by Carrie Quest
Zeke is last up, and he kills it so hard that for a split second I feel relief that I’m not out there, because his run is so hardcore that he makes all the other top riders in the world look like little grommets messing around. He ups the difficulty of every trick by taking off or landing switch, nails an awesome frontside rotation off his toes instead of his heels, and performs a different kind of spin on each jump. His grabs are clean, and he lands smooth every single time—no wobbles or flapping his arms. He’s a machine.
Gabe and I are both on our feet when Zeke hits that last jump. My cheat sheet is balled up in my sweaty fist, and I’m bouncing on the balls of my feet, like I can somehow send him the momentum he needs to make that final rotation. He sails into the air and perfectly executes the complicated set of spins and twists and it’s flawless—so fucking glorious I forget all about my own history with corked spins and get lost in the beauty of his movement.
All I feel is joy. For Zeke when he stomps the landing and for myself, because I’m here, witnessing athletic perfection, and the pure artistry humbles and inspires me. I thought I’d lost the ability to feel this way about snowboarding, and the rush of getting it back, even if it’s only for a second, steals my breath.
A deep sense of happiness floods through me, and I hold myself still, noting the way my blood is zipping through my body, warming me and making the tips of my fingers tingle. It’s intense and unfamiliar and my first instinct is to run away, because I’m not used to this. Dr. Warne told me over and over that I needed to let myself feel, but when the only emotions you have are anger and fear, you tend to shove those suckers down deep and do whatever it takes to avoid them. At least, that’s what I’ve been doing.
In the process I stopped letting myself feel anything at all. Being with Piper is the only thing that’s made a dent in the walls I’ve put up, but even with her I’ve been cautious. And it’s different, because with Piper I’m outside of myself somehow, in another place where the two of us exist together, not stuck in my own mind and body. But this, right now? My walls are down, and everything is rushing through me; a perfect storm of every emotion I’ve ever felt. I want to shut it down, but instead I grit my teeth and stay present. I just…feel…and let the images that come pass through my mind.
Getting towed to the top of the pipe behind a snowmobile, the wind crisp on my sunburned cheeks… Laughing at Ben when he tried to hit a jump next to me and ended up face first in waist-deep powder… Bending down to get the medal put around my neck in Sochi… Piper’s sleepy smile the first time she woke up next to me… Tuning boards with Brody late into the night in the garage in Breck while we sank too many beers and planned the backcountry trips we’d take someday…
My chest aches and little prickles of nausea threaten to close the top of my throat. It sucks. I’d rather hike a fourteener barefoot with no water and a mountain lion on my tail than endure this, but I stick it out as long as I can, and then I open my eyes. I sway a little but I’m still standing. In fact, I’m spinning, because Gabe’s got his arms around me and he’s lifting me off my feet, twirling around the little room while Alex grabs her camera and scrambles out of the way.
“That was fucking incredible!” he yells in my ear. “Let’s get down there and talk to him!”
I glance down to see Zeke being mobbed by people at the bottom of the hill. Clearly only a couple minutes have passed, though it felt like a torturous eternity to me. I’m wrecked; sweaty, breathing hard, and exhausted, but I force a smile onto my face and follow Gabe out the door.
The only way out is through. One of my therapists in Colorado used to tell me that when I was being a dick about tossing beanbags or drawing stick figures or whatever she wanted me to do that day. I hated it then, but she was right. I guess I haven’t wanted to get out bad enough yet to walk through these particular flames, but I took my first steps and that has to be a good thing, even if I got a little burned.
Zeke and I have plans to take some pictures for Brody’s documentary tonight, so I hang around waiting for him until he’s done talking with his coach and signing stuff for his many fans. Darkness is falling when he finally gets away, though the mountain is still lit up like a Christmas tree, the course builders going over everything to make sure they’ll be ready for the final tomorrow.
Zeke shuffles into the studio with his board under his arm, smirking at his phone. He looks like a man who is up to no good, which is pretty much par for the course. He lives to snowboard and pull pranks, and not necessarily in that order. Brody actually wrote a section into his contract banning Zeke from touching other peoples’ sleeping bags due to a camping incident with a raccoon a couple years ago.
I never got to know him too well before, but he’s been a lifeline since I got to Mammoth. He’s so laidback most of the time that he exudes waves of calm. Being around him mellows everyone out, even a tense fucker like me, because the little shit that irritates the rest of us never seems to touch him. Restaurant doesn’t have his first two meal choices? No worries, he’ll have whatever the waiter recommends. Plane stuck on the runway for four hours? No complaints from Zeke, only a few gentle snores.
Just became the most famous snowboarder in the world? He’s still slouching around, carrying his own shit, and his backpack is patched with so much ragged duct tape that you can barely see the fabric underneath.
He’s good people.
“Sorry, man. I’m gonna have to bail on the photo session tonight. My agent wants me to do the Olympic Instagram thing. You heard of it?”
“The Leap thing tomorrow night?” One of the big energy drink companies is sponsoring an Instagram scavenger hunt. They’re releasing a list of thirty items, people, and places at six p.m. tomorrow and people have until midnight to take and post as many photos as possible. Anyone can play and win prizes, but there’s a special category for the athletes, and whoever comes first gets a huge endorsement deal.
