“We’re glad to have you.” Abby watched as Andy sidled toward Morgan and said something that made her smile. Good for you, kiddo, Abby thought.
“Next!” Abby knew she could postpone it no longer. She braced herself, remembered every encouraging thing Lizzie had said to her, and pointed at the two men she’d avoided looking at, the ones she was already thinking of as the Inevitable Bros. She’d been on rides with guys like them before: fit-looking men with expensive equipment and haughty attitudes. Frequently, these men were former high school or college athletes looking to relive the youthful triumphs they’d notched before time and knee replacements slowed them down. These were the riders who’d inevitably dismiss her tips about ignoring their devices and noticing their surroundings; the guys who would always choose the extra mileage options when they were offered and then spend meals comparing splits and climb times, cadence counts, and resting heart rates. They’d make travel plans with the goal of checking big climbs and centuries off some kind of imaginary list—although, for all Abby knew, the list might be real, and every young-to-middle-aged male cyclist in the country might have been issued a copy. For all the enjoyment they seemed to be getting, these riders might as well have stayed in their basements, grinding out the miles on the Pelotons they always had (and which they’d always let you know had been acquired before they got trendy and, subsequently, untrendy). Guys like these, in Abby’s experience, were the demographic least likely to believe that women in general, young women in particular, and young, fat women most of all, had any pertinent experience, skills, or expertise. They did not, as a rule, join in group rides that went at Abby’s pace, and when they did, they would ignore her, argue with her, talk over her, or treat her with a polite condescension that was somehow worse than scorn.
She was unsurprised to see that today’s Bros both had top-of-the-line road bikes fitted with high-end components and skinny leather saddles that made her tender bits ache just to look at. But maybe this was a good thing. Maybe, Abby thought, she wouldn’t need to hear them comparing their heart rates over lunch. Maybe they wouldn’t even stop for a lunch break, and they’d just throw down some salmon jerky and a Gu at a red light, before racing away at eighteen miles an hour. Their loss.
And their choice, Abby reminded herself as she tried to consider the young men objectively. One Bro was Black, in his early thirties, a little stocky, a few inches under six feet. His brown skin had reddish undertones; his hair was clipped short. He had dimpled cheeks and a cleft in his chin and wore a gray-and-white jersey, a gold wedding band, and steel-rimmed glasses that he’d pulled off and was polishing with a cloth he’d taken from his back pocket. He gave Abby a friendly smile. Maybe not so bad, Abby thought.
She turned her attention to the other guy, who was tall, with pale skin and brown hair, and…
No.
Abby felt her heart stop and the breath whoosh from her lungs. Everything in the park froze; the conversations silenced and the traffic halted; like time itself had stopped as Abby stared, her brain gasping out single words and fragments of sentences like, No, and Can’t, and What are the chances?
Because the guy with the brown hair and the light eyes, the guy with the beautifully molded lips and the birthmark in the exact center of his throat, was Sebastian. Mr. Bachelorette Party. The guy she’d gone home with one night, two years ago.
In more evidence of life’s unfairness, Sebastian seemed to have gotten even more handsome since Abby had seen him. His biceps bulged against the sleeves of his dark-blue jersey, his thighs strained the seams of his shorts. Abby allowed herself a single peek at his face, his wavy brown hair and full lips, looking just long enough to gather an impression of a haughty expression, and a lock of hair that flopped charmingly over his forehead. Abby bet that wasn’t an accident. She further bet that a parade of ladies had used their fingers to smooth back that unruly curl.
Abby forced herself to smile and reminded her heart and her lungs to do their jobs. When she was reasonably certain her voice would be steady, she asked, “Do you gentlemen want to introduce yourselves to the group?”
“I’m Lincoln Devries,” said the guy who wasn’t Sebastian.
“Sebastian Piersall,” said the guy with whom she’d had, hands-down, the best sex of her life. Maybe he doesn’t remember me, Abby thought, a little wildly, as Sebastian looked at her. His eyes widened briefly. Then he gave her a slow, undeniably intimate smile; a smile that let her know that he remembered everything, including exactly how many times Abby had conjured his face behind her eyelids and his voice in her ears when she’d touched herself, or—oh, the shame—when Mark had been touching her.
“Abby,” he said, his voice warm, his smile slow and sweet as warmed honey. “Nice to see you again.”
Sebastian
Sebastian Piersall was a lucky man. He knew it was true. He would have known it even if Lincoln, his best friend, his parents, and sister and brother-in-law weren’t constantly pointing it out. That’s Sebastian, they would say, shaking their heads in good-natured resignation. Falls into a pile of shit, comes out smelling like roses.
Sebastian had grown up white, male, and comfortably middle-class, the second-born child and only son of a college professor father and an elementary-school art teacher mom. Sure, his mom had her struggles—specifically, white wine and vodka. And yes, her struggles had become his dad’s struggles, as Sebastian’s father had tried (and tried, and tried) to get her into rehab, or to stick with a program of recovery. But none of that really touched Sebastian. He’d been a teenager by the time things had gotten really bad, out of the house and in college before his mother’s first stint in rehab. His childhood had been, in his mind, idyllic. He had fond memories of a fun mom, who’d let him stay home from school to watch cartoons, then take him bowling, a mom who’d laugh, shooing him out the door as they ran to go pick up pizzas before his father came home, after she’d fallen asleep on the couch and dinner had burned.
Sebastian, you know she let you stay home from school because she was too hungover to get you up and dressed, his sister had said, in the family therapy session at his mom’s first rehab. And she wasn’t asleep on the couch, she was passed out! Sebastian hadn’t responded. He hadn’t known. And if Fun Mom had been, in reality, Drunk Mom, he refused to let it change his memories of what his childhood had been like. You’ve got your take on it. I’ve got mine, he’d said. Greta had rolled her eyes, and the therapist had said something about denial, and how addiction was a disease of the family. Sebastian had tuned them out, thinking of his plans for the night ahead, and the woman he’d already arranged to meet.
He’d always been sociable and good-looking, academically successful, a standout athlete. He’d tried football and ice hockey and water polo, but his best sport was soccer. His high school team had made it all the way to the state finals; Sebastian had been named to the all-state team. Soccer wasn’t a sport in which you could go pro and earn fame and fortune in the United States. It was, however, a sport where your skills were of interest to college recruiters. Sebastian had been accepted early decision at Wesleyan, his first choice, and the only school to which he’d applied—just one more example of the way the Universe showed its favor to him.