Heat flushed over Mara’s face as those words sunk in. Mara opened her mouth, suddenly worked up in a way that only Kirby elicited. Kirby got under Mara’s skin, and she had no idea why.
Mara couldn’t afford to lose control this time.
She was the “good girl.” There were expectations, false as they were. A good leader. A good person.Nice, nice, nice. But that little word—golden—threatened to bring it all down.
Before Mara ruined her carefully crafted persona, a loud thunderclap sounded from the far side of the room, and all of them snapped to attention.
Mara’s main coach, Ulf Karlsson, was standing by Coach Stacy Wu in the doorway, out of the camera’s view. They were foils to each other. Coach Karlsson was stoic and blunt. Coach Wu was funny and kind.
But it was Coach Wu who had clapped. When she wanted to, she had the ability to bring every single one of them back to theirchildhood selves. Frankly, some of her teammates weren’t that far removed from the Junior Nordic Ski Team.
“That’s enough of this.” Coach Wu waved her immaculately manicured fingertips toward the camera crew in dismissal. “More tomorrow. It’s time to ski. Skate skis today.”
As they got their gear on, Mara put her head down and worked to calm herself. She hated that one word from Kirby had the ability to crack her.
Mara wanted to will everyone away. She didn’t like team training sessions. It was awkward. Everyone was so nice and supportive, and she didn’t have that good teammate mode dialed in, even after all these years.
Her mom called her shy. Her dad said she was focused.
She was pretty sure lots and lots of people said she was a bitch. She tried not to worry about that, but she felt veryobservedthis time around. Everyone expected her to win a gold medal, or several. Everyone was watching to see if she choked again.
Ten days until her first event.
Twenty-five until her last.
A staff member opened the locker room door. “KB? Mara? Some dude from US Ski and Snowboard wants to talk to you both in the hall. Together.”
Mara’s eyes immediately went to Kirby. She was almost completely geared up. And as much as Mara felt like she and Kirby were diametrically opposed on all things, she could see her own unease mirrored in Kirby.
“That sounds ominous,” Kirby joked. “Do you know what this is about?”
“No.” Mara just wanted to race. She wanted to train, preferably by herself, and race, and win. She didn’t want to have meetings, or be filmed, or have to spend a second longer than necessary with Kirby Bonham.
An older man gave Kirby a sour look as she approached him in the hallway. She’d met him before. Lots of times, but she was terrible at remembering the names of self-important men. Larry, maybe? Barry?
He’d once told her she should stop cursing in her online videos, and she’d promptly disregarded him for all eternity.
“A word, Miss Bonham?” Blarry said.
“Okay.” Kirby steeled herself.
“You as well, Miss May, if it’s not too much trouble?” he said.
Gosh, how courteous.
“What’s this about?” Kirby asked as Blarry escorted them away from the locker room and into an empty office.
He ignored Kirby, only looking at Mara. “I’m so sorry to interrupt your training, ladies, but I’d like to chat.”
“That’s quite all right,” Mara said politely. Such a teacher’s pet.
“I’ll make this brief. It’s been made clear to us that the television networks intend to make your history a large storyline during the Olympics. We’ve been contacted by producers and journalists,” he said. “But we do not agree with the rivalry approach. We would prefer to have a united front.”
Who waswe? Because fostering a rivalry worked quite well for Kirby.
Mara trash talking Kirby four years ago was honestly one of the best things that had ever happened to her. It had catapulted her into the public consciousness and pushed her to prove Mara wrong.
Kirby skied better mad. Milking their rivalry for attention had zero downsides as far as she was concerned.
