Chapter 18 Drew
Drew
Drew wasn’t sure he knew what he wanted.
But he did know that he needed to impress the team at Zeus Athletics.
They were happy with the photos he’d taken so far, but none of them had come close to his photos from New Year’s Eve.
He knew an obvious solution to getting behind-the-scenes photos would be to ask Thandie, but he had no interest in following his sister around for two weeks.
So, he spent the rest of the day mulling over Ari’s proposal.
He’d done a quick Google search of her and found some interesting results.
She wasn’t particularly famous; it was her team’s first time at the Olympics, after all.
But the few articles he did find intrigued him.
The stories that so often caught people’s attention were those of people who stepped into action in a moment of crisis, like Ari.
There had been almost no mention of her in the sports press besides a few lines in articles recounting past tournaments.
But being thrust into the position of captain just weeks before the Games felt like it would make for a pretty interesting behind-the-scenes story.
They’d swapped numbers in the storage room, so after texting back and forth last last night, they’d agreed agreed to meet up for breakfast.
When he arrived at the canteen, Ari was standing outside in a huge blue puffer coat, wearing headphones and looking out into the distance.
A light snowfall was beginning and when a few flakes landed on her gloves, she raised her hand and examined them as if it was her very first time.
Her skin glowed in the early-morning light, almost ethereal in the haze of glittering snowflakes falling all around them.
He paused midstep. But then she noticed him, took off her headphones, and waved.
“You’re early,” she said, looking surprised.
“If I’m going to do something, I’m going to commit,” he said, taking a closer look at her uniform. Underneath the coat was a fluffy white fleece, waterproof trousers, and chunky black snow boots.
“Are you checking me out, Drew?” she said, raising an eyebrow.
“You’re wearing, like, seven layers of clothing.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re not checking me out,” she teased. “I don’t blame you. I would want to know what’s under this fleece and turtleneck, too.”
“Nothing gets me going like a thermal base layer,” he joked as he reached toward her. She examined his hand in confusion.
“Do you want me to shake it?” she asked, perplexed.
“No, I thought you would hold it,” he said.
The look on her face told him that she still didn’t get it.
“If I were your boyfriend, we’d probably hold hands, right?” he said. He watched her expression change from confusion to amusement. She reached forward and took his hand.
“So, you’ll do it?” she asked, seemingly hopeful.
“We just need to iron out the details,” he said as their fingers intertwined.
The security at the door stopped them for a moment, but then Ari showed them her credentials and explained that she was with Drew.
They scanned his press lanyard and then let them walk into a large building styled to look like a cozy cabin resort.
The Olympic Village canteens were known for their legendary selection of food.
Drew could smell the aromas of baked goods, savory meats, and fresh fruit wafting around the room.
While Ari and the other athletes were on strict diets and preplanned meals, he had no such restrictions.
So, when they got to the food station, he loaded up his tray with crispy maple bacon, cinnamon-flavored French toast, creamy vanilla yogurt, a pot of freshly sliced mango, and a piping-hot cup of coffee.
Ari glanced over at his plate, looked down at her meal plan, then begrudgingly picked up a strangely colored smoothie, a bowl of high-protein porridge, two boiled eggs, and sliced avocados on seeded whole-grain bread.
“Does this happen a lot?” Drew asked as they walked across the canteen to find a seat. He could spot at least seven people at different tables watching their every move.
“The eagle-eyed athletes looking for gossip? They’re always paying attention. It’s like being in the school canteen,” Ari said. “Everyone knows each other here, so they know that you’re not on our team.”
She was right. He scanned the room and realized that while the canteen was a mixture of athletes from different countries, most of them were European, with a significant chunk of them wearing the Team GB uniform.
“I’m guessing the American accent doesn’t help?”
“It just makes them more curious to figure out who you are. And what’s going on between us,” she said. They put their trays down. “Speaking of, what is going on between us?”
“Well, I spent the night thinking.”
“About me?” she said, a glint in her eyes.
“About your proposal. It’s the first time a girl has ever locked me in a closet and asked me to be her man,” he teased.
