15. Mia
MIA
I was still in Diego’s arms, wide-eyed and breathless.
His hands were on my waist, and I felt a little too shaky to move.
Climbing the tree had been fine, being up there had been fine, but that drop, even though it was only a few feet, had terrified me.
The sick feeling in my stomach made it feel like I’d fallen off the side of a cliff.
When you thought about it, it was the exact same sensation, at least for the first second or so.
Finally, Diego let me go and stepped a half step back.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
He raised an eyebrow. "You're the one who fell out of the tree."
"Yeah, but you're the one I landed on.” I glanced back up at the bronze nest up there. "Thank you for catching me.”
“You’re welcome.” He glanced up. "Guess we owe Jenna a new tutu."
"We can pay for it out of our winnings," I joked, trying to get back into the spirit of the competition.
"Do we even know what the prize is?" Diego asked.
"No. Aaron probably does, though."
I looked down at myself. Without the tutu, I was just wearing the pink camisole and the white leggings. I wasn’t indecent, but I didn’t usually roam around outside wearing thin, skin-tight clothing. And the absence of the tutu sure made the leg warmers look out of place.
Diego reached out like he was going to touch my face and then he paused. "You have a leaf in your hair."
I angled my head, giving him access to the side he was reaching for, and I heard the crunch of an old, dead leaf. But as he pulled it away, it tugged on my hair, and suddenly the bun just gave up. My hair popped and bounced around my shoulders, finally coming to a rest.
"Oops," said Diego.
He dropped the leaf and then, with both hands, straightened my tiara. It felt almost as intimate as when he'd been holding me by the waist.
I needed to get things back on track, so that we were on more solid footing. Literally.
"Did you upload the picture?"
"Yes. Here's your phone."
"What's next?"
He studied me. "Do you want to take a break? You just had a bit of a scare."
"I'm good. We should keep going. I can't imagine that many other teams have already reached as many checkpoints as we have."
Of course Tori and Jayden had, and possibly others as well.
Diego pulled the folded list out of his pocket, and I studied it.
"I think the last two are by the gym."
I actually knew which way that was, so I took off at a light jog, and within seconds he was by my side.
He was obviously slowing his pace for me, and I remembered that he went for runs in the evenings. I also remembered what he looked like when he got back from one of those runs, all sweaty and shirtless.
Which wasn’t what I was supposed to be thinking about right now.
The two checkpoints by the gym were fairly easy. The last checkpoint, which was the finish line, was somewhere in the vicinity of the student union.
We passed by the political science building on the way back from the gym, and students poured down the steps, surrounding us. Evidently, a big class or two had just let out. People were everywhere, and I lost sight of Diego.
It felt like I was in the middle of a stampede. I tried to push through, but I kept getting bumped back. Then I saw Diego ahead of me, his hand held out. I grabbed it, and he pulled as he weaved his way through the swarm of people.
When we were free on the other side, we resumed jogging… but didn’t let go of each other’s hands.
As we neared our final destination, I slowed to a walk, scanning the instructions at the bottom of the list. “To finish, we have to find a sign with our names on it, located somewhere on the union grounds. We both have to be in the picture with the sign,” I continued reading.
“First team to submit the picture wins."
"The union is a big place," Diego said, tugging slightly to get me moving faster.
"Yeah, but it says it’s outside."
"That’s not much help. The perimeter has all those courtyards, alcoves, and staircases. And the park behind it is practically a botanic garden.
I twisted to face him. "What, do you want to quit?"
"Hell no, we're so close. Come on." He broke into an effortless run again, pulling me along with him.
We were panting by the time we made it to the front entrance of the Union, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw another team run up. It was Tori and Jayden, naturally. Diego dropped my hand, but not before Tori saw it.
She broke into a grin. "It's really down to the wire now.”
I nodded.
"Let's separate," Tori said quickly to Jayden. “We can cover more ground that way. I'll go right, you go left."
Jayden nodded, already taking off.
"Call if you find it!" he shouted over his shoulder.
Diego was behind me, and when I turned to him, he raised his head quickly, looking guilty. Had he been checking me out? That wasn’t the most pressing matter at the moment. “Should we split up, too?”
“What?” For the first time, he seemed to notice that Tori and Jayden were heading in opposite directions. “Yeah. Good luck."
We separated, and I hurried off after Tori.
"Wait up," I called.
She paused with a grin, and said, "Only if you tell me why you two were holding hands."
"Because I nearly got plowed down by a crowd of students outside the political science building."
Tori's smile widened. "You weren't anywhere near political science when I saw you. But come on, we can search together."
I zeroed in on a white poster board sign driven into the ground by a wooden post.
There were names on it, but not any of ours.
"Okay, we know what it looks like. Let's spread out," I suggested.
We crossed a paved area at the base of a large set of steps, and then onto a drive that continued around the side of the building. Trees lined the far side of it.
"We need to cover more ground,” Tori said. "It could be in the woods."
I stuck close to the building, and she moved about twenty feet away, keeping parallel with me. We both found another sign, but it was for another team.
Unfortunately, Diego had been right. The building was huge, and the grounds covered at least twice the area of the union.
I started jogging again, and a moment later, Tori did too. There were more trees now, and the union's glass wall looked out into a beautifully landscaped garden that gave way to a wooded area.
