16. Court
CHAPTER 16
COURT
Day 13—Egypt
I t helps to have friends in high places.
Specifically, it helps to have an alliance with actual geniuses who are currently in first place.
Today’s team challenge had us choose between “Dictate” (memorizing a five-minute script and giving a museum tour) and “Translate” (decoding text from the Book of the Dead). We opted for the latter because sometimes a guy (who doesn’t have an injury) feels like sitting down.
We got to the university as the Bombshells were leaving. It’s the first time we’ve seen them since Nepal, and after taking one look at us, they had a silent conversation involving eyebrow raises and head nods and pulled us to the side to give us the answer. For context, it took them an hour and a half to translate the hieroglyphs, so this was a Very Big Deal.
The only catch? We had to do a little acting first.
And . . . scene:
I flip through our packet of hieroglyphs and decoding charts and sigh dramatically. “This is stupid.”
“Just keep trying. We’ve almost got the first word.” Hartley points to the paper we’ve written nothing on .
“But look how many words are left. At this rate, we’re gonna be here all day.”
Mitchell and Kennedy peek at us from their table across the room. The Bombshells said they got here about forty-five minutes ago and have struggled to make progress. Our goal is to get them to leave this challenge and go to the other one, thus wasting more time and increasing their odds of coming in last.
And if you’re thinking this sounds a little Operation: Elimination-ish, you’d be right—but that’s because the Bombshells learned the A Team has an alliance with the Wise Asses.
A lot, apparently, has happened since yesterday. Gianna and Alexis promised to give us the full scoop as soon as we catch up with them.
“It’s been ten minutes,” Hartley whispers.
“We’re getting nowhere. Can we please go to the other challenge?”
She frowns at the packet. “I guess memorizing English words would be a lot easier than translating Egyptian symbols.”
“That’s what I tried telling you before.” I lift my hands and let them fall to the table with a loud slap.
“Okay, okay, will you stop being Mr. Grumpypants now?”
Kennedy coughs to cover up a laugh and I bite down on the inside of my cheek to do the same. That was not part of the script.
“If you get me the hell out of this room, then yes. No more Mr. Grumpypants.”
We stand up and Hartley shuffles our papers, bringing the one with the answer to the top. “Let’s give this back to the instructor and tell him we’re leaving.”
As I hook my backpack onto my shoulder, Mitchell and Kennedy huddle together and start whispering.
I think it’s working , I mouth to Hartley.
This is confirmed a few minutes later when the A Team comes barreling out of the building.
“Don’t let that taxi follow us,” Hartley says to our driver as we leave the parking lot.
“No problem.”
When we reach the road, she checks the clue again.
Ask Marsam’s employees for the water buffalo to receive your next clue .
“And you’re sure it’s a hotel?”
The driver shrugs. “It’s the only Marsam I know.”
Hartley turns to me with bunched brows. “Why would a hotel have a water buffalo?”
It turns out Marsam really is a hotel, and water buffalo milk ice cream is a thing.
It’s actually pretty good, although Egypt’s summertime temperatures may have something to do with how much we enjoyed it. Now we’re heading to the solo challenge. The envelope from Marsam asked, “Who wants to rest in piece?” so I volunteered thinking I’d be doing some sort of puzzle while sitting down. An easy task for someone whose ankle doesn’t hurt, right?
Wrong.
Because of course this isn’t a regular puzzle.
Go to the Lotus Alabaster Workshop. When you complete a five-by-ten-foot puzzle, you will receive your next clue.
When we arrive, Hartley and I drop our backpacks on the ground and peer out at the literal chunks of stone that have been cut into puzzle pieces. I’m already not excited.
“Did it work?” Alexis asks.
Hartley grins. “It did, and Court and I are now nominated for best actor and actress.” As the Bombshells exchange a high five, she turns to me. “Is your foot going to hold up to this? Your right one I mean, since we’ve established that your left one feels great.”
“What’s wrong with your foot?” Gianna asks.
“Big Mike plowed into him at the market last night and he rolled his ankle.”
I wave a hand through the air. “It’ll be fine. It’s not even swollen anymore.”
Well, as long as you have bad lighting and don’t get too close .
“And now Court’s manifesting his healing. According to him, he’s the picture of health.”
Gianna glances at my foot and eyes me skeptically. “How about we manifest this puzzle instead?”
I follow her over to our workspaces, which are spread out in a dirt field in two rows of three. What we have includes a wooden frame in the dimension of the finished product, a massive pile of alabaster blocks, and gloves.
What we don’t have? Any idea of what we’re supposed to be making, because of course we didn’t get a picture to work from. My best guess is a desert scene based on the overwhelming amount of khaki on the face of each piece. After a brief discussion, we decide to finish unstacking Gianna’s pieces and sorting the edges. After that, we’ll do the same for mine and start building our respective puzzles.
“So how’d you find out about the A Team’s alliance?” I ask.
