Free Faking It by Leah Marie Brown Page B

each a laminated folding map and asks if anyone would like to take the lead. Mr. and Mrs. Byron raise their hands. Their daughter moans, jams ear buds into her ears, and increases the volume on her iPod to a shattering decibel. Their lanky son merely shrugs his shoulders.
    Jean-Luc tells us to mount up.
    I swing my leg over my bike, slide my foot onto the pedal, and try to click the cleat on the bottom of the cycling shoe onto the pedal. My foot flies off. I try again, but my foot just slides off the pedal again. Sweat is gathering between my breasts. Everyone else has clicked in. One by one, they ride down the tree-lined drive.
    I position my foot over the pedal and push down hard but still can’t manage to attach the cleat.
    “Let me help you.”
    Jean-Luc kneels beside my bike, takes my foot in his hand, and expertly clicks the cleat onto the pedal. I can ride off the side of a mountain now. My humiliation is complete.
    I mumble my thanks and begin pedaling. I am racing down the drive in a frantic effort to catch up with Fanny, when a shocking breeze cools my backside. Leaning over the bike has caused the skort to slip low on my hips, leaving an embarrassing amount of upper ass cheek exposed. I remove one hand from handlebars, tug the back of my shirt down, and tuck it into the skort.
    Behind me, I hear Jean-Luc’s low, throaty laughter.
    * * * *
    Around mile four, I am regretting my post-breakup take-out binges. Damn you, Mr. Foo and your spicy Szechwan chicken! I am huffing and wheezing like an asthmatic. Maybe I should have done more than the occasional spin class to prepare for this trip. This is so not like spin. There’s no dialing back the resistance and faking your effort.
    Fanny drops back to ride beside me.
    “ Comment vas-tu? ”
    “My thighs are burning and my bum feels like I have been cruelly violated. Is it possible to be sodomized by a bike seat?”
    Fanny chuckles.
    I look ahead. Jean-Luc is effortlessly pumping his legs. Speaking of bums, Jean-Luc’s looks awfully nice in those spandexy shorts. Like Michelangelo’s David, tight and muscled. I could take a bite out of it.
    The heat must be getting to me, or all the lavender. The fumes are overpowering, scrambling my brain.
    I am still in love with Nathan. So why am I looking at a French man’s piece de la resistance and imaging naughty things?
    A bead of sweat breaks at my hairline and trickles down my face, stinging my eyes. I slow down.
    “I am going to take a rest.”
    Fanny looks over, her brow furrowed. “Keep going, Vivian. Build the momentum. Stopping will only make it more difficult to start again.”
    Good old competitive, hyper-driven Fanny. My best friend may be five-foot-one and a hair over one hundred pounds, but she has all of the intensity of The Rock. The enthusiasm she musters in visiting a gym perplexes me. An elliptical machine does not excite me as much as a Gothic novel and a chicken chimichanga. Don’t get me wrong. I am not a total lump. I enjoy Pilates and Zumba, but just not as obsessive-compulsively as Fanny.
    “I need a break. You keep going though.”
    “You sure?”
    My lungs are burning. I nod. “Go. I’ll catch up.”
    I pull off the road into a field of lavender. My legs wobble as I carry my water bottle to a droopy tree. Taking a seat on the cracked earth in the shade of the tree, I remove my helmet and push my sweaty, limp bangs from my forehead.
    This. Just. Sucks.
    Walking back to my bike, I zip open the small pouch hooked to the seat and remove my iPhone and ear buds. I wish I could check my e-mail, but the roaming charges would probably kill my gasping bank account. I’ll have to wait until I get to the château.
    I walk back to the tree, collapse on the ground, lean my aching back against the trunk, and pop the ear buds into my ears. I am three songs into Buckcherry’s 15 when the Byron boy rides up, drops his bike on the ground, and plops down next to me.
    I pull the ear buds out of my ears and Josh