation, this video they need to make for something that would be benign if it were a woman Wout had been kissing… Or maybe he just doesn’t like that it’s Christophe his been saddled with. They’ve hugged dozens and dozens of times before. Wout is a tactile teammate, always ready with an easy touch, and Christophe has never been an exception. But maybe he finds the thought of dating Christophe revolting.

“Okay,” Tobias says. “Camera’s on. Whenever you’re ready.” He still isn’t looking directly at them. He nods.

Wout sits up straighter, which tucks him more firmly into the crook of Christophe’s elbow. Christophe does his best to relax as well. He tries to smile, and then he stops trying to smile, because he’s been told his camera smile can come across as awkward and insincere. He’s here to support Wout.

“As you might have seen,” Wout says, “there’s a photograph going around right now. Of me.” Christophe watches him. He’s seen Wout try to smile through frustration and pain before. This is like that, but ten times worse. Wout continues, “Yes, I am gay. I didn’t want to tell the world like this, but I’m well aware that we don’t always get what we want.” His smile turns wry and real for a moment before it falls again. On instinct, Christophe tightens his arm around Wout’s shoulders. Even if Wout secretly resents him for his offer, for inserting himself into this version of Wout’s personal hell, Christophe wants to give him what little comfort he can. Wout glances in his direction. He puts one hand on Christophe’s knee, maybe so he can sell the lie better. “Christophe was the man in the photograph with me. We’ve been dating since February.” A small squeeze on Christophe’s leg. “I know people will have a lot of questions, but we’d like to keep our personal lives private. Thank you for respecting that.” He pauses after that statement and looks back at the camera. In some ways, it’s more of a stare-down than a look, like he’s challenging anyone in the audience to say shit to him.

“Cut!” Tobias yells. He gives the two of them a thumbs up from behind the camera. Wout lets out a sigh. He leans back for a moment. His neck rests against Christophe’s arm. This close, Christophe imagines running his palm over the sides of Wout’s head where the shorter hair is free from gel.

“Are we good?” Wout asks.

Tobias isn’t looking at them. He’s glancing down at the screen with his headphones on, presumably watching a replay. Christophe feels both a sudden desire to see it, so he can get a sense of how stupid he looks and a desire never to see it because he doesn’t want to know anything about how stupid he looks. “I think we’re good,” Tobias says.

Christophe takes some comfort in that. Whatever was happening on his face must not have been too bad. Wout stands up, shaking off Christophe’s arm as he does so. He must be so relieved he doesn’t have to keep touching Christophe anymore. He checks his phone. “Okay, good. I’m supposed to have a meeting with Grischa now.” He gives everyone, including Christophe, a brief nod. “Thanks for all the help,” he says.

And without so much as a second look back in Christophe’s direction, he leaves.

Chapter 3

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

Christophe doesn’t use social media a whole lot.

He mostly keeps his Instagram around to keep up with his teammates. He used Facebook for a while back when it was more popular. He uses his Twitter account at maximum seven times a year.

He’s not a star the way Wout is or the way Thibau Pinot was. He gets tagged in things or gets odd comments on occasion, just the regular price of some amount of fame, as limited as his is. Generally, he can ignore them. He doesn’t really care what some asshole, sitting on his couch in front of the TV, thinks about their race strategy.

But when the announcement video goes up, it feels important to share it on his Instagram page and in his stories. He only watches the first five seconds. Wout looks as good as he always does, handsome and composed, even with the signs of strain around his mouth. Christophe looks– well, he looks fine. Acceptable.

Christophe doesn’t know what compels him to read a few comments. Morbid curiosity, most likely. It’s not his best trait. Whoever runs the account — one of the interns who reports to Tobias — must have already deleted the worst ones, because Christophe doesn’t see anything particularly awful. Most of the comments are nice. words of encouragement in English, Dutch, and even a scattering of French and Spanish. As Christophe scrolls down, he sees some of the comments lower on the page are more hostile, questioning why this has anything to do with sports and why Wout felt the need to make his sex life a part of the news. One comment says something about how they’re genuinely surprised that this announcement doesn’t feature Mathieu van der Poel.

Christophe puts down his phone as soon as he reads that.

He only gets another five minutes of peace before his phone starts lighting up with text messages. Friends, former teammates, relatives. Training camp tends to be its own strange little world. It’s easy to forget that the outside world exists and might have opinions that would intrude on his life here.

Christophe is more than okay ignoring it all for now. He hasn’t talked to some of these people in years. Unfortunately, among the rest of the noise, there’s a text from his mother that reads, Call me as soon as you get this. He has a meeting with his strength coach in ten minutes. Probably not enough time to have the sort of conversation his mother wants to have. He knows she won’t care anyway.

With a heavy sigh, he pulls up her number and gives her a call. She answers on the second ring. “Hi, Mom,” he says. He closes his eyes and slumps in his chair. His room is sparse yet cozy. He had the same one during Tignes training camp last year, and it still feels a little like his home away from home. This armchair isn’t the most comfortable thing he’s ever sat on, but it’s serviceable.

“Is that all you have to say to me?” his mother demands. “If it wasn’t officially announced by the team, I would have thought it was a silly online rumor.”

Christophe winces, though he knows his mother can’t see it. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Everything happened so fast.” It has only been twenty-five hours since Christophe first saw the picture of Wout. Besides the planning, filming, announcements to the team, he’s been eating, sleeping, or training. He hasn’t had time to consider how he would deal with the fallout.

She lets out a sigh. Her tone softens. “I didn’t know that — you only ever introduced us to those lovely girls. Were they all…?” she can’t even seem to bring herself to complete the thought.

“No, Mom,” Christophe says, because it feels unfair to them to pretend to his mother it was all a lie. “It’s just– I like both. I think– I think I always have.” He hasn’t said it out loud before. No one through this whole process has bothered to ask. It hasn’t mattered. While they’ve been faking an entire relationship, his actual sexuality has been irrelevant.

His mother lets out a pleased and approving hmm. “Well, at least Wout is a nice boy. I’ve always liked him. You were so happy when you started riding for that team.” His mother had always followed his career much closer than his father did. Growing up, she was the one who brought him to races, who watched the Tour with him on television every July, who helped him fix mechanicals. Christophe’s father spent most of Christophe’s early years away on business trips, and had little to no investment in Christophe’s cycling career. His mother continues, “I’m just sorry that you didn’t feel like you could tell me.”

Christophe swallows around the lump in his throat. He barely knew how to admit it to himself, much less to anyone else, and now here he was, trying to come up with a reason for why he never told her about a relationship that doesn’t exist. “We were just being careful. It’s been tough this spring, and we’ve been– we’ve been figuring things out. Almost no one knew except for some members of the team.” It’s a concocted backstory, but it still has that ring of truth. It was a difficult spring for the whole team, Christophe not excluded.

“Hmpf,” his mother grumbles. She can always tell when he’s lying, though she doesn’t always call him out on it. “Is he treating you well, at least? Are you treating each other well?” Her voice is threaded through with genuine maternal concern.

Christophe can’t get away with lying again, not when this answer is far more important than the previous one. “It’s not always easy,” he says, “but we’re doing our best.”

After Christophe finishes talking with his mother, he goes to his meeting, only a few minutes late. There must have been some sort of additional memo that went out to the support staff, because everyone seems extra determined to ignore the obvious questions and focus on Christophe’s power numbers instead.

Then it’s dinner with the team. Wout’s back to eating with everyone else now that he’s had time to sort out an official announcement. He smiles and laughs when he gets some lighthearted ribbing about becoming the most exciting news coming out of Belgium, and he graciously accepts Wilco’s offer to swap roommate assignments so that Wout and Christophe can room together for the duration of the tour. No one pushes any further than that, though, and Christophe can see the way Wout’s shoulders relax bit by bit over the course of the meal.

They all have some unstructured time after dinner. Most of the team uses it to call up family, friends, and partners who aren’t in Tignes. Christophe already talked to his mother, and he refuses to bother with any of the cousins he hasn’t talked to in years blowing up his phone.

Instead, he finds himself in his room, absently flipping through movies on Netflix, trying to find one that sticks. It’s not usual for Christophe to have this much trouble settling on something to watch. He’s usually pretty good about letting things drift into the background, even if his mind is elsewhere.

He’s so distracted, he startles in surprise when he gets a knock on his door.

“Come in,” he yells in English.

Wout pushes his way inside. The bags under his eyes are darker and deeper than normal. His hair is soft, a little messy, like maybe he’s been running his fingers through it. “Hi,” he says. His smile is thin, a little strained.

Christophe sits up and puts his tablet down. “Hey,” he says. He’s felt exhausted, run ragged, just from inserting himself, however awkwardly, into this whole scandal. Wout has been at the epicenter. It must be ten times worse for him.

“We haven’t had time to talk,” Wout says, switching to French, “just the two of us.”

Christophe nods. “No, we haven’t.”

Wout finds a seat on one of the chairs. His hands go to the bracelets on his wrists. “I wanted to, uh, thank you,” Wout says. “I think this would be so much more difficult if you weren’t here.”

Christophe shrugs. “I haven’t done anything, really.” He sat next to Wout for a video recording and got spammed with text messages, listened to some ribbing from Tiesj. It’s hardly been worse than a category two climb.

Wout cracks a smile. “It’ll be different when we’re at the Tour.” He sighs. “Will it be okay for you, if the cycling world believes you’re attracted to men?”

That takes Christophe by surprise. He hadn’t realized how much Wout was convinced this was some sort of noble sacrifice on Christophe’s part. “I am attracted to men,” he says. He really hadn’t ever considered it some sort of shameful secret. People just made assumptions, and it never seemed worth the effort to correct them. It feels important to correct Wout now.

“Oh,” Wout says. The rate of his fiddling increases.

They lapse into silence for a moment. Wout’s forehead furrows in thought.

“I did also want to talk to you about future planning,” Wout says eventually. His expression is calm and focused, like he’s sitting through a race planning meeting. He’s the kind of rider who likes to know every detail of a stage and have contingencies within contingencies. Of course he’d want to try to map out a plan of attack. “Social media,” Wout continues. “We should decide on what we can and should post.”

“We can’t just post what we normally do?” Christophe thought social media strategy was something corporations and celebrities worried about. He’s small-time enough that he read the team’s social media guidelines once and promptly forgot about half of them.

Wout stops fiddling with his bracelets. He sighs, pursing his lips. “I think we should try to convince everyone that– that this is real.”

“How do you want to do that?” Christophe asks. He had thought maybe the journalists would take their words at face value, but he does see Wout’s point. They are already committed to this. They don’t want to give anyone reason to doubt them now.

“Photos, I guess. Of each other and maybe some together.” Wout says. “What everyone else does.” His tone ticks upwards at the end of the sentence, maybe a hint of wistfulness. Christophe follows Wout on his various socials. Wout is more active than Christophe. He likes sharing snippets of things he’s seen, food he’s eaten, people he’s hanging out with. He already posted a picture of Christophe on Strava a couple of weeks ago.

Christophe had thought that one wasn’t the most flattering, a picture of Christophe also trying to take a picture of the view.

“Sure,” Christophe says. He might need to step up his game, but he’s posed for enough photographs in his life. He can’t imagine this will be any more difficult. “What does everyone else do?”

Wout sighs. His shoulders tense. “Uh, I guess it’s just stuff that I’ve only ever got to see other people do. I’ve never– it’s not something that I could do with any of my previous boyfriends. Just– I know it’s not real, but it would be nice to — I don’t know — see what it’s like.”

Christophe tries not to get hung up on the phrase “previous boyfriends.” He clears his throat. “So, like, selfies together? Holding hands?” He knows how much Wout fixates on the details. It’s better to make sure they’re on the same page before Christophe agrees to it.

“Yes,” Wout says. “Hugs, of course–”

Christophe nods. Hugs are easy enough.

Wout hesitates, then takes a deep, steadying breath and says, “–and kissing — if you’re okay with that.” The last part comes out in a rush. Christophe doesn’t see Wout nervous very often. Worried and edgy and anxious, yes. But not nervous.

“That’s fine,” Christophe knows that in the big melting pot of the pro peloton, not everyone is comfortable with European gestures of affection, but that’s their problem. Christophe has kissed teammates publicly before, and he has no problem kissing Wout in public, either.

Wout’s shoulders relax. A broad smile breaks out across his face. Christophe has always known Wout is handsome. He’s the face of the team for a reason. And yet, now, with the hatching of this ridiculous scheme (which is Christophe’s fault, of course), he feels as though he’s taken on a new awareness of it, like there’s some part of him that’s always wanted the excuse to notice it. “Good,” Wout says. His expression softens. “I still don’t know why you took this on. You didn’t have to.”

Christophe doesn’t say something ridiculous in response, like, Yes, I did. Instead, he says, “It’s what anyone on the team would do.”

“Well, it wasn’t anyone else on the team who did it. It was you. Thank you.” Christophe has never thought about Wout’s eyes before, but right now, in the gentle light of his hotel room, they look big and dark and soulful, filled with honest gratitude.

Christophe nods. He isn’t sure what to say.

Wout blinks and turns his head away. He clears his throat. “So given all of that,” he pulls out his phone from his pocket, “selfie?”

“Sure,” Christophe says. He shifts over on the bed, so Wout can sit next to him. The bed is only really big enough for one person, so Wout is pressed up against him again. Christophe is getting used to the feeling of it. He likes it. It’s nice.

Wout raises the phone up. Their faces show up on the screen together. Christophe smiles, even as he feels self-conscious of all his teeth. If this is how Wout wants to handle things, Christophe will roll with it. “Okay?” Wout asks.

Christophe nods. He tries to relax his face.

Then, Wout turns his head to the side and presses a kiss to Christophe’s cheek. His lips are soft against Chnrstophe’s late-day stubble.

As Christophe is trying to process that, he hears the click of the phone camera.

Wout pulls away afterwards, so quickly Christophe wonders if he smells or something. Wout studies his phone with an inscrutable expression on his face.

“That bad?” Christophe jokes, trying to lighten the mood and cover over his own sense of lingering disorientation.

Wout shakes his head. “No, I think it’s– it’s fine.” He turns the phone around so that Christophe can see it too.

