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The sun had been up for a while, but it didn’t feel like it.
Jonas was riding in third wheel, tucked just behind Victor and Sepp. The wind hit his chest in little pulses - not strong enough to matter, just annoying enough to notice.
He wasn’t thinking much.
That was the thing about altitude. You didn’t have the energy to spiral. The climb pulled thoughts apart like taffy - slow, soft, stretched until they barely held their shape. Just the road, the breath, the drag in his quads. The feeling of salt drying on his neck. Nothing else.
Someone further back barked a laugh. Matteo, probably.
He liked to talk when it got steep - called it "breath control training" like it wasn’t just boredom. Jonas didn’t respond. He was too focused on the way his right shoe kept clicking every few pedal strokes. Loose cleat, maybe. He’d check later.
The air was dry. The sun had that fake-warm feeling - not actually hot, but bright, like it could flay you anyway. His computer beeped at the twenty-minute mark. Power steady. Cadence fine. Nothing to adjust.
He wiped his face with the back of his glove and kept riding.
Somewhere up the mountain, a goat bleated once, sharp and far away.
The group rounded a bend. The asphalt ahead dipped, then rose in that long slow arc he already hated. He shifted in the saddle. Blinked against the sun.
Then suddenly voices ahead.
Another group. Laughter, tires humming, a car behind them crawling loud enough to hear the radio from here.
They came into view all at once - fast, loud, messy.
Matteo saw them first. “Here come the loveable haters,” he said, loud enough for the whole group to hear, hand already halfway in the air.
The line of white-and-black kits crested the bend ahead, rolling toward them at speed. No one slowed down. They were maybe thirty meters apart, maybe less, both groups pushing a steady forty. Enough to blur faces. Enough to feel the shape of someone without seeing them properly.
“Beeeeee hive!” someone yelled from the opposite side, sing-song. A couple guys waved from far out. One pretended to buzz, arms flapping at the elbow. Another did the heart-hands thing. Their car followed, radio bleeding pop music like it was trying to start a party.
Jonas didn’t smile, but Matteo did. Riders started waving back. Just reflex now.
Jonas kept his eyes ahead. At first.
It only took a second. One second to track movement, to clock the whole group. Jerseys, helmets, white shoes.
And then - there.
Tadej.
Dead center. No sunglasses. Just a pale mark across his face where they must’ve been earlier. His gaze flicked up, head tilting a little, just enough to catch them.
And Jonas.
It was the smallest thing. A lift of fingers. Not a wave - more like an acknowledgment. Like he was greeting the whole group, but not everyone.
Jonas didn’t react.
He didn’t have time.
And then they were gone. Gone in that blink-quick way teams passed on training roads - a blur of limbs, a gust of wind, a flash of color and noise and then nothing. Like it never happened.
Jonas shifted in the saddle. Reached for his bottle. Missed the cage. Swore under his breath and tried again.
No one noticed.
They were already halfway through the next switchback. Back to rhythm. Back to pace.
The next few minutes were just road.
Nothing really changed - same gradient, same sun angling off the ridge, same click from his right cleat every ten pedal strokes. Same breath in, breath out.
But something felt... off.
Not wrong. Just dislodged.
Jonas stayed tucked in behind Victor, same position as before. The group’s pace never wavered. Nobody brought it up - the pass, the shout, the music. It wasn’t worth mentioning. This kind of thing happened all the time up here. Teams orbiting each other like bored planets. Greetings flung out like candy. Nothing personal.
Still.
Jonas blinked into the wind and tried to think of anything else.
They hadn’t crossed once in the last two weeks - not even a shared parking lot or supermarket or awkward hallway nod. That was the first. Which was weird, right? Same roads, same altitude bubble, same weather reports, and yet - nothing.
Until now.
Until Tadej’s eyes flicked up at just the right second and caught his.
That half-second lodged itself somewhere behind his ribs.
Not sharp. Not aching. Just a bump in the rhythm. A muscle memory he didn’t know he had.
He didn’t wave. Couldn’t, really. The bars were twitchy on this stretch and he hadn’t been ready.
But he kept thinking about it anyway. About how easy it looked - the way Tadej lifted his fingers, like he had nothing to prove. No pressure. Just a soft hey thrown across the asphalt.
Jonas wiped sweat from his upper lip and didn’t say anything.
The group shifted again, someone pulling through to take a turn at the front. Jonas didn’t move. Just stayed third wheel. Just kept going.
