“Drew. When January third comes around, you’ll be back home with absolutely nothing to do. Driving around Wisconsin and letting Grandma send you on errands.”
“Oh, that really is my future,” Drew said, letting the realization sink in.
“It doesn’t have to be,” she said, her voice softening. “Come to the party.”
Drew could already imagine all the ways his life was going to shrink when he flew back home. The nights he was goingto spend questioning his decision and the days he was going to spend longing for a type of certainty he wasn’t sure he’d ever feel again. When January came, he’d probably be working at his grandpa’s accounting firm, reckoning with his grandma’s deterioration, and spending hours at a time watching the lives of his college friends unfolding online.
Maybe one last party was exactly what he needed to mark the end of his hellish year.
“Are you in?” Thandie asked.
“Send me the address.”
3Ari
DECEMBER 31, 2025
If her dad hadn’t skipped out on her family when she was a kid to run away with a new woman to a different country, Ari would have never become an Olympian. The money he’d sent to assuage his guilt sent her to an elite private school where everybody’s parents were wealthy and well connected. She’d gone into it expecting to feel out of place. After all, she’d gone to a state school from the ages of five to eleven and was one of the only Black girls joining her private school in the middle of the year. But she hadn’t expected to feel so lonely.
However, after a few weeks of roaming the halls alone, she’d met a half-Trinidadian girl with braces and a halo of brown hair, named Sienna, who had invited her to tag along to the after-school ice hockey club. At that point, Ari’s only experience of ice skating was the time her mom had taken her and her younger sister to a pop-up ice rink at an annual Christmas market. But to everybody’s surprise, Ari took to the ice like a duck to water.Playing ice hockey for the first time with Sienna and her new school friends felt like finding the missing piece to a jigsaw puzzle she’d spent her whole childhood trying to assemble. And Ari almost immediately excelled. She skated faster than any of the other girls on her team, plotted out each move to set her teammates up for success, and played with the kind of strategy that made her one of the most valuable players on her team. Ari lived for the thrill of scoring the winning goal and loved each second she spent on the ice.
But being a great player at eleven and a great captain at twenty-one were two entirely different things. Only one of which she felt equipped to do.
She needed to cast that to the back of her mind, though, because she’d promised Coach McLaughlin that she wouldn’t tell any of her teammates about Gracie’s injury or her new role as captain yet. The bad news could wait until January 1 because tonight was her and her teammates’ last chance to celebrate before they flew to Switzerland. So, Ari forced herself to succumb to the heady atmosphere taking over the seventh floor of their boot-camp hotel.
Every single door in the hallway was wide open as music blared out from speakers in different bedrooms. There were old-school R&B tracks, 2000s club classics, sad girl pop bops, and house anthems playing under the sound of her teammates laughing, talking, and getting ready for the night ahead. Freshly sprayed perfume merged with the smell of hot hair curlers as they ran back and forth between rooms to swap jewelry and borrow bobby pins. Their beds were covered with glamorous dresses and mismatched sparkles. The dressing tables were laid out with tiny bags and twinkling necklaces. The bathroom sinks were adorned with hairbrushes, overflowing makeup bags, and boxes of fake eyelashes. Ari and her teammates spent most of their lives inoversized jerseys, ice skates, and protective helmets, but tonight they were going all out. Half of the team was going to a spontaneous Team GB party at the pub down the road from boot camp, and a handful of the others were staying at the hotel to ring in the new year with a movie marathon. But Ari had agreed to join Sienna, Yasmeen, and Izzy at the blowout New Year’s Eve party Zeus Athletics was throwing in central London.
“Could somebody help me zip up the back of my dress?” asked Ari as she walked out of the bathroom and into the hotel suite she was sharing with Izzy, Sienna, and Yasmeen. Yasmeen was sitting on the floor surrounded by the emptied-out contents of her makeup bag, applying a perfectly sharp winged eyeliner. Sienna was half dressed, singing along to an old Sugababes song while she decided between two equally sparkly tops. And Izzy was slowly taking her bright red hair out of rollers and marveling at how each perfectly formed curl fell onto her shoulders. But when Ari walked in, all the girls looked up at her in delight.
“Ari! You look gorgeous,” said Sienna, getting her phone out to take a picture of their New Year’s Eve looks.
“I am going to steal that dress from you the minute you take it off,” said Yasmeen as she walked over, zipped up Ari’s dress, and gave her a YSL Black Opium–scented hug.
Ari studied her reflection in the mirror and concluded that while she hadn’t dressed up to meet the guy her friends were trying to set her up with, or the ex-boyfriend they were trying to keep her away from, she did look really good. She was wearing a midnight-blue dress with sparkly silver detailing. Her hair was blown out into big, bouncy, seventies-style curls and she was wearing glamorous diamond-cased earrings that twinkled each time she tilted her head.