It is a nice photograph. Christophe must have blinked when Wout took the picture, because Christophe’s eyes are closed. His smile is still broad and wide, more relaxed from the surprise. Wout is smiling, too, even as his lips are pulled into a pucker. It’s obvious from the crinkles near his eyes. They look– they look convincing together, like maybe they could be a real couple.

“I’ll post it tonight,” Wout says. He stands up and makes his way to leave. At the doorway, he turns around. “Thank you again.” he says.

Christophe hasn’t formulated a better response in the meantime. He can still feel the afterimage of Wout’s kiss on his skin. So he just nods, and he watches Wout’s retreating back as he disappears into the hallway.

Wout posts the picture on Instagram and tags Christophe in it. The only caption he adds is a single red heart. Christophe was never one to be public with previous girlfriends. They tended to drift in and out of his life, not leaving much of a lasting impression. It was difficult to keep relationships going when he spent so much of his life traveling and training and racing.

Looking at the Instagram post, he wonders about Wout’s previous partners. Did he take selfies like this with them too? Is Wout’s phone a graveyard of those pictures? All of them tucked away for years because he could never post any of them publicly?

Christophe wracks his brain, trying to draw up some image of one of the mysterious, faceless men who Wout must have dated in the past. It seems unlikely Wout would have brought them to team events. Too many people. Too many cameras. Maybe Wout doesn’t even date much, just casual hookups when he gets a chance. That’s what he was doing when he got caught on camera.

But some instinctive part of Christophe rejects that notion. He sees the fondness Wout has for children, the wistfulness he has for couples celebrating weddings and anniversaries. Christophe has never tried to articulate it before, but he’s certain Wout is a romantic at heart.

Looking up from his phone, Christophe takes a moment to stare out the window. It’s a lovely view, especially at this point in the evening; the surrounding mountains are bathed in golden light. He wonders, somewhat absurdly, if he should buy Wout flowers. Christophe feels certain that Wout’s previous boyfriends must have bought him flowers.

He has no idea where or when he could get flowers up here in Tignes. He could ask Google, he supposes. Christophe always liked getting little gifts for his previous girlfriends — offerings of souvenirs or food or yes, even flowers. Things that didn’t quite make up for his many and numerous absences over the course of a cycling season but would hopefully take some of the sting out of it. He turns back to his phone, ready to search for nearby florists.

And then he remembers that he’s not actually dating Wout, and there’s no good reason to buy him flowers.

He puts down his phone and picks up his tablet so he can watch some Netflix instead. He’s heard that too much social media can be bad for mental health. Seems safer not to risk it.

Chapter 4

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

The arrival of the Tour comes quickly, and Christophe doesn’t have the time to put much thought into their fake relationship. He and Wout end up in a few more selfies on Wout’s Instagram. These are more casual, just shoulders together, smiles wide. Christophe likes each post dutifully, sometimes adds them to his own story, then closes the app.

They have other things to occupy their time. Photographs in the special Tour jersey. Team discussions about race strategy. Hours and hours and hours on their bikes. Meal plans. Equipment testing and fitting.

Wout and Jonas are getting better and stronger. It’s unclear if it’s enough to hold off UAE and Tadej Pogacar this year, but it’s the best chance they have.

Soon enough, the whole team sets off for Italy.

The day of the team presentation is beautiful, sunny and warm. They’re surrounded by the gorgeous architecture of Florence. Christophe tries to take as much of it in as he can, but there’s too much going on. It’s just the roar of the fans, the flash of the cameras, the bright colors of all the team jerseys. At least there’s some time for sightseeing later.

Christophe follows Wout up the ramp and onto the stage. They stand shoulder to shoulder, straddling their bikes. With how close they are, Christophe can feel the tension running through Wout’s body, as nervous as a kid at his first Tour. The announcer shouts their names out to the cheering crowd. Christophe smiles and waves to the crowd on cue. Then Wout does.

Wout’s smile is a little strained around the edges, but Christophe doesn’t think it’s obvious to anyone who isn’t standing right next to him. After they move on to Tiesj, the smile on Wout’s face wanes. As his arm drops, he shoots a look at Christophe from the corner of his eye, then reaches over to slide his hand around Christophe’s.

Wout is wearing gloves, so Christophe can’t tell if Wout’s palms are as sweaty as his. Wout’s jaw is set into a stubborn line as his smile goes tight. Everyone is already staring at them, so Christophe has no idea if this particular action is drawing attention.

It’s not even that unusual for them to clasp hands, to pass out water bottles, to congratulate each other at the end of a race, but Wout isn’t treating this like any of those situations. He laces his fingers through Christophe’s and squeezes. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of cameras are pointed at them right now. Even though Wout isn’t drawing attention to it, this moment must be captured from multiple angles right now.

When they get to Jonas, he gives a short, heartfelt spiel about how happy he is to be here today, how getting here at all is the real victory. Wout’s fingers tighten around Christophe’s. He blinks his eyes a few times, his eyes glossy with unshed tears. Christophe knows that Jonas’ words apply to him too. Christophe squeezes his fingers back, because he can.

Then their team presentation is over, and they’re ushered offstage. Wout lets go of Christophe’s hand and remounts his bike.

There’s still a giant crowd all around them as they make their way down the narrow corridor formed by the metal barriers. It still feels private enough for Christophe to ask, “Are you–”

Wout cuts him off. “I’m fine,” he says. He gives Christophe a thin smile.

Christophe doesn’t believe him for a second, but he doesn’t have the time or the space to press the issue, so he lets it drop.

They have the rest of the afternoon off. Christophe hasn’t been to Florence before, and he’s eager to explore a bit before the bike racing eats up the entirety of their time and energy. Somehow, through self-selection, Christophe ends up with Tiesj in the plaza of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore.

They take photographs, read plaques, and admire the domed basilica. They even get stopped a few times by fans who recognize the logo on their clothes and the distinct yellow and black coloring more than getting recognized as themselves. One of the men asks Christophe in thickly accented and hesitant English whether Jonas is as nice as he seems on television. Christophe says yes, and he’s not even lying. Tiesj tells a few stories about his daughter from the few days he had at home between training camp and team presentation. Christophe reports back on the latest goofy texts he’s gotten from Julian Alaphilippe about the Olympics preparations. It’s nice, a relaxing way to pass the time.

Eventually Tiesj turns to Christophe and says, “I’m glad you stepped up to do this. For Wout.” Tiesj doesn’t have any seniority on Christophe. He joined the same season Christophe did. But he’s Belgian and speaks Dutch and is Wout’s good friend. They spent two entire training camps together this spring before the DDV crash. His voice carries weight.

Christophe shrugs. He thinks his words over carefully. “He shouldn’t have to go through it alone,” he says. He can still hear Wout’s voice in his head, talking about how it would be easier if he had someone. Christophe was recruited and hired to be that someone on the road, supporting Wout on his quest for cobbled monuments. And yet, Christophe volunteered to take on that role off the road, too. It had been an impulse, an instinct. He doesn’t know what led him to make that decision, but he hasn’t been given any reason to regret it, yet.

“He shouldn’t,” Tiesj agrees. They take a moment to stare at the statue in front of them. It’s beautiful, white marble. The folds of the clothing are delicately etched into the stone. It’s fake, an imitation of the real thing, but it’s beautiful in its own way.

Tiesj continues. “He’s going through a lot right now. With his injury recovery and missing some of his goals.” “Right,” Christophe says. He knows all of that.

Tiesj probably visited him in the hospital or at home while he was recovering, while Christophe was busy at the Giro, and then not-busy after he left the Giro. Tiesj is a good friend like that. Christophe did text Wout a lot at the time, just a few anecdotes or French memes he came across. Wout wasn’t pretending he wasn’t frustrated or sad, but their messages did have a veneer of forced cheer about them. Maybe Christophe should have done more.

Tiesj turns towards Christophe. Christophe feels his skin prickling under the scrutiny of Tiesj’s gaze. Tiesj says, “I am not saying he’s fragile, but I think you should be, ah, careful. With him.”

“He’s Wout,” Christophe says by way of explanation. Wout is, in many ways, the bedrock of the team. He sets the pace, and he expects everyone else to follow. He’s human, yes, but he’s also one of the toughest and most resilient people Christophe knows.

Tiesj shakes his head. “He can’t always be,” he says. “Just, be his friend first and foremost, okay?”

Christophe knows there are layers of meaning here he isn’t quite getting through, what with both of them speaking in English. But the request itself is easy to agree to. He is Wout’s friend. That’s why he’s doing this, after all. “I will,” Christophe promises.

“Good,” Tiesj says with a final nod. “That’s all I’m asking.”

Christophe almost forgets that he’s sharing a room with Wout now until he gets back to the hotel and finds Wout’s luggage co-mingled with his own.

The day before a race is nervy and tense. The day before a stage race even more so. There’s a buzz underneath Christophe’s skin. He reminds himself that soon enough, as they get further and further into the race, he will miss this amount of peace and quiet. He settles in on the bed and absently pokes around on his tablet. He finds himself playing a match-3 game and then scrolling through YouTube shorts with puppies in them, just to distract himself.

After about another half an hour, Wout shows up. Compared to the restlessness Christophe feels, he looks drained and exhausted. His shoulders are slumped. His eyes are dull. His gait is an awkward shuffle.

At Christopher’s questioning eyebrow, he pulls his lips into an expression that’s as much a grimace as a smile and says, “Press.” That’s all he needs to say. Christophe shifts over on his team-branded comforter. Wout takes him up on the offer, slumping into the newly open space at Christophe’s side. Wout slouches on the bed and leans his weight into Christophe. He lets out a loud sigh but doesn’t say anything.

Christophe isn’t going to ask. He knows the generalities anyway, given that Wout deals with some variation of it every year. They sit in silence for a bit. Wout’s breaths are slow and deep. He relaxes, some of the stress of the day leaching out of his body.

He ends up with his head resting on Christophe’s shoulder. He closes his eyes. Christophe finds himself staring, somewhat ridiculously, at the dark sweep of Wout’s lashes. Maybe Christophe doesn’t smell bad, and Wout was just tense about the video recording. Christophe doesn’t blame him.

As much as he would like, Christophe can’t match Wout’s level of calm and relaxation. The pre-race nerves are stronger than ever. He had thought that Wout could be an energy sink, what with the way he seems halfway to sleep right now, but with every brush of Wout’s soft hair against his neck, Christophe feels more jittery than before Wout showed up.

Eventually, Wout blinks his eyes open. He sighs again and sits up, leaving only their arms touching. He rubs one hand over his face. Christophe wants to pull him back in, wants to rewind time to that small bubble of contentment they’d had a moment ago. But time only ever moves forward. Wout says, “They asked about you.” His voice is tight with annoyance.

Christophe shrugs. “They were always going to do that.” It was why they’d spent so long trying to get their story straight.

“Yeah, I just thought that you should know just in case it comes up tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Christophe agrees. He doesn’t expect to do much besides make sure Jonas gets over all the hills safely. He managed to dodge media duties today because of the pomp and circumstance around team presentation. Tomorrow, he won’t be as lucky.

Wout huffs out a breath. “I thought it would be fine. I could just say it was you, and we didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.” He goes quiet, and his gaze goes somewhere far away.

“But?” Christophe asks.

“But they wanted to ask me about how the team felt about it, what it means that we’re the first out couple — the only out male riders — in the peloton. Things that I didn’t really want to answer either. At least not with five different cameras shoved in my face.”

“We’re really the only out riders?” Christophe asks. He knew this one guy on Cofidis who used Grindr, and there were rumors and some open secrets about some of the career domestiques who tended to bounce between the world tour teams. He’s never thought about whether they’d ever told the general public about it. Maybe he should have. No wonder Wout is so stressed.

“Yeah. Why do you think I kept it hidden for so long? I knew it would be a shitshow.” He lets out a soft sigh. “I guess I was just putting it off for as long as I could.” He frowns. A crease forms between his eyebrows.

Christophe bumps Wout’s shoulder with his own. He knows how Wout can get when he’s in his own head, trying to analyze his every move.

Wout takes another deep breath. “Today, at the team presentation. That was okay, right?”

Christophe blinks. “The hand holding?” he asks. He isn’t sure what else Wout could mean in this context. To be perfectly honest, he had mostly forgotten it had happened.

Wout nods. “I don’t know why I did it, Impulse, I guess. Wanting to prove a point to everyone.”

Christophe tries a joke. “What happened to you not needing to do anything?” He pauses for a moment, then continues, “It was fine.” He thinks about Wout’s long fingers tangled up in his own. “I liked it.” If it made Wout feel better, he would do it again another twenty times.

Wout is quiet for a long moment after that. He is probably thinking it over like he’s analyzing an attack, trying to pick apart exactly why it succeeded, why it failed. “Good,” he says eventually.

“If you want,” Christophe says, “I could take questions with you tomorrow.” He figures there will probably be a French outlet that will hunt him down as well to ask him some nosy questions about his social life. It would be helpful to have Wout for that as well.

Wout’s frown deepens, but at least he’s considering their future strategy instead of getting mired in the past. “I guess it will help sell our relationship if we’re seen together. And we can make sure we’re not slipping in new details without the other knowing about it.”

“And I can tell them to go away if they’re being annoying.” Christophe adds.

Wout snort-laughs. It wasn’t a good joke, but it was worth it to see the beginnings of a smile peeking through his otherwise stormy expression. “Tobias would have your head for that,” Wout says.

Christophe shrugs. He isn’t looking forward to staring down the Belgian cycling media machine. He doesn’t care what they think of him, though, even if they are under the impression he is dating one of their golden sons. He does care about what it does to Wout, though. Especially when it gets him looking like this. “He can have my head. You’re more important than him.”

Wout hesitates, his whole body tensing. On the road, Christophe can read Wout’s body language. He knows what it means when Wout’s shoulders tilt forward. He can see Wout’s level of fatigue in the turn of his legs on the pedals. He wishes he were half as good at reading Wout’s body here, in the quiet of their shared room. Wout says, “I know I keep saying this, but thank you for doing all of, you know.” His voice has gone softer. Christophe has to lean in closer to hear it.

“I want to help. If this is how I can help, I’ll do it,” Christophe says. He feels a sudden, maybe irrational, flare of irritation for the guy in the photograph for abandoning Wout to deal with this mess alone. Yeah, Wout was also partially to blame, but it feels extraordinarily irresponsible for that one anonymous man to kiss him and disappear into the night. At the same time, Christophe is glad the asshole didn’t decide to stick it out. He clearly can’t be trusted with Wout’s health and emotional safety.

