Twenty-four hours since Mara watched Kirby’s pre-Olympics press conference. Kirby hadn’t mentioned her once, which bothered Mara even more than when Kirby insulted her.
Two hours since they’d been in the same room during breakfast in the smaller Predazzo Olympic Village, but they might as well have been on different continents.
Their hookup had been nothing but a minor hiccup in the grand scheme of their lives.
It was par for the course for Mara not to talk to Kirby. For them to orbit each other without a word exchanged. They had spent most of their careers in that mode, with small detours when they crashed together in the press.
But that secret hour two days ago had consumed every corner of Mara’s brain that wasn’t already consumed with skiing. And quite a few that should have been consumed with skiing as well.
It wasn’t like her. When she allowed herself to have romantic or sexual exchanges, the mental toll was minimal. Matters of the heart came in around twentieth on her list of things to worry about. Below important stuff like nutrition optimization, summer roller skiing, and the HOA bylaws at the Anchorage condo she rarely spent time at.
She’d never let a random hookup affect her skiing.
Mara had caught glimpses of Kirby at training, and of course, she looked better than she had in ages. Precise but loose too. Smooth. Like she’d hit a stride. A sweet spot.
Mara didn’t feel like she was in the sweet spot at all. She felt restless, tight, and out of sorts. She should have been meditating. That was what was on her schedule for thatmorning. But instead, she was staring up at the ceiling of her double room as her phone buzzed again and again.
Lindsey, her roommate, was watching a show with Apollo on her phone. They were sharing corded earphones, which seemed more intimate than just about anything Mara could imagine. They hadn’t made a peep, but Mara couldn’t quite ignore that they were there.
She glanced at her phone. It was her dad.
Still.
It had been fifteen days since she’d talked to him.
It had been one hour since she’d ignored his first call. Half an hour since she’d ignored his third.
It rang again, so she picked it up. It was better to deal with her father than to turn the experience with Kirby over in her brain for the thousandth time.
“Hi, Dad,” she said after picking up. “What’s up?”
“Oh, she lives,” he said, all sulky and put upon. Raymond May had perfected that tone long ago and used it to great effect.
“Yes.”
“I’m available for the next two hours, so we should get coffee.”
Mara closed her eyes. “You’re already in Italy?”
It wasn’t surprising. Her father had figured out ways to exist in cross-country skiing circles for her whole life, but he was one of those people who didn’t keep a job for very long. It was never his fault of course. When she’d last seen him, he’d been in the vendor village, consulting for a popular wax brand who had sent him to Goms, Switzerland, for the World Cup events there. So maybe he’d been hanging out in Europe since, waiting for the Games to start.
But she’d thought both her parents planned to arrive, separately, the day before the Opening Ceremony.
“Yes, I’ve got a new opportunity in the hopper with a junior Nordic team who need?—”
“And you want to get coffee?” Mara said, interrupting the long spiel that was coming.
“I only have two hours, so you’d have to cancel whatever Ulf Karlsson has you wasting time on today,” he said. Because of course her Olympic training wasn’t as important as his “new opportunity in the hopper.”
“I’m free until this afternoon anyway, but I’ll have to factor in time to get back through security at the Olympic Village.”
“Why are you staying in the Olympic Village? You could have acquired nicer accommodation without the?—”
“I’ll send you an address to a nearby café and see you soon,” she said and hung up.
Mara sent him the address for a café some of the athletes had walked to yesterday, and whizzed by Lindsey and Apollo, who didn’t even acknowledge her presence.
Her dad was waiting for her at a table right by the front window. Raymond May was tall, fit, and intense. He had a way of staring right through a person. For most of Mara’s life, his voice had been the main one in her head, telling her what to do, how to train, what was important, what wasn’t.
