Chapter Thirteen
Blaire opened her eyes to the Super-G medal sitting on her nightstand staring back at her like she owed it an explanation.
Olympic gold. Perfect race with textbook execution. It was everything she’d trained for two decades to claim.
She rolled onto her side, staring at the medal until her vision blurred. The raw ache that had settled under her ribs the moment Isaline’s name dropped to fourth hadn’t shifted overnight. If anything, it had burrowed deeper.
At breakfast, teammates surrounded her with congratulations that felt too loud. Younger racers asked to see the medal. With pride written across her face, Tess squeezed her shoulder in passing. Jordy raised her coffee mug in silent salute from across the table.
Blaire accepted it all with her practiced smile, the one that photographed well and gave nothing away.
Across the room, the Swiss table buzzed with energy.
She didn’t let herself stare, but her peripheral vision tracked movement until it snagged on Isaline’s profile.
Her hair was pulled back tight, and her team jacket was zipped high around her neck.
She focused on her tray as if the oatmeal required her full attention.
Fourth place sat between them louder than any crowd.
Blaire finished her eggs and left before anyone could suggest a photo.
Physical therapy came next. Routine check, standard questions about soreness and sleep.
She answered on autopilot while the therapist worked the knots out of her calves.
Through the window, she watched athletes filter toward the gym, the shuttle stop, and the plaza.
They were normal Olympic rhythms that felt foreign now that she’d taken what she came for and still felt wrong.
Outside the gym entrance later, their paths finally crossed. Isaline was leaving as Blaire arrived. Her duffel was slung over one shoulder, and her face was composed in that careful neutrality Blaire recognized from her own mirror. Their eyes met and held for a fraction of a second.
Congratulations and hurt and pride tangled in the space between them, too complicated for words anyone else might overhear. Blaire’s throat tightened around everything she wanted to say: I’m sorry. I’m not sorry. You were brilliant. I wish it had been different. I wish I didn’t care this much.
“Good workout session?” Blaire asked instead.
“Recovery work.” Isaline’s voice stayed even. “You?”
“Same.”
The exchange was perfectly professional... and completely hollow.
Isaline shifted her bag higher and walked past without another word. Blaire watched her go while her jaw clenched against the urge to call her back.
In the USA team room that afternoon, Blaire stood in front of the schedule whiteboard with a marker in hand. Downhill training runs were mapped in neat columns, start times and weather windows color-coded by Tess’s meticulous system.
She circled the next training slot. Once. Twice. The marker pressed hard enough to squeak.
“Easy on my board, Hollis.”
Blaire turned to see Tess leaning in the doorway with her arms crossed.
“Just planning ahead.”
“You’re spiraling, Blaire.”
“I’m focused.”
Tess stepped into the room and closed the door. “You won gold yesterday. You should be celebrating, not carving holes in my whiteboard like it suggested you retire into recreational snowshoeing for seniors.”
Blaire capped the marker with more force than necessary. “The downhill’s in two days, Tess. I need—”
“What you need is to admit that the medal around your neck didn’t fix what you thought it would,” Tess cut in.
The words landed like a slap. Blaire’s hand tightened on the marker until the plastic creaked.
Tess’s voice softened without losing its edge. “You skied a brilliant race. You earned that gold. But you’re standing here like someone who lost, and we both know why.”
Blaire looked away. Outside the window, flags whipped in the wind. “The downhill’s all that matters now.”
“Sure.” Tess moved closer. “Try to pretend you’re not carrying more than race prep when you click in.”
The reality sat heavy between them. Blaire had spent twenty years believing winning would justify every sacrifice. Instead, it had just made the gap between what she wanted on the hill and what she wanted off it impossible to ignore.
She set the marker down carefully and walked out before Tess could say anything else that landed too close to her heart.
~~
That evening, after recovery sessions and team video review, Blaire’s phone buzzed against the desk in her room.
Downhill training times are posted. Did you see the wind forecast?
The text read like simple logistics. But it landed like a hand closing tightly around her ribs. Blaire stared at the screen with her thumb hovering over the keypad. She should leave it on read. Should focus on sleep and splits and the course she’d memorized.
Instead, her fingers moved. Saw it. Nothing we haven’t handled before, rookie.
Three dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again. The recycled air in this building is making me restless. Thinking about walking it off.
