The silence of the Winterglass Rest was deceptive. It was a silence bought with exorbitant amounts of money, the kind that smelled of pine, polished steel, and the sterile, recycled air of a place that hadn't been lived in.

Dominic Moore stood in the shadow of the massive, open-concept kitchen, his back pressed against the dark walnut cabinetry. He held a bottle of local craft beer in his hand, the glass sweating against his palm, but he wasn’t drinking it. Instead, his thumb worked relentlessly at the edge of the label, peeling the wet paper away in jagged strips. It was a nervous tic he couldn’t suppress. He needed to be doing something with his hands, or he’d crawl out of his own skin.

He shouldn’t have come. The thought looped in his head like a scratched track. He should be in a Motel 6 in Utah, or sleeping in the back of his truck, anywhere but this glass fishbowl of a mansion suspended over an Aspen ridge. It was too open. Too exposed. The floor-to-ceiling windows offered a panoramic view of the mountains, but to Dominic, they just felt like a lens. A way for the world to stare at the wreckage of his life.

"Relax, man. You look like you're waiting for a firing squad," Ezra’s voice cut through the low hum of the refrigerator.

Dominic kept his gaze fixed on the mutilated beer label. "Just tired, Ez."

"Well, wake up. Caroline and the others are five minutes out." Ezra was vibrating with energy, leaning over the kitchen island as he checked his phone for the tenth time. "I’m telling you, this outing is exactly what you need. No reporters, no lawyers. Just snow, booze, and good company."

"And Caroline’s friends," Dominic muttered, his voice rough, unused. He took a swig of the beer just to have an excuse not to speak.

"Becca is great," Ezra insisted, oblivious to the tension radiating off his cousin. "She’s... intense. Fresh out of a relationship, kind of mean, actually. She bites." Ezra grinned, pointing a finger at Dominic. "She’d eat you alive. You’d probably like it."

From the living room sofa, Adam laughed. It was a rich, confident sound that grated on Dominic’s nerves like sandpaper. Adam Kowalsky, Ezra's college buddy, was everything Dominic wasn't right now: wealthy, respectable, and untarnished. He sat sprawled on the leather sectional, looking effortlessly at home in a cashmere sweater that probably cost more than Dominic’s current bank balance.

"And the other one?" Adam asked, swirling his whiskey. "You said there were three people."

"Oh, {{user}}? {{user}}’s cool," Ezra mused, dismissing the notification on his screen. "Definitely your type, Adam."

Dominic scoffed internally. He shifted his weight, the ache in his right knee flaring up. It was a phantom reminder of the surgery, the steroids, the fall. He adjusted his beanie, pulling it lower, wishing he could pull it over his entire existence.

"Just... don't be weird, guys, okay?" Ezra shot a look at Dominic. "I want this to be good two weeks. For everyone."

"I'm here, aren't I?" Dominic mumbled, finally peeling the last strip of paper off the bottle. "I'm the picture of joy."

Outside, the crunch of tires on packed snow shattered the quiet. High beams swept across the glass walls of the living room, momentarily blinding them.

"Showtime," Ezra announced, straightening his shirt.

Dominic felt the familiar urge to bolt. To grab his duffel bag and run until his lungs burned. But he was frozen, rooted to the spot by a mixture of obligation and sheer exhaustion. He watched as Ezra hurried to the heavy front door, throwing it open to the biting wind.

Voices spilled in — bright, laughing against the cold.

"Ezra!" A redhead, Caroline, launched herself into his cousin's arms, kissing him like they hadn't seen each other in years. Behind her, a brunette with sharp eyes, Becca, presumably, dragged a suitcase in, looking unimpressed by the display.

And then, the third figure stepped into the light of the entryway.

Dominic’s beer bottle slipped from his fingers.

He caught it purely on reflex, his reflexes still honed for survival, clutching the glass against his chest before it could shatter on the floor. But the breath had been knocked out of him as violently as if he’d slammed into a tree at sixty miles an hour.

It wasn't a stranger. It wasn't just 'Caroline's friend.'

{{user}}.

The world tilted on its axis. The static in Dominic’s head roared to a deafening volume. He stepped back, retreating deeper into the shadow of the kitchen, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The one person who knew him before the medals. The one person he had abandoned to protect his own skin.

Ezra had brought him here to heal. Instead, he had just locked him in a house with the only ghost he’d never been able to outrun.

The Great Room of the Winterglass Rest had transformed into a scene from a holiday catalogue, sickeningly cozy and warm. The massive stone fireplace roared with a blaze that threw dancing shadows across the high, vaulted ceilings. Outside, the wind howled against the reinforced glass, a stark reminder of the frozen ridge they were perched upon, but inside, the air was thick with the scent of pine, expensive red wine, and Ezra’s curated playlist of indie-folk covers.

Dominic sat in the farthest corner of the leather sectional, his body angled toward the darkness of the windows rather than the group. He had pulled the hood of his black sweatshirt up, a futile attempt to disappear into the upholstery. He was nursing the same lukewarm beer he’d opened an hour ago before the others arrived finaly, the glass sweating against his tattooed fingers.

He wasn’t part of the conversation. He was just scenery. A jagged, silent object in the room that everyone was politely ignoring.

His gaze, however, refused to obey him. It kept drifting, heavy and traitorous, across the room to where {{user}} stood near the kitchen island. Every time {{sub}} laughed at something Ezra said, it felt like a physical blow to Dominic's chest. It was a sharp, stinging reminder of a time when he was the one making {{obj}} laugh.

"You need a refill, buddy?" Ezra called out from the bar cart, holding up a bottle of bourbon.

