Chapter 20 The Race
Twenty
The Race
“Ice cross, huh?” the Uber driver asked.
“Yep.” Jay sat in the passenger seat in front of me and fastened his belt.
“I’m not sure how close I’ll be able to get, but I’ll try.”
I looked out the window to see if any other app-based cars had come yet to pick up Jay’s cross-country friends from the dorm.
But my breath fogged the glass and blocked my view.
At least it wasn’t frost. A warm front had moved in, and we were experiencing temperatures in the high twenties.
When a January thaw hit, you went outside as much as possible. Everyone needed a surge of fresh air.
The driver took off and then jerked to an abrupt stop. The three of us in the back seat braced ourselves.
The car accelerated again.
Good thing my tailbone had stopped hurting from that fall I’d taken on the ice.
Priya pulled out her phone. “Emma, make sure you split the fare before we get there.”
Seconds later, my phone dinged at me, and I accepted the charge.
I kept looking at my phone, hoping for a new text from Dallas, but there was none. This morning, he hadn’t been in our chemistry lecture, and even though neither of us had attempted to connect in class before, I’d been disappointed. No fine shoulders to stare at for an entire hour.
I took a deep breath. Well, if he wasn’t going to text me, I would text him.
On my way to ice cross.
Where are you?
I waited, but nothing. The message said delivered, but not read. I put the phone to sleep and put it back in my cross-body bag.
Priya was elevated on the center hump, inches taller than me. I was like a child stuck in the corner. With nothing to see out the window, I listened to her chatter, making sure to lean back whenever her waving arms got too close to my face.
“It’s a twelve-hundred-foot track of ice and drops ninety feet.” It almost sounded like Priya was out of breath. “There are turns and jumps and a hill to ascend. I read online that the skaters can reach speeds of over forty miles per hour.”
I paused to listen closer, trying to glean as much information as I could.
She kept on. “They’ve been running heats all day to narrow it down to the semifinal pool of competitors, and from that number, the fastest will continue on to tomorrow’s finals.”
“Are you feeling okay, Priya?” Emma asked.
“Of course.” She was smiley and bouncy. “Why?”
“I’ve never seen you this excited about…well, pretty much anything before.”
I had. When she’d found out I was the girl in the hoodie.
Priya’s eyes widened. “I love the Winter Olympics. When they’re on, I’m glued to the television.”
Jay cleared his throat. “This isn’t the Olympics or an Olympic sport.”
“I know that.” Priya licked her lips. “But it’s the closest I’ve ever come.”
“Give her a break.” Emma was tapping away on her phone. “From what I can tell, it’s kind of like snowboard cross or ski cross. Those are in the Olympics.”
Soon we were standing shoulder to shoulder among thousands of people. It didn’t seem possible for us to find other people we knew, but somehow Jay’s cross-country guys found us.
I was enthralled by the production of circling spotlights, the glistening serpentine track, and the roars and whistles coming from the crowd. Cowbells rang on all sides of me. I didn’t have a drop of alcohol in me, yet I was dizzy.
The loudspeaker system echoed in my ears. Then over the shouts came “Racers ready. Five-second warning.”
I rose onto my tiptoes. We still hadn’t muscled our way close enough to the track.
“Can you see what’s going on?” I asked Jay.
He pointed to a huge video screen. The camera zoomed in on the top of the track, where four riders were crouched behind gates, their names listed below them. There were female workers up there too, standing behind them, smiling, wearing cold-weather berets and black peacoats.
A long, high-pitched horn sounded. On the screen, the four competitors shot out of the gates and flew down the track on their skates.
I sucked in a breath, unable to tear my eyes away from the monitor.
There were bumps and turns, jumps, and then the two skaters in front ascended a hill.
The first threw a trick in the air at the top.
The last two collided, and even though they tried to scramble up the hill using their blades, they slid right back down.
The first and second skated through the finish line, the last two looking like ice crystals in their wake.
My heart raced. Wow. Completely reckless, but oh so thrilling to watch.
