“Thandie Dlamini, lovely to meet you,” she said, smiling, as she reached over to shake Luiz’s hand.
“Luiz Souza, the pleasure is all mine,” said Luiz. He was all charm but reserved the best of it for his boyfriend, who worked on the anti-doping team.
“Soyou’reDrew’s press office bestie? You know he talks about you every time I call him, right?”
“I don’t talk about him that much,” Drew said.
But Thandie liked to make her brother squirm. Her favorite sport, after ice hockey, was teasing him.
“‘Thandie, Luiz is the best, he helped me find a spare set of batteries,’” she mimicked. “‘Thandie, Luiz is so nice and helpedme get into the bobsledding quarterfinals,’” she said with a grin. “‘Thandie, Luiz is going to help me become best friends with—’”
“Hans Leitner,” finished Luiz, and the two of them started laughing, immediately bonded. He’d known they were going to get along.
As they ate lunch, Thandie talked about hockey practice and what life was like in the athletes’ side of the Village. Luiz spoke about his childhood in Brazil and going to university in Canada. And Drew talked about the photos he’d taken for Zeus and wanting to travel through the Alps on the Glacier Express. But then, just when everything was going well, Luiz asked a casual question that turned things around.
“Thandie, I’m helping a BBC journalist with an interview she’s doing later with another ice hockey player, and I was wondering if you knew her,” Luiz said. Drew had told Luiz about Ari, and he’d been gently teasing him for the smile that crossed his face each time her name came up. But Drew hadn’t mentioned her to his sister yet. They’d barely spent any time together since their last family dinner and Drew didn’t feel the need to tell her about a relationship that wasn’t even real. But Luiz was curious to find out if they knew each other.
“Oh, I know everyone. What’s her name?” asked Thandie as she put her cutlery down.
“Ari Shumba?” Luiz asked innocently.
Drew glanced over at his sister, watching as her face screwed up.
“Arikoishe Shumba?” she asked in a venomous tone. “The girl who almost ruined my life?”
“What?” Drew asked, confused.
“She’s the one who tackled me and broke my leg,” Thandie said, shaking her head.
And in that moment, everything clicked. Drew hadn’t seenanything about that match when he’d googled Ari. She wasn’t that well known, so none of the articles about Thandie’s injury included her name. But Drew had been at the game his sister was talking about. He could still remember watching in horror as his then seventeen-year-old sister was carried off the ice rink. He’d been so focused on her that he hadn’t paid attention to the person she’d interacted with. But as the pieces came together, it all began to make sense. On New Year’s, Ari had told him about the guilt she felt for a mysterious event that had ruined one person’s life and improved hers. Now he realized that ruined person was his sister.
“She’s a sorry excuse for a team captain and an even worse player,” said Thandie. “Wait, that’s not fair. She’s a brilliant player, she’s just a terrible person.”
“What happened?” Luiz asked, glancing between them.
“You know how people sometimes trash-talk before a big game? Try to get into their opponent’s head and mess with them a little? It’s part of the culture, especially when we were kids. So, when we competed against each other growing up we’d always toss small digs at each other, go back and forth a little. It was harmless fun. But I knew all the other players in the league were a little jealous of my team, and who wouldn’t be? We’re the reigning champions.” Thandie shrugged.
“After Canada,” Luiz teased. He’d spent four years in Toronto and was still patriotic about his temporary home.
“Give it a few years and we’ll outpace them.” She smiled. “Anyway, back to the story. Team GB was doing well in 2021, much better than anybody expected. And, for a season, they seemed like they could become genuine competitors. And you know how sports media gets,everybody loves an underdog, but a good story isn’t enough. At the end of the day it’s about who wins.”
“And your team was killing it that year,” said Luiz with a nod. He followed all the winter sports in the lead-up to Olympic qualifications.
“Until Arikoishe turned up.” Thandie took a dramatic sip of her water, before putting it down and telling a story that Drew had forgotten a crucial detail of. “It was a few months before the 2022 Games, and we had one of our final matches of the year. Right before it started, she skated past me, winked, and said, ‘Break a leg.’ Half an hour later in the middle of the game, she tackled me and pushed me into the wall with so much force that I… broke my leg.”
“Oh no,” said Luiz.
“So, because of her, I missed out on what was supposed to be my first Olympics.”
“Do you think she did it on purpose?” Luiz asked as Drew kicked himself for not connecting the dots sooner.
“No,” she admitted. “But I’m pretty sure she’s glad it happened.”
“So, are you and Arifriendlynow?” asked Drew, hoping five years had been long enough to thaw the ice.
“Friendly?” Thandie said with a joyless laugh as she shook her head. “Ihatethat girl.”
Drew’s stomach dropped. He knew the depths of his sister’s grudges. Once her mind was set, there was no way to persuade her otherwise.