Wout relaxes again. Christophe doesn’t know what he said, but he wants to keep saying it until he can make the past few months go away for him. He is more than happy to take Wout’s warm and solid weight. Wout says, “You are– helping, that is. You have no idea how much.”

“Then that’s all that matters.” Christophe says.

Chapter 5

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

Yeah, it got a rating and a chapter count. I have a full draft now. It’s going to take a bit of time to edit it all, but here’s some more of this now.

Even with his strong performance on stage one, Wout’s next few stages are uneven. With his messy, imperfect preparation, his strength comes and goes. The plan was for Christophe to lead out Wout on the flat sprint stages, but it’s a coin flip as to whether or not Wout will feel like he’s ready and capable of it. Christophe ends up riding for Jonas more often.

There’s a bit of a scare when Wout and Matteo go down in a crash in stage two. They’re both fine, just scraped up a bit. After the end of that stage, Christophe still insists to the swannies that they put Wout’s cool down bike next to his. Just so that Christophe can have him around. Wout likes to talk through his races afterwards, and Christophe likes listening to his insights.

Now that they’re in the public spotlight, they’ve taken to exchanging easy gestures of affection more often. Wout was already a hugger, tactile with his arms and his hands. With this new fake relationship, they’ve added kisses to the rotation. Just small pecks to cheeks and foreheads and lips, a casual sort of affection that Christophe has shared with his previous girlfriends. It only takes a few days for it to become a habit. A kiss when they leave the bus. A kiss when they line up for the start. A kiss when they meet again after the finish. Sometimes, Wout posts the pictures to his story. Christophe adds them to his own afterwards. They have to keep up appearances, after all.

Maybe Christophe gets a little twinge in his chest every time Wout touches him in a way that could be construed as a bit more than friendly, but that’s Christophe’s problem to deal with, not Wout’s. What Wout asked for was simple. Christophe is the one making it complicated.

Christophe has also taken to haunting Wout’s press pools, occasionally answering questions that get thrown his way. The Dutch and Belgian outfits even switch to asking Wout questions in English while Christophe is there for politeness’ sake. Maybe Wout said something to them. Christophe wouldn’t know.

After stage four, he gets told by Tobias that he can’t keep dodging L’Équipe and that the team thinks it’s important for him to give the French media what they want. Christophe has known Maxim for a while. He’s a beat reporter who gets sent to all the stage races, and he will occasionally pull Christophe aside for a quote or two. Christophe likes him. He’s decent. Professional. He has never asked Christophe anything particularly challenging or interesting before, but Christophe has never been particularly challenging or interesting before. He is good, yes, but he’s just another very good French rider following in the legacy of other very good French riders.

Maxime is waiting for him at the cool down bikes. Wout isn’t there yet. It was a hard mountain stage, and they both dropped early. Christophe had been feeling slightly stronger and came in a couple minutes ahead of Wout. The Belgians will probably be more impressed with Remco hanging in there with Jonas and Tadej than anything Wout has to say about not doing much at all. At least Christophe can hope so.

Like any good reporter, Maxime shows up with a microphone and a notepad. He has a pen tucked behind one ear. Christophe pretends to ignore him as he sets up the microphone and flips open the notepad on one of the mechanic’s tool trays, lazily pedaling his way through his cool down.

“So,” Maxime says, eventually. “I’m glad we finally get a chance to talk more in depth.” He has taken the pen out from behind his ear, so he can take notes on the pad. The plastic body of the pen has teeth marks, a fidgety sort of bad habit that Christophe recognizes immediately. Christophe’s drug of choice is the ear hooks of his sunglasses. (With his newfound awareness, Christophe notices that this is also one of Wout’s vices: putting things in his mouth and chewing on them — not just the sunglasses, but bidons and fingernails and gel wrappers. It’s driving Christophe to distraction, even if he can’t say anything about that.)

“What did you want to talk about?” Christophe asks. He supposes it doesn’t do him any good to play stupid, but he also doesn’t want to make Maxime’s job too easy for him.

Maxime snorts. “Well, it was big news when it was revealed that you were dating one of your teammates, one of the biggest stars of the sport. I don’t suppose you want to walk me through that.”

Christophe raises his eyebrows. “Could you be more specific?” he asks. He doesn’t have a contentious relationship with the press. They’ve always been nice enough to him. That was before he committed to lying to their face about a non-existent romantic relationship with Wout, though.

“When did you first know you were gay?” Maxime asks.

Christophe can’t tell if Maxime is trying to provoke a reaction. If he is, he is going to have to do much better than this. Christophe keeps pedaling and says, “As long as I’ve known I liked girls, too.” He’s not even lying. He remembers those first stirrings of adolescent desire. They had been sparked by beautiful people, confident people, kind people — people who had left his heart racing and his cheeks pink. The gender hadn’t mattered as much.

“So you would say you are bisexual then?” Maxime seems to perk up at this, like it’s some grand revelation.

Christophe shrugs and says, “Yes, I suppose. I never really thought about what I would call myself.” The back of his neck prickles with discomfort. He supposes he’s lived his life with labels: French, cyclist, son, brother. He has no idea why this one sits on his shoulders so uneasily.

Maxime scribbles that down in his notebook. “Wout van Aert has publicly stated that you began dating during the opening weekend of the road season. How did that happen?”

Christophe had lingered in the background of those interviews. Wout hadn’t offered up many details. He had stuck to the timeline they’d developed together, relaying their fabricated story as straightforward facts. Times, dates, places. He hadn’t offered up any sort of emotional depth to their story, probably because there aren’t any real feelings involved for him. It’s not quite so simple for Christophe, but maybe he can use that to their advantage.

He says, “It was after Omloop. We were celebrating Jan’s win as a team and getting ready for Kurne the next day.” He pauses. They had all been so happy during that dinner. Jan made a short and silly toast. For whatever the reason, the lighting had been dimmer than usual during dinner, more like the big to-dos after the last stage of the Tour de France than a back-to-back classics weekend. “I — the feeling that night was special.” Christophe does have a specific memory of Wout that night with his head thrown back with laughter, a smile stretched from ear-to-ear. Christophe hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, but the memory has taken on a bittersweet tinge knowing now how the rest of their classics season turned out.

Maxime holds up his hands like he really thinks Christophe is about to dump their (non-existent) sex life onto him. “I don’t need any details,” he says jokingly.

Christophe bites back the urge to say, I wasn’t going to give you any, but he’s been through enough media training to know that’s a bad idea.

Maxime flips the page in his notebook. “Why did you kiss him in public, knowing that it could get you outed?” he asks.

Christophe can’t stop himself from flinching at the abrupt bluntness. “What?” he chokes out. It’s only through years of muscle memory that his legs don’t falter in their rhythm.

“You kissed in a public place. In Belgium, where Wout is a well-known celebrity. Surely, the concept must have crossed your mind.” Maxime’s eyes have lit up. He knows he’s hit a sore spot, and he wants to keep picking at it.

This is a topic that the Belgian media has not touched much – if at all – as far as Christophe can tell. He hasn’t been reading or watching Wout’s media beyond the interviews where he’s been present. The thing is– the thing is that Christophe doesn’t know the answer. He has no idea why Wout threw all caution to the wind and kissed that man in the club. Christophe doesn’t even know why Wout chose that particular man. He opens his mouth, and all that comes out is, “I– we were–”

Maxime continues on, “You’d both had disappointing seasons at that point, missing out on a lot of the classics season and then leaving the Giro d’Italia early. Did that have anything to do with it?”

Christophe is left gawping at him. “That’s not–” He’s been through his share of annoying interviews before, but this is the first time he’s felt genuinely off-kilter from the questions.

Wout picks that moment to show up. He looks worn out but also calm. He smiles at Christophe before straddling his own cooldown bike and clipping in. He nods at Maxime, who grins back, all teeth. Not entirely unlike a shark.

Christophe tries to pull Maxime’s attention back to him. “I don’t see how this is relevant at all.” He’s never been this adversarial with the press before, even during the team transfer. But team transfers are routine in cycling. Apparently, talking about sexuality isn’t.

Wout takes his sunglasses out of his helmet and slides them onto his face. He stares down at his handlebars, pretending not to listen in.

Maxime says, “I think everyone is curious about how it happened. It’s in the public interest to know why you were so careless with your personal lives.”

Christophe says, “I don’t think we have been.” He feels a sudden, sharp flare of anger. He’s been seen with his girlfriends in front of the cameras before. He watches Jonas, Tiesj, Sepp with their wives exchanging hugs and kisses on a regular basis. Why should it be different for Wout, for either of them? “I’m not ashamed of it.” He hates that everyone is treating this whole thing like some sort of freak show, like they should be cowering in shame.

He risks his own glance over at Wout. Wout’s attention is still on his handlebars, but his shoulders have a hunched stiffness to them that Christophe usually only sees after a particularly difficult or frustrating day. Even though Wout has been annoyed with his legs, today wasn’t bad enough to provoke this reaction. Christophe reaches out so he can give Wout a pat on the back. He can feel the tension running through Wout’s body. He can also feel Maxime’s eyes scrutinizing the interaction. Will it pass muster? Christophe hopes so.

“You haven’t made any of your own public statements until now,” Maxime points out.

Wout straightens up, giving up any pretense that he wasn’t listening the whole time. Christophe’s hand slides lower on his back. He doesn’t take it away. He likes the way it feels nestled there at the lower curve of Wout’s spine. Wout says, “That’s because I wanted the focus of the media attention to be on me. I’m used to that sort of thing.” He takes off his sunglasses and stares Maxime down. “Christophe is a private person, and I wanted to make sure that was respected while all this was happening. Anyway, I think that’s all the time we had for questions today.”

Maxime seems to take the hint that Wout is trying to drop. He flips his notepad closed and slides the pen behind one ear. “Well, Thank you for your time.” His expression is sour as he shuts off his microphone and walks away.

Christophe had known Wout was good at dealing with the press. He’d seen it in person dozens of times before. This is the first time he’d seen Wout do it in service of Christophe, though. He likes the way it feels, having Wout look out for him, too. It’s always been that way during a race, too, that balance of give and take. Wout believes in working for others as much as they believe in working for him.

Even after Maxime is gone, Christophe doesn’t take away his hand. There are still fans around with their phones, but really, it’s just because Christophe likes it. He says, “Thanks. I don’t think I’m as good at this as you are.” And by “this” he means “lying” but he doesn’t want to say that out loud with the fans still milling around, watching them.

Wout relaxes and shoots Christophe a smile. “We’re a team,” he says. Christophe is positioned better than most to know exactly what that means to Wout.

Christophe feels his throat tighten up. When he volunteered for this, he hadn’t expected to feel quite so many different things in the process. He hasn’t been lying as much as he thought he would. That might actually be worse than the alternative, because now he has a tangled mess of wants and desires where simple friendship used to be. He tries to put a reassuring smile on his face. He isn’t sure it’s very convincing, because Wout’s eyebrows draw together in concern. Wout says, “You’ve been here for me through this whole mess. Let me be here for you, too.”

Christophe’s chest clenches. He nods, even if that doesn’t quite capture the depth of his gratitude. He also gives Wout’s back another tap before, reluctantly, pulling his hand away.

Wout seems to understand what he means by it. His forehead smooths out again, and his smile widens, and he doesn’t say anything else.

Christophe doesn’t read the article when it comes out. He supposes it must be fine, because Tobias doesn’t yell at him for being mean to the press. Christophe still has a little bit of a fight-or-flight reaction every time he sees Maxime, but the man sticks to talking to the stage winners or maybe Pogačar, leaving the rest of them alone. Christophe refuses to look the gift horse in the mouth.

The rest of the team has mostly taken the whole Wout and Christophe not-relationship in stride. Some of them have probably been asked about it by the press, but Tobias gave them instructions on what to say. With their answers being boring, none of the reporters felt the need to keep asking about it. Wout and Christophe haven’t been acting differently in team spaces, when they don’t even have to make token attempts to keep up the charade.

In fact, Christophe is pretty sure that this whole thing is only messing with his own head. Wout’s legs are regaining their strength, even when they aren’t consistent, and it buoys his mood. After their big, brutal gravel stage, where he manages to fight his way back to the front over and over again, ensuring that Jonas doesn’t lose any time, he gets some of his old confidence back. He smiles more, laughs more, and even handles the nosiest of questions without complaint or irritation.

He apparently doesn’t get the same jolt from the brush of skin on skin the way Christophe does. Christophe is dealing with it. He volunteered for this. He can see it through to the end.

But it feels like they’re being reasonably convincing to everyone else, right up until one morning, after breakfast and before they’re all loaded onto the bus, Matteo says, “Hey, did you know the Twitter detectives are convinced that Christophe isn’t the guy in the photograph?”

Wout had been joking around with Wilco about something one of the commissars had said to him yesterday. At Matteo’s declaration, the smile slides off his face. “What?” he says.

This might be the point in time when Jonas would step in and change the topic, but he’s off somewhere with Trine and Frida. He gets to use the excuse that Trine is pregnant these days whenever they have a team thing he doesn’t want to do. Christophe suspects he doesn’t use it half as much as he would like to.

“There are some weirdos who keep tagging me in their conspiracy posts about how you’re both faking it for PR reasons,” Matteo explains. He flips his phone around so they can see a version of the now-infamous photo marked up with red circles and arrows.

“But they are faking it for PR reasons,” Tiesj points out. It does nothing to improve the mood of the room.

Christophe isn’t one for worrying too much about things that haven’t happened yet, but he still feels a thread of unease. “No one cares what they say.” People make stupid accusations all the time. Nearly every member of the peloton has been accused of doping, for example.

“I think we should prove them wrong.” Matteo declares. He squints at his phone like he can unlock its mysteries with his eyes.

“What do you mean?” Wout asks. His voice is tight, all his previous joviality vanished.

Matteo barrels on, seemingly unaware or unconcerned with the mounting tension in the room. “We could recreate it,” he says. “The picture, I mean.”

“I don’t see how that helps,” Wout says. “Won’t that make it more obvious that Christophe isn’t the one in the photograph?”