ᨒ↟ 𖠰
The patio tiles were warm.
Not hot - just that soft, early-afternoon kind of warm, the kind that sank into your palms when you leaned forward, elbows pressing into the mat. Jonas shifted his weight back, held the stretch, and tried to focus on his breath.
In through the nose. Hold. Out through the mouth.
He exhaled too early. Tried again.
The screen mounted on the wall ahead showed a woman with a calm voice and a ridiculously straight spine. She flowed from downward dog into a slow lunge, pausing to emphasize breath control.
Jonas glanced to the side. Ben was doing the same thing, about a mat’s distance away, earbuds in, completely dialed in. He always looked weirdly peaceful when stretching - slack mouth, eyes half-shut, like he was meditating instead of melting his hip flexors.
Jonas tried to mirror the movement. His knee creaked.
His focus broke.
Tadej.
The thought arrived quiet. Not sudden. Not sharp. Just... there. Like he'd been waiting at the edge of Jonas' mind all morning, pacing around, knocking occasionally. And now the door was open again.
Jonas pushed back into a seated pose. Rolled out his wrists. Tried again.
Right leg forward. Sink into it. Breathe.
But his chest didn’t feel open. It felt tight. Not in a scary way. Just dull. Pressured. Like a thought stuck under the ribs.
Ben shifted slightly beside him, moving with the flow of the video. Not a word between them. Just mirrored poses and the soft hum of someone else’s Bluetooth speaker down the hall.
Jonas blinked at the screen, then down at his own hands. His breathing was off again.
Still thinking.
The instructor on the screen was saying something about tension in the hips. About noticing where you hold emotion. About letting go.
Jonas stayed in the twist for three seconds longer than she said, staring past his knee at the terracotta tiles.
The ache wasn’t in his hips.
It was higher. Somewhere between his chest and throat. Somewhere quiet.
He wasn’t even sore, not really. Legs were fine. Back was fine. He’d eaten well. Slept okay. The ride this morning hadn’t been long, and the pacing was even. He wasn’t overtrained. Wasn’t underfed.
So why did he feel like something had been pulled slightly off-center?
The woman on the screen told them to lie back, to let gravity do the work. Jonas followed. Sort of.
The sky above the patio was too blue. The kind that felt empty instead of expansive.
It had been ten months. Eleven, almost.
He hadn’t not thought about Tadej. But it had never felt like this.
He’d watched his races, sure - seen clips of him attacking, post-stage interviews where he smiled too wide and said something dumb in three languages.
But that wasn’t real. That was TV. That wasn’t his voice echoing off the valley. That wasn’t sun on skin and legs spinning smooth, and-
Jonas rubbed a hand over his face. He didn’t like this feeling.
It wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t dramatic. Just… present.
Like a pebble in his shoe that hadn’t started hurting yet. Just existed.
You’re fine, he told himself.
It was two seconds. He barely even waved.
But that didn’t explain the way his chest kept catching at the thought.
The way the ride had felt different after.
The way he couldn’t stop picturing Tadej’s face even though he hadn’t even seen it properly.
On the screen, the woman said something about “softening the shoulders.” Jonas exhaled like it would help.
It didn’t.
Ben’s phone rang.
It was quiet - just a little buzz against the patio tile - but he moved instantly, like he’d been waiting for it. Rolled up slow, flicked out one earbud, and checked the screen.
“Mum's calling,” he said, more to the air than to Jonas, and walked off toward the far end of the complex, barefoot and casual, mat folded under his arm.
The patio was quiet again.
Only the video kept going - a perfect person in perfect lighting, folding forward like her spine was made of thread. Her voice didn’t match the moment anymore. Jonas watched her for another breath, then sat up.
His shirt stuck a little at the back. Sweat. Not much, but enough to be annoying. He shifted onto the bench by the wall, elbows on knees, eyes fixed on nothing.
Still thinking.
It didn’t make sense.
He’d had rest days before. Training blocks. Camps with no overlap. He and Tadej didn’t text. Didn’t hang out. They weren’t friends. Not really.
So why did it feel like something had been knocked loose in him this morning?
He frowned, rubbed the back of his neck.
You're not fourteen, he told himself.
This wasn’t some movie scene. No music cue. Just a passing moment on a climb. That was all. That was nothing.
Still-
There was this... off-ness.
Like seeing Tadej had rearranged something he hadn’t realized could move.
