Chapter Twenty-Nine
Luke
The morning the full competition started, Luke was nursing some real butterflies. His run down the Cirque with Parker and Michael had felt a little tight, but better than he’d expected.
The walk-through had gone fine. All the competitors had been allowed to walk along the side of the course, noting all the changes and turns. The course was a little meaner than Snowmass’s. The carvers at Buttermilk had put some spite into this one. The turns were sharper, the rollers a little more jarring, the jumps higher, with a few kickers coming out of its six turns.
Luke loved it. Still, he was going to have to concentrate on his technique to make it through the qualifying.
At eleven fifteen, Luke and Michael stood near the lift, watching competitors doing their qualifying runs. This regional only allowed one qualifying run, not two, so if you biffed it here, you were done.
Michael groaned as some raw green bean, maybe about seventeen, took a header and landed on his belly. “That kid needs to go back to the development league.”
“That’s why we’re doing this,” Luke said, lacing his fingers behind his back and pulling to stretch his shoulders and arms. “To weed out the guys who need more time.”
Michael patted his back. “You’ll do fine. Any lingering dizziness or anything?”
“No. My head hurts a little today, but I’m not foggy or dizzy. I popped a few Advil. I’ll be fine.” Luke bent to stretch his hamstrings. He’d done a full set of stretches at home, but standing in the cold made him feel tight. “I better go up. My turn is soon, and the lift is slow.”
“Good luck.” Michael gave him a fist bump. “Go fast, but leave some in the tank for tomorrow. Speedy but steady.”
“Got it.” Luke went to the lift. The board at the bottom of the course listed times. Kit had already gone, and no one was even close. Tucker would go in an hour or two. There were over a hundred hopefuls trying to make it into the top thirty-two who got to run heats today to decide who rode in the semifinals tomorrow.
But he had to make it there first.
Luke came off the lift and walked over to the starter box. In the time it took him to go up, the guy before him had already lined up at the gate. He took off, and Luke fastened his bindings.
Rolling his neck, he went to the gate and pushed back and forth a little, using the rails on either side. The guy before him finished well, ending up as the current fifth place.
The judge looked over. “You ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. I’ll count you down from ten.”
Luke took a deep breath. This was it. He emptied his mind of everything but the course ahead.
“Ten seconds,” the judge said, beginning the countdown.
Luke’s hands tightened on the rails, ready to push off.
As soon as the gates popped open, he was gone, flying down the hill like it was a kiddie slope. His entire body felt loose, taking the first set of double rollers like they were nothing. He stayed on his line through the first turn, over the first jump and through the second set of rollers. Turn two, still good. He flew off the edge of the medium kicker, down the slope to the next set of rollers that pushed him into turn three. He kept low, his weight centered, his knees loose to take the impact of the rollers and propel him into the turns.
Turn four, medium kicker, good. Turn five, rollers—two sets. The designer here was a fiend. Turn six, and onto the huge kicker at the end.
Luke’s stomach lurched as he shot into space, coming down on the final slope and skidding over the edge. He banked hard, sending up a spray of snow, and stopped just short of the backend barrier.
Someone was yelling. Luke turned to see Michael jumping up and down, pointing at the board. Luke turned to see what he was so excited about.
He’d come in two-tenths of a second behind Kit.
“Holy shit.” He hadn’t even given it his all, like Michael had told him. Luke had just made that bitch of a course behave and enjoyed the ride. And he was right behind Kit.
Michael came running over. “I told you. I told you. I doubt Tucker can beat that. You’ll go into the afternoon as second seed!”
“Which heat is that?” Luke asked, still panting for breath after his run.
“Eighth. You’ll go with the last group. Kit will be up first.”
Luke couldn’t stop staring at the board while they cleared the course for the next person. He’d almost caught Kit. The current number one in the U.S., number two in the world.
And Luke could beat him.
Luke ate mechanically, focused on the heats this afternoon. Michael kept refreshing the results while they were at the diner at Buttermilk resort, giving him updates.
“Hey, Tucker just finished.” Michael’s grin was maniacal. “He’s almost a second behind you. Fourth place is a second slower than that. Looks like you’ve locked up second.”
Luke set his fork down and forced himself to breathe. His pulse hadn’t slowed since his run. “Good. That means I won’t see him until the semis.”
“Don’t worry about Tucker. Not until the final.”
“I don’t plan on worrying about him at all.” A cold calm settled over Luke. “Except for making sure he stays at my back.”
“That’s right.” Michael grinned at him. “Ice cold.”
Luke felt an eye roll coming on. “You can stop with the cheesy coaching lines.”
Michael waved down a server to pay their bill. “We have a few hours, but I thought you might want to watch Kit, get a look at his line.”
Luke tossed down a couple of twenties and stood. “Always good to watch a master at work.”
Michael swiped his phone from the counter and reached for his jacket. “Soon, other SBXers will be saying that about you.”