Chapter 14 #2
“Open wide,” Austin says and I do. Or I try to at least. But even with my best efforts, suddenly firm fingers grip my chin and pull it down, opening my mouth even wider, and I really hope the microphone pinned to my coat doesn’t pick up the soft groan that escapes unchecked from my throat at his touch.
But before I can panic about it, he slips something new into my mouth.
It’s bigger than the last two. Maybe the size of a marshmallow or a golf ball.
Big enough that I have to quickly collect myself to keep from choking on it as it tries to slide down my throat unchewed.
I clamp my teeth down on it to keep it in place and something explodes.
Literally. One second, there’s a dumpling of unknown origin in my mouth and the next it’s gushing savoury goo in all directions.
I don’t even have time to close my mouth before it oozes out over my chin.
I put my hand out to catch it, but the hilarious laughter from Ray and Chantale say I’ve failed.
Without asking permission, I swipe the blindfold off.
The two hosts are doubled over, giggling.
Even Austin is watching me with a big, silly grin on his face.
I glare at him as I work to contain and swallow his last offering, and don’t move away when he picks up a paper napkin and wipes at my chin with it.
“What was that?” I ask, taking the napkin from him to clean up what looks like running brown gravy off the front of my Team Canada coat. Great. If this stains, I’ll definitely win a medal and the world will get to witness my slobbery as I stand on the podium.
“You tell us,” Chantale calls.
The plate in front of Austin is empty except for little crinkled papers like muffin wrappers and even smaller tent cards with tiny flags printed on them. The red circle for Japan. Red and white stripes for Poland. Red with yellow stars for China, so . . .
I chew again. Most of the dumpling is gone, but the goo clings to the inside of my cheeks.
“Soup dumpling,” I say. “A really juicy one.”
Everyone laughs, even Austin. His face crinkles up in joy, and it’s such a relief after the last clear memory of him I have being the same face creasing with pain that something inside me loosens for the first time in months.
He’s okay, right? Has to be, if he can laugh hard enough most people would bust a rib, let alone someone who cracked several less than a year ago.
We do another round of food tasting, this time with Austin wearing the blindfold.
Instead of more dumplings, I get a selection of noodles, which is even more impossible for Austin to eat cleanly than the soup dumpling was.
No one offers me a fork or some gloves, so I wind up trying to tip the wrappers into his mouth.
“No, don’t eat the paper, doofus,” I say, as he excitedly chomps down on the first one.
The warning has everyone laughing again, including Austin, which only helps to get what was supposed to be Swiss mountain macaroni and cheese dumped onto his lap.
“Great,” I sigh, muttering softly. “Now we’re both going to have to dry clean our stuff before the medal ceremony. ”
“Ohh,” Ray says, picking up on my words. “Does that mean you think you’re both going to medal in ski cross? Who will come first?”
I bite down on my tongue. Traitor.
“Where’s the food?” Austin asked, head bobbing like a baby bird.
“In your lap, dumbass,” I say, then wonder if “dumbass” can be said on a national sports show, even one only destined for online spaces.
Austin pats around his thighs, looking for his snack.
I stare up at the sky, but if I can’t say dumbass, there’s no way I can be seen fondling his crotch to rescue some macaroni. My mom might see this. His too.
Finally, he gives up and we move on to jjajangmyeon from Korea, which I can barely pronounce and Austin certainly can’t identify, then a third option with the Italian flag that might be spaghetti bolognese or something else entirely.
I’m not really good at identifying my pastas.
Austin isn’t either. He guesses fettuccine, and Ray and Chantale take great pride in informing us its tagliatelle.
We’ve probably just insulted the entire nation of Italy, so when Austin pulls off his blindfold, I mutter, “Sorry,” and he smiles.
“Don’t be sorry, Zed,” he murmurs, but the way he holds my gaze says maybe my apology was for something else, and maybe he knows that too.
I go back to staring at the sky while Ray and Chantale tally up the points and say we’re moving on to something more physical.
Good. My ass is falling asleep on the hard stool they gave me, and I can barely feel anything from my knees downward as the cold seeps farther up my limbs.
The other challenge turns out to be a sort of relay competition involving the cut-out mascots I noticed as we arrived.
“Dress them for a day on the slopes, bringing over one piece of equipment at a time. You can get more gear by answering questions so we can find out how well we know these two best friends. Sound good?” Ray asks, watching us expectantly, though what are we going to say?
“You ready?” Austin asks me.
I could tell him he’s the one with cheese sauce on his crotch, which is so much worse than dumpling soup on my chest, but instead I shake my limbs like a fighter getting ready for the bell.
“You’re going down, Grimm.”
The concept is pretty much as simple as Ray described.
Two tables are filled with a bunch of winter clothing.
Toques, gloves, goggles, scarf. Two production assistants stand ready to pass one piece each, which we will then run up the slope to where the mascots stand, already wearing their illustrated Olympic wear, but I guess we’re going to stretch the real thing over their heads and little paws.
The first question for each of us is the same. “What month is Cedric and Austin’s birthdays?”
“October,” I say, for which I am rewarded with a blue knit toque. I take off at a run and over my shoulder, I hear Austin say, “October. No. September?”
“You don’t even know when my birthday is?” I call.
“I wanted to give you a head start.” His feet crunch on the snow, but I’m already halfway to my mascot. I’m not sure the little furry creature can see properly once I slap the hat over his head, but no one said he needed to be able to do anything once he was dressed.
The return trip is tricky. It’s not exactly a steep pitch, but it drops enough to make it treacherous in the snow. I have to shuffle to keep from crashing into the PA as Ray reads my next question.
