By the time he had his last twist, he knew he was going to bobble the landing a little bit, but he managed to stick it enough to not go down, and that was all that mattered.
Listening to his teammates whoop and cheer for him, he pumped his arms, knowing he needed to think about what he’d done wrong and watch the tape later. But for right now, a successful run was a successful run.
By the time he unclipped and met his coach at the end of the finish area, he was grinning even though his nose was running, he was panting hard, his right ankle was bugging himjust a little bit, the twinges making him lift his foot off the ground to get the pressure off it.
“Good job, man.” His coach clapped him on the shoulder. Brandon Talion was a former snowboarder who had gathered up a lot of gold in his lifetime at the X Games, if not on the World Cup circuit.
“Thanks. I need to work on that last landing, but other than that, it felt good.”
“It looked good. I could tell that last landing was a tough one, though. Is your foot still bothering you?”
“My ankle is a little sore, but it’ll be fine.”
“Well, I think you’re done for the day.”
At his surprised glance, Brandon shrugged. “I think you should rest up, ice it, get in the hot tub, take it easy. You’re in the best shape I’ve seen you in, you’re prepared, and I don’t want you to get injured on a practice run.”
“Hey, that works for me. Do I need to hang?”
“No. It’s fucking cold. I need to run Gianni through his pipe, and then I’m going to get some damn soup.”
Gianni DiVolo was the other boarder Brandon was coaching this Games, and he was a great kid from Northern Italy. Caleb hoped he did well.
“I’m out then.” He saluted B, grabbed his board, and headed toward the area where changing tents were set up so he could get out of his gear and get warm.
As soon as he was changed, he grabbed his phone and texted Hawk.
Hey, did you make it to see my run?
Yeah. That was rad. Freezing my nuts off
Meet me at transport?
On my way
He grinned, trying hard not to examine how happy it made him that Hawk had been there to see him do his practice runs.
Because thinking in those terms was stupid. This was a thing for exactly one more day, if Hawk wanted it to go that far, and then they had to go their separate ways. The thought made the bottom plop out of his stomach like when he dropped into the pipe.
So Caleb shoved that away, then packed his gear bag and headed for the shuttle area. He wanted to maybe grab lunch and head back to the room he’d been sharing with Hawk so they could spend some serious time together.
“Caleb! How was your run?” One of the skiers he knew was coming up as he was going down.
“Good, man. Tear it up out there.”
“I will.” He got a wild grin, and they moved on.
He waited at the shuttle area until Hawk came into view, thankfully alone, and casually joined him on the next transport, plopping down next to him.
“That was so cool,” Hawk told him, arm rubbing against his.
“Yeah? I thought I did okay.”
“Okay? Shit. You were like poetry in motion. I’m pretty sure bodies aren’t supposed to do that stuff.”
That statement made him ridiculously happy, and Caleb shrugged it off as best he could. “Thanks. That last run I was starting to stiffen up. So my coach sent me off to ice up and maybe get a rubdown.”
Hawk glanced around at the mostly empty shuttle. “I can give you that.”