CHAPTER 18

“Icannot believe I’m doing this,” Selma muttered.

“Sorry?” her Uber driver said when he pulled up to the address that she’d given him in the app.

“Nothing. Sorry. Just talking to myself like a completely normal person back here.”

“Normal is overrated,” he replied.

Okay. He was getting a nice tip today.

“Agreed,” she said and opened the door when the car stopped.

The driver got out as well and helped her with her roller bag. She’d only brought that and a backpack because she was only staying for two nights. That was as long as she could justify being away from Gia and making her grandmother babysit her kid even more than she already did. Grandma had tried to make it sound like Kirsten would handle the majority of the work, and she would mostly be cooking dinner and sleeping over more than anything, but Selma knew the truth and hated the idea of overworking the woman who had just gotten back to being well.

Still, Selma knew she herself needed a break as well. She’d actually been pretty surprised that her snowboarding hadn’t suffered, with her time off from her sport. Yes, she’d come in third, but that had been more about her board and the snow than her racing, and she’d done the best she could given the circumstances. That was also what snowboarding was sometimes: it was a weather-dependent sport in many ways, and those conditions could change from morning to afternoon. The wind could pick up from one race to another, or, sometimes, during a race, throwing her off her goal time or costing her a win if it was right in her face when she didn’t expect it. The snow could start in earnest, causing a clear day to disappear, affecting the visibility.

“Should’ve chosen basketball,” she muttered once the driver was back in her car.

“Hey!”

Selma looked up and saw Drew Oakes coming out of the glass door and waving at her.

“Hey,” Selma said back, and there was this quite unnecessary calm that came over her once her eyes met Drew. “Stop that,” she whispered to her own mind – or, maybe, it was to her damn heart to stop racing as this was getting ridiculous.

Drew arrived a few feet away and appeared not to know what to do next, which sounded about right because Selma didn’t know what to do, either.

“Where’s your board?”

“Huh?”

“Your board? You didn’t bring it?”

“No. I thought about it, but I figured if we were going to go, I could just rent one. I didn’t feel like lugging it around for a couple of days to maybe get in one run.”

“I have an extra you could borrow. But do you not want to board at all while you’re here?” Drew asked and took Selma’s roller bag, pulling it toward herself.

“No, I do. I mean, we can. If we don’t, that’s okay, too. I don’t want to disrupt your schedule or–”

“Rituals?” Drew guessed with a little sideways smile.

“Right.” Selma chuckled.

“Well, it’s up to you. I told my coach I was going to rest my knee this weekend.”

“Is it–”

“It’s okay. A little sore from my training, but nothing to worry about. I went to the doc yesterday, and she said everything still looked good inside there. Mind over matter, mostly. I was just favoring my other knee a little too much on some of the turns because I was used to this one needing a break. I’m good, though.”

“Okay.”

“So, ready to check out my place?” Drew asked. “It’s nothing fancy at all, so I hope you weren’t expecting much.”

“No,” Selma said with a little laugh. “I guess I kind of pictured you living in, like, a bachelor pad or something. Is that wrong?”

“You’re about to find out. And you’ll also have to tell me because, to me, it’s just my place.”

“How would you describe your place, then?”

“Is calling it my place not descriptive enough?”

“Okay. Let’s go inside,” she said and gestured for Drew to lead the way.

They walked up a concrete path that led to two steps, and Drew opened and held the glass door for her. Then, the woman pressed the call button for the elevator, and they waited in awkward silence until it arrived. Once inside, Drew pressed the button for the third floor of the four that seemed to be in the building, and up they went.

“So, how was your flight?” Drew asked, ending the silence.

“Good.”

“Cool.” Drew nodded a few times. “And Gia?”

“She’s good, too.”

“Cool,” Drew repeated, nodding still.

Selma looked down and smiled because they were both being so awkward right now. Finally, it felt like, the elevator opened, and Drew walked down the hall to her door, which was apartment 3D. She unlocked it, letting Selma walk in before her.

