Fireworks: A Holiday Bad Boy Romance (81 page)

Time’s running down
quickly, but I’m starting to feel a little more confident as I work to maintain
my speed coming up the other side, and I’ve got decent air coming into my first
and only 720 of the run, and I manage to land the 720 melon before the buzzer.

It was nothing
groundbreaking, but it was decent, respectable.

I’m up to the top of the
ramp, coming off the board at the top and grabbing it as I walk to the far
edge, and it’s not until this moment that, with all of the pride I’m feeling at
actually completing my first full vert run in a sort-of competition, I’m
competing against kids five, even six years younger than me.

My first score comes up
and it puts me somewhere in the middle, I think.

My next run doesn’t go
quite so smooth, ending as I come off, attempting a fakie 540 varial, but I got
a few decent tricks in.

The final run, though, is
a mess.

I come off on my first
attempt, and it’s not even something difficult, just a rock to fakie that was
meant to set up the rest of the run.

There’s plenty of time
left, but even after getting back on the board and regaining enough speed to
start getting air again, I can never get the momentum to pull anything larger
than a 360 nose grab.

Back at the top now, I’m
still in the middle of the pack on vert, fourth overall. That is, until my
final run scores come in.

I drop down a couple of
spots which, at first isn’t that big a problem, but my final run killed my
score enough that every single skater going after me tops my score, and I end
up second to last.

The only person I beat
was the vamp kid, who did end up injuring himself. Sadly, it was a twisted
angle and not a fake-canine-inspired injury, but basically, I came in last.

I was expecting this.
It’s not such a big deal.

I knew I wasn’t going to
win vert, and I knew because of that, I wasn’t going to win the overall, but
even after trying to prepare myself for the probability that I’d come in at the
lower half in the vert competition, I’m a little gutted at having come in so
close to the bottom.

In fact, it’s a fluke
that I
didn’t
come in last.

You wouldn’t think any of
this from the way Mia runs up to me after I’m back on terra firma.

“You did so great!” she
says loudly, smiling and throwing her arms around me.

“I came in last,” I tell
her.

“You did great, though!”
she says, giving me an extra squeeze before pulling back. “There were a couple
of hiccups, but I’m just so proud of—”

“Could we get out of
here?” I interrupt.

Her mouth’s still open a
little from where I interrupted her, but she closes it and quickly nods,
saying, “Yeah, sure. Let’s take off.”

I appreciate the
enthusiasm as a concept, but when surrounded by hordes of people and having
only managed to defeat a guy who’s letting a line of tomato juice roll down his
chin as the paramedics wrap his foot.

Even though I don’t say
any of this to Mia, she seems to understand, as we don’t talk until we’re
almost back to the car.

“You left some of your
stuff back there,” she says quietly.

“I’ll have Rob grab it,”
I tell her, my eyes on the ground as I wait for her to unlock the car door.

“You left your helmet,”
she says, and I look over at her.

For some reason I can’t
begin to understand, the pure, caring look on her face fills me with an
indescribable anger, and I explode, “Will you just unlock the fucking car
already? Jesus, I’m not your fucking kid! You don’t have to keep telling me I
did great when I skated for shit!”

“Ian,” she says, holding
up her hands, “calm down. I’m just trying to be supportive.”

“I know!” I shout, and
it’s not lost on me that I’m doing more to humiliate myself right now than I
ever did back in that skate park. “It’s condescending as shit and it’s fucking
pissing me off! Can’t we just get the fuck out of here already?”

Her sympathy dries up
pretty quickly and she’s gritting her teeth as she says, “Fine,” and presses
the button on her key fob, unlocking the doors.

I toss my board in the
back and slam the back door before opening the front, getting in the car and
slamming that door, too.

“What is with you?” Mia
asks. “We knew you weren’t going to take first.”

“It would have been fine,
not taking first,” I seethe. “Skating like shit in the street competition,
effectively coming in last on vert, and having you tell me it was something to
be proud of is about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I know you’re upset,”
she says harshly, putting the key in the ignition and starting the car, “but
you don’t have to take it out on me. That’s not fair and I’m not just going to
sit here and let you do it.”

“Well then quit blowing
smoke up my ass,” I tell her.

“Okay,” she says and
pulls out of her spot, slamming on the gas once she’s in drive and I know I
should dial it back.

It’s not her fault. She’s
been supportive and, without her, I don’t think I would have even been dropping
in by now.