Jonas leaned back against the warm concrete. Let his head fall to one side, eyes closed. Tried to breathe in like the woman on the video said.
Breathe through it. Observe. Release.
It didn’t work.
He wasn’t sure what it was.
Not really.
But it wasn’t nothing.
ᨒ↟ 𖠰
The sun was on its way out.
That slow, deliberate kind of exit it did in the mountains - dragging its light over the tops of peaks, making everything gold for too long, like it didn’t want to leave. Jonas had been sitting out there for a while. Not long enough to lose track of time. Just long enough to forget he had any plans.
The stretching video had ended thirty minutes ago. His bottle was empty, his back pressed against the wall, legs stretched in front of him with one sock half rolled down. He hadn’t moved. Not really.
There were still voices deeper in the building - dinner soon, probably. Music. Laughter. Someone shouting down a hallway. Jonas didn’t feel like going in yet. The outside felt more honest.
He rubbed a hand along his shin. Thought about nothing. Thought about everything.
Footsteps, then - slow, unbothered. Not loud, just unmistakably Matteo. No one else walked like that. Slight heel-drag. The shuffle of someone who never learned how to sneak.
Jonas didn’t look over. Didn’t need to.
Matteo flopped onto the bench next to him a second later. Plastic clinked. He’d brought a bottle of water, half-frozen, sweating in the heat.
“Yo,” he said, cracking the seal and taking a sip. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Jonas snorted. Didn’t reply.
Matteo didn’t seem to expect one. He leaned back against the wall too, letting their shoulders bump for a second before settling into space.
They sat like that for a while.
Not talking. Not touching. Just there.
Crickets started up somewhere in the bushes. The wind shifted.
Jonas watched a single ant crawl across the tile by his shoe and wondered how long he’d been sitting in that exact position.
He didn’t know what he wanted to say.
Didn’t know if he even wanted to say anything.
But Matteo was here now. And he had that look on his face - not concerned. Just ready.
The sky was dimming by degrees.
Not a sunset, not really - just the slow undoing of daylight, like someone turning down the contrast on the world. The colors bled out quiet. Soft grey. Soft pink. The air was still warm, but the warmth had stopped feeling generous.
Jonas leaned forward a little more, arms resting on his knees, back rounding under its own weight. He could feel the pressure behind his eyes again - not pain, not even a headache - just that dull, hovering tension that came from not knowing where to place something.
He hadn’t spoken since Matteo sat down.
It wasn’t awkward. Matteo didn’t make silence feel like something you owed an apology for.
Jonas watched a moth knock itself against the low wall across from them, slow and stubborn.
He blinked. Rolled his shoulders. Didn’t say anything until it felt like maybe too much time had passed not to.
“I’ve been sitting out here for a while,” he said, voice quieter than he expected.
Matteo didn’t answer. Just looked over, waiting.
Jonas rubbed a palm over his thigh. “Like an hour, I think.”
Matteo gave a small nod, then looked back out at the sky. That was it.
Jonas breathed in through his nose. Let the silence settle again.
“I’ve been feeling… strange,” he said eventually. “Since this morning.”
Another pause. He wasn’t looking at Matteo now - just at the cracked tile by his foot, where a bit of grass was pushing up through the seam.
“I’m not sick or anything,” he added. “Nothing’s wrong. I just… don’t feel right.”
Still nothing from Matteo. Which helped.
“I thought it’d go away after the ride. Or after stretching. But it didn’t.” He let his fingers tap lightly against his knee. “It’s not really in my body. It’s just-”
He didn’t finish.
A few seconds passed. The moth disappeared. Someone shouted something from inside the building. A burst of laughter. Then quiet again.
“I saw him,” Jonas said. The words dropped out of his mouth like a coin in water. “That’s the only thing that’s different.”
Matteo didn’t ask who. Didn’t need to.
Jonas picked at a loose thread on his sock. His fingernails were still dusty from the ride.
“It was maybe one second,” he said. “Less.”
He didn’t say anything else for a while. Just let the space breathe.
Then:
“I don’t know why it’s messing with me. That’s the part that’s… weird. It was just a moment. We didn’t even talk. He lifted his hand, I didn’t wave back, and then it was over.”
He paused again. Shifted his weight. His neck felt stiff.
“And now I’m here. Hours later. Still… thinking about it.”
That was the first time he looked over. Matteo was leaning back a little now, legs stretched long, water bottle propped against his thigh. His face was unreadable - not in a guarded way, just in that soft, observant way he had when he was actually listening.