Blaire’s pulse kicked. She knew exactly what Isaline was offering… a neat little cover story wrapped around an invitation neither of them should accept. But not one cell in her body could resist. Meet halfway?
Isaline’s reply came fast. See you in five minutes.
The cold bit immediately when Blaire stepped outside. She pulled her team jacket tighter and walked toward the midpoint between their buildings. The sound of her boots crunching on packed snow was the only thing that stopped the thoughts in her mind from taking over.
Isaline appeared from the opposite direction, breath clouding in the lamplight.
They fell into step without deep discussion, taking a path that curved away from the main plaza toward the quieter edges of the village.
For a while, they kept the conversation surface-level: snow reports, shuttle logistics, a comment about how the Italian team had somehow claimed the best dining hall tables.
Beneath the small talk sat everything they weren’t saying. Fourth place and gold. St. Moritz. Every charged glance since.
“You skied well yesterday,” Isaline said finally.
Blaire kept her eyes forward. “So did you.”
“Clearly not well enough.”
The honesty landed like a boulder between them. Blaire’s voice snagged on the words. “Fourth at the Olympics isn’t…”
“Don’t.” Isaline’s voice stayed even, but the edge underneath cut clean. “I don’t need you to make it okay, Blaire.”
They walked another dozen steps in silence. The path narrowed near a darkened training room that Blaire knew stayed empty after hours. They slipped inside and stood in one of the small stretching rooms.
“I texted you because I wanted to see you. Not because I need a pep talk,” Isaline said quietly.
Blaire stepped closer and Isaline turned to face her. They were close enough now that the space between them felt like a roaring fire.
“Then why did you want to see me?” Blaire asked.
Isaline’s mouth curved into a small smile. “Because apparently I make terrible decisions when it comes to you.”
The admission sat between them. Blaire felt her control—the careful distance she’d maintained through breakfast and hallways and forced neutrality—fracture into a thousand pieces.
“That makes two of us.”
Isaline stepped closer. Just one step, but it erased the last buffer of safety.
“You’ve been avoiding me since St. Moritz,” Isaline whispered. “Then you texted me after I lost a medal. Walk with me in the dark. Look at me like…” She broke off and looked away.
“Like what?”
“Like you want something you won’t let yourself have.”
Blaire’s breath caught in her throat. She should walk away. Nearly every thought in her head screamed, you should go back to your room and lock this down before it costs you both more than it already has.
But there was that one lone, very powerful and insistent thought that screamed louder than all the rest. When that thought won her body over, she closed the remaining inches.
Their mouths met hard and hungry, months of restraint shattering in one rush.
Blaire’s hands found Isaline’s waist and pulled her closer as they stumbled backward until Isaline’s shoulders hit the wall of the training room.
The cold brick pressed through layers of fabric, but neither of them pulled away.
Isaline’s fingers tangled in Blaire’s hair, tugging just enough to make her gasp. The sound seemed to flip a switch. Blaire’s hands slid under Isaline’s jacket, finding warm skin beneath her shirt, and Isaline arched into the touch with a soft noise that went straight through her.
“We can’t—” Blaire started, even as her mouth traced down Isaline’s neck.
“I know.” Isaline’s voice was breathless. Her hands found the zipper of Blaire’s jacket and dragged it down. “We shouldn’t—”
“Definitely not.”
But neither of them stopped.
Blaire kissed her again, deeper this time, and Isaline met her with equal intensity.
Hands roamed over fabric and skin, finding zippers and the edges of warmth.
Blaire let herself drown in the taste of the Swiss star, the small sounds she made, and the way her body fit perfectly against hers like they’d been designed for this just as much as a gold medal.
Isaline’s fingers slipped under the hem of Blaire’s shirt.
Her nails scraped lightly against her taut stomach, and Blaire’s knees nearly buckled.
Downhills at eighty mph hadn’t rattled her this hard.
Apparently, the real danger to her knees was a Swiss skier under her shirt with the slow drag of those fingers against bare skin.
A distant shout from another building cut through the haze. They broke apart in stages—one last kiss, then another, foreheads pressed together as they struggled to catch their breath.
“This is insane,” Blaire whispered.
Isaline’s hands were still fisted in Blaire’s hair. “Ten out of ten, very bad idea. My responsible side is crying in the corner.”