FAB: I would not climb up the chair in ski boots.
The mental image of him eyeing that wobbly Ikea-reject throne like it’s a death trap makes me grin so hard my cheeks hurt.
ZLA: The others helped him; he wasn’t alone there. You know, his is the most crowded category.
FAB: The chair is the best podium, a challenge of its own.
ZLA: We usually have some podium. Today, there was no time. Everybody was hurrying to get home because of the snowstorm. Some guys live five hours from the resort. My three hours seem like a walk then…
FAB: Was it bad?
I stare at the question, feel the drive shiver back through my shoulders. The wipers, the trucks, the wind shoving the car sideways.
ZLA: Honestly, I’m more proud of myself for the driving part than the racing part.
FAB: You should be.
FAB: And I’m glad you’re ok.
Something old and raw in me perks up at that. The part that spent seven years driving Peter home from clubs because a “club owner has to drink with his clients,” taking the wheel every holiday because “I’ve had a beer, babe,” getting my every late brake and bad merge dissected until I could thread a car through black ice in my sleep. That part wants to spill all of it now, bathe in clean approval from someone, from the man I admire. I feel the urge like a tug and deliberately let it pass. He’s not my therapist. He’s the man I want to get naked with in a gondola. Different job description.
ZLA: How was Kitz?.
He answers with a voice note this time—low, tired, amused—talking about the chaos, the flower ceremony.
ZLA: Have to be up at 7:00 to teach verbs to corporate managers who don’t want to be there.
FAB: Leaving the speed kids in Garmisch for the week and heading for Reiteralm. If our technician plays that horrible playlist again, I might retire on the spot.
I snort into my tea. The image of a world champion held hostage by pop remixes is too good. My fingers move before my dignity can stop them.
ZLA: Retire all you want, as long as you keep posting topless training reels. Some of us have needs.
Dots. Pause.
FAB: If I knew my reels were part of your… coping strategies, I would have filmed them very differently.
Heat drops straight between my legs. The cat jumps off my lap with a scandalized chirp, as if he can smell the hormones. He probably can.
ZLA: Careful. Talk like that, and a girl might start asking for custom content.
FAB: You think I wouldn’t?
The room feels suddenly too small—just me, the buzz of the phone in my hand, steam on the windows, his voice still warm in my ear from the note.
ZLA: I think you’re two countries away and still managing to make me think more about your thighs than my lesson plan.
FAB: Fuck the lesson plan. Which verb are you teaching first thing tomorrow?
ZLA: Conditionals
And I add an English sentence.
ZLA: If I hadn’t booked that gondola. If you weren’t this distracting. That kind.
FAB: If I were in Prague, you’d have a much better example for “If I hadn’t…”.
My pulse stutters.
