I know. I know. I’m metaphorically kicking myself already for being so stupidly shy. But I have over three weeks. I won’t go home till Luca and I are on first-name terms.

We’ll hold you to that.

Don’t. Oh! It’s Hunter Dean! Dark, handsome and utterly Hollywood.

Hunter appears from his medical and beams at the loitering media consisting of six or seven tall men. Hunter really is the personification of his mission statement. Tipping his sunglasses up on to his head, courteously, he permits the clutch of journalists to surround him and systematically attends to all questions and answers them well, with considered replies and great charm.

Fuck fuck!

Cat is in a quandary. She has reached the bottom of the staircase and is so overcome by her proximity to her heroes that she feels much more like running from the building and hyperventilating somewhere in private, than in doing her job extracting soundbites.

What should I do?

They won’t bite.

Shall I just breeze up to the group and stick my dictaphone under Hunter’s mouth?

She ventures over and does just that. It’s the kind of thing a journalist does, Cat deduces from the bouquet of hand-held recording equipment already thrust at Hunter’s lips. She stares unflinchingly at the Megapac logo on the breast of Hunter’s tracksuit top. Hunter speaks, his voice pulls Cat’s gaze to his face while her dictaphone scrounges for soundbites with the best and rest of them.

Hunter’s lips. God, he has a beautiful neck.

Six male journalists stare at Cat who is incapable of controlling a creeping blush.

Oh shit, I didn’t just say that out loud, did I?

Cat nods earnestly at whatever it is that Hunter is saying. She praises gods of all creeds for the invention of the dictaphone because whatever he is saying, that the current thrill of it all prevents her from hearing, she can listen to later anyway. She focuses hard on the bridge of Hunter’s nose, to discipline her desperate-to-flit gaze.

‘Initially, Megapac may be an unknown quantity in terms of the Tour de France,’ Hunter is expounding, ‘but we’ll be the team on the tip of y’all’s tongues by the end – that I can assure you. You can quote me on that. We’re the best thing to happen in American cycle sport since Greg LeMond and Lance Armstrong.’

‘Bonne chance!’ Cat surprises herself by responding unchecked, anticipating that Hunter might very well start to sing the Star Spangled Banner or quote the Constitution.

‘Hey, yeah, right!’ Hunter responds.

With a wink! Did you see that? A wink! I’ve died and gone to heaven. Does a wink come out on a dictaphone?

‘Cute,’ Luca nudges Ben, out of Cat’s earshot. Ben gives Luca an exasperated look that prevents him having to agree and thereby present himself as a contender. Fortuitously, Luca is called through for his medical and Ben can regard the lone female with a certain private pleasure while Luca creates a diversion. He sees her redden as she focuses on Luca.