They would compete against each other only once. In their past Olympics together, they’d shared many starting lines, but for the Milan Cortina Olympics, Kirby had dropped the skiathlon and ten kilometer, and Mara had dropped all the sprints and team events.
So Kirby’s only chances to shut Mara’s beautiful mouth were in the press, in bed, or at the fifty-kilometer finish line.
And she wasn’t going to wait the fifteen days for the fifty-k.
Apollo grabbed Kirby’s hand as the skiers sidled up to the starting line, and Kirby put her phone away. She needed to stop obsessing over Mara saying, “My record speaks for itself. And so does Kirby Bonham’s,” in a way that made Kirby want to pin her to a wall and make her take it back.
Apollo had a sign that saidGo Lindseyin huge block letters. He seemed nervous. The skiathlon was Lindsey’s best event.
No one had aGo Marasign, which wasn’t a shock, but still made Kirby feel bad.
Mara looked good, though. Focused. She had on new purple sunglasses. Not the silver ones she always wore at practice and that Kirby had placed on her head after the first time they’d had sex.
The race opened with a bang and the skiers shot off the starting line. It was a decent start for Mara. For Lindsey too.Before Kirby had fully taken it all in, Mara was out of sight, but there were huge screens broadcasting the racers as they made their way along the course.
Mara was a beautiful skier. The push and power in her body was effortless, every movement practiced and optimized to propel her forward. She’d never reallywatchedMara ski. She had spent most of her adult life skiing with Mara, against her. Usually chasing her. But she had never taken herself out of the equation.
Mara was incredible. She was so in control of every movement in her body. So aware of the field of skiers.
It was the opposite of their hookups where she gave up all that control to Kirby.
“When did you get back from Milan?” Apollo asked Jordan, leaning around Kirby to see her. Jordan had traveled to Milan with Mara. Kirby had to shake herself out of her thoughts.
“This morning. Mara came back late last night. Can you believe she announced her retirement? She’s been living on the podium lately. Why retire now?”
“She wants to go out on a high note,” Kirby said. She couldn’t look away from the screen as a huge cluster of skiers rounded a bend. Mara was in the front pack with Lindsey hanging in the middle.
“But what if it’s like last time?” Jordan said. “She choked.”
Kirby glanced at Jordan sharply. “She won a silver medal. That’s hardly a choke.”
“Oh. I just mean. I don’t know. Everyone said she was going to win the thirty kilometer. They’d practically chiseled her name on the gold before the race even started.”
“Yeah, pretty asinine, huh?” Kirby said wryly. She had always been salty about it, but less so now. Mara deserved to race without the weight of the world’s expectations on her.
The skiers were making the transition from classic to freestyle. Lindsey made a strategic push and jumped into third while Mara fell back slightly. She would probably be able to gain it back, but it was not an insignificant delay.
Suddenly, Kirby’s breath caught, and she took an involuntary step toward the screen. Her body moved before her brain caught up.
A skier from the Netherlands lost control behind Mara. It caused a chain reaction. The skier flailed before regaining control, but in the unsteadiness, her ski clipped Mara’s, causing her to spin out.
The whole stadium jumped to their feet and gasped—a full two seconds after Kirby had done so.
Time seemed to slow as Mara went down.
Careers had been ended by crashes.
Kirby felt a wave of nausea as a skier from Japan had to swerve to avoid her. Then one from Canada. Both were able to keep their feet and continue racing.
It happened so fast, and before Kirby could freak out about Mara being hurt, Mara had popped up. Her momentum was lost, starting from zero with diminished energy. But she surged forward, digging deep.
Everything in Kirby’s body ached for what had happened. Every skier had faced something similar at some point in their career, but for it to happen at the Olympics was terrible.
She watched Mara push and push to catch back up with the middle of the pack, but it was too big a setback.
A hand slipped into hers and tugged. It was Apollo. She looked around wildly and realized she was the only one still staring at the big screen with her heart in her throat.
She knew the cameras were on them. The networks loved to show Team USA cheering in the stands.
