“Nico,” I start, stopping myself before I grind my teeth. “I don’t want to go from his leash straight into being your… house pet.”
Nico sets his bowl on the coffee table. “You’re not a pet.”
“That’s what you want me to be!”
“You’re you. That’s the point,” he says, his voice sharper now. “I don’t want you to be anything. I like that you’re here. That you chose this—” he gestures at the flat, the pasta, us “—instead of whatever five-star bullshit you could be doing in Salzburg. But from what you’re saying, it sounds like it’s not enough.”
I look at him. At the defensiveness in his shoulders. The flash of something raw in his eyes that he's trying to cover with indignation.
That it’s not enough.
That’s what he's scared of, that he’s not enough.
I set my own bowl down. Carefully.
"I'm not saying you're not enough," I say, softer now. "I'm saying I want to be more than decoration. I spent years at jobs appointed by my father, pretending to work while it was father's way of keeping me visible and powerless. Eiswerk was the first job with responsibility, on his leash, but still, I worked. I want that again, this time for real."
He exhales. Looks away.
"You're not decoration," he mutters.
"Then let me be something else."
Silence.
He rubs the back of his neck, jaw tight. "Can we not do this right now? I've got Chamonix in three days, and my brain's still half on the hill."
I see it then—the way he's folding the conversation up and putting it away. Not dismissing it. Just... postponing it. Deciding it's too big to hold when he's already holding the weight of the next race, the next training block, the next expectation.
I don't push.
I pick up my wineglass instead. Take a slow sip.
"Fine," I say. "After Chamonix."
He looks at me then, surprised. Grateful.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
He reaches for me. Pulls me closer, bowl forgotten, hands sliding up under the hoodie I stole from his drawer.
"You're not decoration," he murmurs against my mouth.
I kiss him back, tasting wine and garlic and the lie we're both pretending is true.
His hands are in my hair now, tilting my head back, and I let him. Let the conversation blur into heat and breath and the press of his body against mine.
It's easier this way.
For now.
***
Chamonix, France, February 7
NICO
