Page 78 of Crashing into Love

She left Selma at the finish and headed into the team tent, where she prepared for her race alongside Andy, the only other Team USA person in the six-women final. They made it up to the starting gates, and Drew went through her ritual, thinking about how Selma was standing down at the finish line, waiting for her. She smiled at that and took off at the start. She needed to cut time off her start if she was going to win this, with how fast everyone else had been taking the top of the course, so she focused on the berms. There were three of them at the top of the course, followed by a turn, a jump, and another two berms. She needed to be ahead of at least Andy and two other racers at this point, if she had a chance at winning, but she mainly wanted to beat the Italian who had knocked Selma out of the race and had managed to get back up on her board and finish in second place in that preliminary heat due to another crash during that horrendous race. The woman had then come in third in her semifinal heat.

She wanted to not just win – because, as a professional athlete, Drew always wanted to win – but she wanted to kick that racer’s ass. She slid past the Italian, then the French boarder, and the Australian racer into third place, coming from behind, which had been her plan. The winds had been high, so she’d drifted for the first third of the race, but now was the time to take it over. She jumped, kept herself low, landed well, and went past Selma’s teammate from Canada and into second place behind Andy, who didn’t have much space on her, so Drew moved in behind her and remained drifting off of her until it was time to break away for a two-jump sequence.

Out of the second jump, she hit the turn on the inside, making up the time she needed, and had Andy behind her now. No space between them meant that Drew couldn’t let up at all and needed to keep her focus. USA would come in first and second in this race as long as neither of them messed this up, which would be a strong message to send to the international boarding community in the year of the next Olympics.

Drew took the final jump, going as high as she could, and landed as close to that finish line as she could get. She then lowered herself to be as aerodynamic as possible and barely beat Andy, but she did beat her. When she stopped her board, she turned to see Selma standing there, with her arms in the air and a wide smile on her face. Drew unclipped herself from her board and hurried over toward her, pulling Selma in for a hug over the rope between them.

“You’re back, baby!” Selma said.

Drew wasn’t exactly sure how Selma meant that term of endearment, since that could’ve just been an expression and not her referring to Drew that way, but Drew didn’t care. Andy’s words in her ear, she pulled out of the hug and removed her goggles.

“Will you go out on a date with me?” she asked breathlessly.

CHAPTER 24

“Will you go out on a date with me?”

Selma’s eyes widened. She had not expected that.

“A date?”

“Yes. With me. I’m thinking about the two of us at a restaurant that’s not populated by every other snowboarder on the planet,” Drew replied, laughing nervously.

And Selma knew Drew’s nervous laugh by now. She knew the laugh Drew had when she genuinely thought something was funny; the one that had a little snort in it when she thought something was the most hilarious thing she’d ever heard; the fake one Drew had used the other night at dinner, when someone had said something neither of them had thought was funny at all; and at least two of Drew’s other laughs. This one was Drew’s nervous laugh, though. Selma had heard it several times, including the one time at the park, in front of that fire, when Drew had been talking to a friend who’d asked about Drew’s new girlfriend. Selma hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but she’d overheard Drew laugh nervously and say they were just friends. She hadn’t thought much about it at the time, letting her own insecurities get to her, thinking Drew Oakes wouldn’t ever want Selma to be her girlfriend.

Since then, though, she and Drew had gotten even closer, talking more on the phone, video chatting, and now, spending time together in person. The only times they’d been apart at this event so far had been because of snowboarding, and they’d been touching more and more. Selma had basically staked her claim on Drew in front of Drew’s ex earlier in the day, even though she didn’t have a claim on Drew at all.

“You want–”

“You know what? Never mind. Forget I said anything,” Drew told her and removed her helmet. “I thought… It’s okay. I need to get to the team tent, anyway.”

“Hey, congrats, asshole,” Andy said, walking over to them and patting Drew on the back. “I had you there for a minute.”

“But it’s who comes in first that matters most,” Drew teased. Then, she turned back to Selma and looked a little disappointed, despite the fact that she’d just won an important international snowboarding competition. “I need to get to the team tent.”

“Okay,” Selma replied.

“I’ll find you later.”

“Okay,” she repeated, feeling like a deer in headlights.

Andy had her arm slung over Drew’s shoulders like they were still dating. Drew had just asked Selma out, and because Selma had frozen, Drew had told her to forget about it and was now disappointed when she should be celebrating. Winning a race like this wasn’t the most important thing in the world, but it would help Drew stake her claim on two things: a spot on Team USA for the Olympics and a higher world rank than the current tenth Drew had. She could be up at least one spot just from winning today, and Selma had ruined it for her.

When Drew walked off with Andy to her team’s tent, people gathered around her, taking turns giving her high-fives and hugs, and Selma just watched from afar, not knowing what to do now. She’d expected them to leave together and head back to the hotel, like they’d done the other two days, but it seemed like Drew wasn’t going to go back with her since she had told Selma that she’d find her later.

So, Selma headed to find her own teammate, who had come in fourth in the final and wouldn’t be getting on the podium. They made it to the van that drove them back to the hotel, and when Selma got to her room, she closed the door behind her, removed all of her outerwear, and flopped onto the bed face down.

“You are such an idiot,” she mumbled into the bedspread.

She checked her phone after a few minutes to see if Drew had texted, but she had no messages at all. Deciding she needed some kind of mood improvement, she pressed the icon on her phone and waited.

“I didn’t expect to hear from you so early,” her grandma said.

“I just got back to my room. Any chance Gia is free?”

“She’s doing her homework. But I’m sure she’d like to tell you all about it. She hasn’t stopped talking about what she’s learning in physics.”

“Physics? She was taking chemistry.”

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