I shake my head at him and smirk as I look over to see Savannah standing at the beginning of the fire belt. Her arms are crossed and she’s shaking her head as Noah desperately tries to pull her through. She isn’t budging, though, her eyes solely focused on Kenzie.
What looks like a member of the medical team is by her side, quickly bandaging one side of her head as she cries. Oh my fucking God.
“What the hell?” Landon mutters.
“That’s why I wanted to stop. Her whole head was on fire.”
He shakes his head, his eyes wide in shock. “I didn’t know it was that bad. I would have stopped. I… fuck. I thought it was mostly for show? That’s what they said?” he snaps as he looks to me.
I stare at Kenzie almost numbly.
Hell of a show.
Kenzie is okay thankfully. Most of her hair is singed on the right side of her head, and the left side is completely gone, but the burns are minimal, that’s what the on-staff doctor said at least, and she’ll make a full recovery. Unfortunately, because she and Calvin didn’t continue, they’re up for elimination, along with Savannah and Noah, who wouldn’t even try to finish the race. While everyone else got to go back to sleep, Landon and I got taken on a romantic date as our reward for winning the challenge.
We were loaded up into a golf cart and taken to what felt like the opposite side of the island, where a breakfast buffet had been laid out for us on a beautiful gazebo on a dock. They also had a string quartet playing music as the sun began to rise.
As soon as they sat us down, they told us to enjoy and that they would be back in a few hours. Enjoy we did. We ate until we could hardly move, drank until we could hardly see and now we’re curled up on a blanket in the sand buzzed, full and stupidly happy. I don’t think I’ve laughed or smiled this much since… shit, I don’t remember when.
“Do you have any allergies?” I ask.
“Nope. I’m a trash can,” Landon says as he begins playing thumb wars with me.
“I could have guessed that,” I reply, laughing when I finally get his thumb pinned.
Unfortunately, I think he’s just letting me win, though, because almost immediately, he breaks free and pins my thumbdown. I pout as I try and fail to gain the upper hand again. Or is it the upper thumb?
“You’re not going to ask if I’m allergic to anything?” I tease, hoping the conversation will distract him.
“Nope,” he says.
“Why not?”
“Because I already know. You’re allergic to strawberries.”
I pause, forgetting the game altogether. “How did you know that?”
He shrugs but stays focused on my thumb. “You never touch the strawberries, and when you and Luna share food, you won’t eat anything off her plate if she has strawberries on it.”
“Maybe I just don’t like them,” I reply.
Landon nods as his eyes meet mine. “Yeah, maybe you don’t like the idea of anaphylactic shock either.”
I stare at him for several seconds because what the hell? How could he have known that? No one knows about my allergy. It’s not a serious one that requires an epi pen or anything, but something about strawberries makes my mouth warm and fuzzy. I hate it, so I avoid them like the plague and anything that’s even possibly touched them. Still, though, how could he have possibly put that together?
“So you don’t just listen to me, you watch me,” I surmise.
Landon looks at me in a way that has my stomach flipping. “Yeah.”
“For how long?” I ask.
He’s quiet for a moment as he looks down to where our hands are still clasped together.
“What makes you think there was ever a time I wasn’t watching?”
Did I say my stomach was flipping? Yeah, what I meant was it’s summersaulting, catapulting, triple-decker back-flipping (that’s a thing, right?) intooblivion.
When Landon’s gaze comes back up to meet mine, all the words in my head and the breath in my lungs are ripped away. His gaze flicks back and forth between my eyes before he leans in slowly. It’s clear he’s giving me enough time to pull away if I want to. But honestly, cameras set aside, why the hell would I want to?
