I arched a brow. “Don’t you?”
“No!” he exclaimed, clearly flustered. “That’s not what this is at all.”
“I don’t know what else to tell you.” I tried to act like this conversation had become tedious to me. “I’m not interested.”
It was a miracle that my voice wasn’t shaking at the lie. He evaluated me before letting out a long exhale.
“Okay, then.”
“I’m going to head back inside,” I said, standing. “It’s getting a little chilly out here.”
Liar. My body felt like it was on literal fire.
Eli’s forehead creased as if trying to figure me out. “You’re scared. I get it, I do. But I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here when you’re ready to talk.” The sincerity in his voice made me want to hightail it out of there even faster. “We’re stuck in here together, after all.”
Chapter Eight
“Hurry, Arnie!”I shouted as he hastily assembled a rickety wooden pole.
He looked at me with unmistakable agitation. “I’m going as fast as I can!”
He continued to fumble with the wooden rods as I looked over at the other large makeshift cage next to us. Eli and Sofia were hot on our tail, but the other two couples had fallen off a while ago.
We were in a series of three cages for this challenge. Each one contained a puzzle we had to solve and a way to retrieve a key to move on. Trace and Danny had been eliminated after the second cage, and Grant and Rachel had been so dysfunctional, they were eliminated in the first cage despite Rachel trying her best to carry the challenge on her back.
“They’re catching up to us!” I hovered over Arnie as he continued to struggle.
My conversation with Eli from last night banged at the forefront of my mind. At the start of today’s challenge, when I had done what I told him I’d do—stick with Arnie—he’dgiven me a disappointed look. But when we’d lined up for the challenge and he was directly next to me, he’d whispered something right in my ear.
“Guys’ choice next time,” he’d said before winking at me. “Better hope I don’t win.”
So now, despite my natural lack of competitiveness, my previous indifference toward winning had turned into all-out determination.
“Let me try,” I insisted before grabbing the rods from Arnie’s hands.
“Hey! I was finally getting the hang of it.”
Ignoring him, I hastily fastened the stakes together with the pieces of rope also given to us. I pulled tight on the last piece of rope and held up the rod.
“I think it’s long enough,” I said, scrambling to my feet and carefully maneuvering the rod through a wide opening in the cage.
Sofia screamed in the cage next to us. “Come on!” she barked.
We must be close.
I couldn’t risk checking, though. I had to concentrate. My whole back tensed as I focused on the key dangling in front of me. All I had to do was grab the circle keychain with my rod and pull the key into our cage.
We had this.
I needed this.
My rod brushed the side of the keychain and I held my breath as it teetered on its hook. If it fell, this would be a hell of a lot harder. But it didn’t fall; it slid perfectly onto my makeshift pole.
“Hurry, bring it in,” I called back to Arnie, who continued to feed the rod backward hand over hand as we brought the key closer to us.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Eli and Sofia had their key hooked too, but I couldn’t waste a second worrying about them catching up to us. After pulling in our rod, I seized the key and hurried to our lock. It didn’t slide in smoothly the first time, but after a quick rotation, the key slid into place. My breath quickened as I clicked the lock open and flung it off of our cage.
“Yes!” I screamed, grabbing Arnie’s hand and rushing out of the cage to the mat. “We did it!”
