Partner Games

  “The world is a cruel and bitter place,” Georgie said in a sunny tone, and splashed her washcloth into the bathwater again.

  “You’re in a good mood.” I sat cross legged on one of the hotel beds a few feet away from the bathroom and braided my wet hair. I was wearing a pair of complimentary World Races pajamas. I’d just finished showering, myself, and I had to admit that I felt almost human again. The World Races people had been great to us so far. They’d set us up in a luxury hotel room at one of the hotels at the top of Huangshan, and had given us kits of toiletries and snacks to make our stay pleasant. We couldn’t leave our rooms, according to production, until our flight out the next evening.

  For the next twenty-four hours, we didn’t have to do anything but relax. No travel, no camel rides, no taxis that stank of cigarettes, no cramming down a PowerBar for a meal. We’d had room service, cleaned up, and were now relaxing in our hotel room.

  It was almost pleasant.

  I sighed and flopped forward on the bed as Georgie settled down into her suds again. “You think the guys are upset right now?”

  “Mmm. Yes and no.”

  I propped my chin up on my hand. “Yes and no?”

  “Yes because we’re gone and we’re their buddies – and good to look at.” She winked at me. “No because that’s two less people in the race.”

  “You’re not helping much.”

  “Don’t moon over him. It’ll be fine.” Georgie scrubbed at her arm, frowning. “I think I have a weird tan-line from Morocco. Either that or there is some seriously stubborn henna on my arms.”

  I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling of the hotel room. “I wish I’d had a chance to talk to Swift before they head off to the next leg of the race.”

  I heard the sound of splashing as Georgie washed herself. “So go find him.”

  I sat up. “Find him?”

  “Yeah.” She waved the washcloth at the hotel room door. “Go down to the front desk and ask if he’s staying here. There’re only three hotels on this mountain, and I’m guessing they don’t let a lot of people go traipsing down the side of their dangerous-ass mountain in the middle of the night. So they’re still here somewhere. Go find him and kiss his scowly face.”

  “Scowly!?”

  Georgie giggled. “I don’t know if you noticed, Clemmy, but just about the only thing that Swift doesn’t scowl at is you.”

  I blushed and glanced at the door. “You really think I should?”

  “What’s it gonna hurt?”

  “They told us to stay in our rooms.”

  “Well, we should totally obey all the rules then,” she said in an exaggerated voice and rolled her eyes. “Live a little, Clem. What’s the worst that’s going to happen? They kick you off the race?”

  She had a good point.

  I jumped off the bed and slipped my feet into an official pair of World Races flipflops (as part of our swag) and headed to the bedroom door. A quick peek out showed that the hall was empty. “Be right back,” I called to Georgie and slipped out. Now to just find someone at the front desk…

  The moment I turned the corner down the hall, someone in security stopped me. He wore a headset and an official World Races logo on his t-shirt. “I’m sorry, Miss Clementine,” he said. “But you need to go back to your room.”

  I bit my lip. “But—“

  “No buts. As long as you’re still part of the race, you have to comply by race rules.”

  “Actually, I was eliminated last round.”

  The look he gave me was withering. “You are officially part of this race until the winner crosses the finish line, because all eliminated teams will be waiting at the end to cheer them on. Unless you want to forfeit your place at the finish and your share of participant money?”

  I actually considered it for a moment. Then, I sighed, shoulders slumped. “No.”

  “Then back to your room.”

  I turned around and headed back, dejected.

  Georgie was still in the tub when I returned and flopped down on the bed.

  “Cockblocked?” she asked, sympathetic.

  “Ran into security in the hall.” I grimaced. “He was a real jerk.”

  “Just chill, Clemmy.” She relaxed back in the tub. “Read some magazines, watch some subtitled TV, and relax.”

  “How are you so calm?” I sat up. “I mean, aren’t you worried that you won’t get a chance to contact Plate again?”

  “Nope,” she said, a touch of smugness in her voice.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m Georgie Fucking Price and he’d be insane not to come after me.” She shot me a look. “And you’re Clementine Fucking Price and Swift would be a huge dumbass if he let you go.”

  I sighed.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Winning is the only acceptable outcome. I refuse to lose. I don’t want to disappoint Tiny and everyone else.” – Swift, Team One Percent, The World Races

  “This way, ladies,” a production assistant called to us as we moved through the airport.

  Backpacks on our shoulders, Georgie and I trailed behind the Red Hat team. All four of the ‘losing’ contestants were being herded along to our next destination. It had not yet been revealed to us where we were heading off to, but we had a layover in Tokyo, so we were guessing that the last flight was somewhere back in the United States.

  “The final leg is usually somewhere in the US, right?” Georgie asked me. “Where do you think it will be?”

  “No clue.” I hadn’t speculated, either. It was weird, but since we’d been knocked out of the race, a weird sort of calm had come over me in the last few hours. My twin didn’t hate me, Swift was still in it for the money, and we’d had a fun adventure. Whatever happened, happened. My normal antsiness had given way to a calm, chill mentality.