Jonas went quiet again.
“I don’t know what it is,” he said finally, more to himself than anyone else.
Matteo didn’t answer right away.
He took a breath - long, slow, like he was measuring how much space there was between what Jonas had said and what needed to come next. His foot tapped once against the ground, then stopped.
“Okay,” he said eventually, quiet. “But… what does it feel like? That weirdness.”
Jonas opened his mouth, then closed it again.
He looked back down at the tile.
“I don’t know,” he said, honest. “It’s not sharp. Just… kind of heavy. Like something I forgot to do. Or something I lost, but I don’t remember when.”
Matteo nodded slowly. “Okay. So- missing something?”
“I guess.”
“Missing him?”
Jonas huffed - not a laugh, not a scoff either. Just air.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I-” He shook his head, rubbed a thumb over his eyebrow like that would help sort his brain. “It’s not-”
He stopped. Took a breath. Looked at the sky, like maybe it would offer him a sentence.
“I’m not in love with him,” he said, finally. “If that’s what this sounds like.”
Matteo’s head tilted a little, just a flicker of motion.
“I didn’t say that.”
“I know. But- I just mean. That’s not what this is.”
Another pause. The air was thinner now. Or felt like it.
“I have my life. I’m happy. This isn’t-” Jonas ran a hand through his hair. “God, I sound like I’m trying to convince someone.”
Matteo smiled. Just barely. “You sound like someone trying to figure something out.”
Jonas looked down again.
“I guess I just didn’t realise I missed… him. Us. Whatever that even means.”
Matteo let that settle. “What was it? You and him?”
Jonas frowned, thought.
“I don’t know. Not friends, really. Not enemies. Just-” He paused. “We always knew where the other was. In the bunch. On the climb. Even if we weren’t talking.”
He rubbed his palms together. “I think I got used to that. To having him… there. And now it’s been months and it’s like- I don’t know, like I lost a part of the race.”
“A rhythm,” Matteo offered.
“Yeah. Exactly.”
Jonas glanced over.
“It’s stupid.”
Matteo shrugged. “Doesn’t sound stupid to me.”
He let a few seconds pass. Not just silence - space. Breathing room.
Then he leaned forward a little, elbows on his knees, voice low and steady.
“We don’t have to label anything,” he said. “But if it helps… we can try.”
Jonas didn’t respond. Just stared at the darkening edge of the horizon like it was a question he might be able to answer.
“Do you know what you want?” Matteo asked.
Jonas blinked. Swallowed.
“I-” he started. Then stopped.
Matteo waited. Patient. Still.
“Not exactly,” Jonas said.
“Okay. Try a shape, then. Doesn’t have to be a full sentence.”
Jonas rubbed his palms on his thighs, the fabric catching rough under his fingers.
“I just don’t want us to-” He exhaled through his nose. “I don’t want us to pass each other like strangers anymore.”
Matteo tilted his head slightly.
Jonas kept going.
“It felt-” He paused. “It felt so far away. Even though he was right there. That’s what messed me up. I think.”
“Okay,” Matteo said, quiet.
“I don’t need anything big. I don’t need us to… be anything. I just want him in my life. Not just during races.”
The words sat there between them. Honest. Uneven. Real.
Matteo nodded slowly. “That’s a want.”
Jonas pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek. “Yeah.”
A pause.
“Do you want something to change?” Matteo asked. “Between you?”
Jonas leaned back slightly. The bench creaked.
“Yes,” he said. Then, softer: “No. Not like that. I just- I want to be able to talk to him. More. Not just small talk before the neutral zone starts.”
Matteo didn’t smile. But there was something soft in his expression now. Not smug. Just kind.
“And do you want to do something about it?”
Jonas closed his eyes for a second. Not long.
“Yeah,” he said.
Another pause. Another breath.
Then: “But I hate that it sounds like this.”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s some grand feeling.” Jonas opened his eyes again. “It’s not. I already told you.”
“I know.”
“I’m not-” He cut himself off, lips pressing tight.
“I’m not in love with him.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not.”
“I know.”
Jonas looked down at his hands. “I just- feel like I’m going to lose my mind.”
Matteo was quiet for a second. Then leaned back again, hands folding loosely.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sounds like it.”
Jonas huffed something that wasn’t a laugh but might’ve been close.
Matteo shifted a little, stretching out his legs like they’d been stiff for hours. He cracked his knuckles one by one. Not loud. Just habit.