“Remember how we won the Shortcut in Nepal?”
“Yeah.”
“They upgraded our room and gave us certificates for a free massage. We were heading down to the spa when Mitchell and Kennedy checked into the hotel and we overheard them. I might’ve had a really hard time tying my shoe long enough to learn the Wise Guys approached them in New Zealand.”
I pause my unstacking to look at her. “But they agreed to help eliminate them at the airport in China.”
“Exactly. And now the Wise Guys know about the plan.”
Shit.
“That’s probably why that asshole ran me over.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me. The good news is, Old Bay has doubled down on Operation: Elimination, and Kick Asspen probably will too as soon as we can talk to them. The plan is to help each other as much as possible in the next leg or two to make it harder for the A Team and the Wise Guys to stay in the race.”
“Hey, thanks again for helping us earlier. Hartley was worried about being farther back in the pack after last night’s hit-and-run, so this is a huge help.”
“Speaking of Hartley . . .”
I glance over and find her laughing at something Alexis is saying. It’s nice to see her relaxed and enjoying herself compared to the day Gianna and I worked on the mosaic challenge together—which, now that I think about it, feels like a month ago rather than last week.
It’s strange how time flies when you let go of old grudges and have a few orgasms .
As I turn my attention back to the stack of rocks, I catch Gianna staring at me with an amused smile.
“What?” I ask.
“You know exactly what ,” she teases as we cross paths.
“I’m just sorting the world’s most annoying puzzle pieces.”
“And making ga-ga eyes at your teammate.”
Stifling a smile of my own, I return to the stack for another load. “I’m making regular eyes at everything but these damn rocks.”
She points eastward and says, “Denial is right over there if you want to go for a quick swim.”
“With this heat, I actually wouldn’t mind that if it weren’t for the crocodiles.”
“Good point. Hartley wouldn’t be happy if you lost any dangly bits.”
I cough out a strangled laugh and nearly drop the puzzle piece I’m carrying. “Did you just refer to my manhood as ‘dangly bits’?”
“Did you just refer to your manhood as your ‘manhood’?”
“I was trying to be polite, and you sound so much like my sister right now.”
“I like her already.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually miss her.”
“Do you see her often?”
“Yeah, she still lives in Green Valley, not far from my house. Well”—I shrug— “everything’s not far in Green Valley but you get the point.”
“Did you ever tell her the truth about your breakup?”
“No.” I set the final stone on the ground and rise. “I guess I’m going to have to come clean to her and my parents so they don’t find out in the first episode with the rest of America.”
Not that I expect a lecture or anything. It’s been so long that I doubt Mom and Dad would care much, and Ella’s only complaint will probably be that I let a broke community college student spend forty bucks in gas to come nurture me in a crisis I created. Note to self: repay her when I break the news.
Despite her earlier teasing, Gianna’s more cautious when she asks, “Do you think you and Hartley will stay in touch after the race is over?”
I let my eyes wander to where she’s sitting as I recall our discussion at the bladesmith. My favorite part was when she said we were exchanging numbers when we got our phones back or else , and that if I stopped responding, she’d drive to Green Valley and paint my house pink. I considered doing it just to see if she’d come.
“She said she wants to be friends. ”
“Is that what you want too?”
My gaze swings back to Gianna. “To be friends?”
“To be just friends.”
“Sure, why not?” I head over to my section and grab the top rock off the closest stack. If we keep up the pace we had before, we’ll be manifesting this puzzle in about ten minutes.
“Maaaybe”—she aims a pointed look at me—“because being friends with someone you have feelings for is actually pretty hard.”
“Who says I have feelings for her?”
“Now you’re insulting my intelligence.”
“You really do sound like my sister,” I mutter, which makes her smile.
“All I’m saying is it’s my literal job to understand the properties of bonds.” She stops in front of me and rests her hands on her hips. “I also know what it’s like to be afraid to take another chance on something that backfired. But when you revisit a formula and fix those things you missed the first time...or in my case, the first eighteen times,” she adds with a laugh, “you can get some pretty incredible results.”
Standings after leg 7, Egypt
1. Bombshells (Gianna and Alexis)
2. Us
3. Old Bay (Haylee and Kadeeja)
4. Kick Asspen (Treva and Boyd)
5. A Team (Mitchell and Kennedy)
6. Wise Guys (DeAngelo and Big Mike)
*Non-elimination leg
Yes, you read that right.
We came in second.
And the Wise Guys were last.
And it was a non-elimination leg and they’re still here. Hartley compared them to cockroaches, but honestly, that’s an insult to cockroaches.
The non-elimination leg also meant we kept racing, so for the second night in a row, we didn’t have a hotel room. We didn’t even have a bed. Instead, we slept on the airport floor with a foam sleeping pad and a sleeping bag courtesy of the production team.
