It was five days until Mara competed again. She needed to put the skiathlon behind her, but she deserved one night to wallow. Right?
It was only three days until Kirby’s first event. The sprint classic.
She should have been letting Kirby rest. Letting Kirby focus.
“You should come in. We can watch a movie or gossip. Kirby and I were looking at the options on Hinge,” Jordan said. Sweet, young Jordan. She had a few star-shaped, acne-healing stickers on her face—a trend that, again, made Mara feel very old.
“Hinge.” Mara felt like her brain was buried under snow.
“It’s a dating app,” Jordan said.
“I know.” It shouldn’t have been a surprise that Kirby was looking at a dating app. And it didn’t mean anything. Mara logically knew it didn’t mean anything.
Just like she logically knew that their occasional collisions resulting in orgasms also didn’t mean anything.
Kirby got out of bed. She was in boxers and that black sports bra Mara was becoming obsessed with. She pulled on a pair of sweats.
Mara had made a mistake. There was no way to get out of this situation without setting off Jordan’s alarm bells. Jordan might have been young, but she wasn’t oblivious. She would realize something weird was going on.
“I promised Kirby I’d film a TikTok with her,” Mara stuttered out. Every other cross-country skier on the team, men and women, had appeared in one of Kirby’s videos by that point. She posted one every day, filling her feed with constant Olympic content. Mara hadn’t posted once since getting to Italy.
“Oh.” Jordan glanced at Kirby, a bit bewildered. “That’s cool. Should I leave?”
“Of course not,” Kirby said. They were the first words she’d uttered, and it was a shot straight through Mara’s stomach. “Wecan go to the lounge. You need to go to sleep, Jordan. Your training time is bright and early.”
“Yes, Mom,” Jordan said with a smiling eyeroll.
Mara felt a rush of tenderness toward her young teammate, and she impulsively gave Jordan another hug. “Thank you. We’ll look at Hinge together some other time.”
Kirby ushered Jordan back into their room, grabbed one of the welcome gift bags they’d all received off a table by the door, and led Mara down the hallway.
“Do you even have Hinge?” Kirby asked, her voice clipped.
“No, but I’ve heard I can get it on this fancy thing I own called a phone.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re being very weird.”
Mara shrugged, feeling lost. “I just need some anger management.”
Kirby pinned Mara to a wall so quickly, it was like Mara had been transported.
“Anyone could see us here,” Mara managed, but she almost didn’t care. She ran her fingertips down the ditch of Kirby’s spine, and Kirby shuddered.
Then Kirby ripped herself away.
“Lindsey isn’t in my room.”
“Where is she? Doing press?” Kirby asked.
“No. I think she’s…” Mara didn’t want to say. She had suspicions, but she didn’t want to give away a secret that wasn’t hers to tell.
“Oh, she’s with Apollo?” Kirby said.
Evidently that was a bit more common knowledge than Mara had suspected.
“That’s my guess.”
Kirby grabbed Mara’s hand and pulled her down the hallway.
