Because his sister was right: One night could change everything.
After kissing the girl who’d disappeared at midnight, Drew had gone downstairs to take enough photos of the party to make up for missing the countdown. Emboldened by the magical first few minutes of the year, he’d gone around and captured everything that caught his eye. People tearing it up on the dance floor, sneaking up onto the roof and celebrating with strangers as if they’d known one another all their lives. After a tough couple of months, the party was exactly what Drew had needed to usher in the new year—a temporary escape from his everyday life. He’d reconnected with his love for photography that night. Filled his camera roll with strikingly rich photos, and kissed a gorgeous girl at midnight. Yes, she’d disappeared before he could get her number, but Drew had still left the party with the kind of hope reserved for the first day of the year.
As soon as he’d arrived back at the hotel that night, he’d opened his laptop and gotten to work. Curated the best photos from the party and edited them until they resembled a digitalversion of a nostalgic photo diary. When he sent it to the team at Zeus that had organized the New Year’s Eve party, they were so impressed that they shared his behind-the-scenes photo diary across their social channels. The collection gave viewers what felt like a secret glimpse into one of the biggest and most exclusive parties of the year. And so, within a couple of hours, his photos went viral. People across the internet shared the hazy, dreamlike moments he’d captured, and rumors of the party spread like wildfire. It turned out that Drew had photographed the kind of moments that ordinary people craved to be part of. The photos were reposted and shared thousands of times within the span of a day, leaving the bigwigs at Zeus Athletics thrilled.
Which was how he’d ended up in St. Moritz with a press accreditation and an assignment to take photos for one of the biggest companies in the world.
Stories from the Village had dominated everyone’s feeds during the 2024 Summer Olympics, and Zeus wanted their brand to be all over the 2026 Winter Games. So, they’d sent a team of seasoned photographers and social media managers to Switzerland three weeks before the Winter Games, and Drew had gotten a call offering him a last-minute accreditation pass to take photos as part of their online campaign. He had mentally prepared himself to spend February questioning his life choices while sleepwalking around his childhood home in Wisconsin. So, when the opportunity came, he accepted it without hesitation. His family was already scheduled to fly to Switzerland to watch the Winter Olympics, so he figured that there was no harm in hitting pause on his quarter-life crisis and heading to St. Moritz to follow his dream.
The start of his year was working out better than he could have ever imagined. But despite his best efforts, he hadn’t been able to find the girl that had set it all off. He knew her secrets,but he didn’t know her last name or any facts to help him find her online. So, after a few days of scrolling Instagram for leads, he’d decided to take her abrupt departure as a sign that she didn’t want to be found. A part of him couldn’t help but wonder if her new year was off to as good a start as his was.
However, there wasn’t time to think too hard about that as he walked through the hectic atmosphere of the press office and listened to Luiz’s sage advice.
“Just make sure you have your accreditation on you at all times. They won’t let you into any of the buildings without it,” said Luiz as they meandered through the crowds of journalists frantically typing emails, taking loud calls, and grabbing extra battery packs. There was so much going on that Drew could barely take it all in. So, he just nodded, followed Luiz’s lead, and tried to absorb as much of his surroundings as possible. This was the opportunity of a lifetime, he couldn’t mess it up.
“Take this,” said Luiz, handing Drew a piece of paper as they walked past two news producers having a hushed argument. “Study this map like your career depends on it. If you think two ice rinks are ten minutes away from each other, assume it’s a twenty-minute walk,” he said. Drew nodded emphatically, taking a photo of the map and mentally planning out his routes. Luiz had been working for the Olympics since 2022, so Drew took each piece of advice he gave as gold.
“Arrive early, stay late, and take exceptional photos. Then maybe, eventually, they’ll stop thinking you got lost and went to the wrong building,” he said, making a joke of the fact that when Drew had shown up that morning, someone assumed he was a tourist who’d taken the wrong turn.
Now Drew watched as a film crew walked into the press office. He hadn’t felt this out of his depth since his first week of college. “When do you start feeling like you’re supposed to be here?”
