CHAPTER THREE
The birds have begun to chirp when I hit send on my last email reply for the morning. We’re all supposed to follow the same regimen as the athletes. Early to bed, early to rise in Asbell’s words, so I’m not sure why I always wake up to so many emails from the other public relations assistants. Maybe they don’t sleep. Maybe they’re all bunch a robots Asbell had constructed tooptimize the handling of the athletes.
Excuse me, we’re not supposed to use the word handling. The PC term is assisting.
Too bad I didn’t realize “assisting” actually meant running around catering to crazy assholes for a month. I’d been in need of a new temp job, and the headhunter I’d been working with the said this had amazing potential to launch my career in marketing. He didn’t tell me allthe extras.
There are only a few days left of the Winter Games and part of me is counting down the hours until I pack my bags and head home. However, maybe a few days of handing…er…I mean assisting Oliver won’t be so bad. I’ve even started to like him. His laugh and funny personality sucked me in. He’s hot too. Don’t think my libido missed that.
I’m sure he has an asshole part of him somewhere— heisa pro athlete after all — but he seems to have a fun side as well.
A new email pops up, the subject line: Isaac’s Disciplinary Measures.
I quickly scan the email to see what has happened to the skier Asbell believes forged paperwork to get Cyrus, another parallel slalom snowboarder, detained right before his race. If Asbell yelled at me for “letting” Cyrus be picked up by security,it was nothing compared to the assistant assigned to Isaac. But still, word on the street is she fought for him to not lose any privileges. There have been a lot of allegations about things Isaac has done, but who knows if any or all of them are true.
The email states Isaac should be confined to his room for the duration of the Gold Medal Events until the day of his competition in the fifty-kilometermen’s free start cross country skiing. Luckily for Isaac it takes place on the last day of the Golds or else Asbell may have sent him home. Although there would be a lot of questions asked and it would be bad PR. The email sounds like they’re planning to wait until he returns home and then decide what to do with him. Unfortunately, the Gold Medal committee doesn’t have much power. More thanlikely they’ll ban him from future competitions. Depending on how and if the media gets wind of it — he will probably lose a few sponsors. It depends on whether the story gets picked up by social media or not. If the fans get wind, they could start a media frenzy. Then sponsors and the committee would be forced into action.
The whole thing is kind of irritating. Someone should have to take responsibility.Be held accountable.
A reply all message comes through on the Isaac email, but I hurry and close my laptop not bothering to read it. I already have my directions from here on out.
Stick to Oliver Slade like glue. The only difference with today is my outlook is much better. It will be a cakewalk. Oliver has practice time scheduled for most of the morning, but hanging out with him this afternoonhas the possibility of being not so bad. At least he doesn’t seem like one of those athletes who has one hundred superstitions or prerace rituals that all have to be followed to a T or else they might not win. Even though we all know the color of your race day socks — or worse underwear — does not affect your speed. And the way Remi Jonsson walks around carrying his snowboard he calls Diane, Iwould say he needs to see the team psychologist. It can’t be normal to have such an unhealthy attachment to an inanimate object in your thirties.
With the laptop, closed I grab my daily agendas out of the printer, following my routine of sticking a few copies on my clipboard and leaving one on my desk. Luck is on my side because when I reach the elevator, the doors are opening. It lets out afew athletes — one a member of the speed skating team and the guy I think is sharing a room with Oliver. I’ve had to learn a lot of names the last few weeks. For someone who never watched the Winter Games before, I had to take a crash course on the plane over here. It’s a lot to take in.
I jump in the elevator and hit the button to Oliver’s floor. If that was his roommate I caught a glimpse of,hopefully Oliver is already awake. By this time yesterday he’d barged into my room, but some athletes like to sleep in on days they have later practice times. His room is a few off from the elevators, so it doesn’t take me long to get there once the doors open.
My plans are to pick up Oliver, eat breakfast together, and then get him to the practice area with thirty minutes of extra time. Hementioned yesterday he likes to get there early enough so he’s not in a rush putting on all of his equipment. You need to use every second available for actual practice. I have the whole day mapped out for optimal practice time. I reach his door and raise a hand to knock but pull back at the last second when Oliver’s voice seeps through the heavy wooden door.
“Get the hell out. No one can seeyou here,” he yells loudly enough anyone walking by and probably his next door neighbors hear.
I test the door handle and am surprised when it’s unlocked. The door pushes open with the slightest touch. Inside the small dorm-room-like setting is a girl, her shirt half unbuttoned and hanging off one shoulder. She’s leaning on Oliver’s bed on her knees buttoning up her shirt when she notices meand stops. Oliver paces in the free space between the one desk in the room and both athletes’ beds wearing nothing but a pair of black boxers.
“I don’t understand why you’re being this way,” the girl says in a high-pitched mousy voice.
Oliver jerks on his short brown hair causing it to stick up in every direction. “You don’t understand?” His eyes dart wildly around the room, finally settlingon me. “McKenna, this is not what it looks like.”
He takes a step in my direction, but I hold a hand out to stop him. I know exactly what this looks like. What I can’t figure out is how. I was with Oliver all night. I dropped him off at his room where he promised to go to bed. Directly to bed. I did everything I needed to do, short of tucking him in. How did he even get a girl up here? When didhe have time to pick someone up? Did he watch me get on the elevator and then turn around and leave? He didn’t come off as a liar yesterday, but these guys are conditioned from childhood to put on an act for the cameras. Maybe being nice to me was a game for him. And why does the thought of him sleeping with a girl hurt more in my heart than my brain?
It’s almost as if the air is sucked out ofthe room and I’m left to my own devices to figure everything out. Except I’m not thinking the expected thoughts like making sure she doesn’t talk to the media and how to get her out of the building. No, my head is filled with worries that he obviously didn’t experience the same connection I felt we had yesterday. Sure, it wasn’t necessarily a romantic connection, but I didn’t think I’d find someonein his room this morning.
“Get the fuck out of my room. I’m going to call security.” The girl, her shirt still only half buttoned — it doesn’t seem like she’s working very hard to close it up — walks by me, leaving the room.
Worse, she doesn’t even attempt to hide her smile as she walks past. Like she knows what I’m feeling inside isn’t good.
“Kenny, it is not what it looks like.” Oliver triesto approach me again and I take a step back.
Finally, my damn public relations brain kicks in. I’m here to keep him out of trouble not get a crush on a snowboarder. “It doesn’t matter what it looks like. As long as whatever you two did was consensual, I don’t care. The last thing any of us needs is some kind of sex scandal.”
“It wasn’t consensual!” he yells, and I flinch. “I mean, nothing happened.There was nothing to consent.”
I tear off the top sheet of my clipboard — today’s event agenda — and hand it to Oliver. It gives my hands something to do so I don’t slap him.
“Whatever, Oliver. I’ll meet you at breakfast. You need to hurry up and finish getting ready so you don’t miss practice.”
“McKenna, wait!” he yells down the hallway to my back as I walk to the elevator, working to stayas calm as possible. “I can’t believe you can do this.”
He can’t believe? Asshole. I stop and turn back. “Don’t be late to breakfast and try not to fuck anyone in the hallway on your way there.”