  And exhaustion. So much exhaustion. If I never saw another plane again, it’d be too soon.

  Georgie and I had seats together on the flight, near the back of the plane toward the bathrooms. We stored our bags and sat down in our seats. Georgie immediately reached for a magazine; I reached for a sleep mask.

  “Those bitches are sitting four rows ahead of us,” Georgie hissed at me. “How can you possibly think about sleeping?”

  “Bitches?”

  “The Red Hat ladies!” She poked me with a finger. “Why would you sleep at a time like this?”

  “Uh, because we’re out of the race?” I snapped the elastic on the mask and then adjusted it over my eyes. “Let them be in front of us. It’s not a competition anymore.”

  My twin hmmphed. “I can still hate them.”

  “You can,” I said with a chuckle, and settled in to my seat.

  I fell asleep before the plane even took off, and I’m not ashamed to say that my dreams were full of Swift. He was wearing his race shirt, his hair tousled, and there was a grin on his face like he’d just won the latest challenge. Then I dreamed of Swift holding my hand and encouraging me to zipline. Swift smiling at me in a taxi, crammed in between me and Plate. Swift in a hotel room alone with me, kneeling between my thighs and—

  “Pssst!” Someone shook my arm.

  I grunted and slid the mask down. It was just Georgie, her eyes sparkling. I rubbed my face. “What?”

  “Two things. One, you’re talking in your sleep.”

  I sat up immediately, blushing. “I was?”

  “Yeah, you kept going on about ziplines. Nightmare?”

  Not quite. I swiped my hand over my mouth, checking for nap-drool. “What was the other thing?”

  Georgie leaned toward me. “So…one of the producers is sitting a few rows behind us and he talks on his phone really loud.”

  “Oh?” I stifled a yawn.

  “Yup. I’ve been ‘going to the bathroom’ regularly.” She made air quotes. “Spying, you know. Wanted to see if I could get some deets on our boys.”

  That made me wake up. I straightened in my seat, alert again. “What did you find
out?”

  “Well.” Her voice dropped a little. “They won’t say who, but one of the teams left apparently missed their flight to Tokyo. Which means they’re going to miss their connection. Which means they’re basically going to end up about a day or so behind everyone else, according to that guy.” She gestured behind us by a few rows. “So they’re pretty much out.”

  My hands tightened on the armrests. “Did they say who it was?”

  “Nope. They just referred to them as team three.”

  “The team currently in third or the team that was in third place as of the last mat check-in?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I keep listening, but they just refer to them as team three.”

  Ugh. Swift and Plate had been in third place when we’d seen them last. I prayed it wasn’t them, because if it was, we wouldn’t see them at the finish line. We wouldn’t see them again at all. The show would fly us all home and Swift and Plate would still be somewhere overseas. “God, I really hope it’s not them.”

  “Me too.” Georgie’s full mouth pulled down into a frown. “I heard him say there was a surprise twist on the upcoming leg, too. Ten bucks says it’s another penalty challenge, and you know what that did to us.”

  I nodded absently. It had taken us out of the game entirely, because the challenge itself was so crazy that I refused to do it. What if the next challenge was something that would bother Swift and Plate so much that they’d refuse? What if they got a three hour penalty right before the finish line? That left either Jendan and Annabelle, who I liked….

  Or the Green Machine.

  “I think I’m going to vomit if the Green Machine wins,” I told Georgie.

  She nodded. “Just aim it in their direction.”

  ~~ * * * ~~

  “I can’t believe we’re in Hawaii!” Georgie cried, gazing out at the waves. She had an enormous, floppy straw hat on her head to protect her from the sun as we sat on the beach.

  “Technically, I think this island is Oahu,” I corrected, flipping through a pamphlet I’d grabbed at the airport. “Think they’ll let us stay for a few days since we’re already here?”

  “God, I hope so. I love the beach.” Georgie wiggled her toes in the sand. “Actually we can just cancel our flights and take a few weeks off, if you want. A buddy of mine has a condo on the Big Island and I’m sure he will let us crash there a few weeks. Do you have to be back soon?”

  “Nope! I love the thought of having a beach vacation.”

  She grinned over at me, a stripe of zinc on her nose. “We’ll need a vacation to recuperate from this vacation.”

  “This wasn’t much of a vacation,” I told her. “It was a race, remember?”

  “How can I possibly forget?” she said in a dry voice, and gestured at the beach.

  She had a point. The stretch of sand we occupied was utterly gorgeous: blue skies, curling waves, smooth sand, and nothing but beach for miles on end.

  Nothing but beach, that was, and a hundred different crew members prepping for the World Races finale. Power cords were strung all over the beach, and cameras and microphones were everywhere. People ran around, shouting, trying to get in last minute projects before the racers arrived. The eliminated teams were lounging on the beach under various World Races umbrellas, sipping drinks and waiting for the finish line prep. It would be an hour yet, we’d been told by production, so we had to sit and wait. We had our orders, though – once one of the teams was in the home stretch, we were to line up in front of the gigantic World Races finish line and cheer whoever it was on.

