(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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Even though work at the lodge had grown more complicated as autumn vanished behind them, Eddie was glad for the snow. Winter in Toronto had been different, shorter and greyer with cold that bit even though the snow never stayed. She'd missed the kind of snow that kept falling until it was deeper than her boots. She'd missed riding it.
There were ski hills out east, of course, and when she'd moved out there, she'd had plans to try all of them. But surgery had put her out of commission for her first Toronto winter, and Danica had said she liked Eddie waiting for her when she came home from road games, and then somehow she'd been there almost four years and she hadn't strapped on her snowboard even once.
She kept finding more reasons to think Danica had kinda done her a favour by having the affair.
Eddie had started counting down to the day the Crystal Peaks Resort opened, but Holly was even more impatient.
"Fall dragged on so long I was starting to worry we might not open before Christmas," they admitted. "We can only make so much snow."
They leaned against the door frame, arms crossed, watching Eddie inspect the wiggly bench in their backyard sauna. It was a nice sauna, all cedar. Eddie could imagine how delicious it would smell when the heat was on.
"Looks like you'll be open well before then," she said, nodding out the door behind them, where the snow in their yard was two feet deeper than the last time she'd seen it.
"Yeah, thank god. We needed some luck. Nothing else seems to be going our way."
Holly hadn't told Eddie much about what had them worried at work, but she could see the stress on them, the tightness around their eyes. She wished she could do more to help, but Holly had asked her to come look at the sauna, and that felt like a start.
"You know where I can get some cedar in town, or should I ask Frank?"
"Tell me what you need," Holly said. "I'll have it here for you next week."
"I could pick it up myself and do the repair tomorrow."
Holly pulled the sauna door shut behind them and led the way back across the yard. "Tomorrow we're snowshoeing with Carla and her new girlfriend."
Eddie raised her brows. "Double date?"
"It wasn't my idea," Holly said with a laugh. "Is that okay? I should've asked you before I said yes, sorry."
"Let me check my social calendar. I might have other obligations," Eddie teased.
"Okay, sure, but maybe you want a day to yourself. Or maybe it's a bad activity for your ankle."
"Holly, if I didn't like spending time with you, I would've let you tell everyone we broke up."
Their lips curved.
She'd given up pretending she wasn't flirting with them, and they'd stopped laughing like it was a joke when she did. That felt like progress, too. Holly might not be ready to move on from their ex, but if their version of Eddie's list included convenience, then she wanted them to know she was convenient because she wanted to be.