I hopped over a small hedge, found another sign that wasn’t ours, and kept going.
"This could take days," Tori called.
I moved away from the building. With all the trees, rock paths, and fountains, it was too much ground for Tori to cover alone.
Then Tori’s phone rang. She listened for half a second and then squealed, running ahead.
"Good luck!" she called back.
Crap, Jayden had found their sign. I moved faster, zigzagging to make sure I wasn't missing ours, and then my phone rang. Diego had found it—yes! He spoke rapidly, trying to explain where he was.
"I’m on the south side, between these two big evergreens, right by a little rock path."
I was pretty sure I was headed south as I broke into a run. "You mean behind the building, right? The opposite side of the main entrance?"
"Yeah, but we're in the woods back here. It’s like a labyrinth."
"I'm coming," I said, jogging.
Tori was up ahead and still frantically talking on her phone, but she seemed as lost as I was. I resumed zigzagging, but this time instead of looking at the ground, I was scanning for Diego. The tall trees blocked the sunlight and I was afraid I'd miss him in his dark clothes.
"Where are they?" Tori said, sounding a little desperate.
"I'm just rounding the corner by the amphitheater,” I said hastily to Diego. “Just tell me which way to go from there.”
“When the sidewalk splits, go right.”
“What sidewalk?” I spun in a circle but didn’t see him anywhere. He was right, it was like a labyrinth back here.
Diego swore, and then the line went dead. Puzzled, I stared at the phone, about to hit the button to call him back.
But then I heard it—a loud whistle, the kind that referees use. I took off in the direction of the sound, running as fast as I could. It was far easier to home in on that sound than to follow hurried instructions, as Tori was still trying to do.
And then I saw him up ahead, the silver whistle in his mouth. He dropped it and crouched down by the sign, his phone already out.
"Hurry, Mia!" Maybe he hadn’t been at the start, but now he was in it to win it.
"Over here!" I heard Jayden calling and could tell he had spotted Tori.
"I'm coming!" she cried.
"Hurry!" Diego said again.
And then I reached him, dropping to my knees and skidding the last few feet. I almost passed up the sign, but he caught me with one arm around my waist.
Just as he had when I fell out of the tree, he effortlessly lifted me, setting me down on his knee. We both leaned our heads toward the sign with our names on it, and he snapped the picture.
I grabbed his phone and uploaded it. And we waited, with me still balanced on his thigh.
We stared at his phone expectantly. Then his phone vibrated from an incoming text.
"Did we do it?" he asked, as I breathlessly swiped open the text.
And there it was, both our names, saying the scavenger hunt had been won.
"We did!" I shouted and threw my arms around his neck.
I caught him by surprise, and he tumbled backward. I landed on top of him, one hand on his chest, the other on the grass beside his bicep.
He laughed as he looked up at me, and I did too, grateful that I hadn't accidentally kneed him in the balls or something.
His whistle lay across his chest, and I grasped it, tugging lightly on the cord. “Good thinking.”
We stayed like that for a long moment, my hair hanging down, nearly touching his face. It reminded me when Aaron had hovered over me on my bed, after we’d flipped the mattress.
I needed to get up off of him, but for some reason, I didn’t move. “I keep falling on you.”
“Can’t really say that I mind catching you.” He stopped, his dark eyes and gleaming. “And I can’t help it if women fall hard for me.”
He smirked up at me, and I couldn’t stop staring at his lips. “That’s not the same thing,” I protested. Though not very strongly.
“I know, but—” That’s all he got out, because the next moment, we heard people run up, and Tori said, “Congratulations.”
But it wasn’t her hand that touched my shoulder. Nor Jayden’s. Aaron stood there, extending his hand out to me. I took it, and he pulled me to my feet.
Diego hopped up nimbly, and Jayden shook his hand, looking a bit disgruntled. “Who knew a whistle would make the difference.”
Something very close to a smirk crossed Diego’s face. “A bit more useful than a bow, yes.”
Tori beamed at us, and I knew it wasn’t just because we’d won. She’d seen me lying on top of Diego.
As had Aaron.
He had sunglasses on, so I couldn’t see his expression as I introduced him to Tori and Jayden.
“Way to go,” he said to me, then glanced at Diego to include him, too.
“And to the second-place team, too.” He nodded at Tori and Jayden, and Diego’s smirk returned.
“Let’s go get your prize, and then I’ll buy you a pretzel. All of you,” he said. “You must be tired.”
“Yes, but it was fun,” I said, and the others nodded. Plus, a cinnamon sugar pretzel sounded amazing right now. The race had been tiring.
Aaron’s expression softened as he looked at me. “That’s why I wanted you to do it. You definitely needed some fun.”
I gave him a smile as we headed for the union, but his words stuck with me.
Yes, I had needed a break to have some fun, but in hindsight, something told me that Diego had, too.
I’d spent the last few weeks on pins and needles around him, afraid that he was going to remember the night of the party, in which case I’d need to move to the other side of the world.
But perhaps my subconscious had been paying more attention to him than I thought, because it seemed to me that he’d been down lately, too.
For the first time, I wondered what had made him get so drunk at the party that night. And whether he’d been trying desperately to distract himself, like I had.
It didn’t seem likely I’d ever know.