Chapter 23
Bode
Mack had been in my kitchen for forty minutes, which was about thirty-five minutes longer than he usually managed to stay in one place.
He kept picking things up and setting them back down: a mug, my phone charger, a small ceramic bowl Lucky had put on the counter that I hadn’t asked about and had started to think of as part of the house.
He was the most restless person I’d ever met, a pronounced trait in a sport full of restless people.
“Okay but you’re happy,” he said, like he was naming a symptom.
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’ve been fine for a year. This is different. You’re like—” He set down the bowl and turned to face me. “You’re light. You’re doing this thing where you almost smile and remember you don’t do that.”
“I smile.”
“Not lately.”
I poured coffee into his mug to give myself something to do.
Outside, the morning light was flat and white against the slope, the kind of conditions where you could sense the texture of the snow under your board in a different way, more honest somehow, less forgiving.
I’d been out twice this week. Not training. Not anything with a name. Riding.
“So are you in or what?” I asked. “Riding for fun. No phones, no social media posts, no hashtags. Just messing around.”
“Not even a selfie before we leave?”
I frowned. “That would be pushing it, but I guess we can. Kona is thrilled I’m posting again.”
“So they’re keeping you?”
“They want to move me out of their pro rider tier and have me do some sort of brand ambassador thing. I don’t know. My therapist wants me to consider it. More time for messing around, finding the joy again. And finding ways to share it with their audience.”
“And it still pays?”
“Yeah. They’re being generous. Not as generous as before the whole Olympics disaster, but… It’ll keep the lights on and the bills paid, especially with Lucky and Wade here.”
Mack frowned. “So the roommates are staying?”
“Yeah. It turns out having some regular people around gives me a little perspective. I’ve been taking one of my roommates out. He’s a surgeon, picked up a board six weeks ago, falls constantly.” I turned my coffee mug in my hands. “He finally linked his turns last week. And I was—” I stopped.
“What?”
I thought about Wade at the bottom of that run, grinning at the sky with snow on his jacket, and the thing I’d noticed watching it. The word for it was simple and I kept not saying it. “Happy,” I said. “I was happy.”
Mack stared at me for a long moment. “Because he linked his turns.”
“Yeah.”
“You, former Olympic gold medalist, were happy because your roommate linked his turns.”
“You’re making it sound weird.”
“I’m not making it sound weird, I’m trying to understand what’s happening to my best friend.” He sat down on one of the barstools, leaning forward on his forearms.
I had no answer to that, so I drank my coffee.
“Bode,” Mack said.
“I mean, he’s also kind of my boyfriend.”
Mack blinked. “Boyfriend, like you fuck each other?”
“Yep. Have you ever had anal sex? It’s so damn good. Like, I know you’re straight, but let a girl peg you or something.” I took another sip of my coffee.
Mack was still staring at me like I’d grown another head. “I thought you were straight, too.”
“Turns out, not as much as I thought. If it helps, Wade and I have a girlfriend we share.”
Mack burst out laughing, shaking his head. “That hot engineer who was here when I left? I could see that. Doctor guy, maybe not so much.”
“Doctor guy is hot as fuck. Emily calls him Dr. McHottie.”
“Your mom’s assistant? The one who keeps offering to photograph my forearms for her collection like a serial killer?”
“As far as I know, it’s nothing serial killer-ish. Just a legitimate appreciation of men’s forearms. Which, now that I have a boyfriend, I can fully get.”
Mack stared at me for a long moment. “Well, this is bizarre, but I guess it’s better than zombie Bode. And you want to ride again, so I’ll take it.
“Don’t tell them I called them my boyfriend and girlfriend, by the way. We haven’t had that conversation yet.”
“Oh, you sweet summer child,” Mack said, shaking his head.
My phone buzzed on the counter, and we both looked at it, clocking the unknown number with an Alaska area code.
“Your dad?”
I huffed out a breath. “Probably. Time for his annual attempt at father-son bonding.”
Mack glanced at it, at me. Whatever he read in my face made him slide off the barstool.
“I’ll be outside, gearing up. Don’t be too long, or I might find your boyfriend and tell him he’s your boyfriend,” he said, and picked up his jacket without further comment, which was one of the things I’d valued about him.
I waited until the back door closed before I picked up the phone.
“Bode.” Even though my father was the one calling me, he always managed to sound distracted, like the conversation was getting in the way of something more important. “I heard you were riding again.”
“Word travels.”
“Small world, snowboarding. Also, you’ve been posting on Instagram.” Wind on his end, which meant he was outside somewhere. “I’m in Telluride.”