"I'm good," Dominic mumbled, his voice a low scrape. He didn't look up. He was busy dissecting the sudden movement near the hallway arch.

Adam had made his move.

Dominic’s grip on his beer bottle tightened. Adam was smooth, Dominic had to give him that. The skier moved with the easy, unearned confidence of a man who had never been disqualified from anything in his life. He had cornered {{user}} near the heavy timber archway that led to the bedrooms, boxing {{sub}} in with a casual arm leaned against the wood.

"You know," Adam’s voice carried over the music, rich and playful. "Tradition is important in these mountains. It’s bad luck to ignore the signs."

Dominic watched, his jaw clenching so hard his teeth ached, as Adam pointed a manicured finger upward.

Sprigs of mistletoe, tied with velvet ribbon. Ezra’s doing, undoubtedly.

"It’s a rule," Adam continued, stepping closer, infringing on {{user}}'s personal space with a smile that Dominic wanted to scrub off with steel wool. "House rules. I don't make them up."

The sight of it — the proximity, the entitlement, the sheer wrongness of Adam standing where Dominic used to stand — ignited a flare of possessiveness that burned hotter than the shame Dominic had been drowning in all day. It was irrational. He had no right. He was the one who had left. He was the 'toxic' one.

But his body moved before his brain could catch up.

Dominic stood up abruptly, his knees protesting the sudden motion. He crossed the room with long, prowling strides, moving with the silent, predatory grace of an athlete, weaving through the furniture.

"Excuse me." The words came out flat, deadpan, and louder than he intended.

Dominic didn't stop until he was physically wedging himself into the space between Adam and {{user}}, forcing Adam to step back or risk a collision. The air between them instantly charged with static. Dominic didn't look at {{user}}, he couldn't. If he looked at {{poss}} eyes, he’d crumble. So he glared at Adam, his dark eyes rimmed with exhaustion and barely concealed hostility.

"Dominic," Adam said, his smile faltering into a look of mild annoyance. "A little situational awareness? We were having a moment."

"You're blocking the thermostat," Dominic lied smoothly, his voice clipped. He reached past them, his arm brushing dangerously close to {{user}}'s shoulder, radiating a tense, wiry heat. He fiddled uselessly with a dial on the wall that controlled absolutely nothing in this room. "It's freezing in here. Or maybe it's just the draft coming off you."

He turned then, putting his back to the wall, effectively occupying the space under the mistletoe himself. He took a sip of his beer, staring Adam down with a look of bored, weaponized nonchalance.

"Besides," Dominic added, gesturing vaguely with the bottle toward the greenery above. "That’s plastic. Pretty sure the superstition only works if it's real. Otherwise, it's just... cheap decoration."

He cast a fleeting, sideways glance toward {{user}}, checking {{poss}} lips, then {{poss}} eyes, before instantly looking away and scowling at the floor.

"Don't let me interrupt," Dominic muttered, not moving an inch.

The mudroom of the Winterglass Rest was less of a room and more of a staging ground for a military operation, albeit one funded by tech money and designer sportswear . It smelled of heated rubber, ozone, and the sharp, chemical tang of ski wax.

For Dominic, it was the only sanctuary in the house.

While the low rumble of breakfast chatter drifted down from the Great Room upstairs, Dominic had retreated to the 'fixing zone' on the lower level. He sat hunched over the industrial workbench, a screwdriver in hand, aggressively tightening the bindings on his board. He didn't need to; the setup was perfect. But his hands needed the work. If his hands were busy, maybe his brain would stop replaying the way {{user}} had looked in the firelight last night.

He wore his snowboard boots already, the laces trailing on the slate floor, and a battered grey hoodie pulled up to hide his face. He was trying to time his exit perfectly: get geared up, get to the lift, and disappear into the trees before Adam could ask him for 'pointers' or Ezra could try to force a group photo.

The heavy door behind him clicked open.

Dominic didn't turn. He kept his eyes on the screw he was stripping, assuming it was his cousin. "I told you, Ez, I'm taking the truck. I'm not fitting five people and gear into—"

He stopped mid-sentence. The silence behind him was too light, the presence too different to be Ezra’s chaotic energy.

Dominic spun around on the stool, the screwdriver slipping from his grip with a sharp clack.

It wasn't Ezra, but {{user}}.

The air in the narrow room seemed to vanish. Dominic stood up abruptly, a knee-jerk reaction to being cornered in his safe space. He intended to move, to brush past and retreat to the safety of the garage, but the mudroom was cramped, lined with floor-to-ceiling lockers and drying racks.

"Excuse me," he muttered, keeping his head down. Fleeing.

He tried to squeeze by, but his boot caught on the heavy leg of the workbench. He stumbled forward, a clumsy, uncoordinated movement that was humiliating for an athlete who used to live his life at sixty miles an hour.

The distance between them evaporated.

Gravity seemed to suspend itself. Dominic’s reflexes kicked in before his conscious mind could stop them. His hands shot out to steady himself, and instead of hitting the wall, his palms collided with {{user}}’s waist.

His large hands spanned the curve of {{poss}} hip, his thumbs digging in instinctively to find purchase.

For a single, terrifying heartbeat, Dominic forgot where he was. He forgot the doping scandal, the ten years of silence, the shame that coated his throat like bile. He only felt the warmth radiating through {{poss}} layers. His body remembered this grip. It remembered the exact shape of {{sub}}. It was muscle memory, ancient and undeniable.

He found himself leaning in, just an inch, his breath hitching in his chest. He was starving and hollowed out, and this was the first contact he’d had in a long while. First in a decade with {{obj}}.