But Drew couldn’t help himself. It was only a matter of minutes before he was reaching for his phone, going onto Instagram, and subjecting himself to the quiet torture of seeing his college friends move on without him. As soon as he pressedPLAYon Sade’s Instagram story, he was hit with a photo of her new boyfriend and a bunch of their friends by the beach. They’d rented out a place in Big Sur and were having a party without him. It stung because that trip was Drew’s idea. He’d been the one to want to spend New Year’s Eve with all their friends in California. But they’d broken up and he’d left so abruptly that they’d gone ahead and went without him. It stung to know that their lives were moving on while his stagnated.
So, he put his phone away, tossed his drink back, and focused on his assignment. He held his camera up and tried to lose himself in the visual potential of the crowd. When he found a group of Formula One drivers popping bottles by the bar, he angled his camera to get a shot of them from above. Then he adjusted the exposure settings to capture the way the disco ball reflected shards of light onto a pop star being thrust into the middle of a dance circle. As he watched the people around him let loose, Drew tried his best to convince himself he was having fun.
But he couldn’t spend the entire night surrounded by people having the time of their lives when his own felt like such a mess.The contrast between their joy and his melancholy was too great. It was 11:44 p.m., sixteen minutes before midnight. He knew it was too early to go back to the hotel. He had a job to do after all. But he figured that there was just enough time to make a quick, temporary escape. If he left now, he could be back on the dance floor by midnight. So, he walked down the hallway and opened a door that looked like an exit. There, he saw a set of stairs labeledROOF ACCESS. Some time alone would do him good. So, Drew buttoned up his blazer, left the party, and braced himself for the winter air.
5Ari
DECEMBER 31, 2025
Ari was in the middle of the dance floor, moving like the world would end at midnight. Laughing with her best friends like this was the last time they would ever be this carefree. Because once Coach broke the news to the rest of the team, and they made their way to Switzerland, everythingwouldbe different.
“Sip this,” said Izzy, passing Ari her glass. After a misguided round of shots, Izzy had befriended one of the bartenders and convinced him to make the team complicated but delicious mocktails for the rest of the night. They wanted to celebrate, but they were athletes with training the next day. So, Ari drank a sip and immediately started dancing to “Rush” by Troye Sivan with Sienna by her side. The song had been on their warm-up playlist for years, but it sounded extra special under a disco ball.
“How did things go with Hot Hockey Chad?” asked Sienna. Ari shook her head. Somehow Izzy had wrangled her into a conversation with him.
“Hot Hockey Chad spent ten minutes mansplaining the rules of ice hockey to me before I told him that I was on Team GB and scored more goals in my last match than he did in his entire last season,” Ari said.
“So, you’re sticking with the no-men rule?” asked Sienna.
“I think I’d rather die alone than speak to another—” began Ari, but she stopped midsentence. Because the man she really didn’t want to see that night had just walked in.
Harrison Cavendish.
He was tall, devastatingly handsome, and exuded a level of confidence that instantly made him the most attractive person in the room. He was wearing a white shirt with just enough buttons undone to reveal the kind of build you could only get from years of being a professional athlete. He’d clearly just run his hands through his gorgeous brown hair, and his eyes were flicking around the party as he saw old friends and pulled people he’d just met into his orbit. But then his gray eyes landed on Ari, and for a moment it felt like they were the only two people in the room.
Ari had watched hundreds of romcoms and was well accustomed to the scenes when the romantic interest walked in. To the moments when time stilled as the two characters in the love story saw each other for the first time. The meet cute.
But despite how attractive the man crossing the room to walk toward her was, Ari’s breathless reaction wasn’t a symptom of love at first sight. It was a feeling that triggered the sensation of sharp-winged moths in her stomach and made her want to end the night before it could even really begin.
Sienna looked at Harrison, then Ari, and sighed before walking back over to the other girls. Ari opened her mouth to make some sort of excuse or promise that she would be back in a moment, but they knew how these things always ended.
Ari knew who Harrison was after the charm faded. The wayhis demeanor changed when he didn’t get his way, and how much smaller she felt when she was around him. But she couldn’t shake off the hold he had on her. A part of her still wanted to run her fingers through his hair, tuck herself into the crook of his shoulder, and spend the night letting herself get lost in his eyes.
But she couldn’t. After the last incident, she’d promised to never let herself fall again.
They were in the middle of the dance floor, where the music was so loud that everyone needed to shout to be heard above the noise. But when he approached her, Harrison took it one step further and leaned over to talk directly into her ear. His lips brushing against her skin. “If I knew you’d be here, I would have come sooner,” he said, laying his hand on her bare shoulder.
