(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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Holly sniffled and dragged their sleeve against their nose, then grimaced and picked uselessly at the wet patch they'd left on the cuff. "Shit. Sorry. I'm disgusting."
"You're fine." Carla, who had lent them the sweatshirt because she'd spilt her whole beer down their coral-pink button-up in her shock, waved this off. "I'll wash it tomorrow."
She held out the takeout bag for Holly to drop in the empty french fry box, then crumpled the whole thing and tossed it in the trash can under her tiny, cluttered makeup table. Her silky pyjamas were folded on the stool, and she began to wriggle out of her tights and miniskirt.
Holly flopped onto their back to stare at the fairy lights strung across Carla's bedroom ceiling and wondered how far back they'd have to rewind today for it not to have ended in disaster. Before they'd kissed Eddie, for sure. The feel of her mouth was seared into their memory, softer and more eager than anything their imagination had conjured.
Eddie was long gone. She'd been halfway to the door by the time Holly had processed the horror of Carla overhearing their- fight? Breakup? They didn't know what to call it. They'd panicked. Nothing had come out the way it was supposed to.
And now Eddie was gone.
She hadn't looked back. She hadn't texted, not even to say she'd got home safe. Holly checked again, just in case. Nothing.
Plopping cross-legged on the mattress beside them, Carla snagged their phone out of their hand. "She was crying when she left, honey. She's not texting you tonight. And if she is, it's nothing good."
"She was crying?"
Holly couldn't think of a single thing worse in the world than being the person who made Eddie cry. They were as bad as Danica.
"I ruined her birthday. I'm such an asshole," they said miserably.
"Seems like it." Carla grabbed one of the thousand pillows scattered around and hugged it to her chest. "I'm still trying to figure out how the fuck dependable, has-all-their-shit-together Holly ended up more chaotic than me and June put together. And why."
Holly wasn't used to baring their soul to Carla. Not that they hadn't told her plenty of their secrets over the years. They definitely had. But it wasn't usually just the two of them. Usually Juniper was there, too. Usually Holly was the third wheel, listening to all of Carla and Juniper's drama before they even considered sharing their own problems.
But after witnessing Holly's nuclear implosion, Carla had refused to let them leave without an explanation. They'd told the story in pieces on the walk to her house and while they'd shared enough takeout fried chicken for a family of four.
The shape of it seemed so silly when they said it out loud: Holly's lie, Malcolm spilling the beans, Eddie agreeing to go along with it. The delayed breakup that had turned what should've been a quick, friendly arrangement into, well, something that could make Eddie cry.