Other highlights of our airport accommodations included:
Washing up in the bathroom sink,
Listening to Big Mike and DeAngelo whine about not getting the “real Egyptian experience” because we didn’t ride a camel,
Listening to them tell everyone about going to McDonald’s in Cairo and Luxor, and
Losing our lead because we were all on the same flight to Athens, Greece.
But in better news, my ankle is less purple today, and Hartley and I are getting an upgraded hotel room and a day off from racing...right after we throw ourselves out of a perfectly good airplane.
The Shortcut was waiting for us in the clue box tucked inside a rental car office in the Athens airport. As fate or luck or manifestation would have it, we snagged seats right behind first class on the flight from Luxor, putting us in prime position for getting off the plane and reaching the box first.
Our conversation went like this:
Take one of the six marked rental cars and drive to Skydive Athens. If your team completes a jump from 14,000 feet, you can proceed directly to the checkpoint. If you don’t jump, you must return to this box to receive your next clue.
“After New Zealand, this is probably the last thing you want to do,” I say, returning the Shortcut to the box.
“I mean, in theory it’s the same as bungee jumping and I was ready to do that again.”
Wait, is she serious?
“And this would guarantee a first-place finish, not to mention an upgraded hotel room,” she continues .
I nod in thought. “The crew did say this break will be eighteen hours instead of twelve.”
“Just think of all the sink laundry we could do in eighteen hours.”
“Four or five loads, at least.”
She matches my mischievous smirk with one of her own and grabs the Shortcut. “Who’s driving?”
So that’s how we ended up in a matchbox-sized airplane with a jovial pilot, two tandem instructors whose hands our lives are now in, and two cameramen from Skydive Athens standing by to capture it all.
Am I scared? A little, but adrenaline and thinking about all the “laundry” we’re going to do after the checkpoint are helping. Thankfully, Hartley’s in better spirits than the day she bungee jumped, and I’m hoping like hell it’s not because of the Adonis she’s strapped to.
Literally—her instructor’s name is Adonis, and he looks every bit the part of a Greek god. My instructor is a mortal named Philip, but he smells nice at least. When we reach fourteen thousand feet, he runs through the basics one more time: keep our heads back and grip the front straps of our harnesses when we exit, then assume the standard freefall skydive position when they tap our right shoulders.
Hartley’s cameraman wastes no time opening the door and positioning himself. She gives me one last thumbs up and lets out an excited squeal as she scootches toward the exit with Adonis. After ensuring her head is against his chest, he nods once to the cameraman and then they’re gone.
That’s it.
The whole thing happens in less than five seconds.
Just as quickly, we’re out the door and I’m face-to-face with the purest, bluest sky I’ve ever seen. I didn’t even know blue came in this shade. I certainly haven’t seen it during any of our flights, but maybe it only works when there’s no plexiglass in between.
Another surprising discovery? We’re plummeting to the earth at terminal velocity, yet it doesn’t feel like we’re falling at all. Resting on air would be a better description. Weird, right?
Philip taps my shoulder, so I spread my arms and spend the next forty-five seconds in euphoria. We spin in circles. We make silly faces for the cameraman. I wave hello and mouth, Hi, Mom! just in case this footage makes it on air. I spot Hartley’s canopy just before Philip deploys our parachute. As soon as it opens, the deafening rush of wind is replaced by a gentle breeze, punctuated with Hartley’s exuberant, “Woo!”
After getting us situated, Philip maneuvers our canopy toward her.
“Can you believe that?” she shouts, her grin taking up most of her face. “We just jumped out of an airplane!”
I make the mind blown motion with my hands because it’s the only way to encompass the wild rush of emotions coursing through my body. The ironic part is only half of those emotions are from skydiving. The other half is from skydiving with her .
Simply put, Hartley is an amplifier.
She makes the bad times bearable and the good times better. She emits light and spreads love without even realizing she’s doing it. Even Boyd, who’s chronically grumpy everywhere but Egypt, is drawn to her. But most of all, she’s exactly the kind of person who deserves to be on this race and I already know I’ll spend the rest of my life thanking the universe (and the Xtreme Quest casting department) for letting me be the one to experience it with her.
We land a few minutes later—her first, and me about thirty seconds after—and thankfully for everyone’s ankles, it goes as smoothly as the rest of the jump. As soon as I’m unclipped, I jog over and scoop her into a celebratory hug, letting my momentum launch us into circles as we laugh at the awesomeness and absurdity of what we just did.
Once her feet return to the ground, I mean to step back. I really do. But then she looks up at me with those sparkling eyes and that big, beautiful grin and before I know it, my mouth is on hers.
It starts out as a slightly breathless, messy kiss on account of our laughter but quickly evolves into a slow dance of sweeping tongues and teasing nibbles that earn us a few cheers from the crew.
“Shit,” I say against her lips.
“What?”
“I forgot about the cameras.”
She pulls back and to my relief, she’s still smiling. “You know they’ve been salivating for this anyway, so I suppose it’s time we gave the people what they want.”