Still, I can’t let it go.

“I mean, it’s like going
to a kid’s soccer game where the kid just sits down in the middle of the field
picking his nose and his parents tell him he showed good hustle out there; it’s
just bullshit,” I tell her.

“It’s not bullshit,” she
says, “and I want you to stop taking this out on me. We can talk about it if
you’re upset, but—”

“Do you have any idea how
humiliating that was?” I ask. “I’m just surprised you didn’t come up to me and
ask me if I had any boo-boos from falling down.”

“You need to stop,” she
says. “I’m not kidding.”

“Well, you can’t
seriously tell me that you’re really that proud of me,” I jab.

“No,” she says, pulling
over to the side of the road, “I can’t. Get out.”

“What?” I ask.

“Get out,” she repeats.
“I’m not going to play your chauffeur while you sit there and berate me and
tell me three different times that I’m acting like a mom—well, you’re acting
like a child. Get out.”

“You’re seriously kicking
me out of your car?” I ask.

“If you can keep your
mouth shut unless it’s opening for an apology, you can stay in the car.
Otherwise, yes, I want you out right now,” she says.

So there’s my choice:
Realize that the only person I should be mad at right now is myself for the way
I’m treating Mia or just keep being mad at anything and everything and end up
having to call Rob and Nick for a ride back home. It’s really not a difficult
decision.

I’m in the wrong.

Only problem is, someone
forgot to tell my mouth.

“Fine,” I tell her. “If
you need me to sit here and blow sunshine up your vag so you can feel better—”

“Out,” she says. “Get out
of my car right now.”

The vein throbbing in her
beet-red forehead convinces me that she’s not messing around, so I open my door
and get out.

As I’m pulling my board
out of the back and dropping it to the ground behind me, Mia turns around in
her seat and says, “By the way, one of the things you forgot to grab was your
cellphone. It came out on your second run, and I didn’t see you retrieve it.
Have fun getting home.”

With that, she slams on
the gas and it’s not me, but the force of her acceleration that closes the back
door as she drives off, leaving me about two miles from the skate park. By the
time I’m there, Rob and Nick won’t be.

I can’t begin to explain
what the hell I was thinking.

Chapter
Fifteen

The Project

Mia

I’m wading through the
mess of empty beer cans that is Rob’s front room, and Ian and I still haven’t
said anything to each other. I knocked, he opened the door, I came in.

We haven’t talked since
the demo, although I think it’s pretty clear I made a mistake. If it wasn’t for
this stupid project, I don’t think I’d even be here.

Ian indicates a chair in
front of the only cleaned-off portion of Rob’s dinner table, and I sit.

“Are we down to the
interviews?” he asks.

“We’ve been putting it
off,” I tell him. “We need to get it done. The deadline’s next week.”

“Okay,” he says and we
sit there uncomfortably for a minute.

“You look good,” he says.

“You really don’t have to
do that,” I tell him. “It’s not like I’m an ex-wife you happened to spot in
public.”

The one good thing about
Rob’s unwillingness to clean his house and the strange reasoning behind his
insistence that nobody else do it is that you can always hear someone coming.

Ian and I are both
looking at the open doorway before Rob ever makes it there. When he finally
does, he comes in and heads for the fridge.

“Sorry,” he says. “I know
you two are working. I just needed another beer.”

Ian and I don’t answer,
but look at each other a moment.

He looks good, too.

“How’s it coming?” Rob
asks.

“It’s, uh…” Ian starts.

“We’re pretty close,” I
answer.

Then there’s silence.

Then more silence.

“Holy shit the two of you
are awkward together,” Rob says, laughing.

“Would you mind?” Ian
asks.

“Oh,” Rob says and
quickly leans back down, reaching into the fridge and pulling out four beers
between his two hands. “Have fun, kids. If you’d rather not speak to each
other, I think we have a notebook lying around here somewhere—”

“Rob,” Ian interrupts.

“Right,” Rob says and
walks out of the room.

“How do you not have
things living in all this garbage?” I ask Ian, hoping to lighten the mood a
little.

“We probably do,” he
says, and we’re back to having nothing to say to one another.

“So, the one thing that’s
been holding us up from doing the interviews is that it’s hard to get bigots to
admit their bigotry and come together for a college psychology assignment,” I
start again, really working at keeping this professional. “Do we have any ideas
on how to get past that?”

There’s nothing: No
answer, not even a nod of acknowledgement.

