Page 25 of Crashing into Love

“I’ll watch her. And I won’t teach her anything crazy, I promise. Super basic stuff. We’ll be here when you get back.”

“Gia?”

“Yeah?” Gia looked up at her mom.

“I need to go check on Grandma. Can you stay here with Drew for a few minutes and keep practicing?”

“Really? Yes!” The girl pumped her little fist in the air.

Drew laughed.

“Okay. You’re really sure?” Selma asked Drew.

“Go,” she replied. “Before I change my mind.”

“Dinner on me tonight?” Selma suggested. “In the lodge, I mean.”

“You’re comping me another meal?”

“Oh, I… I was thinking that maybe Gia and I could–”

“Oh. Yeah,” Drew said. “Yeah, that’s way better than me eating alone.”

“What about your friends?”

“I have no idea what they’re doing. We’re not all that close. I haven’t seen Becks in years.”

“Okay. Well, I’ll be back to get her as soon as I can. And dinner, maybe around five-thirty? She eats early so she can take a bath and do her homework after. They give her a lot of that at her school.”

“Sure,” Drew replied.

“Thank you,” Selma said.

Drew nodded and watched her walk off.

“Okay, Gia. Let’s try our arms now.”

“Arms?”

“Yeah, we’ve got to get them into the right position.”

“Oh, cool,” Gia replied.

Drew spent the next hour and a half teaching Gia a few things, and she watched her do them over and over again without complaint until Selma came back from her grandma’s house, hurrying over and apologizing for taking too long. Drew didn’t mind. When Selma took Gia inside for a break, Drew decided to hit the mountain to get in a run or two. While she liked boarding down a mountain, she really missed boardercross. She’d always preferred the course to a mountain slope or the half-pipe, and she was itching to get back on one. For now, though, she went on a more difficult run on her second trip down the slopes, and her knee felt fine when she unclipped and stood her board up next to her.

She got back to the lodge with enough time to take a quick shower and ice her knee afterward in order to tell her coach that she’d followed instructions without lying to him. After resting on her bed with ice on her knee and only in her underwear, Drew dropped the reusable ice pack into the mini fridge in her room and got dressed for dinner.

She wasn’t sure what to wear, so she threw on a flannel over her sports bra and added a pleather jacket on top of it to deal with the cold from the doors opening. Jeans and black boots completed the look, and she was out the door and in the elevator. Drew wasn’t sure when she’d last had dinner with a child. She didn’t have kids in her life on the regular. So, as she went down to the lobby, she thought about possible conversation topics. There was math because, apparently, Gia was good at that. There was snowboarding, obviously. Maybe skiing. Books. She could bring up books. What books would a kid like Gia read, though? Did she even like reading? Drew sighed and decided to relax and let Selma lead the conversation so she didn’t have to worry about it. Then, the elevator doors opened, and she saw Selma standing there at the front desk, leaning over it a bit. The woman had changed her clothes after boarding and was wearing a business suit now, with a pencil skirt that hit just below her knees and had a very nice slit going up one side.

“Oh, God,” she said to herself.

“Drew!” Gia yelled and wrapped Drew’s middle in a hug.

Drew put her hands on Gia’s shoulders more than anything, but Gia’s yell caught her mother’s attention, and Selma turned to look at them. Drew shrugged a shoulder. Selma laughed silently and shook her head.

CHAPTER 10

“Can I have chicken fingers?”

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