"Taking a photo." She angles the phone toward the suitcase, the window behind it with the view of the mountain. Her thumb hovers over the screen.
"Élise."
"What?"
"You're filming this?"
"I'm documenting it." She taps the screen, swipes, types something I can't see. "My followers want to know what's going on. And my influencer contracts are my only income now, so I need to keep them happy."
Heat crawls up the back of my neck. "So we're just… putting our life on Instagram?"
She looks up at me, and there's something sharp in her eyes now. "Look, I'm not happy about this either. But we need the money."
The words land like a slap.
We need the money.
She's monetizing us. Turning the flat, the groceries, me into a storyline her followers can consume. And I don't know if I'm allowed to hate that, because she's right—we do need the money.
But hearing it out loud, standing in this flat that suddenly feels too small with her suitcases blocking the door and my gear taking up every inch of space, makes it more real than I want it to be.
Chapter 13
Our Tiny Kingdom
Playlist:
The Foundations: Build Me Up Buttercup
Liz Callaway: Wound’t It Be Nice
Reiteralm, Austria, January 30
NICO
The alarm screams into the dark.
I reach for it blind, slap it silent, and for half a second lie still, trying to remember what day it is. January. Reiteralm. Training.
Right.
I go to roll out of bed, except I can't, because Élise has somehow migrated from her side of the mattress to mine, claiming not only the entire duvet but most of the bed. She's sprawled diagonally, one arm thrown over my chest, a curtain of golden hair across my mouth. I can taste it—floral shampoo and something faintly metallic, maybe leftover hairspray.
I gently lift her arm, trying to extract myself without waking her.
She doesn't stir. Just exhales, long and slow, burrowing deeper into the pillow I was using.
I swing my legs over the edge, feet hitting the icy floor with a hiss. The bedroom, if you can call it that, is barely big enough for the bed and a chair that's currently buried under her clothes. The walls are thin enough that I can hear the neighbor's radiator clunking to life next door.
The old fridge hums in the kitchenette, a low, persistent drone I've gotten used to but can't quite ignore.
