Page 24

TWENTY-FOUR

TRENT

I tapped at my phone screen, following the state highway away from the twelve stops we’d have to make over the course of the day. And the thirteenth: Natural Slide.

“It’s so far away from the rest of the stops.” I tipped my head back, an aggravated sigh escaping from my lips.

“We could always take the five-point penalty,” Kit said. “It’s not like we’re winning, anyway.”

Kit was right. The day three standings had posted late last night, and while we were top five, the top three teams were far enough ahead that they’d be hard to beat. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones to find the hidden points.

“But we’re close,” I said, feigning confidence. “In striking range.”

After the bus ride back to the hotel, the terrible comedy bits only compounded by Kit sitting perched on the very edge of the tiny seat, back ramrod straight so that we barely touched, I’d stayed up late scrolling through the race feed.

Anytime I tried to lie down, I could only think of Kit and her ass on my lap and her curves under my palms, and the faint alluring scent of fruit that clung to her skin and how soft she felt. All inconvenient thoughts when she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested.

Sibling energy.

So, research won out.

“Team Barbie got a five bonus points for hang gliding.”

Kit paled. “I’m not hang gliding. That’s insane. And expensive.”

“It doesn’t have to be expensive. Team Fast and Furries got three points for replacing a tire.”

“Are you seriously suggesting we damage the car?” Kit huffed.

I hadn’t pointed out the weird rattling, but we both heard it over the radio. I’d caught Kit under the hood this morning, flashlight jammed in her mouth as she surveyed the engine. When she’d emerged, she gave me a tight shake of her head and hadn't said another word about it.

“No, I’m just saying a roadside repair wouldn’t be the worst thing at this stage of the game. Or…we could use this detour to our advantage.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

“It means we could try to wring out some bonus points out of the detour.”

“The detour is a punishment. We’re not getting points.” Her fingers tapped the steering wheel impatiently.

I reached across the car and covered her fingers with my hand, giving her a squeeze before pulling away. “Or the detour could be an opportunity. I made a list of things I think they might reward.”

I fished the list out of my jeans pocket. Blue ink covered the page, bad ideas crossed out and refined to a final three.

“Oh, you have a list,” Kit muttered, shaking her head.

“First, we have a swim party. Use our rally account to get people to meet us at the stop.”

She shook her head. “Our account is too popular. Tom will hate that.”

I nodded. “Fair. Second idea, we hold our own pool party. We grab some blow up floaties and go down on a unicorn or flamingo or whatever, really embrace the challenge.”

“That’s better. Still not really wow-worthy, but I could see a bonus point or two.” Kit pursed her lips. “What’s your third idea?”

I ran my thumb over the third idea, lifting an eyebrow. “We go down naked.”

She sputtered out something between a cough and a laugh. “We what?”

“We don’t have swimsuits, anyway.”

“There will be other people around.”

“I don’t know about that. It’s been pretty cool lately. The river is probably still close to freezing. And we won’t get there until after dinner.”

“You can go down naked.”

“No problem there.”

Her warm brown eyes widened, slinking over to me with a faint hint of pink on her cheeks. “I’m not bailing you out of an indecent exposure charge.”

“We’d definitely get points for that. Hell, that’s actually not an option I’d even considered. How about a ticket? Do we get points for those?”

“I’m not getting a speeding ticket for you, Trent. And I’m certainly not bailing you out of jail.”

“Tom would definitely give us bonus points if you didn’t bail me out,” I laughed.

“I’d win the whole damn thing if I left you in some podunk jail in Alabama.”

“But you’d miss me,” I teased.

No, not teased. I wanted to tease her, but really, I’d asked a question under the guise of a joke. My stomach clenched as I waited for her response, wishing it didn’t matter what she said, but admitting that it did.

“I’d miss you.”

I exhaled, relieved. Confused. Kit’s response shouldn’t matter. We’d come into this rally as less than friends, and my only goal had been to finish the rally and stay out of trouble. If I could make Kit a friend along the way, great. If I couldn’t, oh well. But somewhere between Virginia and the kiss and the pure shot of lust I’d felt for her on the bus the night before, what I wanted had become muddled.