“Chad is gonna—” began Izzy, but Ari shook her head and decided to put an end to the New Year’s romance plot. The Zeusparty was going to be filled with athletes and famous people their age, so she didn’t want to spend the whole night letting Izzy play a game of matchmaker.
“Izzy, I love you. I appreciate your efforts, but I don’t want to meetChad,” she said, looking around at the women she’d been friends with since she was a teenager. “In fact, I don’t need you guys to set me up with anybody.” To mark the moment, she picked up a nearby glass of sparkling water and raised it in the air for a toast. “To focusing on our matches. Swearing off men, especially Harrison. And spending the rest of the night dancing with you.” She could tell by the looks on her friends’ faces that they didn’t really believe the Harrison part. Still, they smiled, clinked their glasses, and launched into a conversation about all the athletes taking pit stops in London before they flew to Switzerland for the Winter Games.
But Ari couldn’t distract herself enough to shake off the dread she’d been feeling ever since Coach McLaughlin had broken the Gracie news. She’d never been a team captain and was daunted by the prospect of stepping into it for the first time, just weeks before the Olympics. Because being a good captain wasn’t just about being a good player, it was about being an excellent leader, keeping her teammates in line, and getting them to respect her, specifically, on a professional level. And as much as she loved her best friends, they could be a bit of a nightmare.
“Who’s taking shots?” said Izzy as she pulled a bottle of tequila out of her suitcase, seeming to forget that alcohol was banned from their strict pretournament diet and that none of them could afford to take risks in the first week of boot camp.
“Should I go with black, or white?” asked Sienna, lifting two pairs of shoes. Ari shuddered at the height of the six-inch heels; Sienna was one mistimed dance move away from a twisted ankle.If anything happened, the team would be without one of their best shooters.
“I love Gracie, but I’m kind of glad her flight was delayed. Because if she was here doing up team captain, we definitely wouldn’t be going to a party right now,” said Yasmeen. The other girls began to laugh along with her, blissfully unaware that Gracie wasn’t coming to boot camp. And that their new team captain, Ari, was right there in front of them. Noticing every small choice that could jeopardize their futures.
Ari was usually easygoing. Joked around with her teammates, danced on every occasion, and gave herself the freedom to occasionally indulge in small bursts of recklessness. But now that she was their team captain, it was up to her to get them to the party, through the party, and back from the party without any injuries, runaways, or dumb decisions that could affect their performance. The responsibilities that came with being the team captain now rested on her glitter-covered shoulders.
But one hour, three mocktails, and a ridiculously expensive Uber ride later, Ari’s worries were slowly, temporarily, beginning to retreat. She and her friends spent the journey passing the aux cord around, convincing the driver to sing along to their favorite songs. They drove into London with the windows down, playing Raye and Jorja Smith on full blast. Laughing, gossiping, and dancing their way into the final hours of the year. The car sped past a skyline of tall, spectacular buildings, big groups of late-night revelers, and city lights that pointed them in the direction of the party. But when they arrived, Ari began to question if they’d typed in the right address. The building they pulled up in front of was in one of the strange dystopian parts of Canary Wharf where all the skyscrapers were tall, expensive, and seemingly empty. The kind of apartments you knew belonged to mysterious oligarchs who bought a London postcode forbusinesspurposesbut didn’t pay taxes. The buildings were glossy, the streets were eerie, and there wasn’t a parked car in sight. But their Uber driver needed to pick up his next round of passengers, so they got out and followed Yasmeen.
“Yas, are you sure that this is the right place?” Ari asked as they stepped into the lobby. The building was silent except for the sound of their footsteps. Yasmeen turned around and led them to the other side.
“This is the right place,” she said as they stepped into the elevator. Yasmeen pressed the button for the fifty-first floor. Ari looked out of the window as they went up. From this height, they could see the entire city. She liked imagining the lives of people who lived in buildings like these. Tall, multimillion-pound apartment buildings that stretched out into the sky like private hands reaching out to the heavens. The girls were quiet by the time the doors opened, in silent awe of the view that welcomed them on the top floor. Yasmeen led them down the corridor until they reached an unassuming door marked by two men with headsets and iPad guest lists. Yasmeen walked over and said a few words to them, and then the guards instructed them to hand their bags over for a search.
“Have a lovely evening, ladies,” one of the security guards said with a nod once he was done.
Yasmeen walked down the corridor, pushed the door open, and led them into a room where they were instantly engulfed by colors, lights, and sounds. The room was packed with some of the most beautiful people Ari had ever seen, and they were all swaying along to an intoxicating beat. Ari stood mesmerized as she watched them under the light of a mirror ball that was slowly spinning around the room, reflecting specks of light that looked like stardust. Eyelids glittered, dresses twirled, and a perfectlycurated soundtrack lifted backs from the dark shadows and out onto the dance floor.