I said nothing.
“I have a project. Up near the Wrangells, in Alaska. Best snow I’ve ever ridden, Bode.”
“You always say that.”
“And I always mean it.” A small, acknowledging sound. “It’s six weeks, or seven. Heli access, terrain nobody’s touched. The footage we could get, the two of us, it would be epic.”
“And great for video sales?”
He paused. “It’s not competition. No judges. You and the mountain. Pure passion.”
I stood at the window. The slope was empty at this hour, and I wondered if my father even knew what pure passion felt like.
I couldn’t imagine he had ever stopped moving for long enough to experience what I was just starting to get a taste of with Wade and Lucky.
There was always a next mountain, a steeper face, a zone that hadn’t been ridden.
He was chasing the same dream I’d been chasing at the Olympics, but he’d never experience the crash I had, because there was no top, no ultimate goal. There was always a bigger mountain. And if that was true, he’d never get a chance to find his Wade and Lucky.
It was a little sad, if I thought about it that way.
“I appreciate you calling,” I said.
“Does that mean—”
“It means I appreciate you calling.” I turned from the window. “I’m not saying no. I’m not saying yes. I need some time.”
A longer pause. “Of course.” His words had changed, less smooth, tension underneath it. “I’d like to ride with you, if you want. Even outside of the project. I’m in the area for another week.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Okay.” Another pause. “It’s good to hear your voice, Bode.”
I hung up and stood with the phone in my hand and looked at nothing.
I was still standing there when the front door opened and Lucky came breezing in. She stopped when she saw me. Toed off her boots. Read my face from across the room in about half a second. “What happened?”
“My father called.”
She moved closer, but she didn’t ask what he wanted or what I was going to do. She looked at me for a long moment, steady, like I was the only thing in the room worth paying attention to.
I thought about Hans, waiting for the snow that would never be perfect enough, the run that would never be thrilling enough.
I thought about Wade linking his turns and my own stupid involuntary happiness about it.
About riding powder with Lucky, experiencing her joy firsthand. At a simple powder day.
No helicopter ride or three week trip to Alaska required.
Lucky crossed the kitchen, stepped in close, and put her hands on either side of my face.
I looked up at her.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
“You okay?” she said.
“Yeah.” And it was true. “He wanted me to go to Alaska. But I’m going to stay home this winter. With my girlfriend and my boyfriend.”
She searched my face for a moment, satisfied with whatever she found there, and smiled at me, full and unguarded, and it moved through me like the first clean turn on fresh snow.
Then she kissed me, soft and slow, and I felt the whole complicated weight of the afternoon start to settle somewhere lower in my chest, less sharp. When she pulled back she was close enough that I could see the amber in her eyes, the small crease at the corner of her mouth.
“Girlfriend and boyfriend, huh?” she asked, standing on her tiptoes to kiss me. I cupped her face in my hands and kissed her back with everything.
“Yep.”
Mack knocked on the window, and I could hear his muted voice yelling, “What the fuck, man?”
I tilted my head. “Weren’t you supposed to be at work?”
“I forgot my laptop. I’m leaving now. And it looks like you’d better go ride.”
I kissed her again. “I don’t know, Mack could learn some patience.”
He banged on the glass again, and she laughed.
“I’m gonna run upstairs and get my laptop. You have fun on the mountain.”
“I will,” I called after her, then turned, grabbed my snowboard, and headed outside to ride with my friend. “My therapist thinks I should try a social media post, to explore how to do some work on the mountain without making it all about work. What do you think?”
She paused on the stairs, looking down at me. “I think you can do anything you set your mind to, Bode Hayashi. You’re an Olympic gold medalist.”
“That sounded like a cop out,” I called after her.
“Do the social media post,” she yelled back, as she disappeared around the corner. I stepped outside, and Lila was standing behind Mack, geared up and looking worried. And Ashton was there too, fist pumping like a jackass. Leif gave me a subtle nod, then tripped Ashton as he walked over to hug me.
“No questions at this time,” Mack said. “Today, we just ride. Bode wants to have fun.”
Lila and Ashton laughed and high-fived, clearly into the idea. Leif frowned. “Fun? I’m not sure I remember that word. Is it a form of pre-season conditioning?”
“Fuck off. No mentions of conditioning, competitions, or training runs will be allowed. I’m in burnout recovery.” I huffed out a breath. “But first, an obligatory selfie for the sponsors?”
Mack whooped, and positioned us all, and… it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.