Chapter 3 #3
Tate forced a polite smile and kept his snarky comment to himself.
Scottie glanced at Theo’s lone suitcase. “Is that all you brought?”
“For now,” he said. “We’ll see how long I last.”
Damian glanced up from his phone. “The voting audience gets to decide that, remember?”
“Right.” Theo sipped his coffee, then handed his suitcase over to Ethan.
Scottie climbed into the chopper and Theo followed, chatting the whole way—something about his last shoot, how he trained with a Navy SEAL, and how ready he was to win this thing.
Tate put his headset on. A slow burn crawled up his spine.
“So, Scottie.” Theo’s voice came through a little too loud. “Is it true we’re bunking in tents with no indoor plumbing?”
Scottie laughed. “I don’t think it’s that bad.”
“Oh, good,” Theo said. “Because if I don’t have hot water and a blender for my protein shakes, I don’t know what I’ll do. Can’t be hangry for the camera, right?”
“The basic accommodations add to the show’s tension,” Damian said.
“You’re going to love Port Frisco,” Scottie added. “It’s stunning.”
“Hope you like bears,” Tate said.
“Wait,” Theo said, “actual bears?”
“Oh yeah. It’s salmon season, and the bears are hungry.” Tate glanced at Theo over his shoulder, keeping his expression serious. “Did you pack plenty of bear spray?”
“Tate,” Scottie said, leaning forward and nudging his shoulder. “Don’t freak the poor guy out.”
“Too late,” Theo said.
Ethan gave Tate the side-eye before pressing the starter button.
A deep mechanical hum built from the floorboards, then rattled through Tate’s body.
As the rotors began to spin, vibrations pressed against his sternum.
He gripped the seat frame. Breathe in four, hold four, out four.
He’d taught other people that same trick. Why wouldn’t it work for him now?
“Here we go.” Ethan’s voice crackled in the headset as they lifted off the ground.
They soared over the airport, the rotors chewing up the air.
“Look at that,” Scottie said.
Tate didn’t want to. But he did. Through the windshield, sunlight shimmered across the surface of the bay.
The water wasn’t just blue. From their vantage point, various shades of inky blue, cobalt, and green swirled together.
Puffy white clouds floated by. Mountains rose out of the sea, slate-gray cliffs broke up the dense forests of dark-green trees.
A few patches of snow that August just couldn’t erase clung to the higher ridges.
Theo kept on talking—a red-carpet interview that went sideways when a journalist thought he was one of the Hemsworth brothers. Scottie laughed, then Damian’s witty quip threaded through the conversation.
Ethan gave him another sidelong glance. “Enjoying the view?”
Tate nodded, but he didn’t trust himself to speak.
Somehow his body hadn’t gotten the memo that there was nothing to worry about.
Every bounce over a pocket of air gave his stomach another excuse to twist in a knot.
So weird because he knew this part of the sound like he knew the lines on his own palm.
He drew another deep breath and tried to name five things he could see: two sea otters swimming below, sun-bleached driftwood lying on a rocky outcropping, bright-pink fireweed dancing along the shoreline. They skimmed lower and a bed of kelp waved just below the surface of the water.
“Do you think the audience will get how wild this is?” Theo asked. “Like, will they even believe this is real?”
“If we do our jobs well, then yes,” Damian said.
When they touched down at Port Frisco, the remote outpost that passed for a filming location, Tate frowned. This was it? He surveyed the yurts, shipping containers, and the Quonset hut clustered near the center of the small island. Theo’s assessment of the living conditions hadn’t been too far off.
Scottie was the first to push the door open and hop out. The smell of salt, mud, and creosote rushed in.
Tate climbed out and resisted the urge to warn Scottie to duck away from the rotors, still spinning above them. She went straight for the gear inside the cage.
“You sticking around, Tate?”
He shook his head. “Nah. Just along for the ride.”
She smiled, that same smile that used to make his chest cave in back in high school. “Well…it’s great to see you.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You too.”
Then she grabbed her backpack and her suitcase and headed toward the path cutting through the trees. Theo followed and Damian trailed after them.
Ethan studied him. “You good?”
“Just peachy,” Tate said, eyeing the broken pilings poking out of the water near the island’s muddy tide flats.
He’d heard stories about the cannery that used to stand there.
Scottie’s grandparents used to talk about how Port Frisco was once a thriving community.
Before the whole place dried up like a ghost town.
Surely Damian didn’t intend to incorporate any of that lore into the show. Did he? Because Scottie had always feared that the heartache her grandparents experienced would somehow find its way into her life too.
And Tate couldn’t stand to let that happen.