Chapter 1
Fuck It’s You
Playlist:
Vowless: Rules Don’t Fit Me
Billy Joel: Uptown Girl
Solden, Austria, October 5
NICO
“Who are you?” I ask, stroking wayward streams of molten gold away from her face. “Someone famous? Someone important? Some super-rich duchess?”
“Why do you think so?” she purrs in my arms.
“You smirk at the champagne I ordered. You’re used to better.”
“I’m French.” She grins. “Of course, I’m used to better.”
“However…” Her hand finds my dick under the sheet. “I’ve never tasted better than this…”
I wake up with a jolt.
My chest is slick with sweat. My dick is hard.
For half a second, I don’t know where I am.
Then the ceiling comes into focus. A hotel room. Curtains pulled tight.
Across the room, Martin snores in his bed, oblivious.
I drag the blanket over myself and swing my legs off the mattress, running a hand through my hair with a quiet sigh.
That wasn’t just a dream.
I was drunk that night. Woke up afterward half-convinced the mysterious French girl had never existed. But she did. Not just her. Everything that happened between us remained as sharp as my ski edges.
The night didn’t end with one round. We fucked like rabbits until I lost track of time.
The memory curls my lips into a bemused smile before I can stop it.
I don’t know her name. She just keeps appearing in my life, again and again, haunting my sleep. An ice queen who loses all restraint once I pin her to the bed. I’ve never had a woman so wild. She clung to me like it was the last thing she’d ever do, like my cock was her lifeline.
And then she vanished.
I passed out — from alcohol, racing, and too much sex — and when I woke up, she was already gone. No lace panties with a mysterious note. No number in my phone. Fuck, not even a lipstick mark on the wineglass.
As if she meant to disappear.
For half a year, I managed to forget that Olympic night. Never told anyone. Buried it deep so it wouldn’t cost me focus.
So why now?
Why does she crawl back into my dreams here in Solden, with the season about to start? With the weight of a nation on my shoulders and Thomas at home, injured?
Thomas was the guy whose shadow I chased last season, the role model of my junior years. Now I’m the one filling the hole he left.
This year is a straight shot: Solden to open the circus, then North American speed weeks, Wengen and Kitz for the legends, and World Cup Finals in spring if I don’t screw it up. Four months of ice, planes, and people waiting to see if I’m the next Thomas or just a nice little hype bubble.
I take a cold shower. It fires me up as it always does and drives all memories out of my system. My skin gets the reddish haze cold exposure gives it, and I cover it with my snuggly soft hoodie.
By the time I step into the hotel dining room, I’m fully awake.
Breakfast smells like perfect coffee, flawless pastries, and ambition nobody dares to name before 9 a.m. Heads down, jaws working, athletes eating like fuel tanks with legs.
I load my tray with eggs, bread, fruit I won’t eat, and coffee strong enough to wake the dead, then drop into my usual seat with Lukas.
“You look like shit,” he says pleasantly, already halfway through his third croissant.
“Thank you. I try to stay relatable.”
He snorts into his mug. “Season jitters?”
“Existential dread. Or maybe I just need coffee.”
Martin arrives, dumps his granola as if it wronged him, and slumps down. We eat in the usual quiet. The TV in the corner yells about snowstorms; I barely register it. The weather is just another variable. You adjust. You always adjust.
***
By the time we head to the gym, my mind feels almost clear.
The gym is all glass and mirrors, rubber flooring, the metallic tang of sweat and disinfectant.
A few endurance guys grind away on bikes, faces like they haven’t smiled since 2008.
Music thumps low, something aggressive trying to scare the weights.
I warm up, stretch, and grab a barbell. My body remembers what to do without asking my permission, which is a relief, because my brain is still busy replaying a French girl who may or may not exist outside my dreams.
“Careful, superstar,” Martin says. “Media day’s tomorrow.”
I grin, racking the bar. “Autographs already?”
“Expectations,” he says, like he’s naming the weather. “They multiply fast.”
There it is. I laugh it off because that’s what I do.
“Relax. I’m just getting started. Peak Nico is still loading.”
Across the room, Lukas adjusts plates on his rack. His face stays neutral, but his eyes skim over me a heartbeat too long before he looks away. I pretend to check my grip; the move is too quick to be natural. Whatever. I added more weight than planned. Just to prove a point. To whom I don’t ask.
Martin whistles. “Compensating for something?”
“Your personality,” I shoot back. “Someone has to.”
Laughter. Good. Noise is good. I push through the set, muscles burning, breath steady.
