45. Zeke
DAY EIGHT OF THE 2024 OLYMPICS
Zeke spent the whole night thinking about Olivia. The dates he could take her on, the stories about her life that he wanted to know, and the parts of himself he wanted to share with her. He’d liked her from the moment she’d convinced him to sing in the middle of that opening ceremony after-party. And his thoughts had been consumed by her since that night in the lift.
He hadn’t felt this way in a long time. And he’d never felt this way so soon.
As he walked into his bathroom, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Uh-oh, thought Zeke, as he saw the dazed look on his face and the smile he couldn’t hold back. He was falling for Olivia, plain and simple. The free fall felt like flying.
But then he remembered that Haruki had been screening his calls or texting to say he was in training ever since that night at Olivia’s apartment. Zeke hadn’t got the chance to explain himself or apologize. But he knew that they needed to talk about everything that had gone down the other night, so he called him up again. This time Haruki did pick up the call, but said he was too busy to speak and promptly hung up. When the call ended, Zeke just stared down at his phone, feeling the guilt. He tapped Haruki’s contact page and looked at the photo he’d saved to his profile. It was a photo of them laughing at the Tokyo Olympics. He couldn’t remember the joke anymore, and the details of the day they’d taken it were fuzzy and distant now. But they looked happy, comfortable with each other, like family. He’d done his best to repress the guilt enough to continue things with Olivia, but he couldn’t deny it anymore. Zeke had seriously messed things up with his best friend. He had to make it right, and the only way to do that would be to find Haruki and have a conversation long and honest enough to apologize. But Haruki was about to go into a swimming session so he couldn’t hunt him down until the evening. And Zeke was scheduled to be at the athletics track in ten minutes. He had to make things right with his best friend and do it as soon as he could, but that conversation would have to wait until after training.
In the days leading up to his race, Zeke’s schedule got tighter and his routine got stricter. He knew he was supposed to channel his energy into increasing his speed, perfecting his stride, and doing all he could to run better than ever before in the final. But he spent the whole of practice distracted, going back and forth between trying to come up with ideas for his date with Olivia and forming a game plan for apologizing to Haruki.
After training, he bumped into Valentina. She was on her way to get some gelato, so he decided to tag along.
“By the way, Olivia’s flatmate gave me this the other night when I got cold,” Valentina said, giving him a blue cardigan.
“Why are you giving it to me?” said Zeke. Valentina liked to fairy godmother her way into people’s lives.
“To give you a reason to go and see Olivia again, duh,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Because I know you’ll wait six months to text her.”
“I asked her out yesterday,” he said.
“You did?” said Valentina, looking up in surprise. Zeke’s friends always teased him about moving too slowly when it came to a crush.
“This is not the Zeke I know,” she said, sounding impressed. “Usually you take two weeks to ask for her number, spend six months just being her friend, and then ask her out after ten months once you’re already in love.”
“I don’t do that,” he protested.
“You either do that or meet a girl you only half like, hook up that night, and never see her again,” she said, making a not-so-subtle reference to the brief romantic encounters he’d had in the last year that had been documented on gossip accounts and blind items.
“That’s kind of a pattern, isn’t it?” Zeke shrugged.
“So, if you’re already texting her, making plans with her, and aren’t tempted to run away… you must really like her,” Valentina said. It was a statement, not a question.
“I do… really like her, and I’ve told her that,” he admitted.
Valentina squealed. “Really? And what did she say?” she asked, loving every part of this conversation.
“That she liked herself too.”
“Oh, you’ve met your match,” Valentina said as they both laughed. She put her head between her hands to listen while he told her everything—well, almost everything. The first time they’d met, what he liked about Olivia, and how he felt about her. Then he admitted that, as delicate and risky as it seemed, he wanted to give this—whatever it was—his all.
Zeke could still remember the day Valentina had broken up with him. He’d kind of seen it coming. Long-distance was always hard, but in the months leading up to “the talk,” Valentina was unusually distant. Their FaceTime calls became fewer and farther apart, and he’d sensed an uncharacteristic heaviness and detachment. So, when she’d sent him a text saying “this isn’t working anymore” and then arrived at his apartment with tears in her eyes, he’d just sat down and listened as she told him everything. About her first childhood crush, the girl she’d kissed at gymnastics camp when she was fourteen, and all the worries that held her back from living the life she truly wanted. Staying friends had been a complete no-brainer. And as they sat outside on the grass now, Zeke realized that he was probably going to know Valentina for the rest of his life. And he was so grateful things had turned out the way they did. Friendships like this only came around once in a while. So he bought them another serving of gelato, and they sat and talked some more. She told him about Leila, how they’d met, and the day she’d introduced her to her family. He told her about Haruki, and how guilty he was beginning to feel about the way things had gone down, and she gave him advice on how to approach the situation. Then Valentina’s phone started ringing.
Zeke got his phone out and used the moment to research places he could take Olivia on a date without breaking his Village ban or his ridiculous seven p.m. curfew. But then Valentina got off her phone call and looked up at Zeke with a grimace.
“Umm, Zeke? How much do you like Olivia?” she asked.
Each time he was beside her, he felt safer than he ever had before. When she laughed, or met his words with some quick remark, he began to wonder what forever would look like. But it was way too much and too soon to admit that, so instead he answered—
“I like her… a lot.”
“And how certain are you that Olivia likes you back?”
“I… think she does?” he said, ignoring the persistent, nagging doubt he seemed to feel about everything these days.
“Yeah, I think she does too. Which means that you have a problem. That was my publicist on the phone. She just told me that we’ve picked the worst possible place to get gelato.”
A couple of meters away from them was a group of teenagers in school uniforms who were probably there for a tour of the Village. They were taking photos of Zeke and Valentina on their phones and not being covert about it at all. But there were hundreds of photos online that had been taken when Zeke wasn’t looking. It made him uneasy, but it wasn’t particularly out of the ordinary.
“Look,” said Valentina, sliding her phone across the table to show him the photos her publicist had called to talk about.
Zeke immediately saw the problem. In the photo, he and Valentina were sitting so close together it looked like they were about to kiss. In reality, they’d just moved over so they could hear each other above the music that was playing from the ice-cream truck’s speakers, but Zeke automatically saw how it could be misperceived. Their faces, the gelato, the way the sunlight was trickling through the leaves. It looked romantic, like they were just as in love as the rumors said they were. Zeke glanced down at the cardigan in his hands and then over at Valentina.
Zeke had to explain it all before Olivia saw the photos.