Chapter 9
The Fan Girl Grows Up
Prague, Czechia
ZLATA
The living room smells like garlic and dill—Sunday lunch remnants—and my dad’s aftershave.
The TV is already on mute when I walk in, Adelboden’s Chuenisb?rgli slope filling the screen in wide-angle: rolling cow pastures up top, then that infamous final wall dropping away toward a finish corral crammed with Swiss flags and cowbells.
“Second run starts at one,” Dad says without looking away. “Perfect timing.”
I drop onto the couch, tucking my feet under me.
Mum sits in her armchair with her crosswords, pretending not to care but glancing up every time they show a slow-mo.
This is our winter ritual, watching races together, though I’m the only one who gives a damn about alpine skiing here.
And they have no idea I’ve spent a night with one of the helmets on their screen.
The graphics flash up: top thirty flip, intervals, time gaps. Fabio Baier, bib red, leading by half a second after the first run. Young Thomas Kern is sitting in third, dangerous as ever.
My heart does that stupid little lurch. A week ago, he was my sad, hot Austrian in a chalet bed. Today, he’s half a second up on the hardest GS hill in the world.
Racers start dropping in, going down in reverse order, meaning my sad, hot Austrian will come down last.
The second run set is classic Adelboden cruelty—more turny over the rolls, then tighter into the final pitch, where the slope goes from respectable to ridiculous in about three gates.
You can see where the course setter has played on the blind break-over, the delay over the bump that throws them into the wall.
“Look at that drop,” Dad says, reaching for the remote. “They’re mad, all of them.” He turns the volume up, settling deeper into the couch.
I nod, throat a bit dry. Some guys survive; some fight; a few ski out.
The camera keeps cutting back to the start area—Fabio on the bench with his jacket zipped, chin tucked into his collar, eyes narrowed as he watches his rivals lose time on the last intervals.
He looks focused, not haunted. My chest loosens a little.
By the time Kern clips into the start gate, my pulse is fully in race mode. The commentators are giddy: if he nails this, he can pressure Baier; if not, Fabio will gain points on him in the standings.
Kern skis like Kern—loose, attacking, tossing his skis over the rolls like he’s in a training run.
He comes onto the final wall a hair low, chucks in an emergency check that costs him just enough.
The splits tick red, then back to green; he crosses the line two tenths back, good enough for the hot seat but not a real threat to a perfect Baier run if he will do the perfect Baier thing.
In the start area, cameras catch Fabio clipping in his skis in the start tunnel, goggles on, listening to something his coach tells him, some last-minute piece of information.
“That must be hard,” Mum observes, counting letters on the paper. “You know, the nerves, knowing they all wait for you to fail.”
“He’s used to it by now,” I say automatically, and mentally roll my eyes at myself.
You talk like you know him. Like he’s yours to defend.
And then he’s in the start.
The stadium noise dips for a heartbeat, like the whole valley is holding its breath.
Camera tight on his face under the helmet: jaw set, mouth in that neutral line I’ve learned means he’s actually calm.
The light is flat, that grey Swiss winter that turns everything into a black-and-white photo.
The snow on the first pitch is rutted but holding.
“Here we go,” Dad says. “Half a second isn’t much here.”
The beeps count down. When the last one hits, he explodes out of the gate.
No tentative feel-out, no safe line. He commits from the first gate, skis snapping clean arcs over the first rolls.
You can see the difference even from the couch—hips higher, shoulders calmer, turns finished instead of feathered.
He builds on his lead through the mid-section. The splits flash green, then greener: plus six, plus eight, plus nine. Every time he comes over a roll, the set bends more; he bends with it, riding the outside ski like he’s dancing with it, not fighting. My fingers clamp around my mug.
“Whatever happened to Baier, he’s got his drive back today,” one of the commentators says.
“Looks like the break last weekend suited him,” the other agrees, and I have to bite down on a smile. If only they knew.
They hit the last timing interval before the wall: minus 0.95. Nearly a full second.
“Hold it,” I whisper. “Hold it, hold it—”
He crests the blind bump into the final pitch and disappears for a heartbeat, dropping into nothing.
When he reappears, it’s in that horrible, beautiful chute where the slope pitches to sixty percent and the gates are set across the fall line just to be mean.
