26. Olivia
DAY FOUR OF THE 2024 OLYMPICS
Olivia wanted to catch the 8:15 p.m. shuttle back into Athens. She needed to write new cover letters for some of the jobs she wanted to apply for. So, as she got into the elevator after Arlo’s art class she began to make a to-do list on her phone. When the doors opened on the seventh floor, she was so preoccupied that she didn’t even realize there was someone standing in the doorway.
“Olivia,” the voice at the door said. It was low and warm, and sent a shiver down her spine. Ezekiel Moyo kept popping up when she expected him least.
“Zeke,” she said. The lift suddenly felt smaller, and a lot hotter.
“Now I don’t mean to be forward,” Zeke began, glancing down at her hands, “but is there a reason you’re carrying a canvas drawing of a naked man… that looks a lot like the guy you work with at the Hub?”
“I… I don’t have a good explanation for that, to be honest,” Olivia said. She looked down at the canvas, seeing it through the eyes of someone with no context of the last three hours of her life. But when she looked back up, his eyes were slowly sweeping over her. He was definitely checking her out and seemed startled when their eyes met again.
“And you? Is there a reason you’re still standing in the doorway or are you just too mesmerized by the sight of me that you can’t look away?” she asked.
He opened his mouth to reply, shut it, opened it again, and then just shook his head, to her amusement.
Instead of the athletics kit or Team GB uniform the athletes usually wore, Zeke was wearing a loose, slightly unbuttoned white shirt. They were standing on separate sides of the lift, but they may as well have been shoulder to shoulder because Olivia had never been more aware of another person than she was of Zeke. He was looking straight ahead of him, so she let herself look over at the sharp curve of his jawline, the gentle crease around his eyes, and the big muscular arms unfortunately covered up by his shirt. He was built enough to pick her up with ease, strong enough to hold her with one hand. But before she could let her thoughts get ahead of her, he glanced over at her for a second and she looked away.
Olivia took on a sudden interest in the different ways the word “welcome” was translated into the different languages represented at the Olympics. She became fascinated by the brightly colored Village map and the floor-number buttons. She looked at absolutely everything in the lift except for Zeke. Worried that if she did, she wouldn’t be able to control the unruly part of her that was hyperfixated on his smile.
“It’s a really good painting,” Zeke said, breaking the silence. “Running in heels, reckless buggy-driving accidents, nude paintings… is there anything you’re not good at?”
“Carrying trays,” she answered without hesitation.
“Carrying trays?” he asked, amused.
“Yeah, I worked at this Italian restaurant when I was seventeen and I dropped a tray every single shift.”
“And they didn’t fire you?”
“I was bad at trays but good at everything else.”
“Of course, you were good at everything else,” he said with a firm nod.
“You’re catching on,” she said, and winked. Why was she winking? She’d never winked at anyone in her life. It was definitely too warm in this lift.
“I guess it’s only a matter of time before you’re running this place too,” he said, gesturing around them.
“The Village? Think bigger, Zeke. Head of the Olympic Organizing Commission, then Secretary-General of the United Nations, then I’ll use my powerful international connections to become a billionaire, retire to a beach town in Australia, and open a combination bookshop, plant shop, and café.”
“Why do I feel like you sat and wrote that down when you were, like, eleven?” he said, laughing that warm, deep laugh that made Olivia melt.
“I was actually nine,” she said with a nod. “Oh, and obviously I’ll make sure to give away all the money before I die, because nobody actually needs to be a billionaire.”
“But you want to be one?” he asked.
“Just to prove I can,” she said, shrugging. “Are billionaires unethical? Yes. Does that stop me from wanting to make that Forbes list? No.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“Thank you,” she said, putting her hand to her heart. “And you, what’s the grand plan?”
“Just vague world domination, you know?” he said.
“I do know,” she said with a smile.
“Have we moved?” he asked, suddenly noticing the stillness around them. It definitely didn’t take this long for a lift to go down seven floors. Olivia pressed the ground-floor button again, but the lift didn’t move. Zeke pressed the open-doors button, but the doors didn’t shift. Olivia pressed the buttons for floors 1, 2, and 3, but nothing happened. Zeke went back and did the same, but their lift stayed completely stationary.
Zeke went to the lift doors to try, and fail, to pull them apart. He knocked on the doors and crouched on the floor to yell for help, but there was no response.
“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get us out,” Zeke said as he turned around. But Olivia was already speaking to the lift technician through an intercom on the wall.
“How did you do that?” Zeke asked in surprise.
“I took a course on elevator escapes,” Olivia said with a solemn nod, then pointed at the big red button on the wall that said PRESS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY. She raised her eyebrows and went back to her conversation with the lift technician.
“Okay…” she said to the technician, “thank you… No, I don’t think either of us is claustrophobic…” she replied. “Yes, I’ll practice some deep breathing.” She nodded. “I don’t need anything else… no worries… I think we both have music on our phones so no need to turn on the elevator music, but thank you, Giannis, I appreciate the offer… Okay, thank you… All right, speak later… Thank you, bye.”
She turned to Zeke. “Well, Giannis the lift technician is a lovely man who reminds me of my Year Eleven history teacher,” she said, “but he’s on the other side of the Village so it’ll be thirty minutes before he can help us get out.”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, I’m great company,” said Zeke, flashing her a smile which prompted Olivia to quite literally slide down the wall and sit on the floor.
“Am I that bad, Olivia?” he said, as she tried to ignore the way hearing her name on his lips made her feel.
Olivia looked over at him and then closed her eyes. No, he wasn’t that bad. He wasn’t bad at all. But the way his eyes lit up and the skin around them crinkled when he smiled was that bad. The way he was looking down at her with an equal measure of amusement and curiosity was that bad. And the way her pesky heart fluttered a little when he slid down the wall and sat next to her on the floor was that bad. Olivia was trying everything she could not to get distracted by Zeke Moyo, but her resolve was beginning to melt away. Dissolving into something much more difficult to hold on to.