Loud: The Complete Series (A Bad Boy Alpha Male Romance) (84 page)

Chapter
Nineteen

Everything

Mia

Ian’s standing at the
edge of the ramp, ready to drop in, and I can see just how much the blood’s
drained from his face, even from where I’m standing.

“Don’t be scared,” I
mutter, my voice easily drowned out among the cheering crowd. “Just take it as
it comes. Don’t be scared.”

The countdown timer comes
up on the board, signaling that Ian can start whenever he’s ready, and he doesn’t
waste any time. His front foot is on the board and he’s leaning in.

My heart is in my throat
as he comes down the ramp and everything seems to be moving in slow motion as
he comes to the bottom.

He’s looking good as he
goes into the curve to the flat, but his head jerks quickly to one side and a
moment later, he’s running out of it and my heart sinks.

“Oh, no,” I mutter.

It’s best two out of
three, but I don’t know if he’s going to be able to get past running out on his
first drop in of the competition. This could go very bad, very quick.

People are laughing,
pointing. They may not know yet that he’s had trouble with this, but if he
can’t get it together, they’re going to find out really quick.

I’m actually pretty
tempted to leave after having endured him after a loss and not really being
willing to put myself through such treatment again, but I can’t go. This is
such a big thing for him.

It’s not until after
Ian’s getting back up to the top of the ramp that I even realize Mike Onomato
is here. It didn’t even click that he’s in this thing, though his absence
wouldn’t make much sense.

I get a bit of a rush
with the realization, but it’s no longer that school girl crush. Now, it’s more
like how I felt when I saw Ryan Sheckler in Dunkin’ Donuts. That was crazy.

The rest of the first
round seems to take hours, though it can’t be any more than fifteen minutes
before Ian’s back up there, ready to try for a second run.

“You can do this, Ian,” I
mutter, only now the crowd isn’t overpowering my voice.

I don’t care if anyone
can hear me.

“Come on, Ian!” I shout.
“You’ve got this!”

He’s still pale.

This isn’t good, but
there is absolutely nothing I can do. It’s all up to him, and I know he’s not
just going to quit before the last run is over.

He can’t.

I’m certain he’s going to
stick with it, but when the countdown timer comes up, Ian hesitates. I don’t
know how long he’s there with his board on the lip, but it’s long enough that
I’m starting to push my way through the crowd, ready to meet up with him and
get him out of here if he comes down the ramp the wrong way.

I don’t make it five feet
though, before I see the front of Ian’s board angling downward and I stop to
watch.

Seeing everyone else take
their turn on the vert, the drop-in seems so inconsequential, but as Ian’s
rolling down to start his second run, I’m holding my breath as every muscle in
my body tenses.

He comes to the bottom
and he stays with it.

I let out a quick cheer,
but cut it short as people turn to look at me, wondering why I’m cheering for
such a thing.

He comes up the other
side with a 720 Japan air, and he lands it easily.

This is going to be big.

On the other side, he
pulls a 540 semi flip to nosebone and I’m not entirely sure how, but he manages
to revert the landing, keeping enough speed to 50-50 the other side.

Ten seconds left and Ian
does a double kickflip sex change, just barely getting his hand on the board to
position it before he lands, but it’s clean.

Now, with time for one,
maybe two more ups, he busts out a 540 rodeo flip and lands with just enough
time to make it up the other side and finish strong with a frontside noseblunt
slide, and as he comes down, the buzzer sounds and the crowd goes absolutely
crazy.

Me? I’m letting out my
held breath, but this isn’t over. With his first vert run bringing him a zero,
to stay in this, he’s going to have to make his final run just as solid, if not
better than his second.

The score pops up and, as
far as single runs go, he’s in the lead, but the zero score on his first run
still has him sitting at the bottom of the pack.

Things get even more
interesting when Mike Onomato takes his second run and just edges out Ian’s
score.

He can’t just hit it
hard; he’s going to have to give it everything.

“Hey,” someone says,
tapping me on the shoulder.

I turn around to find Rob
standing behind me, his gaze directed toward the ramp.

“He can take this thing,”
Rob says, still not looking at me.

We’re about to find out.

Ian comes up and the
countdown timer is barely up when he drops in without hassle to start his final
run.

Right out of the chute,
he’s pulling a 720 method air. He lands and comes up the other side with
another 720, this time a stalefish, which he reverts on the landing.

“Watch this,” Rob says
close to my ear.

Ian comes up the far side
of the ramp, stalling in a blunt and kickflipping out of it. When he lands, I
have to cover my ears.

He’s up the other side,
but I don’t see what he pulls as Rob leans forward and says, “I taught him that
on a halfpipe. Never thought the fucker would actually be crazy enough to try
it on a vert ramp, especially being as green as he is.”

Yeah, it’s fascinating,
sure, but I’m not here to listen to Rob brag.

I turn back in time to
see the clock pass eight seconds, seven…

Ian hits the lip with a
one-foot nose slide and I can hardly believe this is the same guy that kept
falling on his face at the park back home.

Time runs out, but Ian
manages to squeeze in a backside 180, 360 dolphin flip, and when his wheels hit
the ramp and he skates out, his hands, my hands, and about two hundred other
hands are in the air.

I missed one trick, but
even without that, I can’t see Mike Onomato beating that score. The question’s
going to be whether the average is going to be enough, and Ian’s got the whole
field to skate before we’ll know if he’s won.

Ian’s score comes up and
he takes the lead, but Mike Onomato is still right on his heels. There are a
couple of other guys that might be a threat if they start pulling out 900s, but
short of that, I think Ian’s only real competition is the man rolling in right
now.