Then he spoke - not suddenly, not with some dramatic tone. Just soft, like a thought he’d been holding for a while.
“You know,” he said, “I think we screw ourselves up when we act like there’s only one kind of love.”
Jonas glanced over. Didn’t answer.
Matteo continued.
“I mean- we don’t say it, but we act like if you care about someone too much, and it doesn’t come with kissing, then it doesn’t count.” He made a vague gesture in the air. “Like there’s only one flavor. And if it’s not that, then it’s just a glitch in your brain.”
Jonas stayed quiet. Still listening.
“But that’s not real,” Matteo said. “You can love someone like a brother. Or like a teammate you’d bleed for. Or like a memory that changed you and never left. You can miss people without wanting them. Want them without wanting them.”
He glanced sideways, gave a little shrug. “It’s all love. Just… different tracks.”
Jonas looked back at the dark sky. He didn’t nod. But he didn’t look away either.
“And longing?” Matteo said. “That’s even weirder. That can come from anywhere.”
Jonas frowned a little. “Yeah?”
“Sure.” Matteo leaned his head back against the wall. “I miss my dog every time I come to camp. That little idiot. And I miss my sister, even though we argue constantly. And sometimes I miss this guy I trained with when I was sixteen, just because we used to suffer together on climbs and it made me feel like I wasn’t alone.”
He paused.
“And none of that means I’m in love with any of them.”
Jonas let out a breath through his nose. Not quite a laugh. But not nothing.
“You’re saying I miss Tadej like you miss your dog,” he said dryly.
Matteo grinned, didn’t deny it. “I’m saying missing someone doesn’t always mean what people think it means. Doesn’t make it smaller, either. Just makes it... yours.”
Jonas looked back down at his hands. They were still. For once.
“Different tracks,” he repeated, quietly.
“Yeah.”
Another pause.
“Doesn’t make you crazy.”
Jonas tilted his head back against the wall. Closed his eyes for a second.
“It feels a little crazy.”
Matteo bumped his knee lightly. “Well. Welcome to being human.”
Jonas nodded.
Small, once. Not like a conclusion. More like a breath you take when something finally sits right in your chest, even if it still hurts.
He looked down at his hands again. They weren’t shaking. That surprised him.
Matteo didn’t speak. Just waited.
After a moment, Jonas asked, “But what now?”
His voice wasn’t small. Just quiet. Like a thought he’d barely meant to say out loud.
Matteo raised his eyebrows slightly, but didn’t answer right away.
Jonas kept going, the words slower now, like they were heavier to carry.
“I mean… how do you say that to someone?”
Matteo tilted his head. “Say what?”
“That you want more.” He ran a thumb along the edge of his other palm. “Not more than them. Just more of them.”
He paused. Frowned.
“Like, how do you even say that without sounding- I don’t know. Like you’re asking for too much.”
“You’re not,” Matteo said.
“Yeah, but what if he doesn’t feel like that?”
“Then he doesn’t,” Matteo said simply. “But then you’ll know. And it’ll hurt less than not knowing.”
Jonas was quiet for a long time.
The sky had almost gone fully dark. Somewhere to the right, a cicada chirred once, then went quiet. A bird passed overhead - just the silhouette of it. Gone in a blink.
Jonas tapped his knee lightly with two fingers.
“I don’t even know what I’d say,” he admitted.
“You don’t have to say everything,” Matteo said. “You can just start.”
Jonas didn’t respond. He was breathing evenly now. Still not calm, exactly. But steadier.
“You’ve done harder things,” Matteo added, almost offhand. “Way harder. You just don’t remember them feeling hard because no one told you they were allowed to be.”
Jonas huffed. “You always talk like this in altitude?”
“No,” Matteo said. “Just when you’re being dramatic.”
That earned him the ghost of a smile.
But under it, the question still lingered - heavier than all the rest.
What if I ask, and he doesn’t want to be close?
Jonas didn’t say it. Didn’t need to. Matteo already knew. He didn’t push. Just sat there beside him, like always. No promises. No guarantees. Just stillness. Presence.
The phone sat in Jonas’ hand like it had grown heavier.
He’d turned it over three times in the last minute. Locked and unlocked the screen. Opened the chat again. Nothing since last summer - just that last string of post-stage niceties, a joke about heat stroke, a thumbs up.
It wasn’t like Tadej would be surprised to hear from him. But it wasn’t like he’d be expecting it either.
