Chapter 6 #2
“How could I not?” Griffin’s smile cranks up another notch so the ladies are full-on basking in it. “I had a welcoming committee greet me the morning after I arrived.” He shoots me a look that could strip paint. “I don’t think I’ve had a chance to thank you for that, Beckett.”
I tsk. “We had a small misunderstanding, as you’ve probably heard,” I explain to the women with a wink and a shrug. “My bad. A… swing and a miss, you might say.” I mime swinging a tennis racket.
Griffin’s eye twitches, and I half expect cartoon steam to come shooting out of his ears.
“I did make up for it later, though,” I assure the women. “When I saved Griffin’s life.”
“Oh!” Posy says, blinking rapidly between us. “Wow, that’s…”
“Untrue!” Griffin begins at top volume, then lowers his voice, remembering our audience. He shakes a finger at me faux-playfully, while his hazel eyes skewer me dead. “Hah. Beckett, you… jokester. You know I was doing just fine until you tried to rescue me.”
“Poor Griffin got stuck up a tree and needed an assist,” I tell Mrs. Pratt confidingly. I lower my voice to a whisper. “He’s a little embarrassed. Isn’t it cute?”
I say this to be provoking, and it works. Griffin’s eyes are now shooting tiny laser beams into my face. But the galling truth is… I’m not lying. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes are bright, and it’s really fucking hard not to stare at him.
“When he says assist, he means he climbed up and dragged us both down,” Griffin says with a brittle laugh. “You know what they say about the bigger they are, the harder they fall? Well, the only thing bigger than Beckett’s ego is his… ass-istance.” He darts a pointed glance at my backside.
“Nice of you to notice,” I say with a cheerful wink, and he turns a shade redder.
“So… you two are friendly, then?” Mrs. Pratt demands. Her eyes zing back and forth between us. “Because the way I heard it—”
“Mrs. Pratt.” I shake my head sadly. “You know better than to listen to town gossip. I’m an Axford, and Axfords have been welcoming newcomers to town for generations.” I throw an arm around Griffin’s shoulders, fully expecting him to elbow me away. “Right, buddy?”
He doesn’t throw me off. His whole body freezes—seriously, I don’t even think he’s breathing—and his pounding pulse ricochets into me at every point where we’re connected.
But clearly, I underestimated his commitment to this bit because, to my surprise, he wraps his arm around my back and squeezes my waist. “I guess so… pal.”
His fingers dig in like he’s trying to leave marks, each press sending a bright shock through my skin that settles low in my gut. Heat radiates through the fleece, ghosting over my ribs, and for one insane second, my body leans toward him before my brain can issue the order to move away.
It’s not comfortable, it’s not safe, and I sure as hell don’t like it… but for one weird, unguarded second, I let myself breathe in the orangey scent of his hair product—
A sharp braawwwp from a bullhorn, and someone calls, “Five minutes to start!”
Griffin jerks away from me like I’m contagious, his face tomato red.
“If I could just finish registering now?” he asks Posy. “Don’t want to be late!”
“Oh, sure,” Posy says. “We’ll just get your wristbands. Ramona?”
Mrs. Pratt consults her list, then sorts through the little plastic bin on the table. She hands Griffin a strip of blue-and-orange paper.
Then she hands an identical one to me.
I frown, turning the band over to inspect it. “All the bands are the same?”
Posy laughs. “Gosh, no. You two are the blue-and-orange team! Feel free to make up a team name.”
“You were both late registrants, and neither of you signed up with a partner, so you were paired together,” Mrs. Pratt explains. “You can’t do a scavenger hunt alone.”
“Can’t you, though?” Griffin wonders. “I really think I could.”
“Same,” I say. “Hard same. I was expecting to, in fact. I’m good on my own.”
“But you’ll be better together,” Posy chirps, rubbing her baby’s back and looking way too chipper. “Since you’re friends and all.”
I can practically hear Griffin’s internal screaming, which harmonizes nicely with my own. We don’t look at each other, but I can tell from the way he raises his chin to the sky that he’s realized we’re stuck.
Other teams are clustered around, chatting and laughing, looking like they’re actually excited about spending their Saturday morning traipsing around town solving riddles and taking pictures.
We stick on our wristbands and trudge toward Chapel Island’s massive gazebo in loaded silence, maintaining distance like we’re opposing magnets.
“Just so we’re clear,” Griffin murmurs once we’re out of earshot, “I’m winning this thing.”
I snort. “Then I guess it’s lucky you hitched your wagon to me, huh?”