A tingle went down her spine. She could always feel herself getting pulled back in by his gravity. It was an unholy mix of dread and desire. Because men like Harrison Cavendish had a way of pulling you in with the very best of who they could be. Or pretend to be. When she’d met him at a Team GB induction event two years ago, she’d been swept off her feet. He was a smooth talker and complimented her on both her ice hockey performance and the new hairstyle she’d shown up with that day. During their first two weeks together, he’d hand-delivered flowers to her front door, gifted her a signed copy of her favorite athlete’s autobiography, and taken her on a date to one of the most exclusive restaurants in London. So, when he’d asked her to be his girlfriend, she’d accepted without hesitation. It was Ari’s first real relationship, and so she found herself completely mesmerized by the charming, seemingly faultless man before her. Harrison was a few years older than she was, already had two gold Olympic medals for snowboarding, and had the kind of face that only the heavens could have formed. Within weeks, she’d been reduced toa giggly schoolgirl who couldn’t stop telling all her friends about “Harry.”
How Harry held her hand when they crossed the road, how Harry saidI love youfirst, how Harry always picked her up after training, and how Harry always wanted to know every single detail of her day. Who she hung out with, where they went, what she wore, when she was coming home, why she wanted to spend time with her friends instead of him, why she kept wearing dresses like that when there were other men around, why she didn’t answer on the first ring when he called. Why was she so hell-bent on making him jealous? Why couldn’t she just be a good girlfriend? Why didn’t she thank him for loving her more than anyone else ever had? And anyone else ever would?
She didn’t realize how bad things were until a year in, when she found herself crying on the phone in a restaurant bathroom. Apologizing for “ruining” Harry’s weekend by going to a birthday dinner with her team instead of spending Saturday night with him. The control started so subtly, masquerading as care, until it slowly crept into every area of her life. Her friends noticed and pulled her aside. Told her that it wasn’t normal to constantly walk on eggshells with someone she loved. The intervention was the wake-up call she needed to break up with him. But a few weeks later, they were back together and well on their way into a two-year cycle of breakups and makeups instigated by his overreactions and her willingness to forgive. Her friends hated him, and Ari had gone a week without speaking to them after their second intervention. So, they’d learned to bite their tongues and just be there for her in the fallout.
Until September.
Ari had spent the day running around London on her own. Listening to an audiobook as she ran errands on one of her rare free weekends. She’d gone to the supermarket to pick upingredients to bake a cake for her teammates, an apology for missing out on a team dinner to spend the night with Harrison. But when she’d gotten back to her flat, she’d found Harrison standing over the garbage can as he threw her favorite hockey skates away. She hadn’t given him a spare set of keys, so his being in her room was strange enough. But throwing away her favorite skates? He shrugged it off and then presented her with a box of new skates, telling her he’d bought them as a surprise to replace the old ones. But the experience was strange enough for her to start seeing him differently. In that moment, she thought back to all the other things he’d thrown away and replaced. All the subtle ways she’d let him change her into who he wanted her to be. The risk of losing herself in the relationship didn’t alarm her, but the risk of Harrison getting in the way of doing what she loved was the thing that finally rang her alarm bells. So, the next day, she broke up with him and promised herself that this time it was for good.
But Harrison was a professional snowboarder and, like her, he was going to Switzerland to compete as part of Team GB. They would be eating in the same canteens, training in the same gyms, and sleeping in the same building for three weeks. It made her feel uneasy because she couldn’t figure out if the heightened awareness she felt around him was some strange remnant of attraction or her fight-or-flight telling her to run. Luckily, her phone started vibrating before she had to find out. She pulled it out of her pocket and glanced down at the caller ID. It was her sister, Anesu. Harrison glanced down, too, reading the screen as if it was his own.
“I’ll let you deal with that,” he said quickly. Ari’s family made him uncomfortable to the point where he left as soon as they came up. It had bothered her when they were together. But now, it was the perfect way to get him to leave her alone. For once, she was grateful for her family drama.
“But I’ll find you at midnight,” Harrison said, his voice deep and slow.
Ari unconsciously glanced down at his lips before shaking her head and reminding herself of the promises she’d made. She couldn’t go back, never again.
She clutched her phone, left the dance floor, and walked down the hallway until she found somewhere quiet enough to call her sister back.
“What happened? Are you okay? Aren’t you supposed to be at Auntie Vimbo’s party?”