The blades scream on the ice; the crowd roars, cowbells a wall of noise even through the TV mix.
A lot of guys ski that section like they’re tiptoeing down a staircase with a bomb in their arms. He doesn’t.
He keeps the skis pointed down, throws himself at the red-blue-red corridor like he did with me in that hotel room: full send, no flinch.
Every turn, you can see the outside ski knifing in, spraying a fan of shavings instead of skid smoke.
“Look at that,” Dad says, sitting forward. “He’s really going for it now.”
I realize I’m holding my breath.
Three gates from the finish, he gets bounced by a big rut—just for a fraction—and recovers with a savage, almost angry pressure on the next gate that makes my thighs ache in sympathy. He crosses the line, and the time flashes up in green:
-1.02.
One point zero two seconds ahead.
The stadium goes feral. Flags and bells and people screaming his name in three languages. In our living room, Dad lets out a low appreciative whistle.
“That,” he says, “is how you answer people who say you’re finished.”
On screen, Fabio’s face finally breaks. Not just the polite winner’s smile—the real one, eyes creasing, dimples all in.
Kern barrels into the finish area and straight at him; they collide in a hug that nearly knocks them both over, laughing, helmets banging together as they yell something we can’t hear over the noise.
Two men who just survived Chuenisb?rgli and know exactly what that means.
“Nice sportsmanship,” Mum says.
I hum in agreement, but my throat is too tight for words. My sad, hot Austrian, I think, then correct myself: My sad, hot Austrian who is decidedly less sad right now.
The cameras cut to slow-mo replays; the commentators dissect his line into the wall, that one recovery, the sheer brutality of gaining half a second on a pitch designed to eat people alive. My phone is burning a hole in my pocket.
“I’ll make tea,” I say, a little too brightly, and escape to the kitchen.
The second the door swings shut behind me, I’m leaning against the counter, phone already out, thumb flying.
Not bad for my sad, hot Austrian, I type, and delete it.
They said on TV that whatever you did last weekend worked to get your drive back. I look at it and add, perhaps you should do more of that…
I hesitate, then delete the last part and add a civil:
That second run looked like you again. Proud of you.
For a heartbeat, I hover over send, ridiculous nerves fluttering under my ribs. Then I tap, and the message goes.
I turn to the kettle, heart racing, which is stupid. Now, he’ll be giving interviews, signing kids’ helmets, and perhaps he does not even have a phone on him. Whatever he makes out of my message, I’ll have to wait to find out.
I bring the tea to the living room, where father has already switched the TV to a biathlon event.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he waves a hand toward the TV. “The races were over.”
“Of course, it’s fine,” I say quickly, though I would do anything to watch his shining eyes on the podium.
I sit down, drink tea, and watch the biathletes on the screen without really watching them.
Father shouts at the screen every time somebody misses a shot.
He’s a bigger fan of this sport than I am.
But before he can celebrate our national relay’s success, my phone buzzes, and the start-gate beep makes my heart beat faster than before.
FABIO: Was just about to text you.
FABIO: Glad my golden girl approves.
My heart makes something stupid in my chest. And for a brief moment, I forget why on earth I waited until today to text him.
***
Adelboden, Switzerland
FABIO
My text is a crude understatement. I was about to text her every day of the previous week.
But I didn’t. She said she didn’t want this, not properly, and chasing her isn’t going to change that.
You don’t chase a cat until it wants to come to you.
And from what I’ve learned about my golden girl, she’s more like a cat than anyone I’ve ever dated.
All I could do was make myself irresistible enough that she wouldn’t want to stay away.
Turns out defeating the brutal hill in Adelboden in style did the trick.
I pocket my phone and duck back into the noise—sponsor tent, microphones, stupid jokes about being “back from the dead.” I answer, smile, and do the routine. As much as I’d like to dive deeper into conversation with her, I want actual quiet when I do that. Not ten-second gaps between interviews.
An hour later, I’m finally in my room, half undressed, towel slung over a chair, thinking about a shower before the very decent celebration waiting downstairs.
I grab my phone almost without thinking.
The notification badge is ridiculous; my screen is drowning in congratulations.
I swipe past family chat, team chat, sponsor emails, and open the conversation I renamed “Golden Girl.” Six new messages.
