Settling the Score (The Summer Games #1)(37)
“I have a brilliant idea!” Becca said.
I glanced up to take in her wide smile. “No thanks. I’m fine. No brilliant ideas needed.”
Becca already had her phone out and she was scrolling through the app store. “I’ve heard this rumor…”
I focused on my granola and tried to pretend my hearing had gone so they’d leave me alone.
“Apparently a ton of athletes are using Tinder to find hookups during the games.”
Kinsley leaned forward. “Are you serious?”
I caught Becca’s nod out of the corner of my eye. “Yeah, Michelle and Nina were telling me about it yesterday. There’s like a thousand athletes on there and you can narrow down the distance so you only see the profiles for other people in the village.”
“Cute. I hope they find love,” I said before scraping my chair away from the table and carrying my half-full bowl of granola over to the sink.
Becca continued, “Look, I know we were being hard on you the first few days we were here. We just didn’t want you to go loco. But we can tell you’re depressed from all of this Freddie stuff, and sometimes the best way to get out of a slump is to get a good hump!”
“Yes!” Kinsley said, high-fiving her for the rhyme. “It’s settled then. We’ll make a profile for Andie. I already have this photo of her in a bikini I was going to use for blackmail someday.”
“NOPE!” I shouted from the kitchen. “No profiles needed, but thanks!”
They ignored me. Kinsley scooted her chair around the table to join Becca. They dropped their heads together and got to work. I washed out my dish and loaded it into the dishwasher, listening as they giggled like two schoolgirls.
“I think we should say she’s ‘a fun-loving girl with a heart of gold’.”
Becca shook her head. “Boring. How about ‘A leggy blonde with lots of room for love’.”
I closed the dishwasher. “That makes it sound like I have a huge vagina or something.”
They ignored me.
“I think we should just say how it is,” Becca said. “‘A desperate but pretty soccer player in need of a good f*ck.’”
I ran to the table and ripped the phone out of their hands so fast, I nearly took Becca’s finger with it.
“No!” I held the phone up above my head so they couldn’t get to it. “No Tinder profiles. I don’t need to sleep with a random athlete to feel better. Ugh! I’m fine!”
Kinsley turned to Becca. “Hmm. Better add ‘cranky’ after ‘desperate’.”
EVERY ATHLETE WAS expected to meet in the lobby by 9:00 AM so we could locate our rendezvous point and get placed on buses that would take us to the stadium for the opening ceremonies. It sounded like an easy task, but we had to wait for an elevator on our floor for ten minutes, and when one finally arrived, it was already filled with athletes.
“C’mon, let’s take the stairs,” Kinsley said, leading us toward a side stairwell where we joined the crowd of people making their way to the first floor.
“OUT OF THE WALKWAY!” shouted a woman standing on top of a chair off to the side of the lobby. She was trying to convince a group of British guys to move and clear a path for people to walk. They’d taken up residence right at the foot of the stairs so that even if we wanted to join the athletes from our country, we couldn’t.
“American athletes move to the left of the rope! Great Britain to the right!” the woman shouted again, trying to amplify her voice with a piece of rolled up paper. Most everyone completely ignored her. They were rowdy and excited to see the friends they’d made during the last Olympic games. Whoever thought amassing a couple hundred athletes in one lobby was a good idea should have been fired.
“American athletes, your busses will leave first! Please find your group and make sure you have your badges with you or you won’t be allowed into the stadium for the ceremonies!”
Kinsley dragged me past a group of guys pulling flasks out of their red jumpsuits. (I guessed Lorena had been on to something with all the pockets.)
“Here’s to being drunk for the entire Parade of Nations,” one of the guys proclaimed. His buddies laughed and leaned forward to clink their flasks against his. I watched in awe as they all took long swigs. Weren’t they worried about looking drunk on TV?
“C’mon,” Kinsley said, drawing my attention back to the pathway she was trying to make. I let her pull me through, ignoring the groans from the people she was brushing out of the way.
“Where you goin’ girls?” one guy asked. “Party’s right here.”
Kinsley flashed her ring. “I’ve already got a party of two.”
“Boo,” he said, waving his hand and moving on to his next conquest.
That’s when I first saw Freddie. He was on the opposite side of the lobby, standing on a small staircase that separated the sunken lobby from the hallway that led to the food court. He stood up on the third stair, leaning back against the railing. There were other British athletes around him, talking and joking, but he seemed uninterested, surveying the crowd instead.
I’d seen him in suits, workout clothes, and dressed down in jeans, but seeing Frederick Archibald standing there in his opening ceremonies outfit was physically painful. They’d put him in a tight navy sweater and matching slacks. On everyone else, the outfit looked foolish, but his broad shoulders and strong arms filled out the sweater too easily, making it fit like it’d been designed with exactly his body type in mind.