Luiz went over to his desk and grabbed his walkie-talkie.
“There are natural talents, and then there are people like us,” he said.
“Are you saying I’m not a natural talent?” Drew joked, knowing just as well as Luiz did that he’d gotten into the Village by sheer luck.
“Neither of us are.” Luiz shrugged. “Success is mostly about ending up in the right place at the right time withjust enoughskill to pull it off. But look around.”
“We’re in the room now,” Drew said, the reality of the situation sinking in.
“Exactly. One day your work will be so good that you won’t walk in each day feeling like an imposter. But up until then, buy the assistants coffee, befriend the volunteers, and get the security guards on your side. That way, they’ll be more likely to help you when you lose your accreditation… again.” Luiz picked up the lanyard Drew didn’t even realize he’d dropped. Before he could say anything else, Luiz waved him goodbye and ran up the stairs to help a live news broadcast team hunt down five extra extension cords.
The press office was buzzing with activity. Drew could hear an Al Jazeera journalist preparing for an interview with one of that year’s top speed skaters, and he could smell the drip coffee an ESPN reporter was drinking as he typed an article about an upcoming ice hockey game. Busy journalists flitted around the press office as they prepared for the busiest two weeks of the winter sports calendar. All against the backdrop of the large world clocks on the wall. Each time zone was counting down the hours, minutes, and seconds until the opening ceremony began.
Drew wanted to just sit in the middle of the press office and soak it all in. To observe the journalists around him and absorb all their wisdom. But if he was going to be ready for the two weeksahead of him, he needed to get to know the Village map like the back of his hand. So, he zipped up his coat, hung his camera around his neck, and pushed the front door open until he finally stepped out into the blistering, icy cold of the Winter Olympics.
9Ari
ONE DAY BEFORE THE OPENING CEREMONY
Ari had been born on June 21, the day of the summer solstice. But despite her summer birthday, she was, to her very core, a winter girl. She loved being wrapped up in a thick coat and feeling the icy air against her cheeks when she stepped outside, but she’d never experienced a winter’s day as perfect as that early February morning in St. Moritz. It was minus eleven degrees Celsius, and Ari’s eyes widened as she saw the untouched white blanket outside GB House. She put one foot out and smiled as she felt her boot connect with the snow. The quiet crunch filled her with a childlike sense of delight.
A moment later Yasmeen, Izzy, and Sienna bounded out into the snow wearing the coziest iteration of the uniform they’d been given on New Year’s Day. Puffy red winter coats embroidered with the Team GB logo and cozy blue beanies that Yasmeen had hand-sewn silk lining into on the plane to Switzerland.
“It’s so beautiful,” said Izzy as she ran across the snow to pullAri into a bear hug. “Can you believe we’re here?” Ari and her teammates looked around. The sky was a bright shade of blue; the sun was hanging low, its rays lighting up a fresh layer of brilliant white snow.
“We’ve got to go and see the frozen lake, take a ride on the Glacier Express, go to that spa I sent you a link to, and take a few pictures before we ruin our uniforms,” said Yasmeen, excitedly scrolling through the list on her phone.
“More importantly, we’ve got to get our strategy together and figure out how to make it past the preliminary round, which seems pretty damn impossible to me,” said Sienna.
“Ah, it’s good to hear you’re feeling optimistic,” sighed Izzy, already tired of Sienna’s catastrophic thinking.
“How are younotpanicking right now? Everything we’ve been working toward could fall apart before the end of the week.”
Sienna had been freaking out three times a day, every single day, since New Year’s morning. When they’d woken up after the party, Coach McLaughlin called the whole team into his office and broke the news that their superstar team captain wouldn’t be joining them at the Winter Games. Despite Ari’s attempts at encouragement, the team didn’t take the news well. Sienna was the most worried of them all.
“I can’t understand why everyone is so calm,” said Sienna, shaking her head as she nervously gritted her teeth. All the girls glanced over at Ari, as if looking to her for reassurance as they walked out of the athletes’ quarter, through the training area, and down toward the hockey rink.
