***
By the time the sun clears the treeline, my legs are warm, and my brain is blissfully empty.
I let the skis run on a wide, rolling red, tipping from edge to edge, feeling the bite of the metal I sharpened myself. And I feel a flicker of pride—obviously, I didn’t screw up my edges.
The hill isn’t steep, not by race standards, but it’s wide and clean and almost empty; I carve big, lazy GS turns across it like I own every meter. Air whistles past my ears. My thighs burn in that precise, friendly way that says I’ve got more in me.
At the bottom, I skid to a stop by the lift, chest heaving, and look uphill.
Eva appears first, doing a cautious zigzag with more snowplow than turn. Anna follows a few meters behind, more controlled but still picking her way down like she’s reading small print on the slope. They both make it down upright, which I count as a win.
Eva slides to a stop next to me and pins the poles into the snow, leaning on them.
“You’re a menace,” she pants. “Who skis like that after partying last night?”
“Someone who spent three weeks dreaming about this,” I say, grinning.
Anna pulls in on my other side, cheeks flushed, hairline damp under her helmet. “At least wait until after coffee before you attempt murder,” she says. “I’d like to die caffeinated.”
On the chairlift back up, Eva leans her helmet against the backrest with a dramatic groan.
“I vote we abandon you here with the other crazies,” she says. “We’ll go find something civilized. Preferably with a nice, gentle blue and a bar at the bottom.”
“You can’t abandon me,” I say. “Who will shout at you to put your weight on the outer ski?”
“The ski instructors, obviously,” Eva says. “Those we book to take us for our next trip. To a spa.”
Anna laughs. “She’s serious,” she tells me. “If you keep skiing like that, she’s filing for friendship divorce.”
“Fine,” I say. “Leave me. I’ll just stay here, do turns, and finally get my hip low enough.”
Eva squints at the slope below, where a fenced-off lane is set with a string of red and blue gates. Bright-colored race suits flicker between them, coaches clustered at the side with radios.
“Speaking of crazies,” she says. “Is that a training thing?”
“Yeah,” I say, my heart giving a small, stupid hop. “That’s one of the GS sets. Teams book lanes up here. Look, you can see the coaches shouting at them.”
“Do you think your boy is in there?” Anna asks. “The sad, hotAustrian.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But these are some juniors; the whole hill is packed with training groups of all levels at this hour.”
***
By late morning, the light has softened, and the cold has crept up through my boots. We duck into the Steieralm, a cozy chaletpackedwith other skiers, fogging up the glass as we push the door open. The air inside is a blast of heat and smells—coffee, fried onions, something sweet and doughy.
We squeeze onto a wooden bench by the window, helmets on the sill, gloves spread over the radiator. Steam curls from the mugs when they arrive: tea for Anna and me, hot chocolate with extra whipped cream for Eva.
Eva spoons cream straight into her mouth and nods toward the window. From here, we can see one of the training lanes clearly: red and blue gates marching down the hill, a racer coming through them with that precise, snappy rhythm I can feel in my own knees.
“Okay,” she says, “now I get why you dragged us here. That looks terrifying even from inside.”
Anna takes a careful sip of her tea. “The speed is terrifying,” she says. “The thighs I fully respect.”
I wrap my hands around my mug, letting the heat sink into my fingers, and watch the racer finish the course, skis skidding a little as they brake at the bottom.
“That’s probably a B team,” I say. “The World Cup guys usually go earlier. Less traffic.”
“Speaking of the World Cup,” Eva says. “If your sad, hot Austrian is out there somewhere, we need to discuss strategy.”
