Page 28 of Crashing into Love

“Well, I hurt myself a while back. So, I went through physical therapy. Do you know what that is?”

“Yeah, Mom told me.”

“Okay. So, I did that, and it’s better, but I have to take it slow right now so I don’t make it worse.”

“Because you and Mom have a race coming up, right?”

Drew looked at Selma.

“You too?”

“Selection is coming up,” Selma replied. “Are you worried?”

“Yes,” Drew admitted. “I don’t know if I’ve done enough this season. Then, I got injured. And we’ve got some great people on Team USA.”

“Canada, too.”

“But you’ve been great this year,” Drew noted.

“Maybe. But I also lost in the prelim in the last Olympics, so I might not get picked because they think I can’t handle the pressure.”

“I doubt that. It was three years ago. And you’ve improved a lot since then.”

“Thank you,” Selma said, probably sounding surprised at the compliment.

“Mom, can I color until the food gets here?”

“Sure. Grab your stuff. It’s under the desk where it usually is.”

Gia got up and practically jogged over to the front desk.

“She likes to color?” Drew asked.

“She gets bored really easily, not just in school. Even talking to us here – which, I’m sure, is fun for her – isn’t stimulating enough. I’ve got a lot of activities stationed around here for her. Her art supplies are under the front desk. There’s this math workbook for college kids that challenges her tucked behind the bar. I’ve got sudoku and crosswords under that computer over there.” Selma pointed to where she had just put their food order in. “In the office, there’s even more. If she’s bored, I pull something out for her, or she knows where it all is and grabs it herself. She must be in an art mood right now.”

“You have an amazing kid,” Drew said. “When I was her age, all I could think about was boarding or skiing. I wanted nothing to do with learning.”

“I think the reason Kirsten likes to hang out with Gia is that Gia helps her with her homework.” Selma chuckled. “Kirsten is one of the employee’s daughters. She’s thirteen.”

“Will Gia bring her art stuff over here? I like coloring, too.”

She rolled her eyes at Drew and said, “Probably not. She likes the table in the office behind the desk. It’s her favorite spot down here. I’ll go get her then, when the food comes, because if I don’t, she’ll zone in on whatever she’s doing and forget to eat.”

“How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

Drew added a slice of lemon and a few strawberries to her new water glass and gave it a stir.

“Raise an exceptional kid, professionally snowboard, work here, take care of your grandma, and probably ten other things I don’t know about that you do. I can barely snowboard right now.”

“Why is that? The injury?”

“No, my knee’s fine. I don’t know if I should bring it up. Things were going so well for us today.” Drew laughed a little.

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve had a decent day, I think.”

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