The thought should make me cringe. Instead, it makes me grin.
Because under all the self-mockery, there’s something else there too—a small, stubborn spark that wasn’t there a year ago. Not a plan, not even a real intention. Just the quiet, shocking realization that if a moment ever came where I could ask for more than a selfie, I might actually want to.
Because for the first time in forever, I’m not somebody’s plus-one on this mountain. I’m just me.
Chapter 2
The Line
ZLATA
By the time I finally let myself glide back down to the base, my legs have that good, used feeling, and my head feels pleasantly rinsed out.
The snow around the station has gone from crisp corduroy to chewed-up porridge. Kids are digging in it like it’s a sandbox, ski school snakes are forming, and above all of it, the training lanes look even more deliberate than before—fenced-off corridors of clean, hard snow with coaches prowling the sides, radios in hand.
I skid to a stop near the main café and lift my goggles, breathing hard. From here, I can see one of the GS sets clearly: red and blue gates stitched down the fall line, racers dropping inwith that clipped, ruthless rhythm I only wish I could do. A few people are clustered by the fence, phones out, narrating in whatever language tourists narrate in.
Eva’s voice pops up in my head:To Zlata—unhinged, wild, and definitely getting at least a selfie with her sad, hot Austrian. Anna’s mock-serious echo:Congratulations, you are now the main character of your own holiday.
If I’m really the main character, I can at least get a decent view and a hot drink.
I skate my way over to the café terrace, unclip my skis, and tuck them into a rack. The sun has come out properly now, taking the edge off the cold; light bounces off every surface, too bright, too clean. I queue for a coffee, peel off my gloves, and order in German. The woman behind the counter slams a porcelain cup down on a saucer and slides it toward me.
Outside, I claim a table with a view of the hill and flop into the chair. I’d already cracked the top buckles of my boots in the lift queue, but now I lean down and pop every catch open properly until the plastic sighs and my calves can breathe again. Steam is curling up from my cup, and I tilt my face to the sun for a second, letting it warm the strip of skin between my buff and my helmet, watching the hill like it’s my personal TV channel.
Racers shoot out of the start one after another, in different colors and styles. It’s a little world inside the big mountain—serious, focused, completely indifferent to the tourist chaos below.
I scan the lanes automatically, and roll my eyes at myself as soon as I notice I’m doing it.
“Calm down,” I mutter into my cup. “You’re here for coffee, not a scavenger hunt.”
There’s no sign of any of the big names I recognize from TV—no familiar helmet designs, no instantly recognizable race suits. Whoever was in that lane before looks like they’re done; coaches are peeling banners off fences, and someone is hauling bundles of gates onto a sled. Training session over.
Fine. No World Cup circus, just me, sunshine, and a front-row seat to the cleanest snow on the hill.
I take a long sip of my cappuccino, lean back on the bench, and let the buzz of the terrace wash over me—cutlery clinking, accents I only half recognize, the soft whirr of the lift. For once, I’m not rushing to meet anyone, not checking my phone to see when I have to be somewhere else.
I’m exactly where I chose to be.
***
I’m halfway through my coffee when the energy on the terrace shifts.
It’s subtle at first: a couple of heads turning toward the lift, that low murmur people make when something interesting is happening, but they’re not sure if they’re allowed to stare yet. Then I see why.
A group of racers comes off the snow together, skis over shoulders, boots clomping on the packed snow. Race suits under jackets, sunburned noses, hair flattened from helmets.
Oh.
I don’t clock him first; I clock the way the people around me react. A teenager at the next table elbows his dad and hisses something in German. The barista steps closer to the window, drying a glass very slowly. Two girls in rental helmets go very still, then start digging frantically in their pockets for their phones.
I follow their gaze, and there he is, as matter-of-fact as if he’d stepped out of my Instagram feed and onto the terrace.
Fabio Baier is shorter than he looks on TV, or maybe that’s just because he isn’t standing on some iconic finish slope with his arms in the air. Out of the start gate context, he’s just a man in a red team jacket, race suit peeking out at the neck, skis slung casually over one shoulder. His helmet dangles from his hand by the strap, stickers I recognize catching the light.
He doesn’t look around like a celebrity entering a room. He looks like someone thinking about something that happened three turns ago.
They stack their skis in a neat, practiced row by the wall, shake snow off their boots, and talk quickly in German. I only catch fragments. One of the coaches claps him on the shoulder, shows him something on a timing printout. He nods, brow furrowing, eyes still somewhere on the hill.