“I’m not exactly a clean freak or anything, but I do normally keep it about this clean – in case you were wondering if I had to spend hours cleaning up before you got here.”

“I wasn’t wondering that. I gathered by the fact that you do your laundry immediately after getting home that you’d probably be on the cleaner side. It’s nice, Drew.”

Selma looked around at the modest living room, where Drew had a soft-looking cream-colored couch and a chair to match. They both seemed a little too large for the space they were in, but that felt appropriate for an apartment at the same time. There was a small desk in the corner, where a laptop rested and not much else. Then, outside of the mounted TV and the table under it to hold the TV stuff, there was only a coffee table in the room made of dark wood. It looked like it was probably from IKEA, and Selma pictured Drew sitting on the floor in maybe a tank top, with nothing under it, putting the thing together.

“So?” Drew asked.

“Huh? What?” she asked back, being pulled into the present instead of her fantasy world.

“Is it a bachelor pad?”

“Where are all your trophies and medals? I expected them to be all over the place.”

“They’re at my parents’ house,” Drew answered. “Their place is much bigger than mine, and there’s a whole room of those in the basement, if you really want to see all of them. I don’t keep much here. I only have the medal I just won, I guess. Mainly, I keep pictures here.”

“Pictures?”

Drew nodded at the wall behind the sofa that Selma had overlooked somehow, where there were twelve small black-and-white photos with black frames organized perfectly above the sofa. Some photos were of only courses or a mountain, but others had Drew in them, boarding down either on a turn or in the air. A few had her hugging people who looked like her parents at the finish line.

“My best races,” Drew said. “Or, best courses. My favorite mountains. Stuff like that. My dad took most of them. I have more than that, too. I replace them every so often when I need a little inspiration or want a change.”

“That’s really cool, Drew,” she replied.

“You thought I’d have a whole apartment of trophies, didn’t you?” Drew laughed softly. “Because I was bragging at the hotel.”

“I guess I thought that, yeah,” she admitted.

“Not really my thing. I have the wins, and I have the stories that go with them. My parents can show off the trophies and stuff and do their parental bragging. I’m good with pictures and memories.”

“That’s a pretty good philosophy.”

“Where are all of yours?”

“Oh. Technically, in boxes in my closet. I don’t have as many as you do, but my grandma’s house is too small. My parents told me to take everything with me when they moved, and I didn’t want to damage the walls in the hotel by putting up shelves or something. I don’t plan on living there forever. It was always meant to be temporary. While it’s turned into semi-permanent, I don’t want it to be forever, if I can help it. I want them to eventually be able to sell that room. So, I let Gia put stuff on her walls that won’t damage them, if she wants, but I stick to the plain hotel-style mountain painting print over my bed.”

She turned to Drew, who still had both hands on Selma’s roller bag handle as she looked back at Selma.

“You just do nothing for yourself, huh?” Drew asked.

“What?”

“You won’t even decorate your own bedroom because you want your grandma to be able to sell it when you leave.”

“Well, yeah. It’s a suite. She’s missing out on a lot of money with us living there.”

“Ruth does not strike me as the kind of woman who cares much for money. She does strike me as the kind of woman who loves having you and Gia so close. I would imagine that after losing your grandfather and having your parents move away, you and Gia are probably all she has left so close anyway. She loves having you there.”

Selma nodded.

“I’m sure she does, yes. I love having her there, too, and not just because she takes care of Gia for me. We’ve always been close.” She pulled off her backpack. “Can I–”

“Anywhere is fine,” Drew told her. “I can show you to the bedroom and get you something to drink, like a decent host, too.”

Selma followed Drew into her bedroom and found it to be about what she’d expected. There were more of those photos on the wall above the bed, a TV mounted to the wall in front of it, with the dresser beneath it, and two bedside tables complete with matching lamps – which was better than she’d expected, actually.

