But instead, she… didn’t. She let Kirby look at her. She’d seen Kirby shaking and scared, so it was only fair.
“Let me kiss you,” Kirby said, her voice almost too soft to hear.
Mara didn’t respond, but she did lean in that last millimeter, closing the miniscule distance between them.
Their lips pressed together lightly. It was surprisingly sweet. By far the sweetest kiss they’d had. Mara’s head spun as Kirby deepened the kiss, as her hands trailed over Mara’s shoulders and throat.
“I’m scared of this,” Kirby said, breaking the kiss way sooner than Mara was ready for.
Mara was breathless like she’d just finished a race. “You don’t need to be.”
Kirby shook her head. “You don’t know… You don’t know anything, Mara May.”
“We should go,” Mara whispered.
“Me first,” Kirby said, and wasn’t that amazing? So many double meanings in two little words. Kirby leaving first. Kirby placing first.
Kirby pulled away. Then she walked away. And Mara was left feeling like something had aligned rather than broken apart.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
Mara could seeher wispy breaths in the cold night air. It was loud around her. Excited voices rising and falling. There were hugs and selfies and music blaring as Team USA waited for their entrance cue during the Parade of Nations in Milan.
It was a huge, raucous party. It hadn’t been sofunlast time she’d come to the Opening Ceremony. Mara lifted her face to the sky and let the overwhelming sound of athletes from so many countries wash over her. She felt unburdened, which was blatantly ridiculous. In reality, there was more pressure. More eyes on her. More expectations than ever before.
But shefeltlight.
She hadn’t attended the Opening Ceremony at her last two Olympics, instead focusing on getting her head on straight in time for her first event. She didn’t regret that now, but she knew she didn’t want to miss the Opening Ceremony this time around.
Mara, Jordan, and Brandilyn had traveled to Milan with a few guys from the men’s team, but other skiers, like Kirby, Lindsey, and Apollo had stayed in Val di Fiemme for the Predazzo Opening Ceremony events.
Mara was going to get pulled for an interview at any time. It had already been arranged with the major television networkcovering the Opening Ceremony, but she still had some time to take it all in.
Jordan grabbed her hand and before Mara knew it, Brandilyn’s phone was in her face filming or taking pictures. She had no idea which. She smiled, and the rookies both grinned and posed in several different ways. The poses happened in such rapid succession that Mara froze. She was sure she looked the same in every photo. She really was old.
Brandilyn’s cheeks were so rosy and her eyes so bright. And Jordan was talking so fast it was like someone had turned her voice on two-times speed. They were excited. And they had every reason to be. She had been terrified at her first Olympics. She couldn’t remember smiling. It had been such serious business.
“There are so many hot guys here,” Brandilyn whispered, and Mara laughed. She had been boy crazy at nineteen as well until she realized she wasn’t actually that into boys.
“Hot girls too,” Mara whispered back, nodding toward the women’s hockey team who were taking pictures and dancing together, enjoying themselves. She mimed fanning herself.
Jordan and Brandilyn both reacted as if Mara had revealed an incredibly juicy secret about herself. And maybe she had. It wasn’t something she talked about often, but the important people in her life knew.
And maybe Jordan and Brandilyn could be important to her.
Maybe Kirby could be too.
Jordan was bouncing up and down, asking her type, and pointing to every random woman around them, but Mara couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
A hand touched her elbow, and Mara jumped. Out of habit, she shuttered all the happiness on her face as she turned toward a person with media credentials around their neck. And before she knew it, she was whisked over to the edge of the holdingarea so she could be interviewed for the Opening Ceremony broadcast.
She’d seen the interviewer, Ross McFadden, on TV during past Olympics, but she’d never met him.
“How are you feeling tonight, Mara?”
The impulse to lie was hovering right at the surface, but she could still see Jordan and Brandilyn in the crowd of athletes waiting to make their debut during the Parade of Nations. They were giggling about something. She could hear opera music, likely from the actual televised Opening Ceremony.
