“Don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never really thought about it.”
“Well, I have,” Tannis said. “Because I’ve watched how it is for my mom, stuck in the house—every minute she’s not working, that is—washing and cleaning and cooking and then washing and cleaning and cooking again. She’s been doing it for twenty years, and my mom’s awesome, but she’s never done any of the stuff she wanted. Live in a city, fly on an airplane, do a job where she gets to wear a suit. Kids are a straight-up dead-end boring job, and it is definitely not for me.”
I had to agree with that. It was impossible to imagine Tannis as a mom.
“I want to get the hell out of Buford and race on the circuit,” Tannis said, swatting away the ball Trip had thrown, too upset or angry to play along anymore. “You thought that was my secret desire, huh?” Tannis demanded. “To be a slave to a bunch of rug rats? And Nat’s was for her dad to die?” She didn’t even wait for me to answer. “Jeez, Riley. You really think a lot of us, don’t you?”
“Hey, relax,” I soothed. “I’m just guessing, you know? Maybe it was our fears or stuff we worry about—”
“She’s coming,” Sarah said quietly.
The four of us turned simultaneously, looking toward school. I could almost see Natalie stiffen. Then she squared her shoulders and joined us with a smile.
“Well, that was a total waste of time,” she said breezily.
The four of us exchanged a look.
“Nat,” Sarah said gently. “What happened to your eye?” Nat’s smile faltered, and Sarah added, “For real.”
Natalie went totally still, then clenched her jaw. “I tripped.”
No one said anything. It was the longest, most uncomfortable silence I think I’d ever sat through. I wanted it to be the truth. We all did. Maybe it was.
Nat seized her chance to change the subject. “Everyone’s running the Dash on Saturday, right?” she asked brightly. “Lu really wants a good turnout. We need it after last winter.”
“The football team’s running together,” Trip said. They did every year, just like Nat’s ski team.
The Warrior Dash was a two-and-a-half-mile race through rocky paths and mud with no reward other than some trophies and a stocked bar at the end for anyone legal. The resort owners cooked it up years ago to lure people to Buford before ski season and sell winter passes, condos, and rentals. And the tourists love it—it’s Buford’s busiest weekend and the unofficial kickoff of the season for the town and the mountain, which are pretty much interchangeable. We all pitch in, one way or another, all of Buford holding its breath and on its best behavior, hoping this winter will be better than the last, in a series of tougher and tougher years since newer resorts opened a few exits north.
And after, we all celebrate. The ski team’s annual post-Dash party is not to be missed.
“I’m doing it with Jed and Tyler,” Tannis said, raising an eyebrow at Trip. “And we’re going to kick your ass.”
They probably would. Tannis and her brothers, one of them a marine, were built like Vikings. But Trip snorted. “Uh, yeah. Good luck with that, Janssen.”
“What about you guys?” Nat asked me and Sarah.
“I’m not sure—” I started, but Sarah interrupted.
“Riley and I are racing as Team Independent. And we’ll kick all of your butts!”
“Team Independent?” I asked.
“Lame, right?” Sarah admitted. “Best I could come up with on the fly. Got anything better?”
“How about Team Invisible . . . like, we don’t show up?”
But Trip was already on it. “I bet Ri doesn’t even cross the finish line.” He turned to me. “Have you even done it before?”
He knew I hadn’t. “I’m not sure.”
“What are the stakes?” Tannis asked. “Make it worth my while.”
“What do you want?” he asked.
Tannis thought for a minute, then grinned. “How about you come to the track and wax my car?”
“Oh, I’ll wax your car, baby.”
She laughed. “You’re a pig, Trip.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “If I win, you guys wax mine?”
“Fine,” she said. “But what about Nat and Team Indigestion over here?”
“Independent,” Sarah corrected.
“Whatever.”
“You guys can take turns carrying my gear for a month,” Nat suggested.
“A month?” Trip said dubiously. “What time do you start training?”
“Six thirty.”
Trip winced. “How about a week?” he asked, looking to the rest of us for approval.
Nat shrugged. “Fine by me.”
“And what about us?” Sarah asked Trip.
“What do you want?”
“Ri?” She turned to me.
I thought for a minute. “Come to the restaurant and do toilet duty for a week.”
“Will they let us?” Nat asked.
“I’ll sneak you in,” I told her.
“If I thought you had a chance in hell of winning, I’d say no way,” Trip said. “But, sure.” He grinned. “Why not? What about you, Sarah?”
“Shovel our driveway and walk for the first snowfall,” she said immediately. “My dad’s back has been killing him, and I hate doing it.”
“You could just do like us and not bother,” Nat suggested wryly.
Tannis snorted. “So we’re on. . . . Best time wins?”
We all nodded, and with that, we let it go, Nat’s mysterious injuries swept under the rug again.
Until the weekend that changed everything.
CHAPTER 5
I RAN INTO THE LIVING room after my shift, hoping I could make it to the mountain on time. It had been a brutal morning. “Georgie’s got his panties on extra tight because of the Dash,” Moose had told me as soon as I’d walked into the restaurant. He’d been right. Our manager usually saved his cursing for Moose, but today we’d both been fair game. He’d had us scrub every surface, roll extra tubs of silverware, mix vats of coleslaw. I was over an hour late getting out of there and would have just enough time to shower and change before I was supposed to meet Sarah near the starting line. It was probably stupid to get cleaned up, but there was no way I was going to show up smelling like bacon and eggs.