“So,” he says finally. “This is already an upgrade. No swinging.”
“True,” I say. “Floor seems stable so far.”
He huffs a laugh, then sobers. “Thank you for coming.”
“I wasn’t sure I would,” I admit. “I almost texted you that I preferred cable cars.”
“You still can,” he says, but there’s a flicker in his eyes that says he’s glad I didn’t.
The wine arrives; I wrap my hands around the glass, buying time. “You said you’re not built for almost,” I say. “So here we are. Not almost. Properly.”
“Properly,” he echoes. “With cutlery and everything.”
We circle each other a little at first. Safe topics.
He asks about my day; I tell him about the nice snow on the upper red, the ice patch by the third pylon, the group of Czech juniors I spotted in questionable race suits. He listens like it’s a course report that matters.
I ask about training; he rolls his eyes at himself. “Better,” he says. “Still not where I want it. My body knows what to do, my head is busy being dramatic.”
“Dramatic how?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “I used to think I was very good at the mental game. Pressure makes me sharper, all that bullshit you say to cameras. Then you start missing podiums, and suddenly every kid in the field smells blood. You feel… hunted, not hungry.”
The soup arrives. We eat a few spoons in silence. I can feel him watching me between bites, like he’s waiting for the other boot to drop.
I set my spoon down. “Can I say something potentially rude?”
“Please,” he says. “Everyone else is polite to me. It’s exhausting.”
I trace a circle in a smear of condensation on my water glass. “I almost didn’t come because I didn’t want to feel like… just a fan at your table.”
He goes very still. “Just a fan,” he repeats.
“Yeah.” I shrug, trying to make it sound offhand. “You know how it looks. People lining up with phones, waiting for their thirty seconds and a selfie. I spent seven years standing in a line like that for a man who barely remembered I was there half the time. I promised myself I wouldn’t do that again.”
His brows draw together. “You think that’s what this is? You, in a line?”
“Isn’t it?” The words tumble faster now, tripping over each other. “I know what I am to you, on paper. A Czech girl who knows your split times stood in your fan line once and got lucky in a storm. I know to you I’m just another fan who wants to get in your pants. And obviously I am a fan,” I add, dry. “A big fan. But that was the reason I did not want the dinner.”
The confession hangs between us, raw and too loud. My heart tries to vacate my body through my throat. I know I went too far. But I decided on honesty, because that’s how we started. And there is a little part of me that does not give a damn about what he thinks, because we’re one night away from being over, anyway.
He doesn’t answer right away. He looks at me, really looks, like he’s inspecting a tricky offset. When he speaks, his voice is quieter.
“Why is it so important to you?” he asks. “Not being ‘just a fan’.”
Because that was my whole job for seven years, I think. Stand there, smile, be chosen or not.
“Because I want to be… me,” I say instead. “Not somebody’s plus-one. Not a prop. If I sit here with you as a fan, I’ll spend the whole night reading the room—checking who recognizes you, who thinks I’m ridiculous, who’s already writing the story in their head. And I’m tired. I just want to eat potatoes and talk about racing with someone who understands what edge angles do to your thighs.”
His mouth curves, slow. “I do have very strong opinions about edge angles,” he says.
“That’s not the point,” I say, but my own lips twitch.
He leans forward, forearms on the table. “For what it’s worth,” he says, “I don’t see you as just a fan. If this were about fans, I’d have answered one of the hundred DMs I get every weekend. I didn’t. I answered you. Because you know what a good outside ski looks like. Because you have your own races. Because in that cabin, you felt more like a colleague in miniature than someone from the crowd.”
Colleague in miniature. It shouldn’t hit as hard as it does. My throat tightens.
“That’s a terrible compliment,” I say, to cover it. “Miniature colleague.”
