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Forty-Eight
BROOKE
The walk back to my team seemed to take forever. I was numb. Queasy. Trying to make sense of everything, from our potential setup to the surprise move of Shadow Teams to the appearance of the badass bitch.
Melissa!
I hadn’t had time to react to her sudden presence, but I sure would now. The smarmy expression on her face made me furious. And the fact that she’d run straight toward the guys—
“Brooke!”
Meghan stepped into my line of movement, cutting me off from my goal. I stopped short and our eyes met. Forlornly, I dropped my chin.
When she swept me into a big warm hug I just about lost it.
“Hey, where’d you run off to?” she demanded, her voice as sweet and chipper as always. “I wanted to talk to you!”
“Sorry. I— I had to talk to Noah.”
“Noah, huh?” she swore. “Wow. You guys suddenly friends now, or—”
“Meghan—”
“No,” she cut me off. “Let me talk first because I know what you’re going to say. We’ve been through enough shit together, haven’t we?”
I nodded. We sure had.
“This whole thing was a surprise to you,” Meghan went on. “Noah already told us about it. Ingie understands that and so do I, but Carmen’s gonna take a little convincing. She wanted to take it personally that you didn’t call, you didn’t write, you all but disappeared from our vacation in paradise. But we told her that’s how the Race works. Those are the rules and she knows it as well as any of us.”
Relief flooded through me as my expression went hopeful. “Really?”
“Yeah really,” Meghan smiled. “She’s just grumpy that she missed out. It could’ve been us running again, if we’d all gone on that vacation together. If life hadn’t stood in the way.”
“I had no way of knowing,” I shrugged. “I mean, I didn’t think for a minute that I’d be—”
“Paired up with three hottest guys in the whole history of the Insane World Race?” she laughed.
I shrugged sheepishly. “They’re okay,” I lied.
“Fuck off Brooke,” Meghan winked. “Don’t even.”
“Fine,” I chuckled. “I’ll admit they’re not bad to look at. And they’re very nice, actually.”
“Nice,” she repeated, smirking around the word. “Did you really just say that?”
I decided my best course of action would be to shut up — something I wasn’t all that good at. For once though, I managed.
“Carmen will come around,” Meghan assured me. “Believe it or not she’s actually very proud of you.”
“She told you that?”
“Hell no,” my former teammate said, “but I can tell. I mean, look at where you are. Brooke, you’re only two teams away from winningfour million dollars!”
“A million each,” I corrected her. “But yeah.”
“Which is why youknowwe have to try and beat you to the end of the last challenge,” Meghan smiled. “Take a little bit of your winnings. Carmen and Ingie sure as hell aren’t going to go easy on you, and neither am I.”
“I know.”
