“Nico, can you sign this?” he asks, voice high with awe.
I grin, sign the helmet, and nod at the kid’s little sister, who’s peeking out from behind his jacket. “Who’s the real skier in the family?” I ask.
The little girl blushes, glancing at Élise, then at me.
“Your… your friend is really pretty,” she blurts out. “Prettier than the girls on TV.”
I feel her go still beside me. Then, slowly, she smiles—a small, real, startled thing.
“Danke,” she says, and reaches for the kid’s glove. “May I?” He nods, wide-eyed, and she signs her name in tiny letters across the cuff.
“She’s right,” I tell the boy, jerking my chin at Élise. “She’s trouble.”
They giggle and run off, the signed helmet bouncing.
The sky is gunmetal, the snow gone gold in the last light. I don’t dare take her hand again—not after she just saved us from a PR mess. I’m not ruining her work in the doorway of a hut.
We ski down slow. For once, I don’t show off. I just appreciate that she keeps up.
***
We walk through the flat light to the icy parking lot, her stride brisk and businesslike, mine dragging like a kid at the end of a school trip, as I carry her skis to her car.
The air smells of pine and wood smoke, and somewhere across the valley a snowcat growls up the slope. Even the mountain feels like it’s holding its breath.
She stops by the curb, breath fogging in white bursts. A black Audi idles there, heat streaming from the exhaust, driver silhouette visible behind the wheel. She doesn’t get in. Just stands with her arms folded, as if she’s deciding whether to walk away or say something that matters.
There are a dozen things I want to ask—come upstairs, stay the night, tell me something real just for me, not the cameras—but my feet don’t move. I just look at her.
“Can I ask you something?” she says, staring at my chest.
“Yeah.”
She lifts her head. “Is downhill really that dangerous?”
I smile, but she’s not joking. Her eyes are wide in the harsh hotel light, skin pale. She’s worried. About me. Something loosens in my ribs.
“It’s not so bad,” I start, but the lie tastes wrong.
“I watched a video,” she says. “The Birds of Prey. The big jump. Golden Eagle?” Her hands fist in her pockets. “It looked like… death.”
I want to say something cocky, but I can’t. I just stand there, lopsided smile, letting the silence say what I don’t want to admit. She went home and searched the course. She watched the danger. She pictured me on it.
“I like to make a show,” I say finally. “It’s stupid, yeah. But that’s the job. You fly a little higher than you’re supposed to.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she mutters.
The Audi’s window slides down a few centimeters. The driver is watching us in the mirror, cataloging my face for some report.There’s an entire life waiting for her in that car—heated leather, the smell of her perfume, a phone already buzzing with her father’s fury.
But she doesn’t get in. She lets the wind gnaw at her cheeks and just looks at me, like there’s one more thing she wants to say and can’t.
There’s nobody else around. Just us and the man in the driver’s seat.
“Élise,” I say.
She looks up.
I step in and kiss her. Not a fast, stolen thing, but slow and full, pressing her gently against the cold car door. For a heartbeat, she yields, soft, her mouth opening under mine, tasting like beer and fear and something that might be hope.
