But I answer, because Eurosport is… well, Eurosport.
"Hi."
"It's set," he says."Tuesday morning.Head of content division, Bolzano office.You'll like her.She used to run Olympic coverage."
"Thank you," I say, automatically."That's… really generous."
He says something else, but I'm not listening anymore.Because when I glance back toward the couch—
Thomas is gone.
Just gone.
I end the call.My phone stays in my hand, screen still lit.
I stare at the spot where he sat.
And wonder how something can feel so much like a rejection when no one said anything at all.
***
Reiteralm, Austria, January 1, 2026
Thomas
Midnight's gone, and the New Year is here.
The party's loud but lazy.Fireworks pop outside in timed bursts, and someone's queued up a playlist that swings wildly between techno remixes and soft rock no one asked for.
I'm not drinking.Not really.A half-empty beer is in front of me, and a warm bottle cap is spinning slowly on the wooden table like it can't make up its mind.Lukas and Niko are deep in some joke across the room, doubled over with laughter, slapping the table.Everyone's relaxed.Buzzing.Celebrating.
I should be, too.Number one in Bormio.Biggest win of the season.
And yet I'm sitting here, scrolling my phone like a teenager.No messages.Not from her.Katharina left after the race.Packed up and disappeared back into her media world like nothing happened.No call.No text.Not even a passive-aggressive social post I could read between the lines of.Just gone.
I tell myself that's fine.Good, even.Better if we're not doing this.She distracts me too much.
Because I'm here, I'm supposed to be the fun one.The heart of the team.The guy who wins, laughs, and charms his way through dinner afterward.Instead, I'm staring at an empty chair across the table, wondering how a woman who's not even mine can make me feel this fucking hollow.
I stand.Leave the bottle, ignore the claps on the back.
Outside, the snow is falling softly.The fireworks burst overhead in bright, vast silence, like light without sound, like celebration without feeling.
I lean against the wooden railing, hands shoved into my coat pockets, breath coming out hard.
My head swims a little.Ok, so yes, I'm drunk.One always tells only after a few steps.
I'm drunk and I'm pissed.Not just at her.At myself.For getting into this headspace.For needing her eyes on me like oxygen.For letting that stupid half-smile of hers follow me into bed every night, in my head, not in real life.
I'm drunk but not on beer.Not even the schnapps we had earlier.I'm drunk on her.Drunk on adrenaline.Drunk on the ghost of Bormio still burning in my bloodstream.
Jesus, Bormio.
That hill nearly ate me alive.And I threw myself at it like I had something to prove because I did.
I skied like a man with nothing left to lose; full attack, no mercy.And when I crossed that line.When I sat in the red chair, my legs still twitching from the near misses, my brain still screaming from the compression, I wanted her.
Badly.