Jonas stared at the keyboard.
Then: “What do I even say?”
Matteo shifted next to him, stretching one leg out and rolling his ankle in slow circles. “Depends what you want to happen.”
Jonas didn’t answer.
He knew what he didn’t want - no confusion, no big explanations. No overthinking. He didn’t want Tadej to ask why he was reaching out, because he wouldn’t know what to say. Not in full.
He didn’t want to say I saw you today. That was obvious. They’d made eye contact. Tadej had waved. That wasn’t the part that mattered.
He wanted… something else.
A start.
He turned the phone in his hand again.
“It can’t be too vague,” he said, mostly to himself. “But not too much either.”
“You want to see him?” Matteo asked, like he was asking if Jonas was planning to get up soon. Casual.
Jonas nodded, eyes still on the screen.
“Then just ask.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Sure it is.”
Jonas tapped his thumb once, twice. Thought.
He pictured Tadej. Not waving - just standing still. On the street. Under one of those old lamps that made everything look too orange. Looking up when Jonas approached, not confused, not surprised, just there. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“I don’t want to explain anything,” Jonas said.
“So don’t.”
“I want it to feel… normal.”
Matteo nodded. “Then make it normal.”
Jonas looked up. “What if I just ask where they’re staying?”
Matteo made a face. “Too vague. Sounds like you’re collecting stats.”
“Right.”
“Just ask if he wants to get some air.”
Jonas blinked.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Jonas opened the chat again. Typed. Backspaced. Typed again.
“you around?”
He stared at it for five seconds. Too dry. Too nothing.
He added:
“feel like getting some air?”
He stared a little longer.
Matteo leaned over slightly, not crowding, just present.
“You want me to send it?”
Jonas didn’t answer. Just handed him the phone again.
Matteo read it once, nodded. “This is good,” he said, no drama. “It sounds like you.”
Jonas looked away. Toward the trees. The lights. The mountains that had turned almost completely to silhouette.
Matteo hit send.
There was no beep. No ping. No confirmation. Just the small shift in the screen - Delivered - and the soft breeze curling over the patio, like it had been waiting to exhale.
Jonas dropped his head against the wall behind him.
“Don’t tell me if he leaves me on read.”
Matteo didn’t answer. Just set the phone down between them.
Jonas closed his eyes.
His chest felt tight again, but in a different way now - not anxious. Just open. Like he’d pulled something loose inside himself and now it was waiting for a reply.
ᨒ↟ 𖠰
The road was mostly empty.
Just the low crunch of his shoes on gravel and the hum of faraway insects - something clicking rhythmically in the dry grass, something else rustling in the trees. A streetlight flickered up ahead, weak orange casting longer shadows than it had any right to.
It was colder than he expected. Not cold, but mountain cold. The kind that got into your sleeves when you weren't moving enough. Jonas tucked his hands into the pockets of his jacket and kept walking.
Matteo had stayed behind. Just nodded when the reply came in - no words, no teasing, just he’s outside and a small smile.
So now Jonas was here.
The air felt thinner than earlier. Or maybe he was breathing too shallow. The climb back up was going to suck. Didn’t matter.
He looked ahead.
And there he was.
Tadej.
Standing under the streetlight like he belonged to it, one foot up on the curb, arms folded across his chest. His hair sat flat on his head - maybe from a shower, maybe just from the air. He hadn’t seen Jonas yet. Just looking down the road, like he was counting seconds. Or pebbles.
Jonas slowed. Only a little. Not from nerves. Just to look.
It hit him all over again - that strange, slow ache behind the ribs. The one that had sat with him all day. That had made his stretching wrong and his breathing off and his silence heavier than usual.
This was the same person who passed him on the road this morning. Same wave. Same face. Same everything.
But this-
This was his Tadej.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Didn’t matter.
Jonas kept walking.
He wasn’t trying to fix anything. He wasn’t here for closure. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted, except that it was this. This moment. This choice. This quiet, no-pressure, just-them space.
The gravel shifted under his foot. Tadej looked up.
No surprise on his face. Just a soft smile that looked like it had been waiting for exactly this.
Jonas stopped a few steps away.
Tadej lifted a hand in greeting. Not a wave - just enough.
Jonas huffed, something between a breath and a laugh. “Hey.”
Tadej’s smile widened slightly. “Hey.”
They didn’t move at first.
