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Eighteen
BROOKE
“Holy shit,” I gasped, flopping backwards into my seat. “Holy shit…”
Clicking the seat belt took the very last of my energy. I could still only barely breathe.
Holy fucking shit.
On either sides of me, Devin and Reese were having similar problems. Their chests were heaving, still covered in salt and sweat. Only Hayden, sitting comfortably in the row beside us, looked perfectly normal.
“That was bananas,” I gasped.
“Sure was,” Hayden agreed. “Need this?”
He offered me his bottle of water, and I accepted it greedily. A moment later there was a click from up front, and our bodies shifted forward. An exhausted cheer went up all around us as the plane backed away from the ramp.
“I still can’t believe the cowboys capsized!” I swore. “If they hadn’t…”
“If they hadn’t, we’d be out.”
The statement was no exaggeration, but rather grim reality. Because when it came to working the clunky 4-person catamarans we’d just raced from Mo’orea to Papeete, we’d pretty much sucked ass.
And that’s putting it mildly.
We’d held last place for almost the entire ten mile stretch, until finally passing the Desperadoes. The ranch hands were generally tough, and had come in second place during their season. Unfortunately for them they’d flipped their boat, and couldn’t manage to right it again.
“I could’ve sworn we’d be swimming today,” said Hayden.
“I wish,” Reese groaned.
“You meanwewish,” Hayden corrected him. “You and I are like dolphins in the water.”
I knew from last year that Hayden was a surfer, and that he killed it when it came to any of the water challenges. But it wasn’t until I’d watched our entire season on television that I found out Reese could swim too. Having grown up in rural Missouri, he’d spent so much time in lakes he should’ve grown gills and fins by now.
“Losing that paddle could’ve cost us the whole thing,” said Reese. “Imagine the humiliation! A day one elimination.”
“Forget about today,” said Devin, “it was a freak accident. If we didn’t drop that paddle in the first quarter mile—”
“We didn’t lose the paddle,” I interjected, “Idid. The whole thing was my fault.”
It happened so quickly I barely had time to react: the paddle slipping from my grasp after the first few dozen strokes. There was no going back for it. Somehow we finished the leg on Devin and Reese’s long, powerful strokes, with Hayden using the third paddle to switch back and forth between the port and starboard sides.
“So yeah,” I finished softly. “I appreciate you being generous and all that, but this one was on me.”
Devin laid a reassuring hand on my arm. His calloused palm felt like a thousand degrees.
“Let’s chalk it up to some opening day jitters,” he said reassuringly. “That’s all it was. Now that we’ve gotten them out of the way, it’ll be—”
“Smooth sailing?” Reese offered with a forced chuckle.
“Something like that, yeah.”
The plane banked gently right and leveled off. At least there was no turbulence. We had quite a long flight ahead of us, and we were supposed to be resting. The next leg of the Race was to start immediately upon landing.
I forgot how much pressure this whole thing is.
From the moment Noah pulled the trigger on his golden pistol until the second we stepped on the plane, everything else was a blur. There’d been an initial footrace that was more of a sprint. We’d done well at that part, finishing in front of all other teams with the exception of Kickin’ Asphalt. Which was fine, because their entire team was made up of ex-athletes that were once US Olympic hopefuls.
