Page 40 of Let the Games Begin
“Sometimes I can just do things for me, because I want to,” she said.
“Exactly,” Aditi said, hitting the table to reinforce her agreement.
“And today, I want to just sit at home and paint instead of applying for jobs.”
“Because it’s summer,” said Aditi, repeating her favorite mantra.
“And I’m fun in the summer,” Olivia said, cutting the final mango chunk in half and giving Aditi the bigger piece.
“Liv,” Aditi said, suddenly serious. “You know the Summer Olivia thing is just a nickname, right? Summer Olivia is just who you are when you let yourself be the truest version of yourself. Which comes out all year round.” Aditi went to put her bowl in the kitchen.
Olivia stayed seated at the table for a moment, sending a silent wish to the universe that they’d stay best friends for the rest of their lives.
“Remember the rule?” Aditi said as she picked up her phone and connected it to the kitchen speaker.
“What rule?” said Olivia, but then she heard the song Aditi was playing. “Wait, the rule only applies to random moments, you can’t just put on a Ciara song and insist on the rule.”
“I don’t make the rule, I just reinforce it,” said Aditi. She began to dance around the kitchen. Olivia shimmied across the room to join her. They’d been friends since they were five years old and seen the very best and worst of each other. Their friendship didn’t have any rules. Except that if a Ciara song came on, they had to dance. So, Olivia danced.
Sometimes she forgot who she was. But Aditi was always there to remind her. Maybe that’s what love was, she thought, as she spun around in the early evening light. Maybe it was just the feeling of being around someone who made her remember who she was. Who brought out the parts of her that she’d forgotten. Or the parts she sometimes got too self-conscious to show. She felt it when she was around her parents, even when she was hiding things from them to protect their feelings. She felt it when she was with Aditi, talking about everything and nothing and knowing they’d never get bored. And she realized that she’d been feeling more and more like herself ever since she’d walked across the Village in that green-juice-stained suit.
But that didn’t matter, because in the Hub that afternoon she’d been reminded of something that she’d been doing her best to try to forget. Like everyone else in the world, Olivia knew about Zeke’s on-again, off-again relationship with Valentina Ross-Rodriguez, the star gymnast of Team USA. Yes, she and Zeke had kissed, and she was pretty sure he felt that spark too. But as confident as she was in who she was, Olivia knew that his ex was basically sporting royalty. She rarely got insecure, but when it came to her and Valentina, there wasn’t really any competition. Because Valentina was one of the greatest athletes in the world. She was talented, accomplished, and incredibly beautiful. She was the kind of girl you either wanted to be or you wanted to be with.
Olivia had seen dozens of photos of Zeke and Valentina on red carpets, in stadiums, and at A-list parties. They were the internet’s favorite couple. And she found it hard to truly believe that Zeke, who’d specifically hunted down tickets to watch his ex-girlfriend compete, didn’t still have feelings for her.
But while that summer five years ago had changed her, the one thing she’d resolved not to let it change was her ability to hope.
She didn’t want to go through her life distrusting everyone she met because one boy lied to her. And while she wasn’t the same carefree nineteen-year-old girl she’d been, she could still let her mind wander back to those hot, perfect, sun-fueled kisses, right?
Allow herself to live in the joy and uncertainty of a crush.
Enjoy the quiet thrill of starting something having no idea when, or if, it would end.
Olivia planned and mapped her way through every area of her life. But love was too complicated to try to control. So, she shook her head, resolved to just let the summer unfold, and channeled all her energy into swaying around the kitchen with her best friend as the sun set.
33Zeke
DAY FIVE OF THE 2024 OLYMPICS
Whenever Zeke and Haruki walked into a room together, everybody looked in their direction. They were two of the most famous athletes in the world, and they had four Olympic medals between them: Zeke’s silver and Haruki’s bronze, silver, and gold. So, when they entered the stadium that night and took their seats in the “friends and family” section of the gymnastics arena, the camera panned over to them and the whole audience roared. But this time it was for a slightly different reason.
“Do you think the shirts might have been overkill?” Zeke asked Haruki as they made eye contact with the camera and waved.
“Nah, we look good, and she’s going to love it,” said Haruki. He threw his hands up in the air, and the crowd cheered even louder.
Showing up at Valentina’s final wearing pink bejeweled “Team Ross-Rodriguez” shirts with her face on them definitely made a statement. All of her friends and family were wearing them. ButZeke was Valentina’s equally world-famous ex-boyfriend, so all eyes were on him. When news of their breakup had got out, the gossip accounts had immediately jumped to speculate about what had happened, and then they’d taken the handful of times they’d been spotted in public together since as a sign that they were either on again or off again.
Their friendship was layered in the way that any friendship with someone you’ve once been in love with was. But they were just as supportive of each other as they had been when they were together. Which was why there’d been personalized “Team Ross-Rodriguez” T-shirts waiting for Zeke and Haruki when they arrived.
“So have the two of you hung out much since the opening ceremony?” Haruki asked.
“Haruki, we’re not getting back together,” said Zeke. Haruki didn’t know the real reason behind their breakup, and Zeke had absolutely no intention of telling him until Valentina did. It wasn’t his story to tell. But sometimes having to explain himself all the time did get a little bit exhausting. The strange thing about having had a relationship under the spotlight was that everyone around him seemed to be invested in it as if they were characters, not people. Zeke tried not to let it bother him, or let the attention affect the way he approached new relationships too much. But he couldn’t help but wonder what Olivia would think of it all.
“Don’t give up on love,” Haruki said wistfully. There was nobody Zeke knew who earnestly believed in true love and soulmates more than Haruki. Which was why the revelation that the girl Haruki had spent the entire week talking about was, in fact, Olivia worried Zeke so much.
His best friend fell easily. It never lasted long, and he usually got distracted by something or someone else pretty quickly. But if he really did like Olivia, Zeke had essentially spent the last couple of days thinking about, flirting with, and kissing the person that his best friend was infatuated with.
He knew that the right thing was to tell Haruki that he’d kissed her. Haruki would be disappointed, but telling him now would stop him from finding out on the odd double date he was planning. Zeke didn’t want his friend to get even more invested in Olivia than he already was, only to find out that Zeke was withholding such a vital piece of information. Haruki would feel doubly betrayed.