The pain is clean. Honest. It doesn’t ask questions.
I can feel my body slotting into the familiar groove: load, push, burn, repeat.
No room for ice queens or silver medals or the word “winner.” Just weight and will.
Coach Leitner walks in, tablet under his arm, scanning the room like a general counting soldiers. He pauses near Lukas, murmurs something. Lukas nods. A second later, Leitner’s gaze cuts to me. Not hostile. Just measuring.
I rack the bar harder than necessary and clap my hands once, chalk dust blooming in the air.
“Okay,” I announce, louder than I need to. “Who’s ready to get unreasonably strong today?”
Martin laughs. Lukas gives a tight smile. Leitner doesn’t. He steps closer, just enough that I can hear him over the music.
“Focus,” he says. Not unkind, not loud. Just sharp enough to land.
“Always,” I answer, wiping sweat from my forehead, grabbing my towel and water bottle like armor.
Clear mind, I tell myself. Training. That’s all I need.
If I keep moving, keep lifting, keep smiling, nobody will notice that under all the noise and muscle, something in me is already bracing for impact.
***
The sponsor night is held in a gleaming hotel conference room, all polished wood, floor-to-ceiling windows, and trophy cases that catch the light.
The space hums with the scent of expensive perfume, fresh snow tracked in on boots, and the faint sweetness of après-ski cocktails.
Waiters in branded vests weave through clusters of athletes and executives, balancing flutes of champagne.
I love this shit.
Thomas always grumbled about events like these, but I straighten my cuffs and scan the room.
A woman in Eiswerk blue nudges her colleague, whispers behind her hand.
Three executives from Fischer pause mid-conversation, glasses frozen halfway to their lips.
The Austrian tourism minister abandons his canapé tray and strides toward me, hand already extended.
My name ripples through the crowd in hushed tones, and I feel my spine lengthen, my smile widen. I reach for a flute of champagne.
Martin’s at my side, already eyeing the canapés. “Think they’ll ask us about missing Thomas again?” he mutters.
“Bet on it,” I grin. “If anyone cries, it’s your turn to hug them.”
He snorts, adjusting his tie.
Katharina, our PR manager and part-time team therapist whether she likes it or not, sidles up. She’s all business, shunting us toward a cluster of journalists with her classic “don’t fuck this up” smile.
“Guys, remember the talking points. Pressure is a privilege. Team is ready. You miss Thomas, but you’re here to win.”
“Easy,” I say, flashing a row of teeth.
She leaves us, and instantly the swarm closes in. Cameras, questions, the same three worries dressed up in a dozen clever phrasings.
How do you handle expectations? Is the team fractured without its leader? Am I ready to fill shoes too big for one cocky kid? I answer with practiced jokes and shrugs. Give them what they want. Maybe a bit more.
And then I see her.
She’s across the room. Her hair pulled so tight it must hurt, every strand a weapon.
That black dress cuts a silhouette that makes my mouth go desert-dry, the high neckline like a challenge, a dare.
She’s talking to some sponsor suit, sipping espresso with lips that once whispered filth against my neck, and Christ, I can still feel the scrape of her teeth.
My pulse hammers in my throat, my wrists, between my legs.
She looks like the fucking Ice Queen, and I remember the other her.
My Olympic secret flashes back: her eager lips, that wild laugh in a quiet hallway, the taste of her skin. She was a mystery that night. But today she is manicured into some perfect, distant trophy.
I watch her sip that espresso like it’s a religious rite, her eyes tracking the room with a dismissal that should make me feel small. But it doesn’t. Because I remember the night when I gave her exactly what she needed.
I cut through the crowd, feet light, smile loaded.
“Bonsoir,” I say, tilting my head, and switch to English. “Well, if it isn’t the ice queen. Still pretending we’ve never met?”
She doesn’t flinch, just lifts a brow and answers in polished German. “I meet a lot of people, Mr. Reiner. You’ll have to be more specific.”
A smirk slides across my mouth. “Right. My bad. I was the guy you climbed like a ski rack in Gardena. Ringing any bells?”
She sips her coffee, not missing a beat. “You must be confusing me with someone less discriminating.”
“Harsh.” I lean in, dropping my voice, my body reacting to her perfume almost instantly.
Her smell is expensive, something floral, exotic, a scent that belongs to a boardroom, not a bedroom. And yet I remember it on my sheets.
“Why do you pretend?” I ask directly.
“Because,” she flashes her lashes and gives me a half-smile, “then I could have just enjoyed my coffee. Without you looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”