“Nah, it’s a really close match, and like, people see what they want to see.”

Wout looks like he wants to argue more, but Christophe puts his hand on Wout’s shoulder. “It might help,” he says in French. It’s not that Christophe wants to exclude anyone – most of the team, including Matteo – has decent-to-excellent French comprehension. He just doesn’t want to struggle to articulate himself in English. “What could it hurt?”

“You’re really okay with this?” Wout asks. From this close, his eyes are bigger and darker than usual. He has also decided to speak in French, even though it’s not as strong as his English.

Christophe shrugs, even though the reminder that Wout was more comfortable kissing a complete stranger in public than he is kissing Christophe with just his teammates around. “Yes,” he says. “I told you I was fine with it before, and I meant it.”

Matteo has already started to circle the room, arranging himself behind Christophe with a clear angle of Wout. He’s trying to match the angle of the original photograph.

“We’re in this together,” Christophe tells Wout. He doesn’t believe that this will move the needle for anyone already convinced there’s a conspiracy going on, but if it will make his teammates happy, it’s not a hardship.

Wout nods. He turns towards Christophe and reaches out to cup Christophe’s face with one hand. He smells clean, freshly showered, almost unfamiliar. Not the usual mix of road dirt and sticky Lycra and sugary energy gels Christophe knows from racing. Christophe meets Wout’s eyes as Wout leans forward. The brown of them seems even richer from up close. And then Wout’s eyes flutter closed. Christophe unconsciously matches him.

The first brush of Wout’s lips against his own isn’t any different from the other kisses they’re shared. Simple, sweet contact. Christophe has seen the photograph about a dozen times since that first morning, and in his secret, guilty musings, he’s wondered what it would be like to experience it himself.

None of his imaginings prepared him for the sweep of Wout’s thumb along his cheekbone or the heat of Wout’s mouth as he parts his lips and deepens the kiss, Christophe’s heart races in his chest as he tentatively meets Wout’s tongue with his own. Wout tastes like morning eggs and oatmeal. Christophe had been content to leave this as an awkward show kiss, more for Matteo’s camera than anything else, but Wout changed the rules midway through. Just like an attack up a climb, Christophe can do nothing but follow Wout’s lead and try not to die in his wheel.

Christophe’s hands come up to settle on Wout’s hips to see if he can ground himself there. His heart beats double-time in his chest, pushing its way up the zones. His skin feels too tight. His desire is a living thing, twisting and hungry. He leans into it. Christophe doesn’t often get to kiss someone his own height, and the novelty surprises him. Wout shaves religiously during big races, and his checks are smooth, leaving no stubble to scrape against Christophe’s own.

If they were in a club, if Wout was nothing more than a stranger, Christophe would be certain that they would be going home together at the end of the night. Did Wout fuck that guy in the picture? Christophe feels certain that he did. He tries not to imagine it, but Wout sighs into Christophe’s mouth, and Christophe can’t shake the vision of Wout, stripped naked, spread out on a bed. If it had been him, if he had been given that chance, then maybe he—

Behind Christophe, Matteo lets out a whoop. “Got it!” he says.

At the sound of Matteo’s voice, Wout pulls away, leaving Christophe standing there awkward and confused. His lips still tingle from the kiss.

Wout takes a step back and turns his attention towards Matteo, dodging Christophe’s attempt to make eye contact. That, more than anything else, is what stings. He probably only kissed Christophe out of his commitment to Christophe’s stupid plan. Christophe is going crazy, and Wout is treating it like any other awkward photoshoot.

Christophe clears his throat and turns to face Matteo as well. It’s better than continuing to look at the shuttered expression on Wout’s face, after all. “So that was good?” He asks this time in English. Now that the moment has been shattered, it seems less important to stick with French.

“Super convincing.” Matteo says, giving the thumbs up. “Instagram is going to eat this shit up.” Christophe isn’t convinced that social media clout is worth the squishy, tenderized feeling in his chest, but also, he can’t say he regrets it, either. Even though Wout took a step back, he’s still within arm’s reach. Christophe finds one of Wout’s hands with his own.

Wout shoots a glance in his direction. He just looks tired, now maybe a little frustrated. It’s just another time and place in their lives where the cameras have invaded, taking away any semblance of privacy.

Christophe still flashes him a small smile. Even if Wout hates this, hates all of it, they’re still in this together, still a team. Even if all this breaks his heart, Christophe can still be grateful for that.

Wout lets out a sigh. The smile he gives Christophe in return is small and thin, but it’s still a smile all the same.

Chapter 6

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

Maybe Matteo posts the photograph as proof, or maybe he doesn’t. Christophe is still feeling off-kilter enough that he decides to avoid all social media for a few days, which is actually extremely easy to do in the middle of a grand tour. He knows the point of the kiss was to make it public, to share it with others, but he just doesn’t want to.

He’s not sure if the image changes anyone’s mind. Christophe refuses to look at it, because his self-preservation instincts haven’t completely atrophied. He already has the memory of Wout’s soft, full lips against his own and Wout’s warm, large hand framing his face. No need to make it any worse. Matteo doesn’t mention it again, which is probably the best outcome for Christophe.

The Tour grinds on, as uncaring as ever about Christophe’s feelings. On stage eight, Wout crashes again. He misjudges a turn, hops a curb, and his wheel skids out underneath him. His bike has a mechanical, something busted with the derailleur. He also gets a nasty injury on his forearm. The team car tells Christophe to stay with Wout to make sure he gets across the finish line safely; Christophe is more than happy to oblige.

He remains glued to Wout’s side for the rest of the stage and then, because of his cachet as Wout’s supposed romantic partner, for the rest of the day afterwards, including a quick jaunt to the hospital for X-rays of the wound on his forearm. Normally, it would just be a swannie and a member of the team’s medical staff, but no one blinks when Christophe climbs into the back seat of a team car next to Wout.

Normally, they would be on opposite sides of the car, each of them looking out the window at the passing French countryside. This time, Christophe settles in the middle, just so he can be closer to Wout. He has watched Wout grimace in pain all day. It’s a distinct, different expression from the grimace he wears when he’s pushing his legs to their limit. At least he’s not bleeding over everything anymore. His left forearm is now wrapped in white gauze. A small patch of red is still visible over the wound.

As soon as the car starts to move, Wout slouches heavily onto Christophe’s shoulder. Christophe had wanted to offer him as much comfort as he could, whether it be emotional or physical, and he’s glad to see Wout is taking him up on it.

“How bad is it?” Christophe asks, low and under his breath. Wout had mentioned in his interview that he might not continue with the Tour, which was news to Christophe.

Wout lets out a heavy sigh. Slumped as he is, his breath ghosts over Christophe’s neck. “I just– I don’t know why it keeps fucking happening.” he says. He sounds more frustrated than in pain. Christophe will count that as a win.

Christophe doesn’t have anything to say to that except that so much of this sport is mental. They’ve all heard it a million times before. It’s a cliché, and Wout deserves better than clichés. He wraps his arm around Wout’s shoulder. Wout leans into it. All the energy seems to drain out of Wout’s body, leaving him limp and tired against Christophe’s side.

The rest of the ride to the hospital continues on in silence. The silence is more comfortable than not, in Christophe’s opinion, with Wout’s heavy and warm weight leaning against him.

Wout gets whisked away almost as soon as they enter the hospital, leaving Christophe with nothing better to do them to wait. He sits for a bit in the waiting room, looking around at the various posters. Growing up, these places used to be littered with magazines, but with the popularity of mobile phones, they seem to have disappeared. He tries to relax and enjoy the chance to rest after a difficult stage. But then he finds himself restless and wandering. He is not, by nature, a worrier. He knows Wout will be okay. Even if Wout decides to leave the Tour early, it will be so he can prepare for the Olympics. Wout’s recovery will be measured in the days or weeks, not months. None of that knowledge seems to settle Christophe’s nerves.

As part of his wandering, Christophe finds a newsstand just outside the hospital which sells flowers. As a child, he loved the fields of blossoms captured by the television cameras, often with special patterns and designs that could only be seen by the helicopters. As an adult and a professional cyclist, he never gets to fully appreciate them. Most of the time, he’s deep in the bunch. Nothing for him to see except his fellow cyclists.

The older woman behind the counter pretends to ignore him. She keeps sneaking glances at him out of the corner of her eyes. He is still wearing his full cycling kit and the blue and white stripes of the European Champion jersey, and he knows he must be the most interestingly dressed person she’s seen all day. Christophe looks through the flowers on offer. Nothing too fancy here, especially not compared to some of the bouquets they get if they make the podium. Wout has been handed plenty of flowers in his career. He must have been sent plenty when he was in the hospital earlier this year, gifts and well-wishes from fans and friends and teammates. Christophe had signed his name on the team card, unsure of what else to do.

Somehow, despite his hesitations, he still ends up with a bouquet of yellow sunflowers, the kind he will always associate with the Tour. The woman refuses to take his money, which is good, because Christophe doesn’t have his wallet with him. For payment, she pesters him with questions about being a professional cyclist and riding in the Tour de France. It’s on the easy side, as far as interviews go, and as they make their farewells, she even tells him to pass on her well-wishes to his teammate.

She manages to detain him for so long, Wout is already being released when Christophe re-enters the hospital. The news must be good, because Wout seems calmer if not downright buoyant as he finishes chatting to the front desk.

He does a double take when he sees the flowers in Christophe’s arms. Christophe feels self-conscious about them all of a sudden, their bright color drawing attention in the midst of the stark white of the hospital decor. He says, “I got these for you, but if–” This is probably a misstep. He’s given too much away already. Wout will know Christophe isn’t thinking of this as a ruse, that all of Christophe’s feelings are too real and too close to the surface.

“No,” Wout cuts in, sharp and quick. He takes the bouquet from Christophe’s hands. “It’s just that my previous - they never gave me flowers.” He runs one finger along a yellow petal. An emotion crosses his face. Christophe can’t quite read all the details of it, but the tenderness there is familiar.

“Well, maybe they thought you were sick of being handed bouquets,” Christophe jokes, trying to shake off the creeping intensity of the moment.

Wout lets out a soft laugh. His eyes crinkle up. Christophe’s chest clenches at the sight of it. “Thank you,” Wout says. He has a fresh bandage on his arm, white against his tanned skin.

Christophe swallows and says, “You deserve them.” Whoever Wout was dating back in the spring couldn’t give gifts or show affection out in the open. Christophe feels the need to make up for that now. Maybe that’s not part of the fake-relationship rulebook, but Christophe’s feelings are starting to feel realer every day. It’s no surprise his actions are starting to follow suit. He knows this could go badly. He knows the feelings are all too close to the surface, and that makes him vulnerable and easy to hurt.

But at this moment, his reasoning is simple. Wout deserves flowers, and Christophe can give him flowers, so he will.

The peck on the lips Wout gives him feels like it lasts a second longer than usual. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Maybe it’s not. Christophe knows that the distinction is important, but he’s enjoying the feeling of Wout’s lips on his own too much to care.

The gash on Wout’s arm isn’t too serious, just deep and painful. Despite it, Wout’s legs get stronger every day. He and Christophe do what work they can in the mountains before dropping, and Wout even contests the sprints — sometimes with Christophe leading out, sometimes not. It all depends on whether Christophe’s positioning in the bunch is good enough to be of any use.

Wout doesn’t win any of those sprints. He gets close a few times, a frustrating repeat of his many near-misses the year before. No matter what happens, though, he still has a smile and a hug for Christophe afterwards, even when Christophe isn’t sure he deserves it.

The press has stopped asking Wout questions about his relationship to Christophe. Out of boredom, most likely. Even for sports reporters, there’s only so many times they can hear the same answer before the collective agreement is that asking is a waste of everyone’s time.

The fans have stopped gawking at them as much, too.

Wout carries on as normal. The reduced attention doesn’t seem to curb his behavior at all. Holding hands, hugs, all-too-fleeting kisses. Christophe carries on as normal, too. Maybe it’s selfish of him, the way he’s using this fake relationship as an excuse to steal this many touches from Wout. Christophe can’t find it in himself to care.

Everyone’s ongoing acceptance of them lulls Christophe into a false sense of security.

That’s his explanation for how Maxime manages to sneak up on him after stage fifteen. Two hard stages in a row. Two wins by Pogačar in a row. A rest day coming up. Everyone is tired, including Christophe.

“I have a question to ask,” Maxime says. Christophe was flipping through the messages on his phone just outside the team bus, not paying any attention to lurking reporters. He jerks up, startled, to see Maxime standing there in front of him. His microphone and notepad are nowhere in sight. Christophe narrows his eyes in suspicion.

“Off the record,” Maxime clarifies.

That does little to put Christophe at ease, but he still lets out a breath and says, “Okay, what is it?”

“Are you and Wout on the outs?”

Christophe freezes up, certain that they’ve been found out. What gave them away? It must be obvious that Wout doesn’t feel the way Christophe does. Everyone is watching the two of them and pitying Christophe, thinking he doesn’t know how pathetic he looks, when Christophe is all too aware. He forces his voice into a neutral tone. “Why do you ask?”

Maxime shrugs with a feigned nonchalance. “Wout’s been spending a lot of time with Victor Campenaerts lately.” He gestures over at the bright red Lotto-Dstny bus.

Wout and Campy are chatting outside of it. Even from this distance, Wout’s smile is bright enough to be blinding. Christophe’s stomach drops. Bile rises up in his throat. Maxime continues,” Not that this is newsworthy. I’m just a reporter by trade; I like knowing the scuttlebutt.”

Christophe tries to give him a polite smile. It probably comes across more like a grimace. “You’re right,” he says. “It’s none of your business.” And then, without any concern for politeness, he escapes into the team’s bus.

Unfortunately for Christophe, being inside the bus does not block his view of Wout and Campy chatting. Wout says something that has Campy making an exaggerated face of disgust. Campy says something that has Wout throwing his head back with laughter. Christophe can make Wout smile, but he’s not nearly as funny. He’s never made Wout laugh like that.

Before Maxime brought it up. Christophe wouldn’t have thought twice about the interaction. Christophe knows Wout and Campy are friends. Campy is Belgian and has ridden for Wout during international competitions. Campy will be joining their team next year, probably their Tour squad, maybe take Jan’s place in the classics. The announcement hasn’t been made public yet, but the riders all know about it. Wout had been thrilled at the news. Christophe had also been pleased; he’s always pleased when the team gets stronger.

