(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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Eddie had taken the trail to the lodge dozens of times now. She'd climbed it on dirt, mud, and snow, in sunshine, rain, and howling wind. It had started to feel a little routine.
With Holly, there was nothing routine about it.
They had been ready and waiting when she pulled up to their house in the pre-dawn darkness, their bags on the porch and the door already locked. As a greeting, they'd leaned right in to press their lips to hers before pulling away, flustered.
"Sorry," they'd said. "Is that weird? Kissing you hello on our first date?"
"Is it weird that this's our first date even though we've been dating for months?"
Holly had let out a laugh that was half a snort. It was adorable. "Yeah. That's weird. All of this is weird. I mean- Being with you never feels weird. But how we got here-"
"Is gonna be a hell of a story to tell our kids?"
Their smile had split their face in two. "You think my dad is still standing by with the U-Haul?"
"Nah." She'd wiggled her eyebrows at them. "He knows I can handle it."
Light had seeped across the horizon as they'd put climbing skins on their skis. It was extra quiet without Billie Jean. When he'd heard their plans, Malcolm had offered to watch her. The dog would have loved to join them on their backcountry ski days, but avalanche risk wasn't zero and Billie couldn't spot dangerous snow. It was safer for everyone if she stayed behind. Even if Eddie felt a little guilty about it.
By the time they were well on their way, the sky between the treetops was almost more blue than grey. The clouds of their breath glittered. Eddie couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day or better company.
Under the trees, the trail was wide enough for them to ski side by side. At first, there were tracks in the snow, ski and snowshoe, but before long these turned aside or faded beneath fresher snowfall so that with every push their ski tips broke through smooth, unbroken whiteness.
Holly was an excellent guide to the woods. They had a keen eye for animal tracks and could spot the tiniest motions in the tree branches. The two of them progressed at a slower pace than Eddie did with Frank, pausing often to murmur over a sudden flutter of wings or the hurried prints of a rabbit through a tree well.
Billie would have been impatient, but Eddie didn't mind a bit. She wanted to hear Holly's thoughts on what sort of animal might have stripped the bark off those pines and whether a set of faded tracks were dog or wolf or maybe lynx. She loved the sound of their voice, so bright and warm in the cold.
"Oh!" They caught her arm. She followed the line of their hand to discover a roundish brown bird tucked into a hollow in the trunk of a lodgepole pine. "Owl," they whispered.
She fished her binoculars from the front of her coat and studied the bird through the lenses. Its eyes were shut, but if they were open, they would be huge and round. "I think it's a boreal owl."
