London, UK
December 2025
1Ari
DECEMBER 31, 2025
Arikoishe Shumba was on her way to becoming a legend. By the age of twenty-one, she’d won an international Ice Hockey World Championship, received two Player of the Year Awards, and scored the majestic winning goal against the Netherlands that had led Team GB’s women’s ice hockey team to qualify for their first-ever Winter Olympics. Which was why she and her teammates were sequestered at a secret boot camp to train for the Games. They had spent the past five days in rigorous preparation for the competition that awaited them. But for some reason, the first question Ari’s favorite teammate asked her when they got back into the locker room that day was:
“Can I set you up? I promise it won’t be as bad as last time.” Izzy’s smile that signaled trouble. Izzy wasn’t just Team GB’s star goaltender. She was also the team’s resident matchmaker and one of Ari’s best friends.
“The last guy you set me up with found my Wikipedia pagehalfway through dinner, read out my stats, and still spent the whole date saying he could deadlift heavier weights than me,” Ari said, shivering at the memory. She took off her helmet and sat on the bench in front of her locker.
“But you didn’t have to take him to the gym in the middle of the night to prove you were stronger than him,” said Izzy in her warm Welsh accent, laughing as she undid her ponytail and let her red hair tumble down.
Ari smiled at the memory. She had ubered Overconfident Connor to the closest open gym and challenged him to a bench press “lift off.” Ari won, setting a new personal record of 225 pounds. Her prize was… never hearing from Connor again. But it was for the best. He was the last in a long string of bad dates that had made her ponder a vow of celibacy. But her friends were determined to set her up before the start of the Winter Olympics.
Izzy, ever the hopeless romantic, pressed even further. “This guy’s different. He’s on the Canadian men’s ice hockey team, and they’re in London for a couple days before they fly to the Olympics. It would be so cute! You could train together, take romantic winter holidays, and bond over skates.”
Ari smiled and shook her head as she dipped a sponge in warm water and used it to wipe her hockey helmet clean. Ever since qualifying, her friends had spent every locker room session coming up with grand plans for St. Moritz. Her dating life was just the next bullet point on their Winter 2026 agenda.
Yasmeen folded her jersey then shuffled over in the silk-lined slippers she’d gifted each of her teammates for Christmas last year.
“Ari, think about it from a business standpoint.” Yasmeen was as strategic on social media as she was on the ice rink in her role on defense. Her Persian parents had promised to be supportive of her athletic career as long as she made sure to diversify her income. Because athletics careers are short, and none of the girls onthe team got paid enough to dedicate their entire lives to hockey. So Yasmeen was constantly reminding her teammates to make a plan for their lives beyond ice hockey, too.
“You already have a decent following, and romance sells,” Izzy insisted. “If you get together and post coupley content, your followers will eat it up. It might even you get another brand deal.”
Sienna, who played right forward, shook her head as she changed into an oversized Team GB hoodie. “Or… you could get him to use his clout to convince one of the big sports magazines to actually feature a women’s team for once?”
Izzy shook her head. “We’re supposed to be setting her up for love,not a PR campaign.”
“Dating men is miserable,” Sienna replied with a shrug. “You’ve got to getsomethingout of it.”
“Which is why I don’t date men, but this guy…” Izzy said, scrolling through her phone for photos. “Seems sweet.”
“Iz, the last guy you tried to set me up with didn’t even have a bed frame,” said Yasmeen, who had also been a victim of Izzy’s matchmaking services. “He slept on a mattress, on the ground. Why did you think we’d be a good match?”
“Well, you got as far as seeing the mattress, so he had to havesomethinggoing for him,” Izzy joked, then wiggled her tongue.
“Hot guy, but too much of a hot mess to last beyond the night.” Yasmeen laughed. All at once, everyone started chiming in, revealing the worst dates they’d been on and all the guys with obvious red flags they’d gone on a second date with anyway.
Ari loved hearing stories about her friends’ love lives. They spent so much time talking strategy, fundraising, and logistics that she craved conversations that failed the Bechdel test. So, she folded up her uniform and joined in, sharing her worst anecdotes. That afternoon, the locker room was filled with light conversation because, as demanding as their coaches, schedule, andpractice matches were, the first few days of precompetition boot camp were always the most fun. Ari and the twenty-two other girls on her team had left their families on Boxing Day to travel to a secret Team GB training facility just outside London. They’d launched straight into an intense training regimen and spent the week after Christmas on a strict meal plan to prepare for the most important competition of their lives, the 2026 Winter Olympics. But despite the stakes of the two months ahead of them and the constant reminders of just how close they’d been to not making it this far, their postmatch conversations always ended up dissolving into locker-room talk.
“So, you want me to date this guy… so we get more funding and press coverage?” Ari asked.
“Exactly,” said Yasmeen with a grin. “Have you seen Yara and Ezra?” she asked, reminding them of a famous tennis doubles team who were obviously in a PR relationship. The buzz around them as a couple was generating enough hype for them to sign a multimillion-dollar joint sponsorship deal with the sportswear brand For Athena. Yasmeen shrugged. “I’m just saying, it pays to be strategic.”
“Maybe we should channel all of that strategic thinking intotraininginstead of planning a fake romance?” asked Sienna. “What would Gracie think?”
Their team captain’s flight to boot camp was delayed, and Ari knew Sienna enjoyed being the default voice of reason in her absence. But Sienna was right, so Ari nodded in agreement.
“We’re going to the Olympics. I’m way too busy to meet someone new, so I don’t know why you’re so focused on setting me up.”
Her friends went quiet, glancing back and forth at one another as if they were in the middle of a silent meeting she hadn’t been invited to.
“Am I missing something?” Ari asked as the energy in the room shifted. Izzy, Sienna, and Yasmeen were her best friends. They were the only ones close enough to tell her the truth. But they were avoiding her gaze.
Izzy suddenly became deeply interested in her phone, and Yasmeen began to fold her uniform piece by piece. In the end it was Sienna who finally sighed and sat beside her.
