Page 10 of Forbidden Billionaires: Vol. 10

Monday

Alina

I went back to my locker after our second practice of the day.

I was exhausted. Coach had nearly killed us as punishment for our loss the previous day against Brazil.

And to make matters worse, I had barely gotten any sleep last night.

My mind kept going back and forth between Bryce and Chris.

I felt guilty for what had happened with Bryce.

But I hadn't kissed him back. That's exactly what Chris had claimed Gabriela had done to him.

It had seemed like he was lying though. Maybe Chris had kissed Gabriela back.

Or maybe he had initiated it to begin with.

It may have even gone further than that.

Now I just felt angry and guilty and confused.

Plus I was on edge the whole day thinking that the police would show up any minute and haul me away to prison. I yawned. I really needed to take a nap.

I grabbed my stuff out of my locker and noticed that my phone was blinking to signal I had a new message. I turned it on and a message popped up from "My Favorite Athlete."

Who the hell is that? I didn't remember ever putting anyone in my phone with that name.

I clicked on the message to bring it up. "Make sure you don't miss the highlights tonight. Operation Red Rip - Success."

Bryce! That sneaky little bastard had put his number in my phone, and I guess also stolen my number.

"Why do you look so happy?" asked Kristen.

I turned my phone so she could read the text.

"Ah, I should have known it was your new boyfriend."

"He's not my boyfriend!"

"Suuure. You even have him in your phone as your favorite athlete.

And here I was thinking that I was your favorite athlete.

" Kristen made a dramatic sad face. "By the way, did you ever figure out why it was called Operation Red Rip?

I mean, I know you froze some guy's underwear, but what does that have to do with the color red or the word rip? "

"Right, since all of their codenames make so much sense," I said. "Pink Ocelot probably named the mission."

"Pink Ocelot," said Kristen with a laugh. "What a weirdo." She looked strangely happy about him.

"Oh my God, do you like Ocelot?"

"What? Psssh. No." Kristen turned away from me so I couldn't see her expression. "What time do the highlights usually come on?"

I checked the time on my phone. "I think around now. Let's see..." I clicked on the ITA broadcast app on my phone and Owen Harris popped up.

"We have some new developments in the Yao Kai incident, but first let's take a look at the updated medal count."

Yao Kai incident? Is that the guy whose underwear I froze?

A chart popped up on the screen. The US had 19 gold, 13 silver, and 19 bronze, for a total of 51. Brazil had 20 gold, 16 silver, and 16 bronze, for a total of 52. It didn't matter if they ranked it by gold medals or total medal counts. Either way, Brazil was ahead.

"The US had a strong showing today in wrestling to pick up a pair of golds and a bronze, but Brazil had an even better day, racking up a total of 10 medals and bringing their total ahead of the US for the first time in these games.

To analyze the significance of this, let's bring in our medal analyst, Chip Nickels. "

The shot panned out to show Chip sitting next to Owen at his desk.

"Well Owen," said Chip, "I don't think anyone saw this coming.

I know I didn't. And the sports books in Vegas certainly didn't either.

A few weeks ago you could have bet on Brazil winning the medal count with 30 to 1 odds.

If Brazil can keep up this performance, Vegas is going to be paying out a lot of money to a few very lucky people. "

"Do you think Brazil will be able to sustain this success for the next few days?" asked Owen.

"You know, I actually think they can. I just looked at a list of events that they could still medal in, and they could potentially get 50 or 60 more medals."

"Right, but most of those athletes are only in because Brazil is the host nation and got automatic qualification for all the events."

"Well, regardless of how they got in, the Brazilian athletes are really performing at these games. As a sports geek, I'm kind of hoping that they continue to do well and end up tying the US in overall medal count so that we can see our very first tiebreaker."

"Can you walk us through the rules for the tiebreaker?" asked Owen.

A new graphic popped up on the screen and slowly started scrolling up.

Article IV, Section 8 - Medal Count Tiebreaker

1. At noon GMT of the final Tuesday of the games, the committee will calculate if it is mathematically possible for two or more nations to end up with the exact same number of gold, silver, and bronze medals based on the current count and the number of athlete's still yet to compete.

2. If a tie is possible, the host nation will have 24 hours to choose a tiebreaking event. The event can be any event that is not currently featured in the 2017 games. The host nation must specify if it is a men's, women's, or coed competition.

3. The top five nations in overall medal count at noon GMT on Wednesday may select one (or a team, if required) of their current athletes to compete. Only athletes that have competed in the games are eligible.

4. If the medal count ends in a tie, the tiebreaker event will take place before the closing ceremony.

5. If there is no tie at the end of the games, the tiebreaker event will not be held.

"It's pretty simple, really," said Chip.

"It will happen in three phases. First, tomorrow the ITA committee will calculate if it's mathematically possible for Brazil and the US to tie based on how many athletes they have left to compete.

I'll tell you right now, it's going to be possible since they both have so many athletes. "

"Okay. Step two?"

"Once they determine it's possible, the host nation, in this case, Brazil, has 24 hours to announce what the tiebreaker will be."

"And they can choose anything?" asked Owen.

"Yes," said Chip. "The only restriction is that it can't be a sport that's already a part of the games."

"Has there been any indication of what they might choose?"

"Not really. Although one interesting point is that the athletes who compete in it must be chosen from the athletes already at the games, so I suspect they would ask all of their current athletes if they are talented at any obscure sports.