Now Christophe is stuck second-guessing every time he’s seen them together. Wout’s visits to the Lotto-Dstny bus have increased in frequency over the course of the Tour. Campy has been visiting the Visma bus from time to time, too. Christophe had assumed it was about welcoming Campy to the team. Same with the video calls Christophe has seen Wout and Campy share. During them, Wout will lounge on a hotel room chair and chat in rapid-fire Dutch with a big grin on his face. Christophe didn’t listen in much from his own side of the hotel room, but he liked hearing and seeing Wout’s happiness.

Christophe has never been one for jealousy with his previous girlfriends. Every relationship, especially when it comes to someone whose life and schedule is as erratic as a pro-cyclist’s, is a choice. But Wout had never chosen Christophe in the first place. Christophe had inserted himself into Wout’s mess, and Wout was desperate enough to agree to it. Sure, he was grateful at first. But Christophe is the one taking advantage of the situation. Wout’s just going along with it.

Wout picks that moment to come back onto the bus. He gives Jonas and Matteo encouraging slaps on their shoulders and then settles into his usual seat right in front of Christophe. Despite the disappointing results of the day, he seems cheerful.

As they wait for the rest of their staff to filter in, Christophe wonders, Why Campy? Well, beyond the fact that he’s Belgian and speaks Dutch. He’s funny – or, at least, funny enough to make Wout laugh, which is the only criteria that matters. Physically, he and Christophe sport similar facial hair, a loose sort of almost-goatee spurred as much by laziness as a deliberate choice, and their hair color is a similar shade. Campy is shorter, though. Maybe Wout likes smaller men, ones he can pick up and– But photograph guy was the same height as Wout, the same height as Christophe. Christophe thinks, with a childish sort of petulance, that this should mean he has an advantage.

He tries to push it out of his mind as Grischa starts their debrief. It refuses to leave, tumbling around his brain like a pebble caught in a shoe. Just as omnipresent and just as irritating.

It stays there through their transfer and their trip to the hotel afterwards. The question turns around on itself. Why shouldn’t Wout flirt with Campy? Christophe hasn’t heard anything about Campy being interested in men, so maybe he wouldn’t be interested. On the other hand, he hadn’t heard anything about Wout being interested in men either a little over a month ago. Wout has come out now. He can start dating men more openly. He has options. Christophe is more of a drag on his romantic life than anything else.

Christophe has a horrifying realization over dinner while Matteo tries to lighten the mood with jokes and Jonas gives the other fathers present pregnancy updates. Maybe Christophe hasn’t been able to keep his feelings under wraps. Maybe Wout has known this whole time, and he’s been keeping up the charade out of pity. Wout is a generous friend, almost to a fault. He would let this whole thing go on too long, just because Christophe wanted it.

For a moment, Christophe considers being selfish about this. He could let this drag on, hoarding every scrap of affection Wout sends his way, right up until Wout finally calls the whole thing off, publicly breaks up with Christophe, and moves on with his life (probably with Campy, but Christophe refuses to dwell on what that part of things looks like).

But no, that’s not fair to Wout. That’s not the sort of friend Christophe wants to be. He hates the idea of becoming an obligation to Wout, like the awkward ad campaigns and the intrusive press conferences. Even if Wout isn’t doing all this out of pity, it’s become a routine for him, a habit. Christophe has been in relationships like that before, where the two of them have carried on just because they didn’t want to admit it wasn’t working. This isn’t a real relationship, but it still looks like one from the outside.

Christophe had volunteered for this hare-brained scheme because he wanted Wout to be happy – or, at least, not miserable. He’d given Wout flowers because he’d deserved them. Now he has the opportunity to give Wout something else that he deserves, that will make him happy. Christophe is going to do it, even if he breaks his own heart in the process.

Wout is already in their shared hotel room when Christophe arrives. He is typing something on his phone while half splayed out on the branded yellow and black team comforter. He’s already showered for the night, and his hair is loose and fluffy without the gel. His lips are pursed as he taps at his phone screen. Maybe he’s composing a business e-mail. Maybe he’s just trying to construct a killer pun in one of his texts.

Longing crawls its way into Christophe’s throat and lodges itself there, stealing his words. There’s only one week left of the Tour. Only one week left of having Wout like this every night, while they’re still roommates. Desire curls low in his belly, a desperate, twisting thing. Wout will let Christophe touch him, kiss him, but will he let Christophe–

Wout looks up from his phone. “Hey,” he says with a small, easy smile. The distress must show on Christophe’s face, because Wout’s forehead furrows. “Is there something wrong?” he asks.

Christophe shakes his head. This deep into summer, there’s still some fading light from the setting sun in through the windows, and the orange glow catches on Wout’s cheekbones, his jawline. The ache in Christophe’s chest intensifies. He can’t find any words to say, and he doesn’t even have the excuse of trying to speak in English.

“Rest day tomorrow,” Wout says. His smile morphs into something more hesitant but still warm. “That’ll be nice.”

Christophe nods, “Yes, it will,” he gets out. He knows this is the part where he should tell Wout he knows about Campenaerts, that he has Christophe’s blessing. For some reason, Christophe can’t make his mouth form the words.

Instead, he walks over to Wout’s bed. Wout watches him with wide, curious eyes. When Christophe leans over, Wout tilts his head up to meet him.

This kiss is different from the other ones they’ve shared. It’s slow, unhurried. No audience. No cameras. Just Wout’s lips against Christophe’s own in the quiet of their hotel room.

Wout lets out a soft sigh and brings a hand up, wrapping it around the back of Christophe’s neck and pulling Christophe closer. Christophe’s eyes fall closed. He hadn’t - he hadn’t meant for this to happen. But Wout had looked so soft and so inviting, and Christophe had wanted so much. He doesn’t care if this is just pity. He will take this taste of a real relationship with Wout. He will savor it like the finest of wines. And then when it’s over, he will do the right thing and let Wout go, so he can be with someone else, someone who can give him everything he deserves, whether that’s flowers or laughter or monument victories. Someone who is better than Christophe.

Wout’s hand on the back of Christophe’s neck tightens, sending a new spark of heat through Christophe. He wants to get closer. If he’s going to indulge himself in this moment of selfishness, then he might as well go all the way.

Christophe climbs onto the bed and straddles Wout’s lap. Their chests press together. Wout’s other arm comes up to wrap around Christophe’s shoulders. A hug like any other hug they’ve shared before and yet somehow completely different. Christophe deepens the kiss, sliding his tongue into Wout’s mouth, chasing the minty taste of Wout’s toothpaste. This late in the day, Wout’s five o’clock shadow has grown in, and his stubble scrapes at Christophe’s cheeks. After a lifetime of kissing girls, the sensation is odd but not off-putting.

If Christophe were to base his opinions of Wout’s kissing style on their one previous attempt for Matteo’s camera, he would say Wout is delicate and maybe a little fussy. Apparently, that’s only how he’s like in front of an audience, because now he kisses Christophe fierce and hungry, not letting up for a moment. With the media firestorm from being outed, Christophe’s role as his fake boyfriend, and, of course, the unrelenting weeks of racing known as the Tour de France, he hasn’t had any time to hook up with anyone. No wonder he’s so eager to take Christophe up on his unspoken offer.

Wout pulls back to strip his team-branded t-shirt up and over his head. His chest is pale where it’s been protected from long hours in the sun by his kit. He shaved his chest before the Tour, but some small stubble is peeking out there, too. The tan lines on his arms are dark and stark.

Christophe has seen all of this dozens, even hundreds, of times before. This is the first time he’s touched Wout with any sort of intent. He puts his hand on Wout’s collarbone first, where the scar from his surgery this spring is still stark and visible. Christophe’s fingers trace along Wout’s clavicle. Then he follows a path down the line of Wout’s sternum. Another part of Wout that had been broken in the crash. Across Wout’s pecs, along the arc of his ribs and across his abs and the soft swell of his belly that the Lycra makes extra pronounced. All of these things that Christophe knows so well, and yet it’s so strange and so alien in this context. He has only ever explored the dips and curves of women’s bodies before.

Wout lets Christophe touch him without protest or complaint. His eyes are big and dark. The sun has set almost entirely now. They are lit only by the gentle glow of the bedside lamp. As Christophe’s fingers trace their way back upwards, Wout says, “You, too.” His voice is soft, deep and rumbling. “I want to see you too.”

Wout has seen Christophe naked as many times as Christophe has seen Wout, but Christophe understands what Wout means. He pulls his shirt over his head. Wout touches Christophe’s chest first, his palm running over Christophe’s dark, wiry chest hair. Then over Christophe’s shoulders, down Christophe’s arms. Christophe’s nerves light up every place Wout touches him, a bright, shivery sensation that raises goose bumps on Christophe’s skin. “Good?” Wout asks.

Christophe can only nod in response. Wout’s hands travel downwards. He cups Christophe through his shorts, and Christophe hisses at the sudden heat and pressure. His cock hardens further under Wout’s touch. Arousal makes his mouth go dry. Wout’s hands are so big, and his fingers are so long. Another new sensation for Christophe. “Still good,” Christophe manages to croak out.

Wout lets out a soft laugh, a kind one. He pushes Christophe’s shorts and boxers down over his hips. His hand finds Christophe’s cock again, this time skin against skin. Christophe groans. The sensation is strange, almost an inverse of his own hands. The riding calluses are in the same place. All of his previous girlfriends had smaller hands, and even the athletic ones had calluses in different places. The sight of Wout’s long fingers wrapped around Christophe’s cock makes Christophe’s head spin. He wonders what they would feel like in Christophe’s mouth. At the thought, Christophe has to kiss Wout again, has to dig his teeth into Wout’s lips and taste his tongue. Wout moans into Christophe’s kiss. He strokes Christophe’s cock a few times, and Christophe bucks into his hand, chasing more of that sensation.

“I want–” Christophe gasps into the kiss, “–for you, too. But I don’t – I’ve never –” In so many other situations, this would be embarrassing, a horrible admission of incompetence and inexperience, but this is Wout. Christophe trusts him. Even when Christophe was new to the team, Wout was always willing to guide Christophe through all the new systems and processes without judgment or mockery. Christophe doesn’t expect this situation to be any different.

Wout nudges Christophe back, breaking the kiss. “Okay,” he says, still smiling, “I’ve got you.” And Christophe falls a little bit more in love with him then and there.

Wout shoves his own shorts and underwear off, giving Christophe the opportunity to do the same. He then lays down on his back, the long, naked line of him exposed for Christophe’s gaze. He’s beautiful, which Christophe always knew. His beauty is a more visceral thing like this: the thick swell of his thighs, the length of his torso, the sharp definition of his muscles underneath his skin. And also: the sharp angle of his jaw, the plush bow of his lips, the depth of his brown eyes. The jut of his hard cock.

“Come here,” Wout says, beckoning to Christophe with one hand.

What else can Christophe do? He goes.

He clambers onto the bed, settling his weight down on top of Wout’s. He has one panicked moment of wondering if Wout expects Christophe to fuck him, but Wout just slots their hips together, their bodies lined up from their feet to their shoulders.

At the first brush of Wout’s hard cock against his own, Christophe’s fingers clench the ridiculous yellow and black comforter. He hadn’t realized how filthy and how hot that would feel. His fantasies of men had been more furtive, just the briefest glimpse in the few times he’d tried gay porn, heavy on the oral and anal sex. He hadn’t even thought of this before, which was clearly a lack of imagination on his part.

He’s never been in this position with someone his own height before, and he takes advantage of it, kissing Wout as he grinds his hips down. Wout grinds his hips up to meet him. It’s not the most athletic sex Christophe has ever had, both of them too tired in the grind of the Tour. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that he’s touching as much of Wout’s skin as he possibly can. Christophe loses himself in the sensation of it all – the heat, the friction. He tangles his fingers in Wout’s hair and kisses Wout again and again. His cheeks, his neck, his jaw. Everywhere Christophe can reach. If this is the only time Christophe has, the only time he will let himself have, he wants to make it count. Even as he thinks it, he knows it won’t be enough for him. He’ll always be greedy for more of this, more of Wout.

“Fuck,” Wout gasps out, and he comes, wet and sticky between their bodies. His eyes are closed. His head is thrown back.

Christophe puts his teeth on Wout’s Adam’s apple, tasting it, but he doesn’t last much longer than him. One jerk of Christophe’s hips, then two, and he is adding to the mess on Wout’s belly.

He pushes himself to the side, flopping down onto the remaining sliver of bed to Wout’s right. They’re both still trying to catch their breath. Christophe watches the heavy rise and fall of Wout’s chest.

“Still good?” Wout asks. His smile is even wider, a full-face crinkle.

“Yes,” Christophe says, because it’s true. If he could live in this moment for the rest of time, he would.

“Good,” Wout says. He pulls a discarded t-shirt off the floor and uses it to mop the come off both their bodies.

Christophe luxuriates in the feeling of Wout’s hands on him again, even as he knows it won’t lead to anything else. “The swannies will be pissed when they have to do our laundry tomorrow,” Christophe mumbles. Wout’s body is so comfortable, and the bed smells like him, like both of them, and the exhaustion of today’s stage is starting to fully work its way through Christophe’s body. His eyes drift closed.

Wout laughs at that. He pulls the team comforter around them both. He curls into Christophe’s side and splays an arm over Christophe’s chest. “They’ve definitely seen worse,” Wout says into Christophe’s neck.

Sleep steals over Christophe then. He thinks maybe Wout says something else, but it only registers as warm breath on Christophe’s skin and a rumble in Wout’s chest.

Chapter 7

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

Christophe stumbles back into wakefulness when Wout climbs out of bed. He instantly misses the warmth of Wout’s body. In the stickiest days of summer, it’s rare for him to want to be close to anything that gives off heat. And yet, Wout is an exception.

With a yawn and a stretch, Christophe pulls himself into a sitting position. The sun is up, casting warm morning light through the windows. Christophe would much rather have a lazy day in. He’s never been much of a morning person, despite the rigor of his training schedule, and the thought of an entire day in bed sounds like heaven. Grischa would personally drag him out to their rest day training ride if he ever attempted it. There are still six stages left. Maybe GC is out of reach for Jonas, but he will still want to fight for his position on the podium, and Wout is still hunting for a stage win.