“Don’t let it get to your head. I just need an excuse to avoid Harrison,” she said, scrunching her face as she ate a spoonful of porridge.
“That bad?”
“The porridge, or Harrison?”
“Both.”
“Equally gross,” she said, and smiled. But it didn’t reach her eyes.
“In what way?” he asked. She took another spoon of her breakfast, seemingly hesitant to give him an answer.
Drew wanted to know why she was so desperate to convince Harrison she was seeing someone new.
Especially if he was going to be the one to take on that role.
But he didn’t want to pry, so he thought back to New Year’s Eve.
“Imagine you were never going to see me again. No consequences, no judgment,” he said. “What would you tell me then?”
“You know how guys are always doing big romantic gestures in films? Like standing outside someone’s house with a boombox or running through the airport to stop a flight?”
“Yeah, I asked my first girlfriend to go to prom with me by singing ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You’ because she loved 10 Things I Hate About You,” he admitted.
Ari smiled. “That’s actually very cute. I used to love things like that, and then I met Harrison, who did all of those things but then also … I don’t know, wasn’t a good guy. So, we broke up, but now he thinks he can try and still do all of those things to reel me back in.”
“Like what?”
“Waiting around after the opening ceremony just to try and see me. Randomly showing up in the audience at one of my games to surprise me. Asking to be allocated one floor below me in GB House. It would be cute and romantic if I wanted us to get back together, but…”
“You don’t, so it’s borderline creepy.” He nodded.
“It’s past borderline. But because he’s been doing it ever since we broke up, everyone around me thinks I like it.
Even my best friends, who are supposed to know me really well, think we’re going to get back together.
Everyone we know thinks that.” She stared at the steam above her porridge, her expression downcast.
“And does everyone else know that Harrison’s an asshole?” he said, then corrected himself. “Sorry, you dated him. I shouldn’t call him that.”
“No, he is an asshole, a gold medal–winning asshole,” Ari said, looking down at her watch, and readjusting it around her wrist. “But everyone loves Harry.”
Drew studied her face. Her voice was upbeat, but he could hear an undertone of sadness. He wanted to ask more but could see it was affecting her, so he tried to lighten things up.
“So, how would it work, the fake-dating slash photo diary exchange?” he asked.
“Well, what do you need for your assignment?” she asked, not so subtly glancing down at the bacon on his plate.
He smiled and pushed the plate over to her as she cast her porridge aside and took a bite.
Drew paused and thought about it for a moment.
His original plan had been to capture a wide array of behind-the-scenes photos of all the athletes he came in contact with, but Ari provided an opportunity to focus on one specific story.
“I never get to use my film camera for work. It’s too risky to rely on images I can’t see until I’ve processed the film.
But the photos I take with it always turn out better,” said Drew, putting a plan together in real time.
“So, I could document your journey on film. I already have the New Year’s photos from the day you found out you were becoming captain.
I could make it a whole full-circle thing.
From being a relatively low-key player in London, to the underdog captain everyone’s rooting for in St. Moritz. ”
“I don’t think everyone’s rooting for me,” she said, shaking her head.
“But they will, that’s the power of a good story.
And I know I can tell one through photos.
Let me come to training with you, take photos of you out and about in the Village, ask you questions about each step of the journey.
I have no idea what I’m going to do when I go home to Wisconsin, but I’ve always wanted to be a photojournalist. This could either be the final thing I do before I start fresh back home, or it could be the project that impresses Zeus enough to hire me again. ”
“So, we would both get something out of this arrangement,” she said, nodding.
“Exactly. We just need to figure out the terms,” he said. He pulled out his phone and typed FAKE-DATING PLAN.
“Are you making notes?” she asked, amused.
“I was a star student before I dropped out. Of course I’m taking notes,” he laughed. “We should probably get our story straight. If your friends or teammates ask, how did we meet?”
“That’s easy, we met on the roof of Zeus’s New Year’s Eve party. We spent the night talking, kissed at midnight, exchanged numbers, and the rest is history.”
“So, in this version of events, you stayed?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant. But when he looked up from his phone, she was looking at him. She glanced down at his lips for a second.