(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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Holly's house smelled warm and sweet when they waved Eddie in through the door, looking distracted.
"I've got cookies about to come out of the oven," they said. "I'm hosting my knitting circle tomorrow, and I meant to start baking earlier but time got away from me, and- Anyway. The guest room is first door on the right upstairs, if you don't mind finding it yourself?"
"Sure."
"I'll be in the kitchen." Holly gestured through an archway.
Shedding her denim jacket, Eddie surveyed the high-ceilinged foyer and the curving stairs. These she took two at a time. She'd come back from the lodge stiff and sore, but after a night in a real bed, a physio appointment, and a session of acupuncture, she felt good, pain shrunk too small to notice.
The guest room didn't match the homey cabin feel downstairs. The walls were a shade of grey that could be blue if she squinted, and the white sheets were folded back as crisp as a hotel bed. She dropped her backpack by the window and took in the excellent view of the Crystal Peaks, slopes starting to yellow with autumn.
When Eddie had got off the mountain yesterday, she'd turned on her phone to six texts from Holly about logistics for today, including the apologetic request that she spend the night after the drag show. I have a nice guest room! they'd said, embarrassment and desperation in that exclamation mark.
She'd spent two weeks in a tent with Uncle Frank and Billie Jean. They were all glad to have a night apart.
The delicious baking smells led her to the kitchen. Holly glanced up and did a double take, a cookie forgotten halfway to the cooling rack.
Eddie had wanted to feel pretty tonight. She'd done her makeup and her strappy tank top bared a lot of skin. But Holly's look was casual, a black t-shirt printed with tiny white lightning bolts, sleeves folded up above their biceps.
"Too much?" Eddie asked. "I can throw on a flannel."
Holly slid the forgotten cookie onto the rack. "No, you look great. I just didn't realize you were hiding so many tattoos."
Amusement curled the corner of her mouth. "If we were dating for real, I'd offer to show you the rest."
"Only if we were dating?"
"Some of them are kinda inappropriate."
"Oh, I follow a bad tattoo account. I've seen things."
"I'm not cool enough to have a tragic tattoo. The tattoos are wholesome. Where they are, though... Not so much."
It was too easy to talk to them. She rubbed a palm over the flock of birds on her shoulder, but Holly let the maybe-flirting pass with a laugh.
"Okay, fair. I won't ask to see them, then." Their eyes dropped to the cookie sheet. "Thanks for agreeing to stay over. I'm probably just paranoid, but people were asking questions about you, and I may have kinda let them believe that we'd been having too much sex to talk about, you know, much of anything, so if we want to keep up the ruse-"
