All four contestants on each team have to cross the finish line, but individual times are recorded and calculated to determine the winning team. So, rather than stick together, we each need to complete the course as fast as we can. Ruby hands out wristbands displaying our team’s number, and she and I attach each other’s while Flynn helps Nate with his.
“How’s it all going?” she asks me under her breath, subtly jerking her head at Nate. Last night at the bar, I’d told her all about our fight and Nate’s F-bomb.
“He apologized and wants to talk,” I whisper. “I think he wants us to keep being a thing.”
She makes a face, and a laugh slips through my lips. Going out with Nate was worth a shot, but Ruby knows as well as I do that this thing is dead in the water.
If only Nate would get the memo. He shuffles close to me while we wait for the race to begin, murmuring an invitation to go get some hot apple cider afterward. I tell him that I plan to spend the rest of the day with Ruby, taking a small step sideways.Please get out of my space.
A flash of neon pink fabric catches my eye as another team steps up to the starting area a few feet away. My stomach swoops when I realize it’s Dylan and his family, who are wearing pink shirts that say: “Welcome to the KINGdom.”
I stifle a laugh, but not before registering that Dylan’s totally pulling his off. He’s wearing black basketball shorts beneath the pink, and my eyes give his muscled legs a slow once-over, lingering on the tattoo of a compass rose that’s wrapped around the back of one calf.
I feel bad that I haven’t thanked him yet for letting me hijack his bed last night. My eyes dip away, then back to him again, wondering if he’ll notice me, but he’s leaning over one of his sisters, attaching her wristband.
“Jade!” Ruby says. “Didn’t you hear them say we’re about to go? You ready?”
“It’s doubtful.” I turn my attention to the grubby trail stretched out beyond the starting line, readying my feet and leaning forward. “Godspeed,” I say to my teammates, and a second later, the horn blasts.
I push forward, instantly tangled up in a moving mass of bodies that feels like an accident waiting to happen. Up ahead, I spot Iris King and her husband charging forward, but I can’t see Dylan in the whir of bodies. I quickly lose sight of Ruby and Flynn, too, but I can feel Nate breathing down my neck from behind like a freaking ghost haunting me. I up my pace, even though I know I could never outrun him.
I keep going, relieved to find mostly dry ground in this section, my feet switching between running and leaping over tires and hay bales. It’s not so bad.
That is until the path twists left into the forest, and the first mud pit emerges in a clearing beyond a cluster of maple trees. People are squealing and groaning as they push over a sloppy hill of dirt and sink into waist-deep mud, wading through the sludge toward the next soggy mound.
“Need some help?” Nate says gruffly beside me, and my hangover spikes.
“No thanks, I’m fine.” I give him a sidelong glance. “In fact, you go on ahead. You heard what Ruby said—we need to all make our best times. And you’re a cop, so you should really come in first.”
“Are you sure?” He looks ahead at where Ruby’s clutching onto Flynn in the mud bath as they plow forward.
“Yes.Go, go, go. This vile activity might actually be worth it if we win something.” One of the prizes is a free write-up in the local newspaper, although that pales in comparison to what was on offer with Sunny.
Nate nods curtly and takes off ahead, sliding up and over the mud hill with ease, but the display of brawn doesn’t do anything for me.
I’m now dragging the chain for our team, so I launch myself forward and sink my hands into the sludge, finding my way over the hill and into the muck on the other side. My teeth clench as I trudge through the freezing cold slime, passing a few familiar faces before reaching the end and climbing out of the pit.
The next challenge is a stretch of rope suspended horizontally over a long trough of mud, and I summon all my strength and haul myself along without dropping into the brown bath below.
After that is a one-mile run through the woods, and just as I’m nearly dried off, the back of my calf seizes up with a painful cramp.
“Ow, ow, ow!” I grip the throbbing muscle and hobble off the track so I don’t get mowed down by other runners. My legs stretch out over a flat rock as I catch my breath and dig my knuckles into my pinched calf. If I hadn’t had to stop doing yoga classes and exercising my muscles, this wouldn’t have happened.
It takes several minutes for the cramp to ease, and I hurry back onto the track, annoyed about letting down my teammates. The number of runners has thinned out by now, but as I near the end of the trail, someone pants my name behind me.
I spin to find Dylan heading toward me while giving his sister Alex a piggyback.
“Oh no, what happened?” I ask.
Alex shakes her head at herself. “I think I sprained my ankle back near that rope thing. Lucky Dyl was here to rescue me.”
“You carried her that whole way?” I say to Dylan, twisting to study the endless track behind us.
Sweat drips off his brow, drawing wavy lines through the mud painted on his cheeks. “Didn’t have a choice. They’ve blocked people going back in the other direction.” He adjusts his grip on his sister, and I try not to ogle his flexing biceps. “What’s your excuse for being such a slacker?”
“I got a bad cramp. Maybe we’re all too out of shape to do this.”
He laughs as his eyes trail over my body. “You okay?”
