Chapter Twenty
The Olympic Village breathed out a huge sigh of relief.
With the last of the downhill medals handed out and bibs hung up for another four years, the coiled tension of the past weeks unspooled into an energy of relaxation and fun.
The atmosphere shifted from a military-grade athletic compound to a university campus after finals.
The place was vibrating with last-day parties and the promise of celebration over preparation.
Isaline sensed a window of opportunity. It was a narrow, perfect gap between the finish line and the flight schedules, and she was not going to let it close without getting her and Blaire’s teams together.
She engineered a plan with the same focus she applied to a course inspection.
She had a quick word with Tess, who met her request of getting both families together with a slow grin that told Isaline she’d seen this coming for weeks.
Then she had a similar conversation with Jordy, who simply grunted her approval.
Tess helped her reserve a long table at a small restaurant in town—a wood-beamed alpine place with candles on the tables, windows facing the lit race hill, and a menu that wasn’t laminated.
She tasked Reto with managing their father, framing it as a necessary, diplomatic toast between the Swiss and American speed teams. Then, drawing on a bravery that felt entirely different from dropping into a downhill, she got Mr. and Mrs. Hollis’s contact from Blaire and extended the invitation herself, a simple “thank you” meal.
Now, she sat at the long table she’d claimed in the corner of that mountain restaurant.
She let her fingers trace the rim of a water glass while snow fell gently outside the window.
For a heartbeat, panic flared. She’d pulled trigger points from two different families—legends, coaches, parents who had sacrificed decades for this—and pushed them all into one small space.
What if it were too soon? What if her father’s composure froze over, or Blaire’s parents saw her as a distraction, or Blaire herself retreated behind that cool, public wall?
Then they arrived. Tess and Jordy came first, followed by Blaire with her parents in tow.
Don and Mary Hollis were exactly as Blaire had described them in stolen moments: quiet, observant, with a shared stillness that spoke of a lifetime spent in cold tuning rooms and at the edge of icy training lanes.
Moments later, Reto appeared, steering Matthias through the crowd.
The shuffling began—chairs scraping, elbows bumping, a murmur of hellos across languages and team jackets.
Isaline watched her grand, fragile experiment take shape.
Reto slid in next to Blaire’s father, and immediately they started talking about base grinds.
Matthias, with a look of stoic resignation, found himself seated across from Blaire.
The table was full and noisy. And, against all odds, it felt easy. Menus sat forgotten as the air filled with joyful conversation. There was a delicate balance between polite getting to know you and the first hint of two families coming together for both love and gold.
The moment the plates hit the table—heavy stoneware laden with seared meats and roasted vegetables that smelled of garlic and rosemary—the last of the fragile uncomfortableness broke.
Blaire’s parents were warm and unassuming.
Their pride in their daughter was a soft glow rather than a spotlight.
Don leaned past Blaire, his voice raspy from years of shouting over the wind on training hills, to ask Matthias about a downhill course from the eighties.
“I remember watching you on that Kitzbühel run,” he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Scared me just watching it on television.”
Matthias, a man who usually rationed his words like precious race wax, actually smiled. He leaned forward, gesturing with his fork. “The light was terrible that year. You couldn’t see the ruts until you were in them.”
Blaire moved closer, and her attention locked on Matthias with the same intensity she gave race prep. “Isaline told me you took a high line through the traverse that no one else was skiing.”
Blaire’s deep respect for Isaline’s dad was so genuine it caught Isaline off guard. This wasn’t Blaire, the untouchable legend, humoring a rival’s father. This was Blaire, the student of the sport, seeking insight from a master.
Reto saw the opening and pounced. He raised his glass in a mock toast. “Well, Papa, looks like your retirement is official. Isaline has a new expert to argue with about hundredths of a second.”
Laughter rolled around the table. Mary Hollis held her glass up in cheers. “Oh, we must get a picture of the three of you medal winners. What a group!”
