Page 53 of Crashing into Love

Drew was in second place and was about to have the perfect moment to overtake the first-place boarder. All she had to do was land on the inside and turn her body just the right way, which she did, passing the first-place racer on that inside and getting ahead on the next jump, which gave her enough air to increase her lead. She checked, without turning her head, and knew that she had enough space to make it to the finish without being passed as long as she didn’t make any mistakes. She tilted and turned, grabbed her board, and then let it go just in time to land.

Hitting the finish line with close to a second to spare, Drew raised her arms in the air, and her coach hurried over to congratulate her with a hug. Her parents weren’t there to support her because it hadn’t felt like an important competition to her when she’d decided to come here for it, so she hadn’t invited them. On top of that, had she not gotten the good news from Chris, she would have been embarrassed, so she’d just told them to stay home and catch the next one. Now, though, she really wished her parents were there.

When she pulled out of the hug, she looked around, expecting someone else to be there, too, but it only took a moment for her to remember that she didn’t have anyone else here, and that meant that Selma wasn’t standing there, waiting to hug her. Drew needed to get the woman out of her head because nothing was going to happen there, but she couldn’t help calling her when she got back home after her flight.

“Hey. How did you do?” Drew asked.

“Third,” Selma replied. “I want to fire the waxer.”

“That bad?”

“He works for the team, so he’s not technically my employee or anything, which my coach reminded me, but we went over everything after, and I don’t think he screwed up. We had some unexpected heat wave roll in, which caused the snow to start melting, so he’d prepped for one day, and we got another. What about you?”

“Uh… Yeah, good,” Drew said.

She had been excited to share that she’d won her competition because she’d expected Selma to win her own as well, but now that she knew Selma was disappointed, she didn’t want to brag.

“Drew…”

“What? I did okay.”

“Okay? Did you win? You won, didn’t you?” Selma asked. “And you’re trying not to tell me because you don’t want me to feel bad or something.”

“I did, yeah.”

“What? Drew, that’s amazing! Gia, come here.”

“Gia’s there?”

“I just got home. Grandma left a few minutes ago. I was about to make dinner. She’s in her room. Hold on.”

“Drew?” Gia said.

“Hey, Gia,” Drew replied, smiling instantly and deciding she’d have to unpack all of this later. “What are you doing?”

“Tell her!” Selma yelled from somewhere far away.

“Mom’s saying you’re supposed to tell me something,” Gia added.

“Oh, I won my race today. I came in first place.”

“Whoa! You did? That’s so cool! Can I watch it?”

“Um… Yeah. My coach sent me the video. I need to pull it up, but I can send it to your mom.”

“Okay. Can we watch it together now?”

“Oh. Now?” Drew asked.

“I put you on speaker,” Selma said. “Send the video. I’ll put it on her computer. Want to FaceTime?”

“I just got home. I look like shit.”

Gia giggled and said, “You said, ‘Shit.’”

“No, I didn’t,” Drew said at the same time Selma said, ‘No, she didn’t.’

Drew pulled back her smile because this was getting too real. This felt like she was still in her hotel room and she’d called her family back home to let them know how she’d done. But that wasn’t what was going on right now. Selma was straight and had a kid that was not Drew’s. She needed to get a grip, but she didn’t want to make Gia suffer for her current mild freakout.

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