Page 7 of Ski You Later
“Rora, that’s vile,” I say with a grimace. Scooching two stools away from her, I go back to looking at my own feet.
As I lightly place them both on the ground, shooting pain goes up my leg, and I can’t stop the piercing noise that comes from my mouth.
Was this embarrassing? Of course. But the pain overpowers my pride and I shut my eyes to avoid the judging glances. Just because everyone else on this team has crazy nerve damage in their feet, doesn’t mean I do too.
Immediately looking up to see if Aurora’s giving me an exasperated look, I catch the gaze of someone else.
Roman’s looking right at me, with something akin to concern splayed out on his face. In a weird moment where he isn’t wearing his signature scowl, it’s plain as day that his focus is on the way I’m cradling my feet. His gaze goes up to meet my eyes, and I watch as he drops any expression from his face. That mask of indifference is fully on display as he promptly turns his back to me.
More confused than anything, I tap Aurora to tell her what I just saw, but the coaches come into view at the same moment.
“Alright, settle down,” Liane shouts. Standing in front of the group, she clips off her radio, and gestures for Rachel to come close to her side. They’re both already out of their gear, and have their short brown hair pushed back with matching headbands. If my memoryserves, they got those on their one-year anniversary, which we all celebrated as a team last season.
They’ve been coaching the Polar team for a couple years now, but their coaching quality really decreased this season. I guess they realized that they get paid the same amount if just half the team gets in the top ten. Thus, the winning athletes from last year are getting the most attention, and Roman’s getting blamed for all the other stuff.
“I’m going to inform everyone on the schedule for tomorrow. Roman should’ve told you everything already, but I’ll repeat it.”
Everyone immediately turns to Roman; expressions of confusion and anger being splayed across the faces of our teammates.
He’s now standing up, leaning against the table with his arms crossed over his body. Seeing the way his eyebrow slowly lifts as he absorbs what they said, I can tell this news came as a surprise to him as well.
Looking past him, Xander and Landon appear even angrier than the team, with Landon starting to stand before Roman clasps a hand on his shoulder. Giving him a firm but gentle shove, Landon plops back in his seat and Roman ignores all the eyes on him.
The boys start to furiously whisper with each other, and I watch as Xander and Landon argue with their brother. Roman eventually just turns his back on them, shutting down the conversation and listening to the coaches.
Liane doesn’t pay them any mind. She starts to talk about which run we have booked for tomorrow, what time the van will leave and other aspects of what everyone should have planned for their Sunday. The only part of her speech that varies every training day is what run we’re training on, so I can’t help but tune out everything after that.
She keeps yammering while I attempt to wiggle my pinkie toe; white hot pain shooting up my leg as I move it. Aurora nudges me a couple of times because I can only assume Rachel’s glaring at me, but I couldn’t care less. I’ll start paying attention to the coaches when they start returning that courtesy to me.
Liane ends her talk with some lame joke and tells everyone to be at the van in five minutes so we can head back to the city. The group starts throwing their gear in their bag, and the noise level in the lodge rapidly increases as they pack. The only group that hasn’t moved a muscle yet sits across from me.
Rhys, Roman, Landon, and Xander all huddle over the lodge table. Passing furious whispers back and forth, the latter two boys are becoming more upset by the minute. Landon eventually gives up, grabs his gear, and storms out of the lodge. Xander marches out right after, hot on his brothers’ heels.
Dipping my head down so I don’t get caught staring again, I process this information in my head. This does nothing but enforce my suspicion that our team captain’s getting blamed for something that isn’t his fault.
CHAPTER 4
Liam better count his days.
“Only that slime ball could possibly stand to be in her presence for more than twenty seconds,” Carlos yells.
Carrying all my equipment into the house, I chuckle at his rage and press the phone between my shoulder and ear. Due to today’s events, I fell asleep the second I entered the team van and woke up to seven missed calls from Car. My brothers’ feelings help justify the rage simmering in my chest at this whole situation, but the exhaustion is quickly taking over.
Chuckling into the receiver, I dump my gear in the entry way and bee line straight for my room. All my gear will be slightly damp tomorrow morning, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay. The swishing sound of my speed suit rubbing together reminds me that I was too tired to even remove it. This whole day was too cold, long, tiring, and just too much.
I turn on my multiple lamps, the warm light welcoming me like a hug, and nicely contrasting the blizzard raging outside my window. The small space is filled to the brim: my desk, clothing rack, and bed taking up the entire room. Not to mention all the art supplies, books, trinkets, and rings that are placed around. Seeing my room in all its organized chaos causes a weight to lift off my shoulder.
Car’s chattering carries on as I fight to remove the damp spandex suit that’s currently glued to my skin.
“I hate to speak ill of others, but she’s a raging bitch.” A laugh bursts out of me at his statement, and the lengths he’s going to just to comfort me isn’t going unnoticed.
Jasmine has been nothing but a bully since we were all kids, but I was lucky to have Carlos at my side during every family gathering.
While Carlos and I were two peas in a pod, our oldest brother Henry was always more of a lone wolf. The one thing connecting us all being the face that we are basically mirror images of each other. We were blonde hair, pasty white skin, and piercing green eyes times three.
“Did you see her stupid ass at training today?” Carlos’ question jolts me back to the present as I find the energy to keep discussing this.
“Yeah, I just avoided her. I’m pretty sure she was hungover today, so she didn’t have the energy to talk with me. I should’ve just made loud noises all day, to give her a killer headache.” Chuckling at my own deviousness, I wait for Carlos to laugh with me.