The streetlight above them buzzed faintly, casting that old yellow wash over the road and their shoes, turning everything soft around the edges. The light didn’t reach far - just a circle, maybe three meters across - and beyond it, the world faded into night.
Tadej stood easy, hands in his jacket pockets, like this wasn’t strange. Like he’d been expecting Jonas to show up since the moment they passed each other that morning.
Jonas wasn’t standing easy.
His arms were crossed. Then uncrossed. Then back again. He shifted his weight, looked down, then up, then cleared his throat for no reason at all.
“Didn’t think you’d still be up,” he said finally, not looking directly at him.
Tadej smiled - not big, just enough to show he was amused. “Didn’t think you’d text.”
Jonas flushed. The light made it worse - or maybe it just made it more visible. He rubbed the side of his neck like it itched.
“I almost didn’t.”
“Yeah,” Tadej said. “Sounds like you.”
There was a pause. The kind that creaks slightly. Not quite silence, not quite ease. Just space.
Jonas sniffed, then muttered, “It’s colder than I thought.”
Tadej looked at him sideways, grinning a little. “We’re in the mountains, Jonas.”
“Thanks. I forgot.”
“Did you?” Tadej’s voice was low. Teasing, but soft.
Jonas didn’t reply. He was looking down the road again, where the pavement disappeared into darkness. His hands were deep in his jacket pockets now, shoulders hunched slightly. Not cold. Just nerves.
He hadn’t expected to feel like this. Or maybe he had.
Tadej let the silence breathe.
“Training going okay?” Jonas asked, like it was the only thing he could think of that wouldn’t give him away.
“Yeah,” Tadej said. “Legs feel good. Yours?”
“Fine.”
“Liar.”
Jonas huffed. “You saw the power files?”
“I saw your face this morning.”
Another silence. But this one felt less jagged.
Tadej rocked forward onto his toes, then back. Like he didn’t quite know what to do with his body either.
Jonas glanced at him again, quick. The shape of him. The nearness. All the easy things that used to sit between them - gone now, but not unrecoverable. Just buried. Like a trail grown over.
He wanted to say something real. He wasn’t ready yet.
So instead he said, “Your hair is still sticking out your helmet.”
Tadej grinned, fully now. “It’s called character.”
Jonas looked away. Smiled without meaning to.
The silence that followed didn’t feel awkward anymore.
Tadej was still standing loose under the light, but his head had tilted a little. His smile had faded into something quieter - still warm, but curious now. The kind of expression he made when he was about to do something impulsive on a descent.
He looked at Jonas.
“So… what are we doing?” he asked, not unkind. “What’s this?”
Jonas froze.
Not visibly. Just inside. Like someone had touched a bruise he wasn’t sure he had.
Tadej didn’t sound suspicious. Didn’t sound annoyed. He said it like it was a real question. Like he’d follow wherever the answer went.
Jonas’ mouth opened, then closed again.
He stared at the pavement between them. Took a breath. Let it out through his nose.
“I don’t-” he started, then stopped. His voice was rougher than usual, and he hated that. Cleared his throat. Started again.
“I don’t really know.”
Tadej didn’t interrupt. Didn’t nod or fill the silence. Just waited.
Jonas rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “It’s not anything weird,” he said quickly. “It’s not- I’m not-”
He paused. Winced a little.
Tadej stayed still. Gentle. Present.
Jonas exhaled, looked off to the side. “I’ve just been… thinking. Since this morning.”
“That was a one-second wave,” Tadej said softly.
“Yeah.” Jonas managed a crooked smile. “Apparently that’s all it takes.”
Tadej grinned, then bit it back. Let him speak.
Jonas shifted his weight again. “I don’t know what this is supposed to be. I just know I-” he stopped, then frowned like it physically hurt to say. “I miss you.”
It landed like a pebble dropped into a lake. No splash. Just ripples.
“I know we don’t really… hang out,” he added quickly. “Outside of races. And we’re busy. We’ve got lives, and teams, and- I don’t know. But I keep thinking about how we always see each other at the hardest parts. On climbs. In that weird silence before the break goes. After the finish line, when everyone else is yelling and we’re just breathing.”
He shook his head. “I think I got used to that. To you. Being there. And now it’s been months and- I don’t know. It’s stupid. But I miss having you around.”
Tadej didn’t speak. Didn’t move. Just listened.
Jonas stared at his shoes. “I don’t need anything big,” he said, quieter now. “I’m not asking for… I just want it to not feel like we’re strangers between finish lines.”