Griffin takes a breath like he’s about to verbally unleash when a man with a microphone steps into the gazebo. I recognize him as one of the people standing outside the Pickle Jar yesterday.
“Hi, everyone! I’m Ry Marek. Some of you parents and kids may know me as Mr. Marek from Proctor School, the unapologetic crosswalk advocate—”
The crowd laughs appreciatively.
“—but for today, you can call me Captain Fun!”
“Jesus,” Griffin and I mutter at the same time. Our eyes meet, and we both quickly look away.
I have to stifle a smirk. I knew Griffin’s happy-joiner thing was all an act.
Ry explains the rules with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for announcing lottery winners.
Each team gets seven riddles leading to various historic or quirky locations around town, all in a different order so we can’t simply follow each other.
We solve the riddles, take a picture of each location, text it to the phone number on our wristbands, and we’ll be texted the next clue.
We get points for speed, creativity, and—god help us all—“team spirit.”
“Ready for your first challenge?” Ry asks, and a cheer goes up from the crowd that makes me wonder if someone spiked the whole town’s coffee.
Volunteers hand each team a sealed envelope. Griffin and I both reach for ours at the same time, our fingers touching as we grab it.
The brush of his fingers against mine is a bare flicker of skin on skin, but it lights up a nerve all the way to my shoulder. My grip almost loosens, like my body’s considering treason, and I clamp down harder just to prove I’m not that weak.
“I’ll read it,” Griffin says, trying to tug it away.
The air horn blows again, and the other teams take off, giggling and grinning.
“I’m capable of reading, city boy,” I counter, keeping my grip on the envelope. “Went to college and everything.”
“Well… I have a degree in marketing, so I bet I have better handwriting analysis skills.”
“How would that… It’s a typed clue, you ass.”
Griffin tears the envelope away from me and rips it open with more force than strictly necessary. But I catch the card inside as it flutters toward the ground.
“Cross the bridge where true love’s sealed, kissed beneath and fate revealed,” I read aloud. “Easy. That’s the—”
“Kissing Bridge,” Griffin says immediately.
I narrow my eyes. “How the fuck did you get that?”
“I read and I know things,” he intones in a perfectly bastardized Game of Thrones quote.
I snort-laugh before I can help myself, then turn it into a scowl as the dumbass starts running west through the park.
“Hey, Tyrion Lannister, the bridge is this way.” I hook a thumb over my shoulder and begin walking backward in the correct direction.
For a second, he looks like he wants to protest, and then he scowls and takes off at a full run past me, sunlight flashing in his golden hair like Mother Nature’s conspiring to make him look good.
I roll my eyes. This is going to be the longest morning ever.
We run toward the eastern edge of the park, weaving around other teams who are still debating, trying to solve their riddles. When he starts jogging north, I whistle sharply and point him in the right direction.
“You could let me lead,” I yell. “Since I’m the one of us who’s lived here his whole life and actually knows where he’s going.”
“But you’re too slow,” he calls over his shoulder. “All that bulk.”
Once again, the asshole startles a laugh out of me. “You weren’t complaining when this bulk broke your fall the other night.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, since the other night didn’t happen,” he says smartly.
“And that’s the second time today you’ve mentioned my ass,” I point out. “Keep it up and I’ll think you’re obsessed with it.”
“You wish.”
In front of us, the Kissing Bridge arches low over Chapel Creek, its pale, sun-bleached planks and bright green beams glowing in the late-morning light.
“There’s a legend about this bridge,” Griffin says, barely slowing down.
“Before it was the Kissing Bridge, locals called it the Lantern Bridge. During a fierce winter storm in 1819, Winsome’s postman and his faithful steed got stranded on the far side of the creek, and townsfolk hung lanterns along the bridge to guide him.
To this very day, they say that if you carry a light from one side of the bridge to the other without letting it go out, you’ll always find your way home. ”
I’m so stunned, my legs stop working for a second. “Jesus Christ. Did you memorize a Winsome travel brochure, Mr. Marketing Degree?”
“Maybe. The library’s full of useful information,” he says smugly. “Big-Dill-Winning information.”
I force myself into a run to catch up with him. “What kind of useful shit would that be?” I demand. “An ancient grimoire full of curses? Because that’s the only way you’re gonna win this thing, city boy.”
It’s his turn to laugh out loud against his will, and then he shoots me a dirty look like he blames me for his slip. He slows down as we approach the bridge.
I admit to myself I’m glad because I hadn’t intended to run today, and I was starting to get a cramp. City boy has stamina.
“I don’t need curses to beat you, Beckett,” he says matter-of-factly. “I have skills.”