“I don’t think we can,”
he says finally. “I think we’re going to have to just do as many interviews as
we can in one day and hope we get at least a few people who match the
description, so we can make some sort of point.”

“Yeah,” I answer.

There’s another long
pause, and I’m really wondering if it wouldn’t be better for us to both just
figure out our own way to do the interviews, have him give me whatever he’s got
when he’s done and finish this off myself just so we don’t have to endure this
seeming inability to communicate to each other anymore.

“You know what it was?” I
ask.

“What
it
do you mean?” he returns.

“It wasn’t the
skateboarding,” I tell him, leaning back in my chair. “I mean, I was impressed
and everything—kind of mesmerized to be honest—but that’s not what made me want
to give you and me a shot.”

His bottom lip recedes
into his mouth for a second before he speaks. “Okay,” he says. “What was it?”

“Why haven’t you ever
brought up working at the animal shelter?” I ask.

“Oh,” he says, his eyes
moving back and forth.

“It’s really not that
difficult a question,” I tell him.

“I guess I just never
thought about it,” he says.

“It’s kind of funny that
we ever thought something could work between the two of us, isn’t it?” I ask,
hoping my timid smile can manage to keep him from overreacting.

“I didn’t think it was so
far-fetched,” he says. “We have a lot in common.”

“We do,” I agree. “When I
saw you in there, though—I don’t know, I guess I just felt like there was more
to you than I knew, and that I hadn’t really given you a fair shake.”

“Sorry to disappoint
you,” he says.

“You didn’t,” I respond.
“Well, not until…” Neither one of us needs me to finish that sentence. “How
long have you been working there?”

“I’m a volunteer,” he
says. “I started there the summer after high school, but they were already over
budget, so I offered to just come in and volunteer when they needed the extra
help.”

“How long has that been?”
I ask.

“Since fall after I
graduated,” he says. “We got a huge influx of animals a couple of weeks after I
started working there and, being a no-kill shelter, that can become pretty
expensive if people aren’t adopting as quickly. They were either going to have
to fire someone or start turning animals away, so that was that.”

There’s a pause, but this
time it doesn’t feel quite so ominous.

“I think it’s really cool
that you do that,” I tell him.

“Thanks,” he says and he
even starts to smile a little before his eyes are back on the notebook in front
of him that I honestly hadn’t seen until just now over the mound of cans,
wrappers and other clutter piled two-feet high over most of the table.

I know we’re not together
anymore, even if we haven’t said the words, but I’m still sensitive to the fact
that Ian
is
going through a stressful
time right now. That’s no justification for the way he spoke to me after the
demo, but I can’t see any way that he’s going to have his head straight by the
time the Midwest Championships actually happen.

There are only two days
left.

It’s not my job to take
care of him anymore, though, if it ever was. It’s not cruel, it’s just reality.

I just wish things were
different.

“How’s your dog?” I ask.

“Gerald?” I ask with a
smile. “He’s good,” I tell him. “He’s got a surprisingly loud bark for such a
small dog.”

“Yeah,” he says. “He’s a
bit of a handful. He was actually the runt of his litter, but even by the time
you came and picked him up, he’d already outgrown his sisters.”

“He was born in the
shelter?” I ask.

“Yeah,” I answer. “His
mother was brought in pregnant and she gave birth to three puppies, two girls
and a boy. Does he still do that thing when he pretends like he can’t
understand you unless you have a treat in your hand, then he’s the master of
all dog tricks?”

I laugh and scratch the
back of my head, “Yeah. I was really proud when I found out he’d sit and shake,
but when I went to show my dad, he wouldn’t do it. My dad had to suggest trying
it with a treat.”

“You know,” Ian says with
that little smirk he gets before he says something clever, “you’d think that,
being a student of psychology, you would have remembered Pavlov’s dog. There
wouldn’t have been a response to the bell if there hadn’t been food involved.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say, and
chuckle a bit with relief.

It’s awkward. It’s so
awkward, but at least the tension isn’t quite so palpable anymore.

“You want a drink?” he
asks.

“Sure,” I tell him. “Grab
me a beer.”

“You’re too young,” he
comes back, but he gets out of his seat and heads to the fridge anyway. “Let’s
see, we’ve got beer and…” he moves a couple of things to get a fuller look at
the contents of the fridge, “beer,” he concludes. “Looks like all we have in
the fridge is beer, but I can get you some water.”