“This is yours while you’re here. So, make yourself at home. I have extra pillows and stuff in the closet, if you need.” Drew pointed to a closed door next to another closed door. “The bathroom is in here, though, so don’t be scared if I have to come in here to pee in the middle of the night.”

“Okay. I won’t,” Selma replied.

“Do you want something to drink?”

“I’m okay. I had a bottle of water with me on the plane.”

“I can let you get settled in. Are you hungry, though? There’s a Mexican place we can walk to, if you want to stretch your legs. It’s real Mexican food and amazing, if you’re interested.”

“Sure,” she said. “Can I get changed first?”

“No problem,” Drew replied and let go of the roller bag. “I’ll wait out there.”

“I’ll only be a minute.”

“Take your time,” Drew said and left the room.

Selma felt strange closing Drew’s bedroom door behind her, but she did so because she needed a minute to herself, not just to change. She did change, though, tossing her airplane hoodie onto the bed and putting on a clean Henley instead. Since it was cold outside, she also pulled out her lightweight but still warm Patagonia jacket, which had been stuffed into her backpack, hoping it hadn’t wrinkled too much. Then, she went into the bathroom, which seemed very clean and had only a few things on the counter, like Drew’s electric toothbrush, which was charging, toothpaste, and a hairbrush. Selma took care of what she needed and walked back out to meet Drew, carrying her small purse, which had been shoved inside her backpack as well so that she didn’t have to check a bag.

“Okay. I’m ready,” she said.

Drew practically jumped up from the sofa.

“Let’s go. Are you okay to walk? It’s not too cold. We can drive, though. It’s a few blocks.”

“Walking sounds good to me,” she replied.

About a minute later, they were on the sidewalk, heading toward the first meal they’d share together without her daughter being nearby. While it didn’t have many of the date markers because neither of them had picked the other one up, they hadn’t talked about it being a date, and they were walking down a recently shoveled and salted sidewalk with their hands tucked into their respective pockets instead of looking for chances to touch, strangely, it still felt a little like two nervous people going on their first date together, which it wasn’t, and it couldn’t be.

Selma lived in Vancouver and had a daughter. Drew lived here, likely didn’t want any kids of her own, and seemed more focused on snowboarding than anything else. Besides, Selma had seen Drew with Andy Weinman before, and if that was Drew’s type, Selma was nowhere near in her league. Andy was beautiful in all the typical ways a woman was often defined as beautiful, and Selma was just… Selma. She’d had a kid way too young, and while she was a professional athlete who had been able to get her body back, as they say, she still felt like she showed the obvious signs of a woman who had had a child. She wore those things as badges of honor most of the time, but when it came to dating, she’d always struggled with her baggage.

“So, you and Ruth have always been close?” Drew asked after a few minutes of silence between them.

“Since I was born, yeah. She really is the best grandma in the world. When I found out I was pregnant, I was terrified of telling my parents. I told her first. And I knew she wasn’t exactly proud that it had happened, but she told me she was proud that I’d made my decision.”

“To have Gia?”

“Yes, but she’d said it differently. It wasn’t that she was proud that I’d decided to have her – she would’ve supported me no matter the decision I made. It was that I’d made the decision on my own and had been prepared to deal with the consequences, even though Gia’s dad had made his opinion clear.”

“I always knew I liked that Ruth. She’s a good egg.”

Selma laughed softly.

“She is, yes. I’m so lucky to have her because I don’t know where Gia and I would’ve been without her.”

“I’m pretty sure you and Gia would’ve been fine,” Drew said. “You’re a good egg, too, Selma.”

Selma looked over at her and noticed that Drew’s beanie, which the woman had put on before they left, was riding up over her ears. Without thinking, she reached for it and pulled it down over Drew’s right ear. Drew pulled down on the other side.

“Thanks,” she said.

“Yeah,” Selma replied and looked straight ahead.