Yasmeen nodded. Ari moved on.
“Izzy. In an ideal world, the puck should never get close enough for you to have to save it,” she began. Izzy opened her mouth as if to agree and berate the girls in defense, but Ari had more to say. “However, this is a real-life game. There are no perfect scenarios, just what happens on the rink. So, when the puck comes, be enthusiastic about the fact that you get to do what you’ve been training your whole life for. You’re good at what you do, so focus on how lucky you are to get to do that instead of the fact that the pucks are coming your way.” Izzy looked shocked, but instead of reacting, she closed her eyes and muttered a quiet “whatever” because she, like the rest of the team, knew Ari was right.
“And Sienna,” Ari said to her oldest friend, who was an excellent player but lived in a near-permanent state of doom.
“Arikoishe,” she replied, mirroring her seriousness.
Ari smiled because, in that moment, she could see Sienna as both the sweet and scrappy eleven-year-old who’d invited her to her first ice hockey game and the brilliant but terrified twenty-one-year-old having a crisis of confidence.
“You know I love you. But I don’t care if you’re the best player we’ve got. If you’re a negative force in the changing room, I won’t hesitate to keep you on the bench,” Ari said, being firm for what felt like the first time in their long friendship. Sienna’s eyes widened a little, but if Ari knew her as well as she thought she did, there was a hint of approval in her expression, too. Sienna hadbeen trying to get Ari to stand up for herself more ever since they’d met. “We’reallhere because we’re good at what we do. So, for the love of God, put a little bit more faith in your teammates and start imagining some best-case scenarios. We need all the belief we can get.”
A few of the other girls began to mutter, but Ari wasn’t having it. She shot them daggers with her eyes and waited until the locker room returned to silence before she addressed them as a team.
“Maybe it was a fluke, blind luck, or the godsend that is Gracie Walters. But how we got here doesn’t matter anymore. We’re at the Olympics now, we made it. So, what we’re not going to do is squander this opportunity by bickering and fighting about petty little things, alright?” she said. A few of the girls muttered.
“I said, alright?” To that, the girls replied with “Okay.” She gave them what she hoped was a deeply unnerving, no-nonsense look.
“We have less than two weeks left in the Village and only one more game to get us to the quarterfinals. We can’t afford to waste another second. Like it or not,I amyour captain. So, get dressed, get your shit together, and get on that rink ready to train for your lives. Because I did not get this far just to get this far. And neither did you.”
“Okay, Captain,” said Sienna with a nod. Ari smiled.
“Good. For the next week, how we feel about one another shouldn’t matter. Let’s go back to being friends after the Games. Team before everything, okay?” Ari was relieved when everyone seemed to agree.
Yasmeen went over to the speaker and pressedPLAY. The new Little Simz album flooded through the speakers as the team got ready to train on the rink. Ari took a deep breath, turned around, and did the same.
This time around, their training session went brilliantly. Her teammates applied the feedback they’d been given, and the extra hour they had on the ice that day was so productive that they decided to treat themselves.
“This is not what I thought you meant by a team field trip,” Yasmeen said as she went around painting matching flags onto her teammates’ cheeks. They’d debated going back to their rooms to change into casual clothes. But instead they headed straight to the arena to rifle through the merch shop. There they found colorful wigs, T-shirts, and face paint to cheer on their Team GB friends on the curling team.
Ari’s teammates had all been hyper-focused on games and training and hadn’t explored the Village. And while she knew that they needed to put their dynamic as a team above everything else, she also knew they needed something to bring them together and remind them why they’d become friends in the first place. So, she’d sweet-talked the woman who worked in the Athletes Liaison office into getting the entire team tickets to that night’s curling competition.
They immediately got swept up in the excitement of the crowd as they bought Olympic merch, convinced themselves that foam fingers were essential to the viewing experience, and laughed their way toward their seats.
“I think we should start a wave. If I stand up, will you join in?” asked Izzy. Ari opened her mouth to reply but it turned out that Izzy didn’t need much convincing. She was having the time of her life. Izzy just stood up, threw her hands in the air, and watched with glee as the rest of their row followed along and sent a wave of arms and cheers circling around the arena.
Ari was having a good time until she glanced over and caught sight of the one person she didn’t want to see. Harrison. He hadn’t noticed her, but seeing him made her feel uneasy. So, she stoodup, looking for an excuse to change seats so that she wouldn’t be in his direct line of sight for the rest of the game.
“Does anyone want a snack?” Ari asked, performing cheerfulness. She’d made it her responsibility to make sure everyone was fed, hydrated, and happy.
“A healthy snack, or athank you for working so hard today yes you can have a cheat mealsnack?” Izzy asked with a conspiratorial smile. The team looked over at Ari. She’d been all business all day, trying her best to be firm with them. But when she saw the hopeful expressions on their faces, she relented. One cone of fries wasn’t going to make everything fall apart. Being captain, she decided, was about balancing discipline with morale, so she nodded and agreed. Everyone immediately headed over to the food stalls.
Ari was looking through the smoothie options when she saw a familiar figure weaving his way through the crowds with a camera around his neck. She liked seeing Drew in his natural habitat. He seemed completely at ease when he was talking to people and taking photos. She watched from a distance as he photographed a group of athletes warming up on the ice, then smiled as she saw them laughing at some joke he’d told them that she couldn’t hear. She could understand why each person he interacted with seemed so comfortable around him. In a world where photographers and journalists could be intrusive and push too hard, Drew had a way of making everyone feel like they were already friends. He was safe, personable, and open. The complete opposite of the type of guy Ari usually went for. But every time she saw him, she wanted to lean in.
So, when he walked over and pulled her into a hug, she did. Relaxing as she settled into his arms. There it was again, that combination of firewood, fresh laundry, and warm, musky cologne. She held on until he let go.
“I thought you were spending the day doing anextreme team bondingsession.”
“Oh, I am. Hot dogs and slushies are essential to making sure the rest of the team doesn’t turn against me,” she joked.
“So you and your friends fixed things?”
Ari looked over at the group of girls congregated next to the hot dog stand. They’d been deep in conversation the last time she’d seen them, but now they were looking over at her and Drew with curious eyes. Ari watched as Izzy gave her a knowing look, and all of her friends began to walk over. She needed to act fast.
“I told them about you, well, the fake version. Can you…” but she didn’t need to ask. Drew was already draping his arm around her shoulders. Ari tried not to like it too much.
“You must be Drew.” Izzy was carrying an unnaturally blue slushie that would never pass the nutrition test. Ari let it slide.
“The one who’s had her smiling down at her phone all week?” Yasmeen asked. Ariwantedto object. While she definitely did light up each time she saw a message from Drew, she didn’t want him to think that she had a crush on him or anything. But then she remembered the arm around her shoulders. Making this seem convincing was the whole point.
