“Hire him a trainer!” another girl supplies.

“Feed him steroids!” The suggestions get more and more outlandish.

It’s a novel feeling, fitting in with a group of girls like this. Meet-ups with my female friends back home are painful. All they want to talk about is fashion and celebrities. I’m more at home around the bawdy jokes of my brother’s rugby mates.

More vodkas arrive. How many is that now? I’ve lost count. I rarely drink—too busy working or training or both—and never before a comp, but the other girls are still going, and a couple of them are even drinking beers as well, so I knock it back and slam the glass down.

The German girls are talking about us, which I think is exactly what Saskia intends. It’s a statement: we’re hard enough to drink tonight and beat you tomorrow. Which may be the case if you’re Odette Gaulin, but not so much if you’re me. Yet I don’t want to let the group down.

Curtis comes up and says something in Saskia’s ear. I can’t hear over the music, but I think he’s telling her not to drink any more. She waves her hand—she isn’t having any of it—and Curtis returns to his table scowling.

“God, he’s annoying,” she says.

“My brother’s super annoying, too,” I say. “How much older than you is he?”

“Two years.”

“Same as me and my brother.”

“I have two big brothers,” Odette tells us.

“Poor you,” Saskia says, and we laugh.

“Do they snowboard?” I ask.

“No, they are ski racers,” Odette says. “Me, I used to race, too. I changed to snowboard when I was fourteen.”

“Are they here in Le Rocher?” I say.

“No, they stay in Tignes this winter. Have you been there?”

That starts up a whole conversation about where we’ve ridden.

The next time Saskia heads to the bar, I see her and Curtis having a heated argument. Jake wouldn’t dare tell me what to do. He worked that out years back.

Saskia returns with more drinks. As we down them, the band launches into a cover of a Killers track, “Somebody Told Me.”

Saskia jumps up. “I love this song.”

The rest of us follow her to the dance floor, and suddenly the whole bar is up and dancing, bodies knocking together in the small space. I’m quite wobbly. Haven’t been this drunk in years. I’ll have to drink a load of water before I go to bed.

Feeling dizzy, I head to the toilets. On my way back to our table I stumble and a hand grips my upper arm. Curtis.

I curse inwardly. My legs felt shaky enough already and my voice comes out shaky, too. “Thanks.”

His eyes seem to sparkle. “Like I said earlier, you can fall on me anytime.”