“Wait, we’ve met?”
“Yeah. An hour ago, at Steieralm.”
Guilt punches me right under the ribs. I’ve already leaned closer to her once today and somehow didn’t see her at all.
“Now I’m embarrassed,” I say.
“It’s okay.” She gives a small sigh. “It must be…bothersome. You're trying to focus, and people want a piece of you everywhere you go.”
“Well.” I think about it. “It’s part of the deal. I get it.”
“But you’re tired of it,” she says quietly.
“No.” Too fast. I catch myself. “Just…today was a bad day. I’m sorry.”
“Bad week?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I admit.
“Is it rude to ask about your last races?” She winces a little. “You know, out of fan interest.”
“Not as rude as I was to you, apparently,” I say.
She shakes her head. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I get it.”
“It’s not that.” The words feel heavier than I’d like. “I just…struggle a little right now.”
“You’ll get by,” she says, simple and certain. “You’ll get the globe. I’m rooting for you.”
She goes quiet after that, chewing on something in her head. When she speaks again, her voice is softer.
“Honestly,” she says, “you’re my secret crush, you know?”
Heat punches low, fast. My cock takes the news a lot more literally than my brain does.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” She gives a half-laugh. “I follow all the World Cup guys. I’m a big fan of ski racing. But I like you the most.”
“Wow.” I shake my head. “That’s…something.”
“It’s embarrassing to admit,” she goes on, “but we’re about to sit in a gondola forever, and then we’ll never see each other again. So, what happens in a cabin stays in the cabin, right?”
She says it lightly, but the look in her eyes says a lot more than reels and selfies. There’s a new steadiness in her voice now, riding on top of the fear. It’s that mix—nerves and nerve—that gets under my skin.
“And honestly…” Her voice wobbles, just a touch. “I’m freezing, and it’s getting darker, and I might start to panic any minute now, so anything that takes my mind off the possible rescue is a fine distraction.”
This is insane—wind hold, ex texting, bad training day—and yet the sharpest thing I can feel right now is the urge to hear what sound she’d make if I bent my head and tasted the cold skin at her throat.
My phone buzzes again, slicing through the thick air.
“Yes?” I bark into it, a little too sharply. Roland’s voice crackles in my ear.
“Fabio,” he says, “they’re working on pulling the cabins down slowly. The wind’s getting dangerous, but they have it under control. It might take a while.”
“Okay,” I say, and hang up.
“So?” she asks.
