Carve Me Golden (The Carve #3)

Chapter 1

The Start Gate of My Life

Reiteralm, Austria

ZLATA

The bus doors hiss open, and the cold hits my face like a start gate snapping. I look up at the white slope, and joy floods my chest. For the first time in forever, every hour on this mountain belongs to me.

The bus driver barks something in German, but I barely hear him over the scrape of metal on concrete and Eva’s running commentary on how all Austrians are born with skis surgically attached.

I laugh, hitch my backpack higher on my shoulder, and step down into the churned-up slush of the Reiteralm parking lot.

“Move, racer girl,” Eva mutters behind me. “Some of us are here for a gentle holiday, not for… whatever masochist thing you call fun.”

We spill out of the bus in a knot—three women, skis, and poles everywhere. My backpack thumps between my shoulder blades as I step onto the concrete. I shrug my jacket straight and shove my skis at Eva.

“Here, hold these a sec?” I pass the skis to Eva while I zip my jacket all the way up to my chin.

She takes them and immediately groans. “What the hell, Zlata, did you smuggle lead plates in these? Normal skis don’t weigh this much.”

“Careful,” I say, working my hands back into my gloves. “Edges are sharp. I’m expecting ice.”

“Ouch,” she mutters as she touches the edge of one ski. “This is sharp.”

I grin and tug my gloves on. “I finally bought my own tuning set. If I messed them up, I’m gonna regret it all day.”

Eva gapes at me over the skis. “Since when are you doing that yourself?”

“Since last week,” I admit. “I decided to learn so that I can sharpen them every day if I need to.”

Anna picks her way across the slush toward us, helmet hooked over one arm, her skis balanced neatly on the other shoulder. She’s smiling already, that soft, amused curve she gets when she’s watching a sitcom only she can hear.

“Of course you’re sharpening your own skis now,” she says. “Next, you’ll turn up with your own private coach.”

“If only I could,” I say, and something clicks into place in my chest. “I mean… I can, right? No one’s going to yell at me for wasting a Saturday anymore.”

Eva’s expression softens, even as she pretends to struggle under the skis. “Damn right. If you want to spend every weekend burning your thighs off instead of clubbing with idiots, I fully support this.”

“Especially if we get to sit in the hut and watch you scorch past,” Anna adds. “Ideal friendship setup.”

I laugh, warmth spreading under my puff jacket that has nothing to do with the temperature.

For years, holidays meant standing in some smoky bar while Peter held court and pretended the mountains were a backdrop to his jokes.

Now it’s just me, my friends, the lifts, and however many turns my legs can take.

“Trust me,” I say, hoisting my boot bag again, “you two are infinitely better company than what I’ve dragged on ski trips before.”

Eva snorts. “Low bar, babe.”

“Extremely low,” Anna agrees.

We herd our mess of gear toward the cluster of low buildings at the base station.

The lift bullwheel hums overhead, gondolas gliding past with that steady, hypnotic rhythm—people swooping up toward the line while we stomp through puddles and old, refrozen snow.

A big piste map looms over the ticket machines, all colored lines and names; my eyes go straight to the red and black snakes and the neatly marked training lanes.

Preunegg Jet, I read automatically. Reiteralmhütte. Gassi run. The slope numbers arrange themselves in my head into possible routes: warm-up, then long GS turns, then something steeper once my legs wake up.

“Look at her,” Eva says. “We’ve lost her already. She’s mentally dating the piste map.”

“I’m just planning where not to kill you,” I say. “Blue first, then you can graduate to a respectable red.”

“Excuse me, I am here for views and Aperol,” Eva announces. “Anna, back me up.”

Anna is studying the map too, though with less hunger. “I’m here to survive,” she says. “Preferably without tearing anything. Views optional.”

“You’ll both be fine,” I say, stepping up to the ticket machine and fishing my phone out. “We pick up the online passes, we ski, we eat, we ski more. Perfect day.”

“Look at her,” Eva mutters, leaning in to watch me scan the QR code. “All organized. Race skis, tuning kit, pre-bought tickets. You’re not our Zlata, who are you?”

“Someone whose time is finally her own,” I say lightly, eyes on the screen as it spits out three plastic cards. “You’re welcome.”

The tickets clack into the tray; I hand them out, slide mine into my sleeve pocket. The readers beep us through the gate, and then we’re shuffling onto the moving walkway toward the gondola: Preunegg Jet cabins swinging slowly around the corner, doors opening and closing like mouths.

“Okay, briefing,” Eva says. “What are we even doing here, apart from watching you attempt to murder your quadriceps?”