ZLA: More than approves.
ZLA: The last pitch was like magic.
ZLA: Told you, you’ll get them.
ZLA: And get them tomorrow, too…
ZLA: Can’t wait to see you again…
ZLA: On TV, I mean…
Cute. Dangerous, but cute. I lean back on the bed, thumbs already moving.
FAB: Can’t wait to see you again…
FAB: For real, I mean…
Three dots appear. Vanish. Reappear. She probably didn’t expect that. What did she expect, exactly? She doesn’t want to date me; that much she made very clear. She’s scared and probably even more messed up than I am. I get it. But I’d rather not overthink this into dust.
There are guys around me who rant that relationships are poison, that girls ruin your focus.
It’s nonsense. Either a girl makes you happy, or she makes you miserable.
Being happy or miserable has everything to do with racing.
The girl herself doesn’t. There are plenty of other ways to blow up your head.
My phone finally buzzes.
ZLA: And how exactly do you imagine doing that?
Good. A question is not a no.
FAB: Have you ever been to Kitzbühel?
FAB: You can come next week, watch the speed races, ski a bit, then root for me on slalom day. For real.
There’s a longer pause this time. I imagine her somewhere in Prague, phone in both hands, chewing her lip.
ZLA: As tempting as that sounds… I can’t, I have races of my own.
ZLA: Though I feel weird comparing that to Kitzbühel.
I can almost hear her voice on that last line, wry and half-apologetic.
FAB: There we are again.
ZLA: No, I mean for real. Pec, North Bohemia.
ZLA: There will probably be no snow in this weather. And they can’t use salt, it’s in the national park. So, we’ll be skiing in wet slush and ruts.
ZLA: From what I know, I’ve already won, I’ll be alone in my category.
I smile. Of course, she’s minimizing it.
ZLA: So I’m practically waiting for you to tell me to cancel it and wait for you at the finish on Hahnenkamm Sunday.
ZLA: I’d have an excuse to ditch the skiing in the slush.
FAB: That's some kind of test?
FAB: You know I’ll tell you to tune your skis, go there and give it all you’ve got.
The reply is quick.
ZLA: It was worth a try.
I shake my head, still smiling, and shift gears.
FAB: Next weekend then. It’s speed weekend, I’m not racing. I’ll come to Reiteralm to train.
FAB: You can stay in my hotel room.
FAB: Go by train to Salzburg, I’ll take my dad’s car and pick you up.
Three dots blink on and off. My heart is racing harder than it did at the start gate.
ZLA: I’ll think about it.
Not a no. Not a yes yet either.
FAB: I can take you to some expensive restaurant in Salzburg, then we can go to a spa.
Two dots this time, like she’s laughing.
ZLA: That some kind of test of your own?
ZLA: You know I’ll tell you to take me to some black slope and drill me long enough to make me nail the left-footed turn.
I grin at the screen.
FAB: It wasn’t a test.
FAB: But you passed with flying colors.
I hesitate, then push.
FAB: Come next weekend to Reiteralm.
FAB: I’ll make time for you.
FAB: Train you on some brutal slope.
ZLA: You won’t be hard on me, would you?
FAB: Not unless you ask nicely…
Beat.
ZLA: On the slope, I mean.
FAB: Anywhere you like.
Silence. The good kind and the terrible kind at once. I stare at the typing dots as if I can will them into staying.
FAB: Say yes.
FAB: I’ll ask Max, my ski tech, to teach you some tuning magic. He’s a genius.
FAB: If you say yes now.
FAB: It’s a time-limited offer.
For a second, nothing. Then:
ZLA: Yes.
It’s only three letters, but the way my whole body reacts, you’d think I just won another globe.
I let the phone drop onto my chest and stare at the ceiling for a moment, listening to my pulse thud in my ears. Adelboden is still humming in my legs; the hill, the noise, the podium. This feels sharper than all of it.
In a week, my golden girl will step out of a train in Salzburg with her race skis and that stubborn tilt to her chin. I’ll be there, not as a ghost in her TV or a man on a terrace, but in real life, with a car and a room key and a plan that has nothing to do with almost.
For the first time all season, the next race block doesn’t feel like the only thing on the calendar.