“In what country did Austin win his first World Cup event?”
“France,” I say without a second thought, holding my hands out for the goggles.
“Wrong!” Austin says, skidding to a stop beside me.
“What?” I ask, because I remember his win clearly, but Ray also shakes his head and asks the question again.
“If Cedric weren’t on the national team, what would he do for work?” Chantale asks Austin.
“Trick question!” Austin says confidently. “He has no backup plan. He says it keeps him competitive.” He snatches up the goggles and runs.
I shake my head, trying to focus, thinking back to that first win. It was in France, two years ago. We were there with Matthieu and he took us to a—
“No!” I say. “It was in Switzerland.” Talk about a trick question. Officially, the town we stayed in was in France, but the resort was massive and the part where we competed was actually on the Swiss side of the Alps.
Ray smiles and hands me the goggles. Austin is already fumbling with his mascot, trying to get the goggles to stay on over the flimsy cardboard. He’s running back before I’m even halfway to mine.
“Gotta pick it up, Zed,” he calls as we pass, so close we nearly brush shoulders.
I’m breathing hard and the chill in my legs and feet has disappeared.
My blood is pumping and the thrill of competition—even ridiculous family-friendly social media competition—has my focus sharpening with every step.
Just because I’m behind now doesn’t mean I’m out of it. Races can always change.
“What is Cedric’s favourite way to stay active in the off-season?” Chantale asks.
“Oh, that’s too easy!” I call as I turn to run back.
“Mountain biking.” Austin says, taking one of the gloves offered by the PA.
I need a backup plan. If they’re going to softball him like that, I’ll never win. Without really thinking about it, I rush to Austin’s mascot, ripping the hat and goggles from its head and throwing them into the snow.
“Hey!” Austin calls. “No cheating.”
“It’s not cheating,” I say as my feet slip in the downhill rush. “No one said anything about not interfering with the other person’s mascot.”
“It’s true,” Ray says, laughing. No doubt they didn’t even think about it, but if it makes good content, they’re going to run with it.
As I go to pass Austin on my return, for a second it looks like he trips. I slow, because no way can he get hurt in this ridiculous game days before competition, but as I do, he pops up again, hands full of fluffy snow, which he throws in my face.
“Dude,” I say, laughing. Snow slides under the collar of my coat, burning against my skin.
I’m so caught up in trying to get it out, I don’t see Austin running for me until it’s too late.
His arms wrap around me and he tackles me to the ground.
The snow cushions the impact, but there’s still an entire man sprawled on top of me.
“Get off,” I say, but I’m laughing. No idea if the microphone will pick it up, or if Austin’s jacket bunched up against mine will block the sound. I squirm, rolling us towards the side of the area where the snow is even deeper.
“No. No, no!” Austin’s laughter rings out in the cold.
I make sure to stuff a few handfuls of snow into his coat for good measure.
He grabs hold of my wrist, trying to stop me, and we freeze, staring at each other.
Somewhere close by, the shutter of a professional-grade camera clicks, but I only have eyes for Austin.
His gaze is clear, cheeks pink and, even in all his outerwear, suddenly I’m back in bed with him, all those months ago, watching his open expression as he promises me forever.
His breath puffs up towards me in little clouds from the cold, and his lips part, like he’s about to say something we definitely don’t want the masses to hear.
I vault back up to my feet, taking him with me as I brush the snow off his coat. His expression clouds, and he doesn’t return the favour, which leaves me to shake the snow away on my own.
Chantale and Ray are standing by the tables with their remaining ski gear, but the glance they give each other is uneasy. I check Austin again, but he’s watching something off to his left and clears his throat.
“We’ll call it a tie!” I shout with a smile. The two hosts nod eagerly.
“The two of you certainly have some . . .” Chantale pauses, like she can’t quite think of the right word. “Chemistry.”
Yeah. We do. We did. Austin knows me better than anyone else in the world, even the parts he’s forgotten.
“Do you have all the footage you need?” Tara asks, glancing up from her phone. “I have to get them back for practice.”
We film a quick wrap-up where the hosts thank us for playing and wish us luck.
Just like our arrival, Austin and I don’t talk as Tara leads us back through the media centre and toward the waiting van.
The air between us has changed and when I get into the van first, Austin follows me, so that I have no choice but to let him sit next to me when he joins me in the back row.
“You okay?” he asks as we pull out of the parking lot.
“Of course,” I say, though my reassuring smile feels stiff on my face. “You’re lucky you chose ski cross. You’d have never made it in football.”
He laughs softly, pulling his black and red Canada-branded toque off to scratch at his head.
“Are you okay?” I ask and the question feels heavy on my tongue.
His smile turns wry. “Why wouldn’t I be? I tackled you, remember?”
I shrug, feeling uncomfortable. “I wasn’t sure if . . . with everything. I wasn’t sure if you could—”
“Take a hard landing?” he asks, and I nod.
Even after all this time, even after today and his easy laughter as we ran back and forth, I can’t believe he’s okay.
He was so broken that night in the hospital.
How can anyone ever be okay after that? But Austin shrugs and says, “Yeah, I’m fine.
They wouldn’t have let me come if I wasn’t a hundred percent. ”
Up at the front of the van, Tara says, “Ivan wants you ready to be on the mountain in thirty minutes, okay?” And the question breaks the quiet bubble that Austin and I have been building.
We both acknowledge the question that isn’t really a question, then sit in silence all the way back to the resort.
The million and one things I want to say stay trapped inside my chest. But maybe they won’t stay there much longer.