“What will feel like a betrayal?” his grandma asked as she walked toward them.
“Getting to her game late. Let’s speed up,” Drew said, slapping on a cheerful expression and walking to the exit of the gift shop.
As Drew stepped outside, he noticed it was beginning to snow. He hated the cold, which was one of the main reasons he’d decided to go to college in California—a college he could reenroll in, he reminded himself. Drew lived for the West Coast’s endless blue skies and proximity to the ocean. There was always something to do in LA, and the people he met there provided him with endless sources of inspiration. He could lie to himself about many things—he did it all the time. But there was no denying that he missed California. He was trying his best to live in the moment though, so he forced himself to push those memories aside and focus on the present. He was about to see if his grandparents were following him when he heard the sound of an alarm. He turned around. His grandma walked through the gift shop exit, nonchalant. But a security guard immediately followed her out.
“Ma’am, you have to pay for that,” he said, sounding nervous. The guard was staring directly at his grandma. He was trying to look tough, but there was a nervousness in his eyes.
“Excuse me?” his grandma said. “Young man, do I look like a person that would steal?” she asked. She didn’t. She was the kind of woman who displayed her wealth in her appearance: designer handbags, tailored coats, and decadent brooches. She wasn’t a rulebreaker, so she handed the security guard her shopping bag and receipt. But she made sure to give him the kind of glare that would make even the most confident person feel like they were being scolded by their grandmother. The guard looked at her receipt and apprehensively searched her bag. Then he sighed, as if he didn’t want to say anything but knew he had to.
“Your pocket,” he said reluctantly.
“Yes?” she said incisively, smoothing down the fabric of her coat.
“The left pocket,” the security guard sighed.
She reached down, indignant. But her expression fell as her hand went into the pocket and came out holding an ornate snow globe.
“I… I don’t know how that got there,” she said, looking around, embarrassed. A few tourists who’d been leaving the gift shop glanced over and then immediately looked away. Drew’s heart sank a little as he watched his grandpa’s face fall, too. He reached for his wallet, gently took the snow globe from his wife’s hands, and walked straight back into the shop. Muttering an apology and explanation to the security guard.
Drew immediately went over to put his arm around his grandma’s shoulders. She hated sympathy as much as she hated talking about her illness. So, Drew did what he did best.
“That’s where Thandie gets it from. Sweeping things up before anyone can notice? If you played hockey, I bet you’d steal a puck as soon as you got on the ice,” he teased. His grandma gave him a short look of gratitude, then smiled, playing along.
“I taught her everything she knows,” she laughed, though they both knew full well that she’d never stepped foot on a skating rink. But humor was their shared strategy for getting through this. So, they spent the entire walk to Thandie’s ice hockey match tossing jokes back and forth until the globe was almost entirely forgotten. When they got to the stadium, Drew cheered for his sister and tried to focus on the game. But he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that his and his grandpa’s strategy—to ensure that Grandma and Thandie didn’t spend too much time alone together—wasn’t a lasting solution. Eventually, Thandie would find out. Drew just hoped he could stop that from happening during the two most important weeks of her life.
After the first period of the game ended, he left his grandparents to head over to his next assignment. As much as he wanted to watch his sister’s entire match, he was at the Olympics to work.So, he took a shuttle to the speed-skating rink to photograph a Swedish athlete who was at the Olympics for the first time and ask him about his journey to the Games. Then he walked to one of the athletes’ gyms to do a mini photo shoot with the Nigerian bobsled team Ari had introduced him to. They showed him their training routines and joked about how, in their sport, every day at the gym was arm day. Once he’d completed his list of athletes for the day, he took a chairlift to the top of the Village.
After a series of scattered texts between Ari’s training sessions and Drew’s assignments, they’d decided on a location for their second fake date: Schokoladenzeit, the glamorous hot chocolate bar up in the mountains.
When he walked inside, Drew immediately understood why it had become the most-talked-about venue in that year’s Village. Schokoladenzeit wasn’t a regular café with a broad selection of flavors, or even just a specialty hot chocolate shop with Olympic-themed decorations. It was the Willy Wonka’s workshop of hot chocolate bars. As soon as he stepped in, he was hit by the delicious smell of chocolate and the warm scents of hazelnut, vanilla, coffee beans, caramel, and cinnamon. The bar was designed like a luxurious log cabin with armchairs covered in thick blankets and fluffy pillows at every turn. There was a fireplace at the center of the room and warm candles twinkling all around them. Drew settled into a cozy corner visible enough to meet Ari’s requirement for a very public date.
He was leafing through the menu and browsing the thirty-plus types of hot chocolate they had on offer when he saw a bright blue puffer coat cross the bar. He wanted to tell Ari about Thandie right away, but the first thing he noticed when she walked toward him was the expression on her face. She looked worn out. Her shoulders slumped and her lips turned down. When they made eye contact, she gave him a half-hearted wave.
“Bad day?” he asked as she plopped herself on the opposite side of the couch he was sitting on. She dropped her bag and sighed.
“Let’s just say that if I didn’t have two more games this week, I’d be drinking something a lot stronger than hot chocolate,” she said, unbuttoning her coat.
Drew hadn’t known Ari very long, but he’d spent enough time taking photos of people to figure out how they were feeling. She was joking around as she studied the menu, pointing out all the sports-inspired drink names. But she kept tapping her foot against the floor and had rolled and unrolled the sleeves of her red sweater at least three times in the last minute. He wanted to ask her about it but let her warm up first. They went back and forth on the menu until she ordered the Alpine Ski Almond, and he ordered the Bobsled Banoffee Pie. Their hot chocolates arrived in tall glass mugs on a tray dusted to look like a thin layer of snow. She told him that she was supposed to be on a processed sugar ban as part of her training diet, but this was too delicious to refuse. It wasn’t until she had her hands wrapped around her mug that she finally looked content.
“So, what happened today?” he asked casually.
“Nothing,” she said, sipping her chocolate.
“We won’t know each other anymore in two weeks, remember?”
“So, this is a safe space?” she laughed.
“Exactly. Just listening, no judgment.”
She shook her head and smiled, dipping her spoon into the mug to taste the almond flakes scattered across the top before opening up.
“The team bombed at our game yesterday, so all the girls hate me. Well, they don’t hate me, they just think I have no idea how to be a good captain,” she admitted, putting her cup down andholding her head in her hands. “And honestly, they’re right. I just don’t think I’m cut out for this.”
He wanted to reassure her, but from what he knew about Ari, his words wouldn’t be enough. She was the type of person who needed to believe something for herself.
“What makes you think that?” he asked instead.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, putting up her hands. “Being captain, especially at the Olympics, is a life-changing opportunity. I’m grateful that Coach picked me for the job. But since taking it,everything’schanged. My friends are hanging out without me; and instead of trying to do my best, I feel like I’m constantly trying to prove myself. And I think they’re starting to realize that I’m not going to become the person they need me to be,” she said, slightly panicked.
