“You could’ve left your number and found out.” He swatted her gently on her bottom, pretending it was punishment, but, really, it was just an excuse to touch her.
She sat up, tucking her knees against her chest, wrapping her arms around them, making herself small as she looked up at him gravely. “I didn’t want to be disappointed. Or have you be disappointed in me.”
He looked at her and shook his head. “Abby…”
“It was so nice. I just wanted to remember it like that. And not ruin it, waiting for a call that wouldn’t come. Or an actual date that didn’t go well.”
He stared for a moment, looking puzzled. “Of course it would have gone well,” he said. “We got along. We had great chemistry. We had fun!” he said, then looked at her. “We did, right?”
Abby smiled at him. “We did,” she confirmed.
Sebastian, stretched himself out on the bed, gently easing her hands away from her knees, coaxing her body down against his. “We wasted two years,” he growled in her ear, smiling as he felt her shiver.
“I was playing hard to get,” she whispered back, and turned her head until their lips met, and she could kiss him in a manner suggesting she wouldn’t make him wait for her, or be without her, ever again.
Abby
Day Eleven: Medina to Buffalo Fifty-four miles
They left Seneca Falls the next morning and rode to Rochester, where Abby and Sebastian spent another night together in a hotel. Abby rode with Sebastian for part of the day. She studiously ignored him at dinner, then tiptoed down the hall at eleven o’clock, when, she hoped, her mother was asleep and unlikely to wander down to the vending machines. The day after that, they rode forty-one miles, from Rochester to Medina. Abby spent most of that day with the Landons. He was an investment banker, and she worked in finance, and they’d originally planned on a tour through Tuscany, combining cycling with wine tasting, but had decided to stay close to home. Carol’s mother, it emerged, was failing. “We didn’t want to be overseas in case…” Her voice trailed off.
“In case we were needed,” Richard said. Carol smiled at him gratefully.
“Richard’s a big wine buff,” she told Abby.
“We’ll get there someday,” he said. Abby didn’t miss the look that passed between them, Carol’s face grateful, Richard’s expression proud and content. They weren’t the horrible snobs that she’d imagined. They were partners, Abby saw. They would sacrifice for each other; help each other through the hard times. She wanted that for herself. But when did sacrifice become self-abnegation? When were you giving up too much? Would she end up resenting Mark if she stayed with him and none of their vacations involved bikes, even though cycling was what she loved best? Sebastian could ride with her. But was he prepared for a relationship? Would he even be capable of fidelity?
She wished Lizzie were there. She wished she had the kind of relationship with her mother that would allow her to ask Eileen her questions. Abby pedaled onward, with her head down, keeping her thoughts to herself. She rode all day and spent most of each night talking with Sebastian, when their mouths weren’t otherwise engaged. He told her more about his mother’s drinking. She told him more about her parents’ divorce. He told her his parents hadn’t dropped him off when he started college. She told him how she’d been banished to Camp Golden Hills.
They talked about everything except Mark and what would happen when the trip was over. It was like swimming underwater in the ocean; visiting a world that was strange and beautiful, knowing you couldn’t stay too long; that you couldn’t hold your breath forever. At some point, Abby knew, she’d have to come up for air.
On the eleventh day of the trip, the last day of real riding, they followed the trail from Medina to Buffalo. Sebastian pedaled beside Abby. The weather was still summer-warm, but, as they’d gotten farther north, the signs of encroaching autumn had become harder to miss: the leaves changing colors; the absence of riders under eighteen on the trail.
Lily and Morgan were back on their bikes, riding side by side. Morgan had spent two days in the sag wagon, and Lily had ridden with her, out of sympathy and solidarity, and because she still wasn’t an enthusiastic or seasoned cyclist, and the mileage had been killing her. She’d been happy for the break, and Morgan, from what Abby could tell, was happy for the company.
On their way into Buffalo, Abby told Sebastian about the bike trip she’d taken in college through the Finger Lakes, with a couple who’d brought their eighteen-month-old toddler along in a Burley trailer, and how the child had cried, nonstop, every minute and mile of every day.
“She was teething, I guess.” Abby smiled a little at the memory. “And she’d just learned how to walk, so she didn’t want to be strapped into the trailer all day long. The only words she knew besides Mama and Dada were ‘no’ and ‘down,’ but oh my God, she screamed them. All. Day. Long.” Abby shook her head, remembering. “Everyone on the trip would take turns riding behind whichever parent was towing her and singing lullabies or making faces. Whatever we could do to keep her calm. It was a nightmare. Three people actually asked for refunds.” She shook her head, thinking that it was funny now, but it had been extremely unfunny at the time. “And there were newlyweds on the trip—this couple that had gotten married the month before. They were doing the trip as part of their honeymoon. When we started, the woman was saying that she couldn’t wait to get pregnant, that she loved babies, that she was so excited to start a family. I swear to God, when the trip was over, her husband had scheduled a vasectomy.”
“Sounds awful,” Sebastian said. And it had been. Only Abby could picture it differently. A baby in a trailer, hitched to the back of Sebastian’s bike. Abby riding with Sebastian, telling him stories, making him laugh. The three of them, at the end of the day’s ride, sitting around a campfire, underneath a starry sky; together in the tent, all night long (with the baby conveniently disappearing for that part of the fantasy).
“Do you think you’ll stay in Brooklyn for the rest of your life?” Abby asked.
“I like being there now. But I can also imagine settling down someplace a little quieter. And a lot less expensive.”
“I was thinking,” Abby said, a little hesitantly, “about what we were talking about last night.”
Sebastian grinned. In Medina, they’d gone out for pizza for dinner, and the group had stayed in a boutique hotel in an old stone building, where the rooms were small and quirky, oddly shaped, decorated with cycling posters and paraphernalia. Abby’s room had an antique Schwinn hanging on the wall. And a queen-size bed underneath it.
“Remind me what we talked about?” Sebastian said.
“My job,” Abby said, with a touch of asperity. “We talked about what I’m going to do with my life.”
“Ah,” said Sebastian. Abby cringed a little, remembering the speech she’d given about how she loved dogs but didn’t want to walk them for the rest of her life. She’d been curled against him, her cheek resting on his chest, his hand stroking her hair, and she wasn’t sure how closely he’d been listening.
“So what’s the thing you like best?” he asked.
“Leading bike trips,” she said. “Except it’s not really the kind of thing you can do year-round if you want to live in one place.”
“Facts,” Sebastian acknowledged.
“It’s fine to follow the seasons when you’re in your twenties, but if you want”—Abby hesitated—“kids, or a family, or a house, or any of that, it doesn’t work.”
Sebastian asked if it would be possible to earn enough money during the summer months to support herself during the year. Abby said that it was not. He asked if she’d be willing to take less-fulfilling work—dog-walking or office temping—to support herself in the nonsummer months.