“This would be a great Wheaties box photo,” Reto added, grinning at Blaire. “A real passing of the torch.”
“This would be a great group photo,” Blaire shot back, her gaze flicking to Isaline. “No one gets the cover of the Wheaties box alone.”
The look she gave Isaline was private and warm, a shared secret in the middle of the noise.
Across the table, Jordy and Reto launched into a noisy debate about who had aged more during that final downhill run, their hands gesturing wildly.
Isaline just kept watching Blaire, feeling the rightness of the night settle in her bones.
This could work. This potential relationship could actually exist in the light.
When the waitress returned to clear the last of the plates, she smiled and said, “The bill has been taken care of.”
Isaline’s head snapped toward Blaire, who was suddenly deeply invested in folding her napkin into a perfect square. Isaline simply shook her head as a slow, fond smile spread across her face. Blaire finally looked up, raising her hands in a gesture of pure innocence.
“Not sure what you’re talking about,” she mouthed.
Chairs scraped back on the wooden floor as they bundled into jackets and scarves.
They spilled out into the snowy street as a loud, laughing unit, still talking over each other.
The air was frigid, biting at any exposed skin, but the warmth from the restaurant followed them out.
In the distance, the Olympic flame pulsed against the dark sky, a steady heartbeat marking the end of one story and, Isaline hoped, the beginning of another.
~~
Later, back in her official team kit, Isaline stood in the sprawling, noisy staging area outside the stadium for the closing ceremonies.
Music with a bass line so deep it vibrated through the soles of her boots pulsed around them.
A controlled pandemonium of athletes laughed and shouted in a kaleidoscope of languages.
Faces were lit by the constant flash of phone cameras capturing the last moments of their shared experience.
Isaline adjusted the zipper of her jacket, her knuckles brushing the solid weight of the bronze medal tucked underneath.
A nervous energy, so different from the sharp focus of race day, fluttered in her stomach.
Ahead in the throng, she spotted the American delegation, a moving mass of red, white, and blue.
Blaire stood near the center of her group, no longer at the front of the pack, no longer the athlete setting the pace, just one of a hundred others soaking in a final walk.
She was another legend just a part of the crowd.
They couldn’t walk together, but it didn’t stop Isaline from tracking her between waving flags and proud shoulders.
As if she could feel the attention, Blaire glanced back.
Her gaze swept over the crowd until it landed on Isaline.
She lifted her chin, a private gesture that sliced through the roaring noise more clearly than any announcer’s voice.
It was both an acknowledgment and a promise.
When the signal came for Switzerland to move, the world exploded.
Isaline stepped through the stadium tunnel and into sound and light.
Fireworks cracked overhead, strobes swept across a sea of faces in the stands, and the roar of the crowd washed over her in a physical wave.
She fell into step with her teammates, linking arms with Reto for a moment, his grin wide and unreserved.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, a wild rhythm matching the drums. She was marching in the closing ceremony of her first Olympic Games as a medalist. Two nights ago, she had lain tangled in cheap sheets with the greatest American downhill skier of a generation and talked about a future that felt both impossible and inevitable.
The surreality of it all made her feel light-headed.
The finality of the ceremony settled in. This was the punctuation mark, the definitive end. The thought of walking away from this electrified bubble, away from Blaire, left a hollow space in her chest that no medal, no matter its color, could fill.
As the athletes funneled onto the infield, the parade broke apart.
The music shifted from a bombastic march to something softer, more nostalgic.
Amid the joyful chaos, Isaline found herself standing near a knot of American athletes.
They were close enough that the sleeves of their delegations’ jackets brushed.
For a stolen second, between a swelling anthem and an Olympic official’s speech, Blaire and Isaline shared a quick look.
It held the memory of a hotel room in St. Moritz, the sting of fourth place, the shared glory of the downhill podium, and the terrifying, thrilling question of what came next.
~~