(rivals to lovers, small town, sports) [WATTYS 2024 SHORTLIST] (Season 3 coming soon) After a devastating Olympic loss puts her career in a downward spiral, an aging skier returns to her laid-back mountain hometown to rediscover her love of her spor...
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Juniper leaned on her poles at the top of the course as she watched Summer tackle it for the last time today. Summer was tired, and it showed. She took one turn a little too high, the next too low, a third wide. Instead of looking effortless, Juniper could see exactly how hard she was working.
It was a good run, but it wasn't Summer at peak performance. As she slid to a stop at the bottom, she slammed her poles into the snow in visible frustration. It was obvious that she wasn't happy with the speed of her progress since she'd got back on the snow. But what could she do? She was limited by her body, by the endurance she'd lost in her months off her skis, by the risk of re-injury.
Unlike Juniper, who was limited only by her own mind.
She rolled her shoulders, feeling no hint of complaint for the first time in weeks, and moved up to the starting gate. She'd skied this course so many times over the last week that she knew it in her sleep, but she closed her eyes anyway and blew out a long, slow breath as she visualized the first three turns. No bitter twist of nerves interrupted. The breathing practice she'd developed through meditation helped with that, at least. She hoped that benefit would stick around once she was racing again.
She opened her eyes and faced down the course. Icy snow glinted in the afternoon sun. The gates still waved gently from Summer's passage, and she found herself thinking about that impromptu head-to-head race they'd had in the storm. The way Summer had looked over her shoulder with an expression that said, Can you keep up?
Something tightened in her belly. Not nerves, not jealousy. A good feeling. A fierce desire to answer that challenge. I would like to lose to you. Juniper still didn't really believe she could make that happen but fuck if she didn't want to try.
She wanted to be the kind of woman who might deserve a woman like Summer. Even if she could never have her for real.
She settled her poles forward, leaned until her shins pressed into her boots, and held that feeling close. And then she chased Summer's echo down the course.
She hit the first turn exactly where she wanted to, then the second. One gate after the other, no sound in her ears but her skis across the snow, no feeling but her edges gripping and her lungs burning with the cold. Shift weight. Block. Again.
It was almost flow. So close she could fool herself.
In the middle section, the course flattened a bit and she fought to keep her speed. The snow had softened in the sun, more friction than on her last run. At the last set of closely spaced gates before the pitch steepened, she turned too high. Her tips caught. Her weight shifted, off-balance. Her skis began to skid across the ice.
Panic spiked between her ribs. If, after everything, she fell here, in training, not even on purpose-
Trust yourself.
She sucked in icy air. Leaned into her edges. Corrected. Hit the next gate a little too low but back on the line.
She'd lost a few hundredths of a second to that wobble, but the last section was long enough to make up the time if she took it aggressively. If she really wanted to do this. If she wanted to give Summer the challenge she craved.