I hardly believe it when
it happens, but it happens nonetheless: As Mike’s coming to the bottom of the
drop-in, his board wavers beneath him and, finally going sideways entirely,
Mike Onomato comes off the board.

There’s still the rest of
the field to skate, but nobody’s a credible threat to Ian anymore and he knows
it.

He climbs down the side
of the ramp and I push my way through the crowd to meet him, though as I’m
coming close, people crowd in around him.

Ian’s not having any of
that, though, and he makes his way through to me.

“You did it!” I exclaim,
putting my arms around him and kissing him on the lips. “Where did you learn to
do all of that in the last two days?”

He throws his head back,
laughing. “I didn’t,” he says. “I’ve done all that stuff in the park, just
never on a full vert ramp. Once I got comfortable dropping in, the rest got a
lot easier.”

“I’m just so proud of
you,” I tell him.

“It’s not over yet,” he
says, and he puts an arm around me as we watch the rest of the field take their
turns, but nobody comes up to Ian’s score.

I’m beyond ecstatic; I
can only imagine what Ian must be feeling right now.

It feels so weird that
it’s already over, but that’s it. Ian’s got his sponsorship.

At least, that’s what we
think.

The woman comes over the
loudspeaker, and I pull Ian close as we wait for her to announce him as the
winner, but she doesn’t.

“That was just a
spectacular round on the vert ramp, ladies and gentlemen. Next up on the vert
ramp, we’ve got the best trick competition,” the woman says and my blood turns
cold.

“I forgot about best
trick,” I tell Ian. “Tell me you’ve got something prepared.”

He doesn’t answer.

“It doesn’t matter,” I
tell him. “You’re doing great out there. Just throw something down.”

“Yeah,” he says blankly.

“I mean, you get three
tries, right?” I ask. “You just need one of them to—”

“One,” he says before
kissing me on the forehead and heading back toward the ramp.

One?

Ian’s going to be the
first to go, but the organizers are taking their sweet time calling a start to
the trick competition.

I turn around and look
for Rob. He’s back about where I was standing before I came forward to meet
Ian, and I make my way back to Rob.

“What’s he going to do?”
I ask.

“I totally forgot about
the one-trick competition,” Rob says. “All I’ve been going over with him is
vert shit.”

On his last two runs, Ian
pulled at least a few tricks that would bring him a high score, but he can’t
use any of them. He’s already done them in competition today and they always
take off points for repeats.

There’s no timer this
time.

Ian drops in
successfully, so there’s a big chunk of worry out of the way, but he doesn’t
look too confident coming up to the other side of the ramp.

Ian uses his launch to
get more speed, and he comes back fast. One more speed/height launch and this
next one is going to be it, whatever “it” is going to be.

He’s got great momentum
coming to the jump and his wheels leave the ramp and he’s doing… I don’t know
what he’s doing.

As soon as he’s airborne,
Ian’s spinning and going for what looks like the beginnings of a nuclear grab,
but the board comes away from his feet before his hand can replace it.

Although he’s in full
spin, he manages to snatch his board out of the air, his back hand on his front
truck and the spin slows drastically as he brings the board back to his feet,
completing his second full rotation.

Now, all he has to do is
land.

So much happens in the
time it takes Ian to go that last couple of feet before he reaches the ramp.

His wheels come down hard
on the downslope of the vert ramp and his knees bend as he goes from the
vertical slope to the horizontal flat, clean.

This time, covering my
ears doesn’t make the slightest perceptible difference.

Epilogue
Pt. 1

Ian

I called it the Mia grab.

To be perfectly frank, I
hadn’t planned on making up a trick that day, but that’s what ended up winning
me the gold and a nice, shiny new sponsorship.

That said, things haven’t
been all smooth sailing.

A lot of my time’s been
spent on the road doing demos and competitions. Earlier this month, I qualified
for my first X Games, and yes, I’m competing in vert.

The Mia grab has become a
part of my personal legend, but what’s both great and terrible about that is
that neither me, nor anyone else, knows exactly what I did. If nothing else, I
guess that means I can just come up with something new and call
that
the Mia flip, but I’m getting off
topic.

It’s been a year.

One year, and Mia and I
are still together.

I didn’t end up staying
with Rob too much longer, though he does usually end up crashing on one of the
couches in my new house.

The most important thing
that happened after I fell into the pro scene is that I’ve been able to take
over the full-time care of mom. Dad, on the other hand, is gone.

I don’t know what
triggered it, but one morning, I got a phone call from him, and when I
answered, his only words to me were, “Take care of your mother and take care of
yourself. Hopefully, one day you’ll grow out of this skateboarding business.”

And that was it. After
that, he just left.

It’s been about six
months, and it’s sad, but the only positive thing about mom’s condition is that
most of the time, she doesn’t know that dad left her. I just hate it when she
remembers.

Mia’s on her way toward
graduating with highest honors, though her final semester
does
have that algebra course she’s been putting off forever, so
those honors may or may not still be there when she’s done.

Right now, I’m at the old
skate park with Mia, perched atop the vert wall.

After we got home from
the competition—and after having sex many, many times—Mia decided to fill me in
on her little secret: She’s been practicing her board skills for the past four
years, she was always just too shy to come out of the garage with it.

Now, though, all that’s
about to change.

“I don’t know,” she says.
“I think they’ve built this thing up since the last time we were here.”

“We were here yesterday,”
I tell her.

“I didn’t say whoever did
this weren’t skilled workers,” she answers.

“Shh,” I tell her. “Just
relax and close your eyes. Now,” I say, “tell me what you see.”