Chapter 6 Pike
Pike
I turn off ESPN when a car pulls into the driveway. I told myself I’d only watch the US Grand Prix at Mammoth highlights later—and just to stay up-to-date for work on Monday.
But Skylar was running late. Jax and Grace were both competing. There were three newcomers under eighteen who effortlessly pulled off the tricks we once thought impossible. Tricks I invented.
I should be there with my crew. I should have a third Olympic gold to my name. Instead, I’m back in Rochester, pain riddling my body as I watch from my couch like everyone else.
I discreetly part the blinds to steal a glimpse of Skylar.
I’m closer to Naples, so she told me not to pick her up.
She shrugs into her thin coat as she gets out of the Uber.
In the end, she chose a little black dress with long sleeves.
Her towering boots climb high, but just above them, I catch a glimpse of stockings that stop right below her bare knees.
The way the fabric of her dress sways pulls my gaze to the tempting flare of her hips.
Not that I’m tempted.
“What are we looking at?”
I jump. “Nothing.”
My roommate, Luis, rolls around the corner.
“Are you feeling any better?” I ask.
He spent a couple days this week bedbound. His light brown skin is still paler than usual, but judging by his damp, dark brown waves and the faint scent of shampoo, he finally had the energy for a shower. “My PEM is better,” he says. “I was finally able to get up and out of bed yesterday.”
“That’s great, man. Glad to see you moving around again.”
Except he moves toward me, parks his blue wheelchair, and opens the blinds wide. It takes everything in me not to cover my face with my hands as Skylar spots us. I smile weakly and signal that I’ll be out in a minute.
“Someone you know?”
So much for sneaking out. I considered telling Luis about this charade all week, but I doubt he’d be comfortable helping me lie. He’d tell me to talk to Mom about everything.
I’m not ready. I don’t know if I’ll ever be.
“My girlfriend,” I mumble. “Skylar.”
“You have a girlfriend!?”
I twist my face into something resembling joy.
“Who has a girlfriend? Pike?” Luis’s boyfriend, Cyrus, strolls into the den, and I want to melt into the wall.
He tugs a strip of lavashak between his teeth, and I’m tempted to grab a couple for the road. His mother makes that Persian rolled-up fruit leather from scratch using a recipe his grandmother brought over from Iran. Since he always leaves us a stash, I’m now addicted to their sour kick.
“Have you ever even had a girlfriend for more than a week?” he asks.
“Ha ha.” Anyone can read about my past online, but Luis always teases that I’ve become a monk since I started living with him. “She’s—it’s sort of new. Don’t get too excited.”
They both grin way too wide anyway. I sigh.
“You’re dressed up too!” Cyrus says.
“Hard not to be compared to you two.” They’re both in sweats, the way I wish I was.
Cyrus has a beanie pulled low over his thick brown hair, a few strands escaping at the edges. He tugs at the edge of it absentmindedly as he dips his chin toward the window. “She’s cute.”
Yup. My fake girlfriend is a smoke show, and it’s so fucking inconvenient.
She has the kind of body Renaissance-era sculptors immortalized in their statues.
Soft freckled skin, generous curves around the cinch in her waist, and a pretty face that makes you look twice.
Her swagger only makes her more attractive.
She walks like she owns the world—and every man along with it. This woman takes no prisoners.
“You guys joining us for Game Night?” Luis asks.
He hosts a gaming group on some weekends for his disabled friends at our house, which is accessible in ways I didn’t even know were possible.
Automatic doors, ramps, railings, seats in the shower, you name it.
Wheelchair-friendly kitchen. One floor. Not a single stair anywhere.
It’s exactly what I’ve needed while I adjust to having more physical limitations.
Luis is also decent in every way. He’s respectful and nice, and he doesn’t force me to talk about my past. When Cyrus isn’t around, we often unwind together after work with a funny show.
“No, sorry,” I say. “Heading to Naples.”
“She’s already meeting Laurie? Wow! Happy for you, man. She good with your disabilities?”
“Yeah, she’s disabled too. This brain thing called idiopathic intracranial hypertension.”
“Damn,” Cyrus exclaims. “IIH is such a life fucker.”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“We see intracranial hypertension in the ME/CFS community too,” Luis says, which surprises me. I’m more familiar with myalgic encephalomyelitis after living with him, but I don’t think Skylar experiences post-exertional malaise like he does. “Does she have a shunt?”
“I…I don’t think so.”
Luis’s thick brows rise. “You don’t know if your girl had brain surgery?”
Skylar never mentioned having one in her posts, but she did talk about a friend who’s had thirty-seven surgeries in nine years.
