Avalanche

Chapter 7 | Ski School

9 AM came around, and not one of them was happy to be out on the snow with Rob telling them what to do.

Ricky had hoped that he would have been able to run off all his anger that morning on the treadmill, but because of Dion, he'd left the gym feeling angrier than when he'd first stepped in. Because of his interaction with Dion, now he was more dependent on his team coming through. He'd told Dion that his team would roast them. Today, he would figure out of that was true or not.

He usually didn't snowboard with earmuffs on, but Ricky found himself desperately wishing for some. As soon as they were all gathered, Rob turned on some 'motivational' music, which consisted of vocals so heavy that the lyrics of the song couldn't be made out. It took scream-o to another level.

Akari, Tara and Kemen all looked uncomfortable with the music choice, but no one made an effort to tell Rob to shut it off. Ricky was tempted to do it himself, but he didn't feel like getting pounded into the snow either, which he had no doubt Rob would do. Ricky couldn't trust himself to speak a single word to that man without some sort of insult coming out.

For the first 5 minutes out on the snow, all five of them were gathered around, only the sound of Rob's music audible. They all waited for Rob to give some instruction, which was becoming more doubtful by the second.

At one point, Rob realized that they were all just standing around.

"What the heck are you guys doing? Go practice!"

"Practice what?" Tara crossed her arms.

"Whatever you want."

"What about the competition?" Ricky snarled.

"What about it, rich boy? Last I heard, we were doing individual runs. Figure it out."

"No guidance from our beloved leader?" Tara risked saying. Both Akari and Kemen shifted uncomfortably from beside her.

Rob rolled his eyes. "I guess you would need it."

Before Tara was able to open her mouth, Akari grabbed her arm and they boarded to the nearest jump.

Ricky went off to go complete his own practice session, and he noticed Kemen followed him. Ricky didn't say anything, realizing that having one ally may be beneficial.

He remembered how Kemen had been in the gym earlier that morning when Dion was there. He figured that the team would figure out about his rivalry soon enough. It wasn't something that Ricky cared to talk about, since he would have to admit his hate came mostly from the fact that he'd lost so many times to Dion. Thankfully, Kemen didn't bring it up at all as they headed for a small half-pipe and made some runs.

Ricky had done some tricks he was thinking about incorporating in his run at Aspen Regionals and practiced some maneuvers that he wanted to improve. Kemen didn't make fun of him after Ricky landed bad from attempting a triple backflip mute and pulled himself to the side.

After Kemen did his run, he approached him, but didn't disgrace him by asking if he was ok or bringing it up at all.

"Do you have a plan for this upcoming competition?" Kemen asked earnestly.

"I'm working on it," Ricky replied.

"Have you done it before?"

"Regionals? Yeah, I've done it before. It's a big thing here in central Colorado. If we get the top three teams, we go to state."

"Have you gone to state before?"

Ricky nodded. He recalled the team that he joined when he had first moved to Colorado. It was back in Denver before he came to Aspen and his dad became a big resort owner. It was a good team, but they constantly got second at Regionals to Dion's team, owned by his dad, Darnell. Ricky didn't doubt that this new team could get second or third place and move up to the state competition, but he was tired of walking off the podium with second a place medal.

Ricky checked the time on his phone which he pulled out of one of the pockets in his cargo pants. 9:45. They hadn't even made it an hour. After Ricky and Kemen stopped talking, they could hear Rob's music, which made Ricky want to take Rob's board and smash his speaker with it.

"That dude has no respect," Kemen said, thinking the same thing.

"Tell me about it," Ricky groaned.

It being a weekday, there weren't a lot of snowboarders out besides the five of them. Ricky knew that if there were more people, the resort would be getting some complaints about loud music playing outside.

"This may sound like a bad idea," Ricky said, "but maybe we should just leave. I can't practice a routine for the competition until I actually develop one on paper, and it doesn't seem like Rob gives a crap about what we do anyways."

Kemen rubbed the back of his head. "I don't know man, your dad said we needed to stay together."

Ricky shrugged. "My dad doesn't really know Rob. If I tell him what happened during our 'training time,' I don't think he'll care."

Kemen looked uncertain for a moment, then shrugged. "Ok then."

Ricky heads back for the resort with Kemen behind him, but he stops dead in his tracks when he sees who Rob is talking to.

Dion. And his entire team.

He can hear Dion getting onto Rob about his music. Ricky feels a smirk coming on. This is clearly Dion's first time meeting Rob.

"Turn that crap off. You don't own this place."

"And neither do you, so clear off."

Rob towers over Dion like a grizzly bear would a child, but Dion doesn't back off. Ricky notices that the girls stop what they are doing to observe the interaction.

"I don't know who you think you are, but this is a public place. I will report you to the owner of this hotel."

Rob doesn't say anything, just continues to stare at Dion. Some of his teammates look uncomfortable from behind him.

"Well?" Dion demands.

"Oh sorry, I'm just already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth."

Stupidly, Dion throws a punch at Rob. Before Dion's fist comes anywhere close to making contact, Rob grabs his arm, and then with a swift kick in the gut, sends Dion flying backwards.

His teammates don't do anything besides send nasty looks at Rob as they pull their leader up from the powder. Rob gets really close to Dion and says, "this ain't ski school kid, stay out of my way."

Dion doesn't look at Rob, rather past him, right at Ricky.

Ricky gives him a small smile as if to say, meet my new teammate.

Maybe there were benefits to having a total brute on your team.