(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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Uncle Frank insisted that they hike up to the lodge.
"There's no road access," he said, puffing his chest up. "It's hike-in in the summer and ski touring in the winter. A true backcountry experience."
"I thought you said the staff and supplies go up by helicopter," Eddie said.
"Sure, when the lodge was operating," Frank agreed. "But no sense paying for a charter when it's just you and me. If you're going to help me restore the Crystal Lake Lodge to its former glory, then you need to live the full experience."
Billie Jean would be thrilled to have the full experience. Eddie didn't mind.
There was no staff or supplies at the lodge now, so they packed camp stoves, dehydrated meals, and two weeks' worth of clean underwear in their backpacks. Or Eddie did. She couldn't say how many pairs of underwear Frank packed.
The sun had just begun to warm the horizon when they set off. Uncle Frank muttered they were burning daylight as they left his truck in a small dirt lot at the bottom of the Crystal Peaks ski resort, where the trailhead was marked by a sign with a map.
"We used to have a deal with the Peaks," he explained. "Our guests could park here, no charge. The resort offered to buy us out at one point, you know. Maybe should've taken that offer. Would've been a natural alliance."
Billie bounded up the trail, startling squirrels out of the brush and springing over roots before dashing back to check that her people were still coming. Eddie should have leashed her, for the wildlife's sake, but she couldn't stand to restrain so much joy. Instead, she kept her senses open and the bear spray in easy reach.
The trail wove through dense forest, the ground rising in great gulps underfoot. They hiked to the sounds of birdsong and the scrape of their boots over root and soil. Frank was her mom's brother, and that side of the family had a reputation for quiet. There were family legends about how great-uncle Arnaud once went six months without saying a full sentence to anyone.
Eddie could appreciate quiet. She wasn't a chatty person herself unless she had a few drinks in her. Like last night, with Holly.
Danica would have thoughts about last night. She would have given Eddie that look that said she was embarrassed by her. Are you really so desperate to be liked that you'd agree to be someone's fake girlfriend?
As she followed Frank up the mountain, she focused on the dull pain in her bad ankle and thought about Holly instead. About their hands, those long, graceful fingers that sparkled with rings and that tattoo she still needed to ask about. About the way they had looked at her when she spoke like what she said mattered.
It wouldn't be hard to act like she was into Holly, but Eddie wasn't the kind of girl who kept hoping when someone said no. After the café conversation, they'd moved to the Off Limits category, along with her brothers' friends, her butch junior high PE teacher, and every straight girl she'd ever been attracted to.
