Page 15 of Love Worth Gold
More worried you’ll do something reckless and I’ll have to watch.
Underneath the banter, the message was clear that Blaire had watched the crash. Blaire had cared. Blaire was trying very hard to pretend she didn’t.
Isaline’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. She could let it drop. Keep it light. Protect them both from whatever this was turning into.
Instead, she typed:Then stop watching. Or admit you want me in one piece for reasons that have nothing to do with competition.
The dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. And then her response appeared.Get some sleep, Isa. Your body is going to need it for what lies ahead.
Isaline chuckled. Her ribs ached, and her heart was doing something complicated and dangerous in her chest. She set the phone down and closed her eyes.
Blaire hadn’t denied anything.
That felt like progress.
Chapter Seven
The tunnel pulsed with an electric roar that crawled up Blaire’s spine.
Blaire stood in a sea of white parkas trimmed with navy and red piping. The Team USA crest was embroidered over her heart in a metallic thread that caught the industrial lights overhead. The jacket was heavier than it looked, insulated against mountain cold and designed to photograph well under stadium lights. Around her neck hung her accreditation badge, the Olympic rings stamped in holographic foil that shifted colors when she moved.
Younger athletes bounced on their toes with their phones out despite staff warnings. They took selfies and videos, capturing every moment of the opening ceremony. Their energy buzzed through the crowd like static before a storm. Blaire stood still with her hands loose at her sides, letting the noise wash over her without sticking to her skin.
This is my last time.
The thought sat in her chest like an Olympic medal she’d swallowed whole. No more tunnels. No more flags. No more walking into a stadium as an athlete with her name on a start list and her country on her back.
She forced her gaze forward, tracking the movement of the delegation ahead. Music pounded through the speakers, muffled and enormous at once. Someone laughed too loudly. A coach barked instructions about staying tight in formation. Blaire absorbed it all, every detail, because soon this would only exist in memory.
The march began.
Stadium lights hit her face like a physical slap—brilliant, blinding, warm despite the cold air. Roars rolled down from the stands in waves. Cameras on cranes swooped overhead. Blaire kept her stride even and her expression composed, but inside she let herself have this: the absurd scale of it, the weight of the flag carried ahead of her, the knowledge that she had earned the right to be here four times and would never stand in this exact place again.
Across the field, other nations moved in their own rivers of color. She caught flashes of red jackets with white crosses, the Swiss delegation weaving through the choreography of nations. Isaline was somewhere in that cluster. Too far to see clearly, but close enough that Blaire’s body registered her presence like a tuning fork struck in the dark.
Her throat tightened. She swallowed it down.
The ceremony blurred into speeches and torches and music that made her ribs vibrate. She stood with her team, listened to words about unity and excellence, and tried to feel present instead of already gone. When the flame climbed the tower and the crowd erupted, she tipped her head back and let herself look at it without thinking about anything else—no splits, no wax temps, no medals, no retirement. Just fire against the night sky.
Enormous screens showed the teams marching into the arena. Fireworks cracked overhead with brilliant bursts of gold and silver, leaving smoke trails drifting through the cold. Blaire stood near the edge of the USA group, taking it all in.
She didn’t join in the loud conversations. She simply watched.
Across the way, near a cluster of Swiss jackets, Isaline stood with her face tipped toward the sky. The colored light from the fireworks caught her profile in flashes—red, then blue, thenwhite—and for one unguarded moment, Blaire let herself look without pretending she wasn’t.
Two different countries of origin. One sky. The same bursts of light reflected in both their eyes.
Someone from Team USA asked if she wanted to move closer to the screen. Blaire shook her head, murmured something about having a perfect view, and stayed exactly where she was.
The fireworks continued. The noise swelled and faded in rhythm. Blaire’s fingers tightened around the warm cup, and she made herself a promise: this goodbye would mean nothing if she didn’t deliver when the clock started. She would race like she always had—focused, controlled, untouchable.
As the crowd began to thin, she followed her teammates back toward housing. The Swiss building sat across the plaza with lights glowing in its windows. She didn’t look directly at it, but she knew exactly where it was.
This was Blaire’s last Olympics. And somehow, against every rule she’d built to survive the end, Isaline Senn had become part of what made it unbearable to let go.
~~
The dining hall line at 7 a.m. already ran long. Athletes from a dozen nations shuffled forward with trays and tired eyes after the late opening ceremony. Blaire stood near the coffee station, mentally reviewing her split times from her previous training run, when a familiar accent cut through the white noise of clinking plates.