“Skiing?” I suggest.

“You know what I mean,” she says. “You dragged us to some training Mecca. There was a whole TED talk in the group chat about it.”

I roll my eyes, but my chest tightens with a flicker of excitement. “This whole place is a skiing Mecca. In Schladming, everything is about skiing. And Reiteralm is the slope where the World Cup racers come to train during the season.”

“So,” Anna says, stepping into the gondola cabin as the doors slide open, “we might see famous people.”

“We might,” I say, loading my skis into the outside rack and swinging my bag onto the bench. The cabin rocks a little as Eva flops down opposite me. “Actually, my personal favorite racer will be here, skipping one race to train and reset. That’s what I gathered on Instagram.”

“Your personal favorite,” Eva says. “The one you raved about so hard in the car, you forgot the speed limit.”

I feel heat creep up my neck. “Yeah, he’s having a bad season. Some rough results before Christmas in Alta Badia….”

“Yeah, skip the racing part,” Anna says. “And show us the topless training reel again.”

“Right,” I say, automatically. The doors thump shut, the gondola lurches forward, and we rise away from the station, over the parking lot, toward the white sweep of slopes and nets.

I pull out my phone and open Instagram. I scroll to his profile without having to search; the app knows my guilty pleasures by now.

Thumbnails of gates and podiums blur past until I tap the one I already showed them—him on a sunlit mountaintop, race shorts low on his hips, sunburnt nose, abs carved like someone drew them on for TV.

Eva leans in so close her helmet bumps mine. “Oh my God,” she says. “Yes. That one. I fully support this obsession.”

Anna laughs, a softer sound. “You weren’t kidding,” she says. “He really does look like he was designed by a committee of ski coaches and horny sponsors.”

I flick to the next clip, grateful for any excuse to look at something else.

Gates flash past him, snow spitting off his edges, the caption a string of emojis and some sponsor tags.

It’s stupid, how familiar this looks to me.

I’ve watched this run more times than I’ve watched some of my own training videos.

“That’s from Alta Badia,” I say before I can stop myself. “First run. The second one went to shit, and he ended up eleventh, but the top section here is… insane, actually.”

“Yeah, he’s a great skier, we get it,” Anna smirks. “Show us some other topless guys in your feed.”

“So now he’s sad and failing and has to train here in disgrace?” Eva asks, far too cheerful about it.

“Not failing,” I say automatically. “Just… not winning everything. A couple of bad races, one DNF, one ninth place. Everyone’s acting like he forgot how to ski.”

Anna arches a brow. “You really do follow this like a soap opera.”

I shrug, watching the endless lines of perfect snow come into view below.

“It is a soap opera,” I say. “Just with more Lycra and fewer scripts.”

Eva grins. “Well. If we bump into your sad, hot Austrian in the hut, I’m taking credit.”

“You can’t even recognize him with goggles on,” I say.

She leans back, satisfied. “That’s why we bring a professional.”

I snort, but inside something tight unfurls. Lifts, snow, a whole day to burn my legs the way I like, and, as a ridiculous little bonus, the chance that somewhere on this mountain my favorite skier is chasing his next win.

For once, I’m exactly where I want to be.

***

By the time the sun clears the treeline, my legs are warm, and my brain is blissfully empty.

I let the skis run on a wide, rolling red, tipping from edge to edge, feeling the bite of the metal I sharpened myself. And I feel a flicker of pride—obviously, I didn’t screw up my edges.

The hill isn’t steep, not by race standards, but it’s wide and clean and almost empty; I carve big, lazy GS turns across it like I own every meter. Air whistles past my ears. My thighs burn in that precise, friendly way that says I’ve got more in me.

At the bottom, I skid to a stop by the lift, chest heaving, and look uphill.

Eva appears first, doing a cautious zigzag with more snowplow than turn. Anna follows a few meters behind, more controlled but still picking her way down like she’s reading small print on the slope. They both make it down upright, which I count as a win.

Eva slides to a stop next to me and pins the poles into the snow, leaning on them.

“You’re a menace,” she pants. “Who skis like that after partying last night?”

“Someone who spent three weeks dreaming about this,” I say, grinning.

Anna pulls in on my other side, cheeks flushed, hairline damp under her helmet. “At least wait until after coffee before you attempt murder,” she says. “I’d like to die caffeinated.”

On the chairlift back up, Eva leans her helmet against the backrest with a dramatic groan.

“I vote we abandon you here with the other crazies,” she says. “We’ll go find something civilized. Preferably with a nice, gentle blue and a bar at the bottom.”