(rivals to lovers, small town, sports) (Season 2 ongoing) 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 sport and instead finds herself...
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Summer went through her morning routine quietly: breakfast, brush teeth, meditate. A quick trip to the gym because she needed to burn off the ragged edges of her energy to have any hope of sitting still through the interview.
She put on a cute Adidas shirt under her team jacket, reminding herself that one of her bigger fears had never come to pass. Despite her year off, she hadn't lost a single sponsor.
In fact, since she had shared a few vague posts from Italy, some helmet-cam footage on the ski hill with the team and a shot of the sunrise, the requests had begun to trickle in. Brands were planning their Olympic ad spend, and Juniper was right. Everyone loved the injury comeback narrative even though Summer hadn't actually said a word about it yet.
Or competed in her first post-injury race, for that matter.
She did her breathing exercises and the anxiety ebbed again.
She was prepared. And, as her mother had said yesterday: unlike Ava, the sports media was on her side. They wanted to see her win again, too, if only because it made the better story.
Last, she dabbed on some makeup for the camera and parted her hair carefully down the middle. Then she asked her mother to tell her if there was anything she needed to know before the interview.
Jie had set a notification for Ava's name and had been keeping an eye on her phone for her since yesterday. This let Summer stay focused, mind clear, as few distractions as possible. The same way she approached a race, except that for a race the next step would be to amp herself up. For this, she needed calm, not aggression.
"You should expect specific questions about your prognosis," her mother said.
No more explanation than that, and Summer didn't ask for one. Specific meant Ava had spoken up. She didn't need to know the details. A tiny wave of relief swept over her when Jie didn't say that she should also expect questions about her relationship with Juniper.
"Your friends have sent their support. Holly and Carla say good luck. I didn't listen to the voice message from June."
Summer appreciated that. Juniper wasn't likely to have sent something sexy, but the other things she might say were almost more intimate. Her mother knew they were sleeping together, but that didn't explain why Summer let Juniper call her sweetheart and beautiful.
She took her phone out into the silent hallway and listened to Juniper's message.
How was it that a simple you can do this felt like a grand declaration of love? She was reading into things, projecting her feelings onto a gesture that any friend might make.
Maybe she had been foolish to think that she could get involved with Juniper without falling for her. But how could she have known? How could she have predicted that when Juniper tried, she could be caring and thoughtful? How could she have guessed how it would feel to be with someone who truly understood that skiing was her whole life and didn't try to take that away from her?
