(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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Eddie was working on the small rink, the one where the littlest kids would toddle around on their skates without fear of getting bodychecked by an oblivious hockey player. A long crack had opened across the ice, just wide enough for a skate blade to slip inside. She'd gathered snow in the crevice, and now adjusted the gentle spray of the hose to wet it. The goal was to turn the snow into ice, filling the crack like caulking. Smooth ice, no falls.
On a normal day, there would be at least one rink dad hovering. Sometimes two. They all had advice. Not because they didn't trust Eddie. She had earned their trust by now. They just loved giving advice. Everyone had a different method for smoothing a wrinkled ice surface, and there was nothing they liked more than arguing about who did it best.
Today there was no advice. Shovels had stopped scraping. Whispers floated through the cold air. It was odd enough that Eddie looked up.
Memory was a funny thing. She'd spent so many years with Danica, and yet when their eyes met across the snowy field, Eddie almost didn't recognize her.
Maybe it was the new hairstyle. Dani had always been a ponytail girl. Maybe it was just that Eddie had never expected to see her here, in this town where she had put herself back together after Dani had taken her apart.
Then someone said, "Is that Dani Myers?" and whatever part of Eddie's brain had failed to connect sort of crinkled together.
Dani strode past the staring rink dads and onto the ice. She looked Eddie up and down and wrinkled her nose.
"Where is she?" she asked, as though picking up a conversation they'd just set down.
"Huh?"
"My dog. Billie Jean."
Eddie felt dazed. Like she'd missed her landing and taken a hard fall on the helmet. None of this made sense.
It had been easy to have all that fire when she was talking to sympathetic Nat. But with Dani in front of her, her jaw seemed wired shut.
Dani leaned in, her eyes flashing. "God, Kennedy, even you're not this stupid. I know Nat told you I want her back. She said you refused to put her on a plane. Well, you don't have to put her on a plane, 'cause I'm here to get her. So where is she?"
Eddie's hands had gone slack on the hose. Water puddled under her boots.
This was insane. Dani had flown to the wrong side of the country and driven all the way out here to steal the dog back?
She'd lost her mind. Thank goodness Billie was back in Frank's yard, not here where Dani could snatch her.
Eddie shook her head.
The fury was subtle. A twist of Dani's lips. A twitch of her eyelashes that used to mean Eddie would hear words later.
This time Eddie felt the ember of her own anger flare to life in response.
