Chapter 1
CHAPTER
ONE
Kirby smacked a carefree smile on her face and barreled into the fancy Oberhof restaurant. She was an hour late. She had on day-old mascara. And the natural deodorant she’d been gifted to film an Instagram ad wasn’t quite cutting it.
But making an entrance depended on confidence, and there was no way she was ever going to let anyone on the women’s US Cross-Country Ski Team see her sweat.
Smell her sweat? Maybe. See her sweat? Absolutely not.
Being late put her on the back foot. She had hoped to get the chance to settle in, to readjust. They had seven days of training and media in Oberhof, Germany before heading off to Italy for the Olympics.
She was supposed to arrive the day before but had been held up in LA filming a reunion episode for a dating show.
It took her a few days to transform from Kirby Bonham the reality-TV star to KB the athlete.
It was mental whiplash, but at least it was whiplash of her own making.
Even if it was hard, even if it put her on lots of people’s shit lists, Kirby was the architect of her own life, and she would do whatever was required to protect that.
So she walked into the private room of the restaurant like she owned it.
She’d learned long ago that the only way to survive in the cross-country skiing world was to make herself so big and in your face that no one could deny her.
She deserved a seat at the table, whether the table was a real one or metaphorical.
The room had moody lighting, and everyone was dressed like a fashion plate. She was greeted with cheers and a silly chant of “KB, KB, KB!”
“Ah, guys.” It nearly choked her up.
Almost.
Kirby was a good time. Everyone said so. A good hang. Good TV.
She wouldn’t have been able to heel-turn from skiing to reality TV and back again and again otherwise. But it was nice to be reminded that her teammates were normally happy to see her.
Most of them.
Ninety-nine percent at least.
She gave a round of hugs, even though it had only been days since she’d seen everyone at the recent World Cup event. She started with her primary coach, Coach Wu, who was wearing what Kirby could only describe as formal athleisure. Coach Wu squeezed her hard.
“How was LA?” Coach Wu asked.
It had sucked to hop from the World Cup in Europe to LA for filming and back to Europe for training and the Olympics over a handful of days, but it was what she’d signed up for when she’d agreed to film the dating show over the summer.
She’d known the reunion would film right before the Olympics.
She’d figured the jet lag would be worth it.
But filming the reunion had run late, and she had missed her flight, putting her a whole day behind everyone else.
“Fine, just more drama than I expected.”
“That’s good, right?” Coach Wu had always been supportive of Kirby’s extracurriculars, even as others gave her side-eye about it.
Kirby laughed. “Very good, yes. You get it.”
Not every skier was able to make a career out of cross-country skiing for their whole lives. Not every former Olympian became coach of the Olympic team. Or a primetime commentator. Or director of a Nordic ski association.
Kirby wasn’t quite palatable enough for that shit. So she had to legacy plan in other, more creative ways.
Brandilyn Rogers and Jordan Siwa were next for hugs.
They were two peas in a pod who were so fucking young and looked up to the veterans in a way that was almost uncomfortable.
It was their first Olympics. Kirby was envious of their bright-eyed excitement.
Everything was new and cool and special to them.
Even a boring team dinner to celebrate the most stressful few weeks of their lives.
There were more hugs and jokes and rowdy hellos around the table to teammates, physios, technicians, and staff members.
Most of the coaches were bunched up at the end of the table, including the head coach, Coach Redman, who barely glanced up from scribbling in his ever-present notebook to wave.
He was the busiest person she had ever met.
Kirby was almost all the way around the table when she spotted her.
Mara May.
Her wavy, dark hair was in a high ponytail, falling halfway down her back—a back that seemed turned toward Kirby in a very deliberate way—and she had on a tight, long-sleeved periwinkle dress that somehow showed nothing and also everything.
Like those pointy-ass shoulder blades.
Ridiculous.
“Hello, Mara,” Kirby said, loud enough that Mara would never be able to ignore her.
Mara turned slowly. Kirby opened her arms for a hug, which forced Mara to stand up and give her one. If Mara was anything, it was too image conscious to make a scene. She’d done that once, and it hadn’t turned out well for her.
“Fancy finding you here, socializing with the peasants,” Kirby said in her ear, lips brushing the soft hair that had escaped the severe ponytail.
It was unusual for Mara to attend team-building shit. She had always chosen to hold herself apart from the team.
Mara patted Kirby’s back lightly twice and pulled away, all sharp angles.
“I’m not the one too busy in Hollywood to show up for training, Bonham,” Mara said so quietly Kirby was sure no one else could hear.
A zip of excitement raced through Kirby. As much as she hated to admit it, she loved when Mara deigned to acknowledge her. It usually only happened on the podium.
“But I was doing something really important, you see,” Kirby said, purposefully pitching her voice at a normal volume. “My ex and I had to have a public spat for money.”
“How nice for you. Love is so important,” Mara said, deadpan.
“You think?” As far as Kirby knew, Mara didn’t do relationships. Mara didn’t date other skiers at least. Because that rumor mill would have been milling.
The glare Mara gave her could have iced over a hot tub. They had known each other for practically half their lives, floating through the same orbit but never friends. Mara was one step above everyone else, but especially Kirby. Better mannered, more disciplined, more conventional.
Mara had acted like Kirby didn’t exist until four years ago.
Now she would never forget.
“Where am I sitting?” Kirby asked the table, letting Mara’s dirty look have the last word.
Mara turned away from her and back to the conversation she had been having with one of the only other Olympic veterans on the team, Lindsey McGrath.