“Yeah. Are you doing it?”
I shake my head. “Nah.”
“I’ve been roped in to a planning meeting tonight. Total bummer.”
“You look real upset,” I say as his phone lets out a series of pings and he laughs out loud at the texts coming through.
He types a quick response and slips his phone into his jacket. “Autumn’s agent is making her team up with me and she’s not happy.”
“But you are?” I flick the lights off in the studio and hold the door open, waiting for him to follow me out.
Zeke shrugs. “Autumn is a kick,” he says. “She just needs to be reminded to relax occasionally.”
I raise my eyebrows and I swear his cheeks turn red, but maybe it’s sunburn.
“Good luck with that,” I tell him. I like Autumn, but the girl is really not built to relax. She’s probably drawing up a ten-page scavenger hunt victory plan as we speak, complete with maps and footnotes.
Zeke hoists his backpack up and changes the subject. “Heading back to the Village?”
“Not sure.” I’ve barely seen my room at the Village because I’ve been spending my nights with Piper in her hotel, but I told her I might not make it there tonight. The surprise party she’s planning for Natalie is the day after tomorrow, and I know she’ll be up half the night making sure everything is perfect.
I glance out the windows at the workers scurrying around on the mountain. I can see the half-pipe from here, though I haven’t forced myself to really look at it yet. I’m running out of time, though. The qualifier is in a few days and then I won’t have a choice. Maybe it’s time. Not to get up close, but to sit here in the dark and start to come to terms with the fact that this is real. It’s happening.
The only way out is through.
“I’m actually going to hang around here for a while,” I say.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Got some stuff to catch up on.”
“Cool. I’ll catch you tomorrow. Sorry again to bail on you.”
“Good luck for tomorrow. You’ve got it in the bag.
”
“Thanks, man.”
I wave him off and step back into the dark room, closing the door behind me and clicking the lock to make sure I won’t be interrupted. The windowpane is cool against my forehead as I take in the view. The entire mountain is spread out before me and I force myself to examine it all. The snow glittering under the floodlights, the dark shadows of the fir trees between the trails, the chairs swinging in the wind as they whiz up and out of sight.
The pipe is bustling with activity. Some people are walking along the bottom, bending down to check out the condition of the snow. There’s a team spraying the lip with blue paint and whoever is in charge of the electronics is flashing names and images on the huge screen at the top. It’s a beautiful pipe, solid and well built, and Ben told me conditions are good, which must be a relief to everyone after the clusterfuck of the pipe in Sochi.
I thunk my head against the glass and stare out for as long as I can stand it, closing my eyes when it gets to be too much. My mind does everything it can to run away, dredging up random distractions like a fight I had over Pokémon cards in second grade and the time my car skidded on black ice and I nearly hit a snowplow when I was first learning to drive. Sometimes I shut the thoughts down fast. Other times I let myself drift, but I always come back to the pipe eventually.
The mountain is going dark by the time I step away. I’m stiff from standing for so long, and I’ve got a wicked tension headache brewing. It’s late and Piper is probably in bed. I should head back to my own room, down some painkillers, and go to sleep. Instead, I lock up the studio and wander toward her hotel, my feet crunching along the snowy sidewalk.
I need her.
19
Piper
The knock on my door comes late, around midnight. I’m curled up in bed in my pajamas, laptop open and papers spread out over the duvet, yawning and going over last-minute details for the party the day after tomorrow. Nat and I were originally going to share a room, but when my grandma couldn’t make the trip, we each got our own, which is convenient. Especially for surprise party planning purposes.
Also for sex, I’m not gonna lie.
My parents went all out on the hotel—I guess they figure their baby boy may only be going for Olympic gold once—so we’re within walking distance of the snow park. Ben has been dividing his time between here and the Athletes’ Village in the week since we arrived. I know he wants to have the full Olympic experience, but this place is super convenient for training and means he can see Nat at the end of every day.
He and Adam have both been busy, so Nat and I have been doing the tourist thing mostly by ourselves. We took the train down to the Coastal Cluster, where all the ice events are taking place, and caught a hockey game yesterday. We’ve eaten tons of great food and even went to Seoul one day to do some shopping and so Nat could check out a temple she wanted to see for book research.
This afternoon we watched the slopestyle and my parents invited us to dinner with Ben, but I begged off, so I could come back and do party prep. Top secret party prep, which means I creep over to the door like a spy to check the peephole, because if Nat’s out there, then all of this stuff will have to disappear fast before I can let her in.
Instead, I see Adam. He’s slouched against the wall on the opposite side of the hallway, head down, hair hanging over his face. His hands are jammed in the pockets of his jeans and his whole body screams exhaustion. But his head jerks up when he hears the snick of the deadbolt and by the time I’ve got the door open he’s pushing off the wall and walking toward me.
“Hey.” He opens his arms and envelops me in a hard hug. Cold air clings to his jacket and chills my skin through my cotton pajama top, but I don’t care. I press myself up against his broad chest and hold on with everything I’ve got, waiting to find out what’s going on.