He rubbed his thumb against his palm. “That’s all.”
A beat. Two.
Then: “I know it sounds dumb.”
Tadej stepped forward, just a little. Close enough that his shoes almost touched Jonas’.
He reached out, gentle as anything, and tugged lightly on the sleeve of Jonas’ jacket.
“It doesn’t,” he said. “It doesn’t sound dumb.”
Jonas looked up, surprised. But Tadej’s face was open. Not teasing. Just there.
“You could’ve just said you wanted to hang out,” he added, deadpan. “Would’ve saved you a minor breakdown.”
Jonas snorted, cheeks red, eyes burning a little in a way he’d never admit.
Tadej bumped his shoulder lightly. “I get it,” he said. “Me too.”
Jonas looked at him again. Blinked.
“You do?”
Tadej shrugged. “Yeah. I don’t think about it dramatically like you do-” he gestured vaguely at Jonas’ whole person, “-but I’ve missed you too. It’s weird when you go from seeing someone all season to not at all.”
He hesitated. Then added, “We were good together. On the bike. Around it too.”
Jonas didn’t know what to say.
So he didn’t.
And that was okay.
They just turned back down the road - Jonas with his hands in his pockets, Tadej bouncing on the balls of his feet like it wasn’t almost midnight, like the thin mountain air didn’t apply to him.
It was colder now, wind slipping into the folds of their jackets. Jonas hunched his shoulders a little. Tadej noticed and immediately whacked him in the arm.
“You always walk like a sad old man?”
Jonas huffed. “It’s cold.”
“We’re athletes,” Tadej declared, already grinning. “Where’s your grit?”
Jonas rolled his eyes, kept walking. But a second later, he got shoved - not hard, but with enough force to make him stumble sideways a step.
“Hey,” he muttered.
“What?” Tadej said innocently. “It’s called physical encouragement.”
“You forget I’m not built like Rafał.”
“I do forget,” Tadej admitted. “He’d shove me back and call me an idiot.”
“Well I’m not going to do that.”
Tadej smirked. “You don’t even have the arm strength to shove me.”
“Don't underestimate me.”
They kept walking, Tadej bumping into him every few steps - not to be annoying, just to be there. Jonas never minded more than half a second. He was too busy trying not to smile.
Somewhere on the final stretch of road before the split to their hotels, Tadej slowed a little.
“Hey,” he said, suddenly serious.
Jonas glanced over.
“Before Dauphiné. Let’s meet up again.”
Jonas blinked. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. We’ll get coffee or something,” Tadej said. “Or, like- not coffee. You’ll probably order tea like a loser.”
“I have good taste.”
“Sure. You’ll have tea, I’ll have espresso, we’ll take a picture and confuse people on Instagram. It'll be great.”
Jonas smiled, small. “Sounds good.”
“Then I’ll beat you by ten minutes on stage three.”
“Mm. Doubtful.”
“Bro,” Tadej said, eyes wide. “I’ll race you so hard.”
Jonas snorted.
“And I’ll comfort you,” Tadej added solemnly. “When you’re crying on the second step of the podium.”
“You’re unbearable.”
“I know.”
They reached the turnoff to Jonas’ hotel. The gate lights were still on. Everything else had gone quiet.
Jonas slowed. Turned toward the entrance.
“Well,” he said. “This was…”
He trailed off. Not sure what word to choose. Nice? Important? Weirdly necessary?
He settled for sticking out his hand. A little stiff. Awkward, even as he did it.
Tadej blinked at it.
Then, without hesitation, pulled him forward into a hug. Not one of those soft, pat-on-the-back things - a real one. Hard. Almost jostling. Jonas let out a surprised breath into the side of Tadej’s shoulder.
“Goodnight,” Tadej said, voice warm against his ear. “Bro.”
Jonas groaned into the fabric of his jacket. “Don’t call me that.”
“Pal? Mate? Buddy?”
“Just Jonas.”
Tadej pulled back a little. Just enough to look him in the eye.
“Okay, Just Jonas.”
Then, with a grin so casual it almost passed unnoticed:
“Love you. See you soon.”
Jonas opened his mouth. Closed it.
His ears were burning again. His chest felt like something had cracked open just enough.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah. See you.”
And then he turned toward the gate, walked through it, let the sound of the latch clicking shut carry the rest of the moment.
He didn’t look back.
He didn’t need to.