Emma whistled on one side of me.
Priya clapped and cheered on the other. “That was awesome. So awesome.”
I was amazed. The race had started and finished so quickly that if it had been me, I’d still be at the top trying to muster the courage to start.
Priya grabbed my hand. “Let’s get closer.”
The four of us and the cross-country runners maneuvered as best we could, getting within fifty feet of the track.
I glanced up at the screen again and saw the next set of racers finding their positions.
There were those girls again in berets, each standing behind one of the four start gates, looking like female The Price Is Right models with their correct postures, beautiful smiles, and teased hair.
Were they eye candy or did they actually have a job to do up there?
The next set of four was ready. The referee, in black-and-white-stripes, started announcing.
But before the horn blew, one of the riders blasted through the gate.
The crowd groaned. The disqualified rider skated the course to the end.
From where I was, he looked like an ant falling down a sand dune made of glistening white fondant.
False start, and apparently there were no second chances in this sport.
“Come on.” Priya was moving again, pulling me with her. “We have to get to the bottom, where the racers come off the track.”
“Impossible,” Jay said. “There are way too many people to get that close.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” Priya shouted.
Jay stayed with his friends, while Priya, Emma, and I plowed through the spectators and almost reached the spot she’d wanted.
Behind me, Emma let out a hollow breath. “Omigod.”
“What?” I glanced her way.
She pointed to the screen.
I spun around but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, just the gates, the racers in helmets, masks, and pads and, of course, those girls behind them. Then a name jumped out at me.
Dallas Reynolds.
It was him. He was on top of that insane track, behind the fourth gate, pointed toward the very bottom. Only him and two other skaters left.
Well, I’d found him. Not where I’d expected him to be, that was for sure. I pushed closer to the track until I was able to stand at the rail. He hadn’t told me. Hadn’t said he was competing. My heart sped up. Why?
“Racers ready. Five-second warning.”
I looked back for Jay and saw him about twenty yards away, staring at the screen.
I wasn’t going to be able to see the skaters live until they got to the very last section, so I watched the monitor. The horn sounded, and I held my breath.
Dallas launched from the gate. He didn’t make it to the front, but he was close behind the leader.
My stomach spun. I wanted him to win so badly that my insides hurt.
People cheered all around me, but I didn’t make a sound. Dallas maneuvered the bumps and hairpin turns. When he reached the obstacle that the announcers called the volcano, my hands formed into fists. The uphill was so high. The racers needed a ton of momentum to get up there.
He succeeded, but the three of them were neck and neck, flying down the drop. They sped past me, and I could feel their drafts against my face.
Dallas finished last. Not enough points to move on in the competition. But it didn’t seem to bother him. He was giving high fives to the other two, pounding them on the shoulders.
He took off his helmet. His hair stuck up in all directions, making him look sexier than ever. I wanted to shout his name, but I couldn’t find the nerve or my voice.
He skated to the exit door and slid to a stop. My jaw dropped. Hanging over the barrier was Priya. How had she gotten over there?
She held out her fist, and they gave each other knucks. Priya was talking to him, and then she pointed at me. Before he even turned to look, my neck and face turned spicy hot.
We made eye contact, and a surge of energy sizzled between us, making my eyes water. He grinned and waved. I gave him a thumbs-up.
A thumbs-up. How lame.
He said something to Priya and then walked out the door and stopped, because one of those chicks in a black peacoat was standing right in front of him. His back was to me, so I couldn’t see his face, but I could see hers. Bright, cheery, animated.
She twirled one finger through a long spiral curl, rose to her toes, and gave him a peck on his cheek.
I wanted to puke.
Stop it, Ade. Stop it. He wasn’t mine. Yes, I wanted his body, but not his soul. He could flirt with whomever he wanted. The more the better. No way could I get attached to him, then.
For all of my mental reasoning, my heart still ached. Which meant I was in deep trouble. I’d talked the talk—no strings attached. But maybe I was a spider, living on silk threads, unable to survive without capturing him in my web.