Page 119 of Crashing into Love

“I’m serious. I don’t know if you and Drew will last forever, but I do know that she loves you and that little girl in there. Drew flew all the way here just to go to the kid’s birthday party. You told me that you mentioned a physics cake to her once, and she showed up with something that made Gia and you so happy. She calls that child just to talk to her and not you, her girlfriend. That woman is very busy right now, yet she still makes time for her. And you have never been as happy as you’ve been since you and Drew got together. You laugh and smile more. And I know you can see this working out, and that scares you because what if you’re wrong, but that’s life, Selma. Gia is old enough now to understand that. You need to stop worrying about her getting too attached to Drew because she already is; that happened long before you and Drew even started dating. So, there’s really no point in you continuing to punish yourself, Drew, and Gia.” She patted Selma’s hand. “Now, I’m going home to get some sleep, but if you need to make any unscheduled trips to visit someone anytime soon, you just let me know. I’m free whenever you need, and I’ve got Kelly on standby, along with Kirsten. We’d all love to see you finally being with the person you love.”

Her grandmother left without another word, and Selma stood up. She walked to Gia’s bedroom to check on her and found the kid already asleep in her twin bed, with her leg sticking out of the blanket, like always, and that book beside her head. Selma just stared at her daughter for a minute, still in awe that she’d actually created someone so perfect. When she then walked to the bed and took the book to put it away for the night, she had this image in her head that was so very clear. It was of Drew picking up the book and putting it away for the night. Drew would then walk to the door, where Selma would be waiting. She’d kiss Selma and take her hand. They’d go to their own bedroom and get ready for bed. Drew would hold her, and they’d talk about anything and everything before they’d fall asleep.

“What am I doing?” she whispered to herself.

CHAPTER 35

“All good; my knee is back to one-hundred-percent,” Drew told Chris. “I’ve got the all-clear from the doc, and I did a quick run this morning to test it out. Doc thinks I just tweaked it on the turn and probably overextended it when I had to get down the mountain, but it’s fine now, and I feel good.”

“I’m glad,” Chris replied. “But you know we’re not making final selections just yet, right?”

“It’s not close enough; I know. I just wanted to know where I stand. I imagine people are probably worried about my knee, but it’s fine now, and my race before that was–”

“Drew, you’re on the team.”

She wasn’t sure she’d heard that right.

“Sorry?”

“Assuming you don’t hurt yourself again – you’re on the team. You’ve shown us that you’re back. You’ve got the leadership and experience we want, like we’ve talked about. You’ve even improved your rank, going from tenth to eighth in the world practically overnight. With a few more races, I think you’ll be in the top three, given what you’ve been doing out there. You tore up that last competition before the X Games, and you only went out there because of someone else. It happens.” Chris shrugged a shoulder. “We’re looking forward to you taking a more active role this time, too. I’m thinking, you’ll be the face of snowboard cross for Team USA. Interviews, morning shows, featured stories, the whole nine. We want you to bring attention to the sport and help us usher in new, young athletes.”

“Because I’m not young?” she joked a little.

“Not for our sport. Sorry,” he said.

“No, it’s okay. I get it. I’ll do all of that, Chris, but I want to be able to focus on my board, too, not just on being some face.”

“Oh, I know. The feature stuff will get filmed before the Games, so that won’t get in the way. They’ll just rerun that a dozen times, at least. Interviews before the race will be short and kept to a minimum, but interviews after should be fair game anyway.”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“Just do me a favor, will you?”

“Sure. Anything.”

“Don’t get hurt before then,” he said with a little laugh. “Wrap that knee all the time just to be safe, and don’t take any unnecessary risks in training. Leave that for the actual races.”

“I will.” Drew laughed back. “Thanks, Chris.”

“No problem.”

“Hey, you’re friends with the director for Team Canada, right?”

“Charlie? Yeah. Why?”

“Does he have the same short list of names for the women’s snowboard cross there?”

“Are you asking who’s on Team Canada?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I know there’s a short list, right?”

“Of course, there is. And why, exactly, do you want to know who’s on it?”

“Just curious.”

“And this wouldn’t have anything to do with you dating a certain Selma Driscoll?”

“How did you–”

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