Speaking of Wout, Christophe still needs to keep his promise to himself. If he’s not– if he’s not careful, he might keep his mouth closed and let this whole thing drag out for so long Wout starts to resent him for it. Christophe can and has tolerated many painful, uncomfortable things in his life. He doesn’t want Wout’s resentment to become one of them.

As Christophe drags himself out of bed, Wout comes out of the bathroom. His stubble has grown a bit darker overnight, and his hair is sleep-tousled. He’s also bobbing his head and humming a jaunty tune under his breath. He looks happy and unconcerned. Christophe feels like he’s being led to the guillotine.

“Morning,” Wout says. He puts one hand on Christophe’s shoulder and leans in for a kiss.

Christophe accepts it, because he’s still as hungry for it as he ever was, all the more so knowing that this might be the last one Wout will ever give him. His stomach roils. He knows he is going to miss this easy affection from Wout. He’ll get over it in time. He has his own share of scars, and even when the healing and rehabilitation has been difficult, he’s made it to the other side. This shouldn’t be any different.

Some of the distress must show on his face; Wout asks, “Hey, is everything okay?” His hands linger on Christophe’s bare shoulders. His fingers trace absent lines on Christophe’s neck.

“Yeah,” Christophe lies. “I just- I wanted to talk to you about something.”

The smile on Wout’s face fades. Christophe wants to claw it back. Maybe when he sets Wout free, he’ll be happy and relieved that Christophe knows and understands and forgives him for it. He has been a good sport, and then he won’t have to keep pretending anymore, for the public’s sake or Christophe’s. “Sure,” Wout says cautiously. “What is it?”

“I think we should break up,” Christophe says.

Wout goes very still. His expression freezes in place. “You want us to break up?” he asks.

“Well,” Christophe says, swallowing down his embarrassment. Of course Wout hadn’t ever gotten his wires crossed the way Christophe had. “I know we weren’t really dating. But we could– in public– it seems like the whole thing has blown over, and we don’t have to pretend anymore.”

“Pretend,” Wout says. He must still be a little sleepy, because his voice sounds hollow and distant.

“It would be better for you,” Christophe reasons. “You can find someone else to date you now. You don’t have to hide anymore.” Of course, if and when that happens, Christophe will be miserable and wallowing. But he won’t let Wout see any of that. None of that is Wout’s problem.

Wout gives a stiff nod. “Your suggestion is that I should date someone else.” He takes a step back. His hands fall to his sides. Christophe knows that this is the right thing to do, but he misses Wout’s touch already.

He tries to cover his feelings with words. “I know you’re going to be busy for a bit, what with the rest of the Tour, then the Olympics. But after that -”He doesn’t bring up Campy. If he brings up Campy, then Christophe knows he won’t be able to hide his jealousy.

Wout nods. His expression relaxes, some of the harder edges around his eyes and mouth smoothing out. “You’re right,” he says. His voice has that controlled calm he gets when talking to pushy fans and annoying reporters. “I’ve been letting myself get… distracted by all of this. I should be focusing on preparing for the Olympics.”

It was the best result Christophe could have hoped for, the two of them talking this over calmly, like adults, and Wout realizing the logic of Christophe’s argument. He’s even being kind for not bringing up any of Christophe’s missteps. Christophe hadn’t realized it until this moment, but he’d been hoping for Wout to push back, to protest, to say he wanted this to be real all along with a sweeping, emotional score in the background.

But of course, this is reality, so the hotel room is quiet save for the rumble of activity outside as the team mechanics prepare for a calm rest day. Wout pulls a fresh T-shirt from his luggage and pulls it on. It looks like the one he wore last night, the one he pulled over his head so Christophe could touch his bare chest.

Christophe licks his lips. His mouth is dry. His chest hurts. He reminds himself that he knew it would be difficult. Completing a grand tour is also difficult, and yet he manages to do it year after year. “Good,” he says. “Uh, how do you want to do this?” There had been so many conversations before the announcement, meetings after meetings. It feels like a breakup deserves just as much fanfare.

Wout just shrugs, though. “We don’t have to make a big deal out of it. We can just stop. Let them all figure it out.” He makes a face that Christophe usually only sees when he watches Wout race cyclocross, stubborn and combative. “We’ve already had to answer enough questions about this shit.”

Christophe knew that this whole thing was stressful for Wout, but he hadn’t realized how much Wout had disliked pretending to care about him. Really, Christophe should have made this suggestion a week ago. Selfishly, he can’t bring himself to regret any of it.

“Okay,” Christophe agrees, and then that’s the end of that.

They put their plan into action that very day. They do an easy training ride and stop by a cafe. Wout charms the (female) barista into giving them an extra pastry with his simile. Christophe pretends not to notice.

After that, Wout and Jonas are whisked off to talk to the press about the results of week two and their hopes for week three. Christophe mindlessly plays the match-3 game he was neglecting and takes a midday nap. He has an anxiety dream about giving a mid-race interview while Wout rides off into the distance, over the horizon and out of Christophe’s view.

His subconscious isn’t subtle. His body does appreciate the rest even if his mind isn’t in full agreement.

Life, and the Tour de France, continues on as brutal and as unrelenting as ever. Jonas is stuck trying to protect his podium position more than he is fighting for the overall win. Wout is still gunning for a stage win and is talking about testing his legs in the break.

Christophe still sticks by him on the hard mountain stages where they can relax with the other sprinters in the grupetto. He’s seen and been impressed by Wout’s mental toughness before. Wout can shut off everything but racing, shove all of his other worries and concerns into their own boxes.

Which is why it’s not a surprise that Wout’s behavior flips like a switch or a slap on a giant reset button. Christophe becomes just another teammate to him. He isn’t shy with his physical affection, but there’s that extra bit missing. Wout carries on like he doesn’t even notice. Christophe is the one who can’t keep it together. He’s always leaning towards kisses that won’t come or reaching for a hand that isn’t available. It’s better this way, he tells himself. The longer things went on, the worse it would be when it ended.

He had already let things go on too long as it was. His feelings were overgrown and tangled, like a garden plot gone to seed. Christophe has gone through his own share of breakups in his life, and he knows how the heartbreak strings the most while it’s fresh, made worse by seeing Wout every day. In a few weeks, after the Olympics, Wout would go off to the Vuelta, and Christophe would continue his season, and it would be easier.

Christophe reminds himself of that, over and over again. It becomes his mantra as they climb over every mountain in France, as they fight for positioning, as they take their turns pulling the peloton. It’s better this way. It’s ether this way. It’s better this way.

Sometimes, Christophe even believes it.

Christophe doesn’t say anything to the rest of the team. Maybe Wout doesn’t either. The team carries on as if nothing has changed. For them, it hasn’t. Maybe Matteo squints in their direction a few times more than usual, but he’s focused on Jonas right now. Christophe doesn’t know it the press does as well. He hasn’t been attending Wout’s scrums.

On stage seventeen, there’s a large breakaway. Wout Christophe and Tiesj all make it. A stage win is both more and less likely with this many people. If the breakaway doesn’t make it all the way to the end, they can work as satellite riders for Jonas when they hit the mountains.

Christophe has spent enough time in breakaways to know the rhythms of it, even if it has been months for him. Grischa’s voice is steady in their ears as he gives them timing updates over the radio. They push to stay ahead of the peloton. Wout is often chatty in a larger break, especially with this many teammates with him. Today, he’s quiet, almost pensive.

Christophe spends most of his time with Tiesj, because Tiesj is, to some degree, safe. After grabbing a couple musettes from a roadside swannie, Christophe asks him, “How do you think Wout is doing?”

Tiesj rips open a gel and downs it, then washes it down with a long gulp from his bidon. “What do you mean? You’re rooming with him. Shouldn’t you know?”

Christophe takes a sip from his own bidon and shrugs. The heat for this whole Tour has been an enemy unto itself. “He seems okay. I just want to make sure he’s actually okay.” In truth, he’s been spending as little time in the hotel room alone with Wout as he can manage. When he’s in a room with Wout and a bed, his mind has a tendency to wander back to what Wout’s body felt like beneath him, and, well–

Tiesj frowns a little. The road goes up a percentage or two. Christophe’s legs burn with the increased effort. “He’s been a bit quieter, maybe. I assumed it was because he’s thinking about the Olympics coming up,” Tiesj says.

All three of them would be there. Tiesj would be riding for Wout and Remco. There’s been some discussion within the French team about strategy, a lot of which is, let Belgium and the Netherlands do all the work. “I think you’re right,”Christophe agrees. He pauses, unsure if he should continue, then forges on anyway. “I have been–” he says, “–careful, I mean.”

That must be the wrong thing to say, because Tiesj takes a moment too long to respond. “That’s good,” he says. “Are you okay, though?”

“Yes,” Christophe lies. “I’m fine.” It’s better this way, he repeats to himself. Wout is fine, after all. Tiesj would know as well as anyone. That’s the important thing here. Christophe was the one who fucked it all up by catching feelings. He should be the one to bear the brunt of this. It’s only fair.

Tiesj nods. With his sunglasses on, it’s impossible for Christophe to tell whether or not he believes him.

Christophe is the first of the three of them to drop from the breakaway. The pace up the incline is too punishing. Wout and Tiesj manage to hold on. Christophe watches them pull away with the rest of the group, and he feels an odd mixture of disappointment and relief.

The next day, Christophe looks up from their pre-race prep to see Wout exiting the Lotto-Dstny bus. A guy in a bright red polo shirt stamped with the team’s logo films him. A few fans mill about, snapping their own photos. Christophe realizes, with a sickening lurch, that Wout’s visit will be plastered all over social media later.

Back at the beginning of all this, there was a team social media blitz, making their non-existent relationship public to the world. Maybe that’s what’s happening here. Wout letting the world know about his new relationship and letting everyone make assumptions about his old one.

Wout lopes back to the Visma bus with a smile on his face. He is almost always smiling after visiting Campy. Christophe doesn’t mind, of course. This was his motivation for ending things. He knew Wout wanted, Wout needed, to find real happiness, not the pale imitation of it he’d faked with Christophe.

“You know,” Tiesj says from just behind Christophe, “if you keep glaring like that, people might start a rumor about a peloton love triangle.”

Christophe doesn’t have the heart to tell him that, if Maxime is any indication, the rumors started before the rest day. Instead, he says, “There isn’t a love triangle. That’s ridiculous,” because three points are required to form a triangle, and Christophe doesn’t figure into this.

“What’s ridiculous?” Wout asks. He glances between them, but his smile doesn’t wane in the slightest. Christophe tries not to imagine all the ways Campy could have put him in a good mood.

“Christophe,” Tiesj says, sounding unreasonably smug. Christophe glares at him. Tiesj’s only defense is a small shrug and a raise of his eyebrows before he disappears, leaving Christophe and Wout alone together. Or at least as alone as they can get with so many fans and staff members around.

“I’m assuming that’s some kind of inside joke,” Wout says. Christophe shrugs. If it is, it’s one that only Tiesj understands.

They stand there in silence for a moment. Christophe used to love these quiet moments, just the two of them, but how there’s an unspoken tension pulled taut between them. Wout clears his throat and says, somewhat stiffly, “How are you?”

Christophe shrugs again. He can’t tell Wout the truth, obviously, and anything else would probably be a blatant lie. “How was the trip to see…” he jerks his head in the direction of the offending red bus. Over Wout’s shoulder, he can see Campy greeting his teammates. He says something, and the three closest to him laugh.

Wout glances in that direction, then back. “Fine. Good, I guess. He wanted to chat about the stage.” It’s hilly today, lots of punchy climbs. Well suited for the likes of Wout and Mathieu van der Poel. And Victor Campenaerts.

“Good,” Christophe says. He doesn’t have the best control over his own expressions, but he tries to school his face into something neutral.

“Okay,” Wout says. His smile has morphed, at least part-way, into a frown. That isn’t a good sign. It’s very bad.

Christophe tries to head it off. “It’s– you seemed happy, and I just– all I want is for you to be happy.”

For whatever reason, Wout’s frown gets bigger. “Right,” he says. “That’s what this is about. My happiness.” He blinks, and some deeper feeling pecks through Wout’s expression. Christophe has seen him tamp down his emotions and put up a mask to cover it. The mask has a crack in it now.

“Yes,” Christophe says, helplessly. He doesn’t know why Wout would be upset. Surely, Campy didn’t turn him down. Wout was smiling and happy then. And Campy is known as a character around the peloton, but he isn’t an idiot.

Wout looks at Christophe, then looks away. He sighs. With that exhalation of air, his expression smooths out again, mask firmly in place. The corner of his mouth quirks upward. It’s not really a smile. Wout says, “If I were to talk about my happiness right now, I think I’d have the same answer as the questions I get about my form. It’s not as good as I’d like it to be, but it’s getting better.”

He doesn’t wait for Christophe’s response. He heads off to find his own bike and prepare for the stage before Christophe can ask him what he means by that.

Wout makes the breakaway with Campy that day. Christophe doesn’t. When Campy wins the day, Christophe is glad they have minutes on the peloton, because then he doesn’t have to see or think about any of their possible celebrations over a stage win, public or otherwise.

Without that final sprint down the Champs d’Elysses, the Tour feels like it ends with a whimper more than a bang. Maybe that’s also due to Jonas’ second place on the podium. Not the most disappointing result, but not the one they’d hoped for, either.

They all go home afterwards. The Olympic time trial is happening this coming weekend, so Wout and Remco Evenepoel would be back in Paris almost immediately. Christophe is only going to be around for the road race, one week in. He has more downtime.

First few days are occupied with eating and sleeping, with occasional interludes where he spins his legs. He watches his recovery metrics. He’s doing well enough, and if the trend continues, his form will be good enough to be competitive for the road race.

After his third day back, his mother calls him up. “So are you coming over?” she asks.

Christophe stares blankly at the television in front of him. Some sort of game show is playing, but he has no idea what’s happening. “What?” he asks.

