Out of Bounds (The Summer Games #2)(102)
The music began, and so did I.
Chapter Forty
Brie
The rumors about the closing ceremonies at the Olympics are mostly true, and I found that out the hard way. Athletes are finished competing, their lives and destinies are once again their own, and suddenly the arena turns into one massive party. They carted us over in buses and although alcohol was prohibited, flasks and water bottles filled with booze were getting passed around like crazy.
I kept my mouth on the bottle Lexi had stuffed in her bag upon leaving our condo, and even then, I took tiny sips, exaggerating about how much I’d really consumed so as to forgo any pressure to drink more.
Though we’d missed the opening ceremonies, I wasn’t all that excited to attend the closing. Everyone was rowdy and insane, and truthfully I was tired and needed to get back to my condo and pack for my flight in the morning. Of course, if I’d dug a little deeper, I would have found that I mostly didn’t want to be there because Erik wouldn’t be there.
“See! I told you it wouldn’t be so bad!” Lexi said, stringing her arm through mine so we were locked together in the hoard of athletes. Our team—even June—was sticking together, trying to stay safe in the crowd. We were in the arena, standing among thousands and thousands of other athletes as celebrities and musical guests took turns serenading the crowd from center stage. From my vantage point on the floor, I could hardly see. There were too many athletes in front of me, jumping, dancing, and trying to snap photos while they could.
“How hard do you think it would be to try to find the soccer team in this mess?” Lexi asked, pressing up on her tiptoes to scan over the crowd.
I laughed. “Nearly impossible.”
We were wedged between groups of South African and Japanese athletes. Mixed among those were a few American and Canadian teams. It was a complete melting pot and the only common denominator was that everyone was getting more drunk by the second. I edged closer to Lexi, too nervous to drift into the crowd alone.
“I keep trying to FaceTime Duncan, but there’s no cell reception in here,” Molly frowned, holding her iPhone up in the air as if to snag some spare radio waves.
“Uh, Molly, there are like a million people stuffed into this stadium. There’s no way you’re going to get service, much less be able to stream video.”
I told myself that’s why I didn’t have a text message from Erik waiting for me now that I was done competing. I’d assumed he would have found me after I finished with the medal ceremony, but that’d been hours ago and I still hadn’t heard from him. Maybe that’s because you told him no too many times, genius.
“Who cares, you guys?” Lexi said, wrapping her free arm around Molly. “Everyone is drunk and happy and we should be too! I’m pretty sure that’s Justin f*cking Timberlake on stage, so just shut your traps and listen to him sing.”
“Really?!” Rosie asked, hopping up and down to try to see past the tall athletes in front of us.
“Here, get on my shoulders,” June said, bending down in front of Rosie.
My brows nearly fell off my face I was so shocked—first, that June was even hanging around us, and second, that she was seemingly enjoying it.
“Guess you don’t hate us any more, June?” Molly asked, just as surprised by her behavior as I was.
“Truthfully, I thought you all were going to blow it in competition and kill my chances at a gold, but since you guys didn’t completely ruin everything, I’ve decided to give you a second chance.”
In June-speak, she’d basically just declared her undying love for us.
“Huh.” I smiled. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
She shrugged. “I mean, you guys still annoy the hell out of me, but it’s whatever.”
I laughed. “There’s the June I know.”
She rolled her eyes, but I didn’t miss the slight smile she was trying to hide. June didn’t 100% despise us anymore, which basically felt like an Olympic miracle. HALLELUJAH!
June held out her hands for Rosie so she could hop on her shoulders. Once she was situated, she screamed loud enough to rupture my eardrums. “That is Justin! GUYS!” She whipped around to look at us with eyes the size of saucers. “We need to get closer to the stage!”
After that, the night turned into an absolute mess. We pushed closer to the stage with linked arms so we wouldn’t get separated. Everyone groaned as we pushed and shoved, but Lexi plowed right through, oblivious to the giants around her.
“Move it or lose it, people!” she bellowed, tugging me after her so fast I lost my footing and tripped. The rough concrete scraped the skin on my left leg, and when I glanced down, I saw blood.
“Lexi! Slow down. I’m bleeding!”
“I can’t!” she argued, continuing to drag me after her as I tried to keep blood from dripping down my leg. “We’re so close!”
Clearly, I’d made a mistake in pretending to drink as much as everyone else. I was nowhere near drunk enough to be fooled into enjoying myself there.
“I wonder if he’d leave Jessica Biel for me,” Lexi contemplated with a serious tone. “I know it’d be hard with their new baby and all, but…”
As she continued to ramble on about divorce rates amongst celebrities and her ability to make a man like JT “happy in the sack”, I tried to find something in my purse to wipe at the blood running down my leg. The cut had started to sting, and the tiny wrinkled receipt I was using to wipe up my leg wasn’t helping.