Page 103 of Chasing Gold, Catching Her

Alisa leaned in carefully, taking the potato from the fork and chewing slowly, feeling the salt crystals melt against her tongue, the softness of it spreading warmth through her, and she moaned with soft satisfaction. “That’s so good…”

Then she glanced down at her own plate—vegetables, so predictable—and something inside her tightened just a little.

“Do you want something from my plate too?” Alisa asked.

Tora shook her head, “Nah, I’m good. I don’t feel like vegetables today,” she said, already cutting into her juicy steak.

Alisa did the same, but her thoughts drifted somewhere else entirely, to that exhausting loop about how Tora seemed to live so freely, without counting, without measuring every fucking bite of her food, while Alisa was already thinking about how to log those few stolen potatoes into her calorie app later, how to balance them out, how to make up for it. Even though she promised herself not to think about it today. It annoyed her, more than she wanted to admit, that some people never had to think about it at all, while others carried it like a constant background noise, a never-ending calculation…

They talked while they ate, filling in the empty spaces left by months apart, going over training, small moments, things that didn’t really matter and yet somehow did, because they belonged to them. Still, beneath it all, Alisa couldn’t shake the feeling that Tora was holding something back and it made her restless in a way she couldn’t quite explain. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just her anxiety again, spinning stories where there was none.

Tora wouldn’t be seeing someone else back in Norway… would she? With Loke, maybe? No… that was ridiculous. Too much, even for my own imagination.

Alisa pushed the thought away, focusing instead on the warmth of the food and the sound of Tora’s voice.

Then Tora lifted her glass of red wine to make a toast. “To your victory, to the gold… you were incredible there on the ice, babe”

Alisa smiled, raising her own glass and clinking it lightly against Tora’s before taking a small sip.

“Thank you for coming to see me,” she said quietly. “Thank you for watching… for being there for me.”

“My pleasure,” Tora replied easily. “How could I not?”

“Well… you didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to. So I came.”

Tora reached her hand across the table, and Alisa took it without hesitation, gently tracing her fingers over Tora’s knuckles, slow and careful motion, as if memorizing the shape of them.

“Thank you,” Alisa whispered. “I really mean it.”

For a second, she felt like she might cry, overwhelmed by how good everything felt, as if something like this couldn’t possibly last forever, as if it might slip through her fingers the moment she stopped holding on tight enough.

* * *

As soon as they stepped out of the restaurant, they were met by a dense wall of people—Chinese reporters crowding the entrance, their voices overlapping, cameras flashing brightly and microphones already pushed too close to their faces. They were speaking English, but too fast and too loud for Alisa to make out anything clearly. She instinctively frowned, lifting her hands to shield herself, trying to push through, while Tora stayed close at her side.

Alisa even tried to hide behind the bouquet, but it only made things worse. Someone reached forward and snatched it right out of her hands, and she gasped, her fingers closing around empty air.

“You’re with a rival!” someone shouted.

“Figure skaters! Rivals!”

“The 2026 Olympics!”

The words hit in fragments and before Alisa could even process them, Tora’s hand tightened around hers. She snatched the bouquet back, handed it to Alisa, and shushed the reporters like a vicious cat.

“Run,” she hissed to Alisa.

And they both did.

They ran blindly, almost laughing out of pure adrenaline, pushing past the noise and the flashing lights, and the reporters didn’t follow far, not with all that equipment, so within seconds, they were out of sight, breathless and hearts racing. They slowed down only when it was quiet again.

And then, as if by some miracle, a bus rolled into view.

They exchanged a quick look and jumped in without thinking, laughter spilling out of them as they collapsed into the nearest seats.

But Alisa’s laughter faded almost instantly. Her heart was still racing, but now for a completely different reason.