“I assumed we would watch the Olympics together,” she says. “Unless you don’t want to watch your nice young man compete with your parents.” Her tone makes it clear “no” is not an acceptable answer. Since their phone call after the announcement, she always refers to Wout as “your nice young man.” Christophe had been amused by it at first. Now, hearing her say it makes his throat itch. He’d been hoping that the time apart would allow him the space to build up his defenses, get over a relationship that never even existed in the first place. That plan is not working out very well.

“I’ll be there at four,” he says.

She makes a humming, approving noise in response.

As instructed, he shows up on time to his parents’ house. His mother ushers him in. His father is already sitting on the sofa, his feet kicked up onto an ottoman. The television is already on, showing the podium ceremony for the women’s time trial competition. Christophe had watched a good amount of it at home while he was on the trainer, doing an easy ride. He had some stirrings of national pride, hoping for the French women to do well. But he doesn’t race with and against them for most of the year, and his investment isn’t what it could be.

He settles onto the sofa next to his father, who grunts out a greeting. They watch in peaceable silence for the rest of the setup for the men’s race. The familiar scent of his mother’s quiche wafts over from the kitchen, bringing with it a wave of nostalgia. He feels thirteen years old again, coming home from long training rides to watch the 2004 games in Athens. He had a massive crush on a sixteen-year-old female cyclist who had the same coach as him, and he spent the summer moping around the house wondering if he should learn how to recite love poetry to impress her. She had no interest in him, of course, and that was Christophe’s first experience with heartbreak.

Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t his last.

On screen, the first rider in the men’s competition sets off. Then Jan follows him. The roads are slick today. Since joining the World Tour peloton, Christophe can’t watch races with the same abandon he did as a child, at that same distance where the drama feels distant and far away. He knows these people. He knows their equipment, their techniques, their habits. He has been in the position of being watched by cameras as the timer ticks down, forcing the roar of the crowd to fade into the background.

His mother approaches and shoves a plate, piled high with quiche and her favorite summer salad, into his hands. She fusses over him every time he visits, asking him nosy questions about his meal plan and making sure he goes home with armfuls of food. He grumbles about the attention, but he always appreciates it later.

“We are, of course, excited to see your nice young man,”his mother says. “His time trials weren’t as impressive during the Tour, and of course, Evenepoel, Ganna, and Tarling are the favorites. It would be nice if he did well today.” She pets Christophe on the head, her fingers brushing through Christophe’s hair.

They watch several rides in silence. Christophe’s father gives a few bits of commentary. His mother is far better at analyzing racing form and strategy than he is, but he does keep up where he can.

Then it’s Wout’s turn. He wheels up to the start ramp with double discs on his bike. Christophe has a moment of disorientation. His heart rate spikes. There’s a reason people don’t commonly use the setup outside of indoor track events. What gains it provides in aerodynamics and speed, it usually loses in maneuverability and control. In windy conditions, a crash is all but guaranteed. Christophe knows Wout, knows how he analyzes every aspect of a race. He will take chances, but they’re always calculated. This one would be, too.

Wout sets off. His legs pump in a familiar rhythm. His body sways ever so slightly. He looks calm and in control. Christophe rarely gets to see Wout like this, sitting back and just watching, the cameras lovingly capturing his movements. Christophe has always admired Wout as a cyclist, his grit and his strength. Here, he can admire the aesthetics of Wout in his element, too, as his body does what it has been honed and shaped to do.

“He does look in better form now,” his mother says. She pauses as the camera switches over to Fedorov, who is slower than Wout through the first checkpoint. When it returns to Wout, she pivots to what she wants to talk about. “You haven’t told us anything about him since that phone call.”

Christophe winces into his quiche, “There’s not much to say,” he mumbles. He feels as though he’s been asked to defend a set of mediocre grades. “And besides, you met him already a few years ago.”

“That’s hardly the same thing, and you know it.” On screen, Wout pulls through the last checkpoint with a solid time gap on the current leader. The camera cuts to a shot of his face. His mouth hangs open. His eyes are wide. Christophe can’t stop staring at his lips. Christophe says, “It doesn’t matter anyway, we broke up.”

His mother glares at him. “What did you do?” Christophe would be annoyed at the assumption that he was the one who messed this up, but she’s not wrong. It was Christophe’s fault that they got into this mess in the first place, and it was Christophe’s responsibility to get them out of it. “It was– mutual, We– we didn’t– I always felt more than he did, and–” He can’t bring himself to mention that it had all been a fabrication caused by a media disaster and a foolhardy impulse. It had started that way, but it hadn’t felt that way at the end, not to him.

That one summer he spent mooning over the older girl — Celine, her name was — his mother had tolerated his fits of preteen melancholy with fond amusement for two months before sitting him down and telling him that the world was full of beautiful and strong women and some of the would have a chance of liking him back once he got a little older. Christophe half expects a similar speech now. Instead, she lets out a small scoff. “What are you talking about?” she asks. “Did you really-” She smacks Christophe’s shoulder.

“Hey!” Christophe protests. “What was that for?”

“Don’t forget that I watched every stage of the Tour and all the interviews afterwards. That man adores you. Everyone can see that.” She wags a finger in his face, which Christophe thinks is entirely unnecessary. On screen, Josh Tarling does a bike change.

He’s sure his mother is just biased in the way parents are. Wout is the strongest actor on the team (which to be fair, isn’t saying much), and he had committed to the role. All the same, his mother’s words niggle at the back of his mind. Could it… Christophe can’t let himself consider it for too long. It will give him delusions and false hopes if he does. “I just - it wouldn’t have worked out anyway.” His voice cracks at the end. He blinks back tears. “It’s better this way.”

His mother hugs him then, his head tucked against her chest like he’s a child again. “Oh, my baby boy,” she says. “I can’t believe I raised such an idiot, but I still love you anyway.”

She doesn’t bring it up again for the rest of the time trial. Wout wins bronze. He smiles broad and bright in the interviews and on the podium. He is so happy. Christophe did the right thing. He knows he did.

His mother sends him home with extra quiche.

Chapter 8

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

Christophe goes to Paris. His room in the Olympic village is, thankfully, not in the same building as Team Belgium, but just next door. Both Julian and Valentin give him big hugs when they see him. Christophe isn’t the biggest chatterbox, and he isn’t the most cheerful mood despite the rush of being at the Olympics, so he lets the two of them carry the conversation.

Right up, until, Julian turns to Christophe and says, “So, you and Wout, eh?” He raises his eyebrows in a suggestive manner. They’re going to be roommates for their time in the Village. Christophe has always liked Julian. He’s always been a happy, fun-loving kind of guy. He’s also a notorious gossip. This should not have been a surprise.

Christophe’s cheeks heat, and he almost regrets shaving his facial hair for the Olympics, because the blush must be more obvious like this. It had seemed like a good idea at the time - clean face, clean start. He shrugs in an attempt to deflect the question. Julian hadn’t been at the Tour, what with his team throwing their weight behind Remco’s GC bid. They haven’t seen each other since before the announcement. He wouldn’t have seen most of their breakup either.

“Well, at least you have good taste,” Julian continues. Christophe knows he and Wout have been friendly for years. If Julian wasn’t so terminally straight and married, Christophe would have suspected the two of them of– but Julian is, so he doesn’t. Julian continues, “If you need the room to yourself, just let me know.” He tops it off with an unsubtle wink. Christophe doesn’t have the heart to say that situation wasn’t likely even before he and Wout decided to drop the whole charade.

After the move in and some initial team meetings, then it’s time for the press. Of course, there’s more attention on them because they’re the home team. The room is crammed full of reporters.

The initial questions are typical and boring. How do they feel. Who is the favorite. What do they think of the route. Then comes the question Christophe had both been expecting and dreading: “This is the first time you’ll be racing against your partner, Wout van Aert. How do you think that will play out?”

This would be the perfect opportunity to make it official and announce that he and Wout had broken up. Wout wouldn’t mind. He might even be somewhat grateful that Christophe is taking some of the usual press responsibilities off of him.

On the other hand– Christophe says, “We are both professionals who have raced against each other in international competitions before. I know he is as proud to represent Belgium as I am to represent France. I don’t expect our relationship to change that.” He tries to imbue his answer with an air of finality.

Thankfully, it seems to work, and they move on to asking Julian about his team change. Christophe doesn’t have to answer another question about Wout for the rest of the press conference. In theory, that means he doesn’t have to think about Wout at all. And yet, Christophe’s mind keeps drifting back to Wout’s broad, beautiful smile on the men’s time trial podium. It hasn’t even been two full weeks since they last saw each other in person, but Christophe still misses his bright laugh and squinty eyes all the same.

The next day, Christophe races his bike. He peels himself open for screaming crowds on the streets of Paris, digging as deep as he can for that final kick at the finish line. He nearly cries when they tell him he came in third. He had lost track of how many other riders were up the road.

For all the podiums and all the medals he’s won over the years, this one makes him feel giddy in a way he can’t name. Like winning a stage of the Tour, he feels all of eight and twelve and sixteen again, a childhood dream come to life.

He gets wrapped up in a hug by Valentin (second place, silver medal, two Frenchmen on the podium at their home Olympics), then Julian (who is as thrilled for them as they are), then his trade teammates (Attila, Matteo, Jan, Dylan). There are interviews for television. There are photographs of them holding the French flag at the finish line. There are congratulations to and from Remco, who pulled off the solo attack for the gold medal.

And then there’s Wout, who comes in a bit further behind than Christophe would have expected. He makes a beeline to where Christophe is standing off to the side with Valentin, and pulls him into a tight, warm hug as well.

“I am so fucking proud of you,” Wout murmurs into Christophe’s ear. “Congratulations. You deserve it.” He had said something similar after Christophe won the European Championships, but this time, Christophe knows what Wout’s skin tastes like. He feels the words echo somewhere deep inside his chest.

His head is fizzy with a mix of adrenaline and dopamine; there’s a wild energy in the air with the French fans still screaming in joy; that’s his excuse for why he yells, “I love you,” back. It’s not that odd of a thing to say between teammates. Nearly everyone on Visma has said it to each other at some point. Wout still startles at the words, pulling back to meet Christophe’s gaze.

He frowns, a slight curl of his lip, and Christophe hates seeing it here, a blemish on an otherwise beautiful day. To get rid of it, Christophe cups Wout’s face in both hands are kisses him, out here with the eyes of the world (and maybe Victor Campenaerts, on his couch at home) watching them.

Wout doesn’t react at first, but after a moment, he leans into it. His body sways towards Christophe. Christophe pulls him closer. He smells like Wout, the Wout Christophe knows best. His lips taste like sweat, road dirt, energy drinks, and gels. Christophe’s heart rate, already slowing after the end of the race, kicks up again. He will pay for this later, he knows. For now, he will enjoy the moment while it lasts.

Christophe is the one who breaks away first. Tiesj has shown up to their little collection of teammates. Dylan had been politely pretending not to notice, but Tiesj has no qualms calling him out for this. Reality is starting to assert itself into Christophe’s little bubble. If Wout didn’t know the full extent of Christophe’s feelings for him before, he definitely knows them now. He’s still being too nice about this whole thing, not wanting to humiliate Christophe on international television by publicly rejecting him. Campy will probably have a few select words for Christophe later. So will Christophe’s mother.

As he pulls back, Wout starts to ask, “What was–”

Before he can finish, Christophe blurts out, “What happened to your arm?” A streak of blood runs down Wout’s forearm - the right one, not the left one he injured on the Tour. Christophe was too distracted earlier to notice, and he can’t believe he didn’t spot it earlier.

Wout shrugs. “Oh, just a slip towards the end. Hit the ground. I’m fine.”

Christophe’s stomach twists at the thought of another crash, but Wout does seem like he’s fine. Crashes are an unavoidable part of this sport. He touches Wout’s elbow. “As long as you’re fine,” Christophe says. He remembers the time in the hospital, the time he gave Wout flowers. This isn’t that bad, but it brings up those same feelings of worry and concern.

Wout flashes him a small if also hesitant smile. Tiesj clasps Wout’s shoulder and says something to Wout in Dutch that gets a laugh from both Wout and Dylan. Then he switches to French. “It won’t just be me. It’ll be Christophe too.”

Christophe nods along. He trusts that Tiesj’s threat has weight behind it. Even if he forfeited his right to fuss over Wout as his (fake) partner, he still has the right to care as Wout’s friend and teammate, just like Tiesj. “Yup,” Christophe agrees. “Me too.”

Some handlers for Team France show up to tell him that it’s time to prepare for the podium ceremony. Before he goes, Wout gives him a friendly pat on the shoulder. “Congrats again,” he says.

“Thanks,” is all Christophe can get out before he’s pulled away.

Christophe doesn’t regret the kiss at all during the podium ceremony. His lips still tingle a bit while they slide his bronze medal over his head.

He doesn’t regret it through the press conference where they ask about Remco Evenepoel’s winning attack and about how success, if not a win, feels on home soil and about the work they did as a team, and everyone is too polite and too professional to reference Wout.

He doesn’t even regret it during the radio interview afterwards, when the host makes a joking reference to Christophe’s celebrations after the race, and Julian smirks at him while Christophe stutters out an answer about how everyone on his trade team is proud of him. He still feels more pride than shame. If it were real, if they were really dating, none of it should matter. Just two partners sharing physical affection after a tough race.

It’s not until he’s alone in his room again, getting in some downtime before the evening’s festivities and answering his mother’s badgering text messages, that he wonders if he fucked everything up between him and Wout. After this, Wout is going off to the Vuelta for a month while Christophe is scheduled to do smaller one week races targeted at sprinters and puncheurs.

They will probably face each other again at the European, then World, Championships. But they might not race on the same team for the rest of the season.

Wout hadn’t seemed upset when Christophe kissed him. He might have written it off as a one-off, the mistake that it was. He wouldn’t hold it against Christophe later. Once again, Christophe is the one who can’t keep it together and maintain the proper boundaries. He’s the one who can’t stop obsessing over it, the one who thinks an entire month separated, sustained only by texts in the team group chat, sounds unbearable.

He’d been getting over it one day at a time, even if the progress was slow and gruelling. And then, like an addict, he’d let himself have one more hit. Unsurprisingly, it just made the cravings worse.

Christophe focuses on his breathing. Three seconds in. Three seconds out. He is going back to square one, but that’s fine. He did it once before, and he can do it again.