After a few minutes he lets out a deep sigh that ruffles the hair on top of my head.
“You okay?” My voice is muffled by his jacket, but he hears me.
“Yeah. At least, I will be.”
His hands drop to my hips, and he leans back far enough to press a kiss to my forehead.
“Do you want to come in?”
He grins, since he’s been sleeping here almost every night despite the pressroom in the Village that his boss set him up with. In fact, he’s got his own key, and his clothes are taking up half the drawer space, so it’s kind of ridiculous for me to be issuing an invitation.
“I do want to come in,” he says. His voice is deep and gravely, and suddenly I’m not feeling sleepy anymore.
We step into the room and he goes straight for the mini fridge and grabs a bottle of water, downing half of it before he takes off his jacket. I bustle around, trying to get all my papers in some kind of order and then giving up and putting them in a half-ass stack on the table. I’ve gone over everything a hundred times. It will be fine.
Anyway, I can always set my alarm and get up early to check again.
“I thought you were going out with Zeke tonight to take pictures.”
Adam toes off his shoes and flops down on his side of the bed.
“I was going to, but he got caught up in that Instagram scavenger hunt thing with Autumn. She wanted to do a planning meeting tonight.”
“Autumn? Really?”
One corner of his mouth tips up. “What’s wrong with Autumn?”
I press my lips together because there’s nothing wrong with Autumn exactly. Aside from the fact that she used to be my brother’s fuck buddy so Nat, naturally, is not a huge fan. Also, she’s so focused on winning and her career that I would not be at all surprised to find out she’s part robot. I mean, I saw her pull Brussel sprouts out of her bag and eat them once. For a snack.
“I just can’t picture her and Zeke hanging out,” I say, because I’m diplomatic as fuck. “That’s all.”
“Well, apparently there’s a huge deal on the line and her sponsors wanted her to team up with him.”
“Ah, that makes sense.” Autumn is all about seizing opportunities. “But why is Zeke doing it? He doesn’t seem to care too much about that stuff.”
Adam flashes me a grin. “He didn’t say, but I think he wants to get in her pants.”
I punch his shoulder. “Classy, Westlake.”
He shrugs. “I call ‘em like I see ‘em.”
The weird, sad energy he brought in with him is fading, and I’m so happy to see him smiling that I don’t want to push him about what happened. Not yet, anyway. So I lean over and push the dark curls hanging down over his forehead back, then skim my lips over the wings of his eyebrows.
“I missed you today,” I tell him. “You were gone a long time.”
He was up at dawn and out the door, heading out to cover the men’s slopestyle qualifications. Nat and I were in the audience, so I didn’t get to watch any of Adam’s on-camera work live, but I caught a few glimpses of him at the base of the course, interviewing people at the end.
“I watched part of your commentary tonight when I got back here. You’re really good.”
“I was okay.” He turns red under his tan, and I trace the sharp lines of his cheekbones.
I’m not lying. He was amazing, laughing and joking around with the other announcer and giving lots of inside information about how it felt to do each trick.
“I’m serious,” I insist. “Usually listening to those guys is all, ‘It’s a double squeeze wart twist, good air there, but now she’s into the frontside olly olly oxen free and that’s a tough one, Jim. Well, she nailed that one and she finishes up with the wingardium leviosa, which should net her a nice score.’”
He laughs. “I haven’t heard of the double squeeze wart twist.”
“You know what I mean. A lot of them just list tricks. You made it interesting.”
“Thanks,” he mumbles.
“You’re welcome.”
He closes his eyes and sighs. “It was a long day.”
I can see his tension, despite his laughter.
It’s in the way he holds his shoulders, stiff and high, and the ticking muscle in his jaw. It makes my heart ache because it proves how much today cost him. My mind flashes back to the shot that made me close my browser window and switch over to party planning. It was a close-up of Adam’s face as he studied the course, tracing the lines with his eyes and waiting for the next rider to drop in. I don’t think he knew he was being filmed, because the jovial smile he wore in every other shot was gone. In its place was a deep hunger, the craving so raw that I couldn’t stand to watch.
He kicked ass out there today, but it cost him.
“Take off your shirt.”
One eye pops open. “Bossy.”
“You love it.” I stand and head for the bathroom. “Pants too,” I call over my shoulder.
He grumbles but I hear him get up, and when I come back in, bottle of oil in hand, he’s standing at the foot of the bed totally naked.
“Told you, you love it,” I say, eyeing the jut of his erection.
“Caught me.” He reaches for me but I shake my head.
“Lie down on your stomach. I’m giving you a massage.”
He shoots me a slow, lazy grin that temps me to drop the damn oil and get busy immediately, but I resist heroically and wait for him to turn around and climb onto the bed, where he settles onto his stomach with a happy sigh. I wait a minute, watching him relax, before silently losing my own clothes.
“No falling asleep.” I climb up after him and swing one leg over so I’m straddling him, my ass fitting perfectly against the dip in his lower back. “I have plans for you later.”
“I’ll stay awake,” he promises. “Fuck, are you naked?”
He twists around, trying to get a look at me, but I lean forward, pinning him to the bed.