“For now, let’s focus on the next stop and try to cross a few of the hidden clues off the list.”

I nodded. “Next left for the world’s largest metal giraffe.”

Kit waited for the light to turn green and turned down a residential street. “Are you sure? This is a neighborhood.”

“Oh yeah. I’m sure.” I pointed over a griege mansion to our right where a metal head peered over the roof.

Kit navigated down tidy streets flanked by cookie cutter houses with manicured lawns. “These houses are too nice not to have a homeowner’s association. How did someone put up a giant giraffe?”

“No idea, but I bet their neighborhood meetings are absolute dumpster fires.”

The Cougar turned right, and the giant houses abruptly ended in woods and a dirt road.

“Or,” Kit drawled. “Maybe the neighborhood went up around the giraffe.”

The car tumbled over rocks and stones toward a tiny house with a pair of metal toucans perched on the mailbox.

“Yeah, the owner definitely isn’t in an HOA.”

Kit laughed, light and bubbly. “Think it’s okay to park and take a look around?”

“Judging by the safari guide on that fence post, I think it’s fine.”

Kit pulled the key out of the ignition, racing for a box labeled “Visitor’s Information” on a fence post.

“So, are you thinking African Safari or Polar Express?” she asked.

The map was a photocopied, handwritten approximation with lines marking two trails around the property. A shorter loop around the house for the Polar Express, and a longer trail entering the woods for the African Safari.

“African Safari, for sure.”

“Good, I need to be out of the car for a bit.” Kit replaced the map in the holder, unnecessary with the trail markers in front of the box, one pointing left for the Polar Express and another to the right for African Safari.

“Do you think this person and the dinosaur person chat?” Kit asked, ambling past two wildebeests drinking from a small watering hole.

“Do you think there’s a group chat for roadside attraction artists? A discord channel? Or maybe a Facebook group?”

“Seems like there are enough to throw a small conference. And we’ve only seen the people on the east coast.”

“Not even the whole east coast. What do you think we’d find in the northeast?” I asked, my shoulder brushing hers as we walked.

“Giant lighthouses and sea creatures. I bet there’s a whole bunch of lobster artists in New England.”

“And they fight with the crab artists in Maryland?” I grinned.

“Probably. Do roadside artists get along? Like, what happens if this guy moves in next to the dinosaur roadside attraction artist?”

“They team up together and make a dinosaur African safari.”

She smiled, pausing to snap a picture of the family of elephants marching through the woods in the distance. “I can’t believe tomorrow is the last day.”

I paused, recounting the days, surprised at the tally. “Wow. So, this is over tomorrow?”

“We pull into a car show in the afternoon and that’s it. We head home.”

I exhaled, falling behind Kit as she pushed on to the next set of animals. “I’m not sure I’m ready to head back to Norwalk.”

She ran her hand over the hammered metal horn of the rhinoceros sitting along the path. “Me, neither. I wouldn’t have brought it up. Only, I wished I’d signed up for a longer rally.”

“Maybe we just head straight for the next one,” I said.

She shook her head. “It’s not until the fall. Besides, I have a job. A normal job. I can’t do this forever.”

I couldn’t either. I needed to get back to Norwalk. Needed to get back to training and preparing for the coming season.

“It’s been fun,” I said. An understatement if there ever was one. It’d been an escape. A much-needed escape.

“It’s not over yet.”

Kit’s tongue escaped into her mouth. “It’s not what I expected.”

Natural Slide wasn’t what I expected either. One hundred feet of smooth rock ended abruptly with a six-foot drop into a pool of water. And the water didn’t gently flow over the top of the rock. It crashed.

“At least no one else is here.”

Kit squatted down and plunged her hand into the current. She sucked in a breath. “Yeah, because it’s freezing.”

I tested the water. Yep. Icy cold.

“So, we’re just taking the loss on this stop?” Kit raised an eyebrow.

We hadn’t found a place to buy inflatables, and we’d gathered enough bonus points from the hidden clues to at least secure fourth-place for the day. I wanted more points, but a naked plunge had always been a reach. I didn’t want to make Kit uncomfortable, even for bonus points.

