Page 15 of Let the Games Begin
At first, Olivia watched from the sidelines. But then Arlo convinced her to take a round of shots with him and another group of volunteers who’d ended up at the party. If she’d been an intern like she’d planned to be, she would’ve tried to stay professional. But there was none of that pressure now, so she let herself go. She danced to old Britney songs with the Argentinian volleyball team and bonded over her current favorite TV show,Call My Agent!, with some French cyclists.
Then she and Arlo saw a table set up with a laptop and three microphones. They exchanged a knowing glance and then nodded. Sometimes people misunderstood Olivia, thought she was too focused to have a good time. But Olivia loved a good party, and even more than that, Oliviareallyloved karaoke.
15Zeke
THE DAY OF THE OPENING CEREMONY
In the months leading up to a competition, Zeke was incredibly disciplined. He stuck to a strict sleep schedule, carefully planned out his dietitian-approved meals, and did everything he could to make sure he was at the very top of his game. But there was something about the opening ceremony that made him, and all the other athletes, want to let loose. As soon as the ceremony was over and the final pieces of confetti had fallen to the ground, they let go of their inhibitions.
Zeke watched as everyone around him got their phones out, texting and calling back and forth to decide which after-party to go to. Well, which after-party to go tofirst.Fionn, the captain of the Irish hockey team, sent Zeke a message saying they had ordered kegs. Then Kwabena, one of his friends on the Ghanaian boxing team, invited him to a house party that was guaranteed to have the best music of the night. But Zeke’s plans were decided when Haruki found him in the crowd. He ran over and threw an arm around Zeke’s shoulder.
“I had a vision,” said Haruki.
“You did?” said Zeke. Nothing good ever came from Haruki’s visions.
“It came to me while the choir was singing, divine intervention, I think,” Haruki said with the kind of grin that always ended in chaos.
“What was the vision?” Zeke asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know.
“Australia…”
“Absolutely not,” said Zeke. The Australian team was known for having the wildest parties in the Olympic Village, and Zeke had training first thing the next morning.
“Ezekiel,” said Haruki, using the fake strict voice he used whenever he was about to convince Zeke to do something he shouldn’t. They were as close as brothers and, like brothers, they were really good at getting each other into trouble. “This is THE opening ceremony night. We’ve got to go big or go home, and Australia is the biggest party of the night.”
So, an hour later, they’d let themselves be pulled into the joyful recklessness of the first night in the Village. Music bounced off the walls, spontaneous dance floors popped up wherever they turned, and a whole delegation of athletes from around the world spread out across all ten floors of the building to party with the Australians. Zeke was playing a particularly energetic game of beer pong with the Colombian weight lifting team when he sawher.Olivia.
At first, he wasn’t sure if he was actually seeing who he thought he was. Rationally, Zeke knew that if she’d been in the Village the day before, she was probably here for a reason and likely to stayfor the whole Games. But he hadn’t expected to see her again so soon… or at a place like this, for that matter. From their interaction yesterday, he wouldn’t have guessed her to be the party type. But there she was, climbing onto a table on the other side of the kitchen.
She wasn’t wearing that sexy green suit this time. Instead, she was wearing a blue-and-yellow volunteer top tucked into a denim skirt. Her hair wasn’t in a tight ponytail anymore; her braids were flowing freely past her shoulders and down her back. But it wasn’t her outfit that made her seem so different, it was the expression on her face. In place of the scowl and righteous anger he’d seen on her yesterday was a look of pure joy. She was grinning at something the guy next to her was saying. Zeke knew he was up next in the game of beer pong, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. And a moment later, nobody could. Because Olivia wasn’t just standing on the table for kicks. The lights in the room dimmed, a projector was positioned on a kitchen cupboard, and a crowd formed around the table. The words were projected onto the wall, and Olivia put the microphone to her mouth with absolutely zero self-consciousness.
“And I was like, why are you so obsessed with me?” she said. The opening beats of “Obsessed” by Mariah Carey spilled out of all the speakers on that floor of the party.Olivia—karaoke?Zeke was completely transfixed. Olivia wasn’t a good singer, likeat all.In fact, she was really, really bad. But she was giving aperformance. Dancing on the table and pulling facial expressions that matched each line of the song. Singing the lyrics with such passion that it was as if she’d written them herself. And the crowdwas eating it up. The Australian swim team were clapping along to the beat, a group of Venezuelan boxers were dancing, and two Tanzanian runners were singing the backing vocals like they were in the audience of a concert.
“You’re delusional, boy, you’re losing your mind,” she sang, her eyes closed as if singing a hymn. Zeke couldn’t help but laugh. He realized that the Olivia he’d met the day before was a completely different version to the one who was making a stage of the kitchen table. As she opened her eyes to sing the chorus, she looked out at her adoring crowd and danced to cheers from all around the room. She had them in the palm of her hand.
Zeke couldn’t look away, and maybe she could feel him watching because when she got to the next verse, they locked eyes. She looked startled at first, as if she hadn’t expected to see him there either. He raised his plastic cup to her and, in response, she shook her head and went back to her performance. He was completely enthralled. Once she finished her song, the whole room applauded. She bowed and then jumped off the table before disappearing into the crowd.
Zeke led his beer pong team to victory and let them convince him to take a celebratory round of shots. But, like everyone kept reminding him, he wasso closeto winning his first gold and really couldn’t afford to be hungover during training the next morning. So as the Australian rugby team started chanting a drinking song, he decided it was time to go home.
He scanned the room, looking for Haruki. But, instead, he found Olivia. She was sitting on a kitchen stool, gazing out at the party and nodding along to an old Aaliyah song. She lookedcompletely relaxed, like this was exactly where she belonged. She mouthed the lyrics to the song, absentmindedly twirling her straw around her red cup. Then she caught his eye. This time she didn’t look surprised to see him. As he walked over to tell her that he’d found her notebook, he noticed afresh just how pretty she was. Getting closer, he could smell the vanilla on her skin.
“What are you going to sing?” she asked, as if they were just two people talking at a party, not two strangers who’d had a full-blown argument about a cup of green juice only yesterday. Maybe she’d forgotten.
“Or are you just going to stand by the drinks table waiting to throw a cup of juice and ruin another innocent bystander’s outfit?” she said, taking a sip of her drink. No, she definitely hadn’t forgotten.
“I don’t sing,” Zeke said, ignoring her second question.
Olivia looked at him like he’d just said he liked watching puppies get run over by motorcycles.
“Everyone sings,” she said, shaking her head. “You don’t have to be good to do karaoke.”
“Oh, you made thatveryclear,” he joked.
“I’m confident in everything I do, Ezekiel, even the things I’m not good at.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.” She didn’t hesitate or break eye contact with him. “Butyou, you’re too shy to sing?” She tilted her head, casting him a judging glance, but there was a glint in her eyes, a flicker of mischief in her voice.