IIH does seem like a life fucker. Besides what Skylar mentioned, I found research suggesting it can also cause memory and balance problems, stroke, rhinorrhea, exercise intolerance, and pituitary gland issues.
“It’s brand-new,” I clarify. “I should really get out there.”
I make a beeline for the garage, but before I reach my car, Luis sticks his head out.
“Pike! You got condoms?”
For one pathetic moment, I think he’s asking for himself. “No, sorry.”
“No good.” He chucks a foil wrapper at me.
I catch it out of reflex. It still takes me a good second to grasp what’s happening.
“I know it’s been a while,” he says. “Happy for you, man!”
I wave in acknowledgment until he shuts the door, my mind racing to inappropriate scenarios. I fling the offending object onto the passenger seat like it’s radioactive. Then I realize who’s about to sit there and scramble to retrieve it.
This is the worst plan of my life.
I open the garage door for Skylar, but my eyes catch on my old board, still shelved in its bag.
Untouched since my accident. It’s a cannonball to the chest every time I see it, but I can’t bring myself to get rid of it.
My friend Kal says I should sell it and make bank.
He doesn’t get that used snowboards aren’t like used guitars, and insists some superfan will want it.
“Better do it now, while they still remember you.”
Kal’s usually a good guy, but I wanted to knock his teeth out after that comment.
“Can you come out here for a sec?” Skylar asks. “I need a pic for my girls with your license plate.”
I bite back a sigh, my hand instinctively tightening around my cane. The thought of stepping into the driveway, now blanketed under a two-inch layer of fresh snow, isn’t appealing. But if this small gesture makes her feel safer, I’ll do it, no matter how inconvenient it might be.
“Hey.” I kiss Skylar on the cheek.
“What are you doing?” Her fist shoots to my stomach, but I gently catch it and offer my best lovestruck smile.
“You said cheek kisses were okay.” I lean down, blocking the guys’ view of her. “My roommate’s watching.”
“I didn’t say I’d pretend in front of anyone but your mom.”
“You agreed to make her believe this. She sometimes talks to Luis.”
“Is your mom involved in every aspect of your life?”
My jaw aches from smiling. “Take the pic or get in the car, sweetheart.”
She eyes my Ford Explorer MXV conversion like it’s a fire-breathing dragon. “That is massive. Are you carting around your kids or your ego? It looks like it costs fifty grand.”
“To make it wheelchair accessible, just about.”
She breathes out hard, the condensation fogging the air between us. “You use a wheelchair?”
“Keeps people guessing.”
“Hmm. Smile, boyfriend.” She lifts her phone. “Aw, one could almost guess you enjoy my company.”
“Give it time,” I mutter, then hand her a nondrowsy Dramamine tube. “For your motion sickness.”
She stares at it, snowflakes gathering in her loose red curls. When she finally climbs into the car next to me, my cane is in the way. I almost stab her with my retractable ice tip as I rush to put it in the back.
“Sorry, shit.”
Once we’re both settled, I glance at her. “I presume Analia and Emy are following us?”
Her lips twitch up in the first semblance of a smile. “Nah, they just know where we’re going.”
“So, you’re good? Ready?”
“Only if you relax your murder face.”
I grab my mechanical hand controls. I know I can look intense when I’m serious, but I’ve never heard that before. Do I really have a murder face?
I frown at myself in the rearview mirror. Women usually love my face.
“I’m kidding, Pike.” She leans back in her seat. “You drive with your hands?”
I show her where the lever system connects and how my spinner knob moves, then head toward Bristol Mountain, where I learned to board as a kid.
We moved near Naples when I was nine so we didn’t have to drive an hour from Rochester on weekends.
Mom kept the house even after we started traveling for competitions, then eventually settled back here when I bought a place in Whistler.
Skylar huffs, making me glance over. She taps at her phone screen with rapid, annoyed jabs. “I missed drama in the group getting ready to meet you. My co-admin has been sending me all this stuff. Your buddy, Maria.”
I snort. “Not my buddy.”
“You said you chatted with her.”
She messaged me once, and I swiftly deleted it. But the topic seems to irritate her, so I only wink. “‘Buddy’ is too platonic for those messages.”
“I knew it with Maria. I knew it.”
Knew what? That so many women in the group keep sliding into my DMs?
It’s not like I’m asking for it, and with my past, I have plenty of practice ignoring unsolicited messages.
No one knows who I am, though, so the attention has been surprising.
I figured people were just friendly. Supportive.
Everyone’s always commenting on my posts, too.