Anyway, the final phase is to look at the medal count at the end of the games.

If the US and Brazil have the exact same number of each medal, they'll go ahead with the tiebreaker. If not, the event will be cancelled."

"What are the odds that a tiebreaker will actually be needed?" asked Owen.

"Probably less than one percent. But I can hope, can't I?

Looking at the schedule, it looks like the last opportunity for either country to win a medal will be the women's volleyball final.

Can you imagine if the US and Brazil both make it there and are playing to see which nation wins the medal count? "

Great. The fate of the US might rest on my ability to not lose my shit when I have to play against that slut Gabriela.

"That really would be something. Well, thanks for joining us, Chip. It's always a pleasure to have you on here. Now let's turn our attention to the developing story about Chinese gymnast Yao Kai."

Finally! "Kristen, they're showing it!" I said.

She leaned in closer to get a better look at the screen.

The graphic next to Owen Harris changed to a picture of the man whose underwear I had frozen.

Owen stifled a laugh. "First, let me apologize for the obscene footage we aired earlier.

We're sincerely sorry to those of you who were watching live.

For those of you who didn't see it, here's a censored version. "

Oh God. What happened?

Footage started rolling of Yao Kai powdering his hands and then hopping up onto the rings. He did a few moves before turning upside down and spreading his legs as far as possible. As he did, his pants tore clean in half.

Kristen and I started laughing hysterically.

While I had frozen Yao Kai's underwear, Bryce must have cut a slit in his pants that would rip as soon as he did anything acrobatic.

Turning upside down and doing the splits on the rings was more than sufficient to get his pants to rip, and due to the frozen underwear, Yao Kai had been going commando.

"After changing into a new pair of pants, Yao Kai performed well and led his team to a silver medal. When interviewed afterwards, he took a surprisingly lighthearted view of the incident."

The screen switched again to show Yao Kai talking to a reporter. They started talking in Chinese and then a voiceover cut in.

"Can you tell us what happened during the warm-up?" asked the reporter.

Yao Kai smiled. "I ripped my pants. It happens sometimes in gymnastics."

"Is there a reason why you weren't wearing any underwear? Do you usually perform like that?"

"I performed well today, so maybe this will be the start of a new tradition. But seriously, the real person you should be interviewing is the person that snuck into my room and froze my underwear last night."

At least he took it well.

The broadcast switched back to Owen Harris at his desk.

He looked extremely serious, but I could tell that laughter was bubbling just below the surface.

How could it not be? "Yao Kai's claim that his underwear was frozen prompted an investigation by the ITA committee, which has revealed that his pants were likely tampered with before the incident.

Security footage from his dorm didn't reveal any suspicious activity, but one maid reported seeing a mustachioed Canadian man near Yao Kai's room at around 9 p.m. last night. They've released the following sketch."

A picture popped up next to Owen that looked nothing like Bryce, besides for a Canadian track suit and his ridiculous fake handlebar mustache.

I should have been concerned that the ITA committee was looking into it, but the sketch was so far off that there was no way they would ever link it back to us. And anyway, last night had been the most fun I had since arriving here. Actually, it had been a long time since I had that much fun.

"We'll continue to monitor this story," said Owen Harris, "but as of now, we have no idea why a Canadian would want to sabotage the Chinese gymnastics team.

The Canadians didn't even send a men's gymnastics team to these games, so it doesn't appear that the sabotage was intended to gain a competitive advantage.

Moving on, let's take a look at how the US won two golds in wrestling. .."

Yuck. Who wants to watch big sweaty dudes wearing onesies and molesting each other? Not me.

I closed out the broadcast and typed out a text to Bryce: "I wonder if they'll ever find the mustachioed Canadian responsible for that heinous crime."

My phone buzzed with a text a second later: "I don't know, but he sure seems like a real bad ass. Where do you want to go for dinner?"

Did he just ask me out? Or demand that we go out? I smiled to myself.

"What's he saying?" asked Kristen.

"I think he just asked me out on a date."

"Oh my God, really?"

"Yeah. But I don't think I should go. This week is supposed to be about volleyball, not boys.

That's why I'm taking a break with Chris.

" Saying his name made me feel nauseous.

I still hadn't told Kristen the whole story about my conversation with him.

I kept saying taking a break, but that wasn't really what it was.

I had told him we were done. And he hadn't contacted me since.

"No, it isn't. You're taking a break with Chris because he's an asshole and cheated on you. As much as I want us to win gold, I also don't want you to miss out on getting to know Bryce. Here, let me see what he said. He probably didn't even mean it as a date. It was probably just as friends."

I handed her my phone. She immediately started typing a response to him.

"Hey!" I yelled. I grabbed for my phone, but Kristen turned away from me so that I'd have to reach around her to get it.

Her arms were so much longer than mine that I didn't stand a chance.

I gave up and sat down to try to lull Kristen into a false sense of security before my next attempt to get my phone back, but it didn't work.

Instead, it just gave her time to finish the message and hit send.

"What'd you say to him?" I asked.

"Told him he could choose the place and asked where we should meet him."

" We ?"

"Yes, we. That way you can hang out with him without feeling like it's a date. No harm in that, right?"

"Are you sure you're not just hoping Ocelot will be there too?" I asked. I was totally on to her.

"Ew, no. Why do you think I like him? I'm doing this for you."

"Sure..."