Page 32 of Love on the Tracks
I work it until there’s absolutely nothing left because she’d want it all and I want to give it to her. If only in this one way I feel good about giving. In my imagination, she’d climb off carefully and then curl into my side, skim her strong fingers along the trail of hair that leads from where she took her pleasure to my chest. And I would hold her.
In real life, I soap myself down one more time, wincing because goddamn am I sensitive now, and then climb back into bed before I have to get up in a few hours to see Rowan take the mountain. Because she will. She’s going to be great, I know it, and I want to be rested up to cheer her on. That much I can do.
Rowan
It’s peculiar, my job. Standing at the top of a track, waiting for race officials to check the temperature of the steels on my sled before giving it back to me. It’s protocol, happens before every race of any import, and yet every single time I want to refuse to hand it over. It’s my sled, we’re quite close, and I don’t want anyone else touching it.
Sometimes I think I have this issue because I’m an only child and never had to share much of anything with anyone. I mentioned it to Kate once and she looked at me like I had three heads. I don’t. I just happen to use a precision instrument that was, to be fair, custom built for my body, as a security blanket. Totally fine, not weird at all.
It’s all I can do to not snatch my sled back from the official when she’s through inspecting it. Now it’s time.
The women’s starting gate is somewhat farther down the track than the men’s, and I always get a smidge jealous they get more time on the ice. But now’s not the time to dwell on sexist bullshit. Now’s the time to focus, and for god’s sake, to pull.
I settle into my sled on the platform, making sure I’m positioned so the fiberglass and steel hug my body as they’re meant to. The beat of my heart is as loud in my ears as the cheers of the crowd, but it’s okay. War drums. A steady thump that will keep me grounded.
I’ve done this a million times. My body and my mind have been honed as fine tools for this one purpose, and I’m ready. The track is clear in my mind, I’ve been through and through it, and I’ve trained my muscles to respond to the conditions surrounding me in a lightning-quick way.
Gerrilyn holds my sled steady while I draw the clear visor of my helmet over my face, and when it’s been fastened to my satisfaction, she pats me lightly on the back before stepping away. Resting my feet on the bows, I grip the starting handles. As I’m drawing back, getting ready to pull, I give myself a second to remember why I’m doing this. Images of my father, Gerrilyn, Kate, all those hopeful kids who approach me during the Luger Lookouts hoping to do what I do, my mother, and briefly, fleetingly, but still very much there, Zane—all flit through my head.
I want to make them proud.
So I pull. Once, twice, and a huge third time, using everything I’ve got to send myself as fast as possible down the track. As soon as my gloves leave the handles, I know it was a good start. I’ll make it even better by paddling for all I’m worth with the spikes on my gloves digging into the ice, driving me faster, harder toward the bottom of the hill.
Then it’s time to let the real fun begin. I stop paddling and lie back on my sled, gripping the handles and sliding my feet down so I can steer using my calves on the bows. I’m picking up speed and that’s when everything goes silent. Not silent as other people understand it, because there’s the grainy rumble of rough ice passing incredibly quickly under my lovingly sharpened steels, but it’s what passes for silence in my world. It’s me, my sled, and the track. Nothing else matters.
Speed. Going into the turns, I do my best to keep low because going too high wastes time and loses you momentum when you need all the help you can get. My sled is vibrating, the world is whizzing by at upwards of eighty miles per hour, infinitesimal twitches of my muscles will determine whether I win, lose, or crash, and I’ve raised my head just far enough to see so I don’t compromise my aerodynamics.
There’s an incredible pull on me around the turns, and my job is to keep my body primed and relaxed at the same time, same as my mind. It’s an odd state, one a lot of people will never reach in their lives, because they don’t have to. But I live here. This is my house.