“Water’s fine,” I tell
him.

He opens a cupboard and
removes a glass from inside. He fills it with water and brings it over to me.

“Thanks,” I say, taking
the glass from him.

“Yeah,” he says.

“So,” I start and take a
quick sip before continuing, “how are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” he says. “How
are you?”

“The competition’s almost
here,” I tell him. “Are you still going to go through with it?”

“I don’t know,” he says.
“After everything with the demo, I’m kind of soured on the idea.”

I’m quick to defend, “Hey,
I was just reacting to the fact that you were being very disrespectful, and—”
He puts up a hand to stop me.

“I didn’t mean that,” he
says. “That was all me, and I’m sorry. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I
was just so frustrated, angry. I never thought I’d actually come in last.”

“You weren’t—” I start,
but he puts up his hand again.

“It doesn’t matter,” he
says. “Nothing excuses the way that I spoke to you. It wasn’t fair and it
wasn’t cool, and I’m sorry.”

My brain and endocrine
system are all geared up for a fight, but it doesn’t look like there needs to
be one. We both agree that he was being a jerk.

“I can still come to the
competition if you want,” I tell him.

“I don’t even know if I’m
going,” he says. “I want to try, if for no other reason than to say that I gave
it my best shot, but I really don’t think I could deal with another
disappointment right now.”

“Fair enough,” I tell
him, “but do you really think you’re going to come through everything easier if
you bail on it? That kind of seems like the sort of thing you’d regret.”

“Yeah,” he says, looking
past me, sucking the inside of one of his cheeks, pulling it inward, “I guess
so.”

“I’m not going to tell
you what to do, though,” I tell him. “It’s not my decision.”

“Do you really think I’d
have a shot at making an impact?” he asks. “Not the ‘fall on my face’ kind of
impact, but do you think I can actually do this thing without humiliating
myself? After getting my ass handed to me by those kids, I just… I don’t know
if it’s going to be worth it to torch my career.”

“I don’t think you’d be
torching your career,” I tell him. “I think you’re still young, and even if you
don’t take home the first spot in the competition, you’ve still got as much of
a career ahead of you as you want. Vert was never your thing anyway, you said
so yourself.”

“Yeah,” he says
hesitantly, scratching his earlobe. “It’s kind of the only thing I can think
about, though. Now that I can drop in… I just wish the competition was a few
months further out,” he says. “If I had a little more time to get comfortable
and really work on my overall vert performance, I might be able to integrate it
into my overall…” he trails off. “You weren’t really asking for a big
explanation, were you?” he asks.

“It’s fine,” I tell him.
“I just don’t know what’s got you so scared? Yeah, your first vert performance
wasn’t what you wanted it to be, but you did it. Now you can build on it. If
you want to start doing vert as well as street and park, I say do it.”

“There’s nowhere around
here to practice it, though,” he says. “Apart from that one big drop-in at the
park, there’s nothing that would even adequately simulate the experience.”

“Who says you have to
stay around here?” I ask.

“What?” he returns.

“If you’re going to go
pro, you’re going to be traveling around quite a bit, right?” I ask. “So, while
you’re out there on the road, start keeping an eye out for places you might
like to live—places that have everything you need to practice what you need to
practice and do what you need to do.”

“I can’t just move,” he
says.

“You moved in with Rob,”
I tell him.

“That’s different,” he
says. “I had no choice. I had to move in with Rob because my dad kicked me out.
Even if your rosy painting of the future does come true and I do end up going
pro, I can’t just leave my mom here. She’s the whole reason I’ve been pushing
so hard to make this happen.”

“How’s she doing, by the
way?” I ask. “Is your dad letting you come by and see her?”

“Yeah,” he says. “The old
man wasn’t to thrilled about the idea for the first week or so, but I finally
convinced him that if he didn’t let me see her, I’d start letting his business
associates know how he’s been treating his family.”

“What’s that going to
do?” I ask.

“My dad only cares about
reputation,” Ian says. “It’s not about money, it never was. Money, for him, is
a means and a prop. Some people put classic literature on their coffee tables
to look smarter to their visitors, and that’s my dad’s whole life. It’s all
about the appearance of success, but what it really comes down to is that his
world is just a big collection of books on a coffee table. It’s all
appearances.”

“I guess I can see that,”
I tell him, “but who’s saying you have to leave your mom behind? Why don’t you
take her with you where you move?”