Lindsey blew Kirby a kiss. It would be Lindsey’s second Olympic Games.
She was a steady presence on the team. Unflappable.
Anti-drama. Legitimately nice. She showed up, did her job, enjoyed her time, and stayed out of the spotlight.
Kirby was sure Lindsey and Mara were talking about skiing rather than something interesting, so she wasn’t jealous or upset at being forced to move to the empty chair on the other side of the table beside Jordan.
Kirby chatted with Jordan, who she was rooming with in Oberhof, answering Jordan’s questions about the Opening Ceremony, Olympic Village, and the crowds in Beijing and Pyeongchang. It would be Kirby’s third Olympics, and she wished it felt like old hat.
But it didn’t. It never stopped being overwhelming, stressful, and life-changing.
“What are you most excited about?” Kirby asked Jordan, which sent her on a chatty, adorable monologue.
Kirby listened with half an ear, her gaze straying to Mara because she couldn’t help it.
They were around each other all the time but never in social settings.
Mara was smiling so kindly at Lindsey. So different than the way she looked at Kirby.
When she lowered herself enough to bother to look at Kirby.
“I know I won’t medal, but I can’t wait—”
“Hold up,” Kirby said, interrupting Jordan. “Why do you think you won’t medal?”
“Well…” Jordan kind of flailed her hands around. “We more or less know who is going to challenge in each race.”
“No.” Kirby stopped her again. “You don’t. The relay team won a silver medal in the last Olympics, and absolutely no one believed in us before that race started. You never know who might race the best race of their life.”
She didn’t even mention her gold in the thirty kilometer. She was just as proud, if not prouder, of the relay silver.
Kirby glanced across the table. Mara was stock still, like she’d been frozen by a spell. Lindsey spoke, and Mara seemed to snap out of it to nod, but her posture was sharper than it had been before.
Mara had on little heart earrings that were the exact same color as her dress. Her aesthetic was… something else. So cutesy and playful for someone who was cold as ice. The perfect cover. The perfect mask for the princess of cross-country skiing.
She looked approachable but wasn’t. Looked sweet but wasn’t. And she was likely going to win one, if not two or more, gold medals in a few weeks’ time.
Kirby needed to listen to her own pep talk, but it was hard not to feel like the writing was on the wall.
She’d had a tough season so far, barely squeaking out some of the Olympic starting spots on her best events.
And last season hadn’t been much better.
Setback after setback. Distraction after distraction.
Training disrupted by filming. Focus disrupted by fame. She loved it and hated it.
But once the Olympics were over, what would happen to Kirby? Would she be a washed-up skier with zero outside skills? A C-list celebrity? Or something else entirely?
Kirby turned back to Jordan, but her vision was suddenly doing that thing. The wavy-around-the-edges thing.
Her heartbeat thumped double time, a loud clamber in her chest.
Not again.
She didn’t want to have a panic attack. Not again. Not for the second time in less than a week.
They were so inconvenient. And disorienting. They came on fast—racing heart, nausea, sweat, tingling—only to crest and dissipate as if nothing had happened.
It had been over a year since she’d had one. Maybe closer to two years. So it sucked to be staring down the barrel of two within seven days. Right before the Olympics.
She lifted her drink to her lips, but her hand was shaking so much the ice rattled. She quickly placed the glass back on the table.
Jordan chattered away, and Kirby nodded along.
She needed to get a grip. She did some box breathing, trying to smile through her episode.
Then star breathing. Then 4-7-8 breathing.
Then she started to worry she was doing way too much breathing as her hands began to ache and cramp, symptoms the handy-dandy Internet had told her were due to a drop in carbon dioxide levels in her blood.
“I’ll be right back,” Kirby said and stood to go to the bathroom. She didn’t want anyone to know what was going on, but it felt like she was a walking neon sign of wrongness. The attack would end soon. She just had to get through it.
The bathroom didn’t have an attendant, thank God, but it did have one of those fancy seating areas. Her feet were heavy like she was postholing through deep, wet snow. She lowered herself onto a cushion, even though she hated the idea of sitting on a bathroom sofa.
It was a momentary bodily reaction. A spike of something in her brain chemistry. Something she couldn’t control.
She told herself that again and again. Just a momentary bodily reaction. It is okay to feel out of control.
The first time this had happened, when she was fifteen, had been the same. Sudden, unexpected, and ill-timed.
It is okay to feel out of control.
She was fine. Everything was fine.
The bathroom door opened, so Kirby pretended to be very interested in her phone. She had texts from her best friend, Apollo, arranging breakfast with her the next day and opening the door for a booty call that night.
She tried to focus on that. To take her body’s temperature. To trick it into wanting to fuck rather than going haywire in a restaurant bathroom.
A pair of adorable, pastel purple tennis shoes wavered through her peripheral vision and she almost groaned.
She didn’t have to look up. It was perfectly acceptable to just ignore—
Who was she kidding? Mara May was hard to ignore.
Mara’s steps stuttered as she met Kirby’s eyes. Kirby’s jaw hurt.
“Are you okay, Bonham?” Mara asked, unsmiling and serious as always.
“Yeah. Are you?” Kirby’s voice was needlessly snappy, but she didn’t have control over herself at all.
Mara’s head tipped to the side, and she scowled. “I’m not the one hiding in the bathroom.”
“I’m not hiding,” Kirby said, but Mara had already moved from the seating area to the sinks. She stopped at a mirror to fix her flawless hair and put on shiny pink lipgloss.
Kirby stood up abruptly. The world shimmered around her, but she ignored it. There was nothing to hide.