I shrugged. “You didn’t want the points, anyway.”

“I also don’t want to freeze my ass off for nothing.” She sank down and put her hand back in the water, keeping it in for a while longer this time. “Going down naked would solve the problem of what to do with our soaked clothes.”

“Are you serious?”

She pulled her hand out of the water, flicking droplets on me. “What the hell? We’ve put in a lot of work. Let’s not let this stop be for nothing.”

I stilled, unsure if I’d heard her correctly. “So…”

When I’d written out the idea on a sheet of motel paper, I’d had Kit’s naked body on my mind. I kicked the vision out just as quickly, reminding myself that our kiss had been “different” with sibling energy. Even if I didn’t agree, I had to keep my eyes off and my mind occupied.

“So, we go naked.” She shrugged. “We record the plunge on my phone. I’ll blur out everything and delete the original.”

While the Internet had a slew of pictures insinuating nudity, I’d never had a full-blown naked pic. Yet. And despite my otherwise low-key off-season, a nude picture might blow whatever progress I’d made out of the water.

“If you’re sure,” I said with as little excitement as I could muster, which wasn’t much.

The tips of her ears burned red, and she averted her eyes. “Should we set up the camera at the bottom?”

I nodded, following her down the dirt trail.

“Hey, you can swim, right?” I asked, eyeing the fast-flowing water.

“Yeah. I mean, I’m not an athlete, but I know the crawl, doggy paddle, all the hits. Can you?”

“I swam on a team until high school.”

“Track, football, and swim team?”

I grinned. “I’m fast everywhere. Land, sea, air. If you weren’t so against hang gliding, you might have found that out firsthand.”

“Nope. Heights give me the creeps.”

“And how do you feel about deep pools of river water?” We reached the bottom of the trail, and Kit took an exploratory step onto the rocks overlooking the pool. Two thick ropes hung in the water and from our vantage point, I couldn’t guess at the depth of the pool.

“I thought I was fine, but that’s a long way down,” Kit murmured.

From the top of Natural Slide, the slide down looked like a gradual incline into the pool. But, from the opposite end, the dip appeared to be more of a plunge into inky, roiling water.

Ignoring the danger beneath us, I set up the tripod, nestling Kit’s phone into the cradle and pressing “Record.”

“Alright, time to find out if it’s possible to get hypothermia in the spring.” I stripped off my shirt and discarded it on the rocks.

“What are you doing?” Kit asked, eyes wide with shock.

“Getting naked?”

Her eyes skittered between my abs and my face, cheeks growing redder with each pass. “Aren’t we going to do that up there?”

I shook my head. “Not me. I want clothes when I get to the bottom.”

“But we’re going to have to walk all that way.” She cast a furtive look around the empty woods. “Naked.”

“Right. Or we’ll have to walk back up that trail, naked and wet. I’d prefer to be dry and naked as long as possible.”

Her nose crinkled.

“Unless you want to go back to the car and get another set of clothes.”

She considered it. I didn’t.

The walk to the slide was nearly a mile and we had two more stops before we were due at check-in. “And if you do that, we won’t have time to grab a sit-down meal. So, we’d be enjoying another late-night gas station dinner.”

“I need dinner. Especially if we’re skinny dipping.”

“Same.”

She exhaled, body deflating. “Fine. But you go first, and don’t turn around. I don’t want you sneaking peeks.”

“You’re welcome to look as much as you want,” I said with the confidence of a man who hadn’t been completely rejected by Kit the night before.

She turned toward the woods, and I discarded my clothes in a pile. “Do you want me to head up without you?”

“Just go over there.” Still turned away, she waved a hand toward the trail going back up. “I’ll be right behind you. Promise you won’t look?”

I wanted to tease, but anxiety laced her voice. “I promise not to look until you’re coming down the rocks.”

“I’ll be fine. You slide down and climb out. I’ll follow.”

“Absolutely not, Kitten. Tom’ll take away all my points if you drown. I’ll stay in the pool to make sure you get down safely.”

“We better get points for this,” she grumbled.