There’s a party at their dorms later. Christophe gets up on stage and stumbles over a few words into a microphone, though it’s clear no one is really listening to what he says. It’s loud. The alcohol is flowing, wine and beer and fancy cocktails. Christophe doesn’t have to race again for several weeks and lets himself get a little tipsy. He gets big, smacking kisses on the cheek from Valentin, and they both give them to Julian, who worked his ass off for the two of them in the race.

Eventually, when the noise and the excitement gets to be too much for him, Christophe goes outside for some fresh air. The Village is relatively quiet at this time of night. Most of the athletes who are still competing are still asleep. That doesn’t mean that the air isn’t filled with a buzz and the streets aren’t filled with people. Christophe sits down on the curb, letting his legs stretch out in front of him.

Next door, Christophe can see and hear some of the same partying from the Team Belgium dorms. Just a flash of lights and the thump of muffled music. Wout is probably in there celebrating Remco’s gold medal. Christophe considers, for one brief mad moment, crashing it. The race is over. No one would accuse Christophe of trying to undermine anything at this point. Christophe takes a deep breath of the night air and reminds himself that this is a bad idea. He already fell off the wagon once today. No need to do it again.

He considers going back inside to the French party. He could get a bit drunker and look around for a hookup. It’s the Olympics, after all. No shortage of people on the prowl for meaningless sex. And Christophe could forget the sound of Wout’s moans, at least for a little while. He could even try another man if he is feeling daring. Wout wasn’t an experiment or some grand revelation of Christophe’s sexuality, but he was the first. Christophe could explore that a little more.

As he mulls over his options, a tall figure steps out of the Belgian house. Christophe can’t see the face at first in the darkness, but as it gets closer, he recognizes the narrow shoulders, the long legs and torso.

“Hey,” Wout says. He sits down next to Christophe on the curb. “Tiesj said he saw you outside.”

Christophe feels certain he had a plan for what he wanted to say to Wout if he saw him tonight. Any trace of that plan has now vanished into thin air. “Here I am,” he says.

Wout watches him in silence for a few long moments. Christophe feels awkward and ungainly in his body, his limbs stiff and uncomfortable, under Wout’s scrutiny. What is Wout looking for? He’s seen all of Christophe by now. No secrets left. Christophe isn’t even tipsy anymore. Almost cold sober as he tries not to drift closer to Wout so that their shoulders are touching.

“Today,” Wout finally says, “after the race. You told me that you loved me, and then you kissed me.” He doesn’t say it like an accusation. He says it like he’s reciting power numbers or statistics. Reciting facts into the night air.

Christophe swallows around the lump in his throat and says, “Yeah, I did.” They were both there. It’s not like he can deny it. He is glad Wout is doing this in semi-private now, instead of making things awkward while they were on a bigger stage.

Wout stares straight into Christophe’s eyes. “Why?” This question also doesn’t carry any hint of judgment, just simple curiosity.

Christophe blinks in confusion. The answer should be obvious. Wout has known this whole time that Christophe is stupid for him. Hasn’t he? Christophe says, “Because I’m really fucking in love with you, and I have been for weeks.” He was so obvious the whole time, leaning into Wout’s touches like a plant towards the sun. He’d given Wout a bouquet of flowers, for fuck’s sake. Tiesj must have known. Jonas probably suspected. Matteo had thought Christophe was in love with Wout since before Christophe had realized it for himself.

Wout’s eyes widen at first with surprise, then narrow with annoyance. “That doesn’t– you didn’t– you were the one who broke up with me.” This time, it’s definitely an accusation. His Dutch-Belgian accent in French thickens with the emotion.

“No, I didn’t,” Christophe protests. “We couldn’t break up because we weren’t ever together in the first place.” He rubs a hand over his face. Besides, Christophe had just been doing what Wout had been too nice to do. Suggesting the public breakup so Wout knew Christophe understood and wasn’t going to be holding him back. “I just– It would be better if you had the freedom to have a relationship you deserved, a real relationship. Like with Campy.”

Wout stares at him some more. “Campy?” he says. “Victor? Really?” At least he doesn’t sound angry anymore.

Christophe shrugs. He ducks his head. He’s not proud of his resentment and his jealousy. “He makes you laugh,” he says. Full-bodied laughs, too, not the polite chuckle Wout sometimes gives during team meetings.

“It’s not like that with Campy,” Wout says. “Never has been.” Suddenly, he’s a lot closer. His shoulder bumps up against Christophe’s.

It takes all of Christophe’s willpower to resist leaning into him. He sighs. He doesn’t know why Wout feels the need to disclaim the Campy thing. It wasn’t about Campy, not really, but the idea of him. “Someone else, then. Someone you could have real feelings for.”

“Someone who watches out for me. Someone strong and kind and handsome, maybe?” Wout asks. “Someone who cares enough about me to my needs before his own?”

Christophe closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to have to think about this, Wout’s next boyfriend, with the Instagram posts and team social media and their public displays of affection. Wout is being cruel. Maybe unintentionally, but it’s cruel all the same. “Yes,” Christophe mumbles out. “Someone like that.”

“Why not you, then?”

Christophe jerks his head up, nearly whacking his skull into Wout’s chin. “What? But you don’t–”

Wout is smiling now. Only the faintest crinkles around his eyes at the moment. It seems like it’s about to break out into a full grin. “I’ve had a crush on you for years. When I was at that club– When I photographed with someone who could - You really didn’t know?”

Christophe stares in complete bafflement. “Of course I didn’t.” His head spins with the implications. Is he still drunk? “I thought- I thought you knew about me, too.” It seems impossible, both that Wout didn’t see it and that he didn’t either. All that time, all those touches, and Wout wasn’t just pretending for the public or for Christophe. Christophe feels sure this is just a vivid daydream, his wildest fantasies come to life.

“What a pair we are, huh?” Wout’s grin is now at full force, bright enough to light all of Paris. One hand comes up to cradle Christophe’s cheek. “I’m going to kiss you now.”

Christophe nods helplessly. His eyes fall closed as Wout leans in. A sweet kiss at first, a simple brush of lips, the kind that they shared dozens of times over the course of their brief, fake relationship. Then Wout bites at Christophe’s lower lip, draws Christophe in closer until Christophe is resting half his weight on him. Christophe moans. He can have this, he realizes. It’s a delirious feeling, one that almost matches the sensation of Wout’s tongue sliding into Christophe’s mouth.

“Get a room!” someone shouts in English. Christophe pulls back to see a group, maybe a team pass by. They’re wearing tracksuits proudly branded as part of Team Australia. Christophe doesn’t recognize any of them, so not cyclists, maybe swimmers or water polo judging by their builds. They don’t seem hostile, just teasing. The guy who shouted at them even winks in their direction.

“He’s right, you know,” Wout murmurs into Christophe’s ear. “We should get a room.” The deep rumble of his voice sends shivers down Christophe’s spine.

“Okay,” Christophe chokes out. “We can go back to mine.”

Christophe texts Julian to let him know he shouldn’t come back to the room tonight. He gets a string of eggplant emoji in return, which Christophe takes to mean he’s fine with it. Wout holds Christophe’s hand as Christophe leads them through the maze of hallways and to his room. As they pass people, they get smirking, knowing looks. Christophe is far too giddy to give a shit.

Christophe and Julian’s room is sparse. Some of the athletes who are around for the entirety of the Games do a little more decorating, but the two of them are only here for this single race. Wout doesn’t notice, because as soon as the door closes behind them, he’s on Christophe again, reeling him in by the scruff of his neck. Christophe would tell him to slow down, remind him they could take their time, except he’s desperate too.

He kisses Wout with everything he has, deep, wet kisses that leave him feeling light-headed and delirious. He paws at the hem of Wout’s Team Belgium t-shirt until Wout takes pity on him and pulls it off himself. As he does so, Christophe catches sight of the new bandage on his arm. He reaches out to touch it. “Tiesj said he’d take away all my hair gel if I did it again,” Wout says, “and that you’d help.” He is wearing his most sheepish smile.

“Tiesj is right,” Christophe says. “I know where you keep it.”

Wout laughs. Not quite the full-bodied laughter Campy can get from him, but still a bright, lovely sound all the same.

Christophe peels off his own Team France shirt and shoves his shorts and underwear off. When he looks up, he sees Wout rummaging through his luggage. “What are you–” he starts to ask.

But then Wout slides the bronze medal over Christophe’s head. “I just wanted a reminder that I am going to fuck an Olympic medalist,” he says. His grin has morphed into something impish.

“You have your own,” Christophe protests. “I should make you go get it so we match.”

That earns him another laugh from Wout. “Maybe later,” he murmurs.

For now, he just kisses Christophe again. The bronze metal disc is cool where it’s trapped between them. Wout guides Christophe over to the bed, which Christophe has found to be surprisingly sturdy despite being made out of cardboard. Even with all his eagerness, the exhaustion from the day’s race is beginning to creep up on Christophe. He doesn’t think he is up for anything that would test the structural integrity.

Wout says, “Looks like Julian left us some gifts.” He holds up a handful of brightly colored condom wrappers that were scattered on the pillow.

A cartoon figure on one of them holds up a megaphone shouting, “Score a win: yes to consent, no to STDs.” Christophe flushes. Julian must have left them behind before the party and therefore long before Christophe texted him.

“I didn’t– he must have assumed–” he says, not wanting Wout to think he’d made any presumptions about tonight.

Wout doesn’t seem to mind, because he fiddles with the sea green condom packet and bites his lip. “I haven’t been with anyone, uh, anyone else, since before Tignes. I was clean after my last workup right before then.”

“I haven’t been with anyone else either,” Christophe says. He tries not to think about why Wout might be rigorous about testing and focuses instead on the fact that Wout hasn’t slept with anyone else in months. “I’m clean, too.”

“Okay.” Wout shoves the small pile of condoms aside. He turns his full attention to Christophe. He reaches for Christophe, guiding him where he wants him, first sitting him on the bed, then pressing him down until he’s flat on his back. Christophe is all too happy to go along with it. He just wants Wout’s hands on him, whatever form that will take.

Wout crawls onto the bed after him, resting his weight on top of Christophe’s, a mirror image of the last time they did this. Christophe likes the heft of Wout’s body, the solidity of him. They kiss and kiss and kiss. Christophe runs his hands up and down the length of Wout’s back. He would have been happy just rut against Wout’s hip until he came, just like last time, but apparently, Wout has different plans.

He kisses his way down Christophe’s neck, over his collarbones, across his chest. Wout lingers for a moment on the medal still resting on Christophe’s sternum. He licks the metal of it, pink tongue tracing the ridges, and the sight of it is so filthy, Christophe’s cock twitches. “What are you–” Christophe chokes out.

Wout grins up at him, eyes glittering in the dorm lights. “I think it’s kind of hot, getting to blow an Olympic medalist.”

Christophe snorts. “Shouldn’t that be my line? You have two.”

“European champion, then.” Wout says as drifts further down, dragging his lips over Christophe’s ribs. “You have no idea how good that kit looks on you. First time I saw you wear it, I almost didn’t care that you beat me for it.”

The idea that Wout genuinely wants him, has wanted him, still feels like a hallucination, a fevered imagining made real. Christophe says, “I didn’t– I wish I had–” He can’t find the words.

But he doesn’t need them, because Wout smiles and says, “I know.” He nibbles the line of Christophe’s iliac crest.

Then he takes Christophe’s cock into his mouth, and Christophe’s vision goes white with pleasure. “Fuck,” Christophe hisses out. “Your mouth–”

Christophe has seen Wout chew fingernails and bidons, Zippers and hoodie strings. He knows how much Wout likes putting his mouth on things. Somehow, Wout’s blowjob skills take him by surprise. After only a few swipes of Wout’s tongue, Christophe is left breathless and babbling. “Fuck. It’s so good. You’re so– I can’t believe you–”

He usually takes some pride in his stamina, but he doesn’t usually have Wout’s mouth on him. He gets hold of Wout’s hair, which leaves his fingers messy with gel. He tugs, to let Wout know, and he says, “I’m going to–”

Wout only moans around his cock and takes Christophe in deeper. Christophe does the only thing he can do in the face of all that: he comes. Wout swallows him down. His eyes are squeezed shut, and when he pulls off, he’s panting. “How was–” he gasps out. He’s always been hungry for feedback.

“You were perfect. Incredible.” Christophe feels wrung out, limp, but he still manages to run his fingers through Wout’s hair, petting him as Wout ruts against the thin, temporary mattress and sheets. His voice is hoarse with emotion. “I love you.”

Wout’s mouth falls open as the orgasm steals through him. His lips are full and pink and wet. A line of spittle snakes its way down his chin. He moans, a deep sound that radiates from his chest, and Christophe wishes he were kissing Wout right now so he could taste it.

As Wout’s breath evens out again, Christophe cups Wout’s face. He brushes the saliva away with his thumb. He is filled with something like awe for the fact that they ended up here together, in Christophe’s bed. It’s been a long, strange journey over the hills and mountains of France, through jealousy and misunderstandings, but they did it. They survived it. Christophe’s heart feels full, heavy and swollen in his chest.

Afterwards, they have to source a new set of sheets, which is unsurprisingly easy given the number of condoms that are being handed out over the course of the event. Wout helps him make the bed, a domestic moment shared between them. Christophe considers what it would be like to move Belgium or asking Wout if he’d be interested in moving to France, but that’s too much too soon. They haven’t even defined what this is yet.

“So, we’re doing this for real, right?” Wout asks as they tuck themselves into bed. “Dating. I mean.”

Christophe kisses his shoulder. “Yes,” he says. “I was afraid– I liked it too much when we were faking it. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to let you go.” He hadn’t expected this when he first volunteered, but he can’t regret any of it now that he has Wout in his arms.

Wout smiles, bright as the sun, and kisses Christophe’s hair. “I love you, too,” he says.

The next day Wout posts a new photo to his Instagram.

It’s of the two of them in front of the Eiffel Tower, kissing. They’re both in their national team gear. They’re also both wearing their bronze medals around their necks.

The caption Wout added reads:

All that glitters is not gold. Je t’aime, Christophe. I’m so proud of you. 🥉🥉 #Paris2024

Christophe dutifully adds it to his own story when he sees it, and then he crawls back onto the bed, tangles his fingers in Wout’s soft, ungelled hair, and gives Wout another kiss, just for good measure.