Shuttling down the track, the analytical part of my brain is saying this is a good, clean run. Probably the best I’ve had on this track. That’s trailed by a minion keeping tabs on all the stats, and checking things off a list like mad, tracking every tiny detail, every one of the ten thousand things that have become second nature to me now. Then there’s that deep, primal part of me I can’t spend a lot of time with, but for a split-second, I let myself enjoy. Because she—she is delighting in sliding down a hill crazy fast, and wants everyone to know it. If I let her take over, they’d have me on camera screaming, “Woohoo!” as I barrel down the track like some batshit crazy person.
As I come around the last curve, I feel it. I’m up too high. I could’ve done better. Next time. I’ll have another run in a few hours and I’ll do better.
In the meantime, I’ve come across the finish line. Sitting up, I grab the bows and pull up while my feet slide over the ice. People are cheering, but that doesn’t mean jack shit. They cheer for everyone. I’m grateful for the flags flying and the all of the support in the form of noise—damn it’s noisy out here—but it’s not what I really want to know.
Then I see the time—a small display, but big enough I can read it, and yes, that was a damn fine run. Have to wait for everyone else to go, but that is not a twelfth place time, no sir. There’s a tiny squeeze of my heart and I let it in for a few seconds. Drop my shields of concentration and let myself feel it, with a pump of my fist: pure, unadulterated joy.
Zane
Watching Rowan race is a combination of exhilaration and frustration. Exhilarating because holy shit can that girl move, but frustrating because from any given place on the track, you can’t see much. I want to see it all. Every second, every inch of concentration distilled. And yes, okay, she’s sexy as fuck in that suit that clings to each flat plane and tight curve of her body. I would like to be that suit, please.
I can’t be, though. All I can do is stand here in the freezing cold with Rowan’s mittens on my hands and cheer myself hoarse as she goes by before I go find the nearest screen. Not to catch the rest of her run, because she goes way too fucking fast, but to see the replay of her bombing down the mountain.
Between the studying up I’ve done on my own and the things Rowan’s schooled me on during our time together, I know from watching she did well. Kept low in the curves, following that ideal line every slider out there will be gunning for, and her form looks perfect.Shelooks perfect, and I hope she’s happy.
I’m also hoping the second run will be as good, keeping her name and our flag right next to that number one, and that she’ll be in the mood for celebrating tonight. Because seeing her out here—even if it’s cold enough to make my balls crawl into my body in the vain hopes of staying warm—is dead sexy.
While Rowan’s competitors go, I watch and clap politely but nothing like the admittedly over-the-top display I put on when she was the one sliding. Which is when it occurs to me that if the news outlets are paying attention, they’ve probably got that on tape and when Rowan sees it, she’ll block my calls because who wants to be with someone who goes berserk over a race? But maybe she would.
Give me crap about it, sure, which would be well-deserved, but also get that pretty flush in her cheeks. Maybe she’d see the way she feels about Zane Rivera, lead singer of License to Game, is the way I feel about Rowan Andrews, SIG luger extraordinaire. It’s also possible she’ll realize that’s not all she is to me. Even though it’s a terrible idea, I’m hoping I’ve become more to her than that as well.
Not just a means to an end of more press and better sponsorships, not just a fuck buddy to take the edge off, but maybe someone she might actually . . . like. For myself. The pieces that aren’t glamorous, not particularly sexy. The ones that are imperfect. My glasses, the hot mess that is me composing a song, the fact that I get lonely wandering around my big house in the Hills and I’d rather sleep on my sister’s couch where my niece and nephew will pounce on me in the mornings and I’ll probably step on half a dozen Legos on my way to take a leak.
My phone rings in my pocket and I have a flash of hoping it’s Rowan. She must be bubbling over with excitement, and I’d love to hear her all thrilled and giddy. Or maybe she’d be serious, focused, because her work’s not done yet. Not even for the day. But the number flashing on my screen isn’t Rowan anyhow. Because of course not. She’s not thinking about me at a time like this. Nor would I expect her to. Though I wouldn’t be sad if she were . . .
“Stanley, what’s up? Did you see Rowan’s run? She was amazing.”
“Uh, no. I’m too busy working for you to watch your fake girlfriend go tobogganing.”