  If it was Green, there wouldn’t be a lot of cheering on my end.

  Still, if we had to wait for teams to arrive, a beautiful Hawaiian beach was the place to do it. I relaxed on my towel under the umbrella and took another sip of my Pina Colada. Hawaii could be fun. If I never saw Swift again, I guessed I could just drown my sorrows in endless beaches and all the fruity umbrella drinks I could carry.

  And then I’d go home, try to schmooze all the nearest universities with digs going on and see if I could land a spot somewhere. Strangely, that didn’t sound like as much fun as it had before. I’d miss Georgie, and I’d worry about her if I left her again. I loved my twin, and I wasn’t sure if she was ready to be without her support system yet. “Hey, Georgie?”

  “Hmm?” She gave me a lazy look, putting a hand to her floppy hat to hold it in place.

  “What are you doing after the race?”

  “Hawaiian vacation, duh.”

  “No, I mean after that. After we go home and stuff. Are you going back to New York?”

  A flash of uncertainty crossed my twin’s confident face. “No. I think I’m done with modeling for a while.”

  “I think we should do something together.”

  “Like what?” Her nose wrinkled. “Please don’t tell me you want to dig up dinosaurs.”

  “No. I mean, I love that career, but I’m kind of stalled there at the moment. Maybe I’ll write a book or something.”

  “About prehistoric fish?”

  “Ammonites. And why not?”

  “So you’re going back home?” Did she sound disappointed? We were halfway across the US from each other. Georgie spent her time in NYC, and I’d spent my time in Montana during the last year. We’d barely seen each other.

  “Actually, remember when we were kids?” I brushed sand off my knees and curled my legs under me, struck by sudden inspiration. “We’d make shoebox houses for our dolls to live in? Except we’d spend all of our time fixing up the houses instead of playing with the dolls?”

  “Yeah?” Her brows furrowed. “So?”

  “So let’s do something like that! Let’s buy a house somewhere on the cheap with our contestant money. Put some elbow-grease into it and make it a fun project. What do you think?” The more I considered the idea, the more I liked it. Georgie and I always had fun painting our rooms as kids, and decorating. This would just be an even bigger scale project.

  Her face lit up. “You want to do that?”

  “Of course.”

  “But wouldn’t you miss the university digs?”

  I shrugged. “They’ll be there later. I can always go back.”

  Her beaming smile told me everything I needed to know. “I love it. Can we buy something spooky and haunted?”

  “Er…I guess?” Whatever she wanted to do, I was game for.

  “This’ll be fun!” Georgie raised a fist and I bumped it. “You’re the best, Clemmy.” Happiness shone in Georgie’s eyes, and I felt as pleased as she looked. This would be good for both of us. Whatever happened, my sister and I would stick together.

  “Attention, everyone,” someone called out on a bullhorn. “A team is nearing the finish line. Please put on your World Races gear and line up at your assigned spots.”

  “This is it,” Georgie said, jumping to her feet. She flung her hat off and swiped a hand over her nose, smearing off the zinc. “Let’s go see who wins!”

  A wave of anxiety crashed over me.

  Please, be Swift and Plate!

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “Home stretch. I just pray it’s enough.” – Swift, Team One Percent, The World Races

  “We need everyone to line up in the order you were eliminated from the race,” a production assistant bellowed at the racers. “Regular race uniforms on, no beach accessories. Hustle! Hustle!” He snapped his fingers at us. “Two minutes!”

  Georgie and I scrambled to our designated place. I was anxious to see who was going to cross the finish line. I smoothed my hair with my hands as Georgie wiped the last of the zinc off her face, then shoved her hat at one of the people scrambling past. Everywhere, people were lining up. Directly across from us, the Red Hat ladies stood. We were the two teams closest to the stage, and we’d have a great view of whoever got to stand there with Chip.

  Unfortunately, that meant we also wouldn’t be able to see who was in first place until they ran right past us.

  “Oh God, I??
?m so nervous,” Georgie said, shaking her hands out and dancing in place. “What if it’s Green? Can I vomit on them as they run past?”

  “I’m fine with that.” My own stomach was churning around the fruity drinks I’d downed. Anxiety threatened to make me dizzy, and I had to take several deep breaths. All of the other teams just looked excited to see who would win.

  Me and Georgie? We looked like we were going to be sick.

  “The first team’s taxi has pulled up to the beach,” someone in production called out. “Everyone get ready!”

  Georgie clutched my arm. “I can’t look!”

  Fuck that. I was looking. I leaned forward, my heart pounding as I strained to make out people. Colors. Blurs. Something. I had a new pair of glasses now, but the sun was so bright that it was hard to focus. I shielded my eyes and peered down the long stretch of empty beach.

  Two people, jogging.

  I sucked in a breath.

  “I see them!” Someone cried. “Here they come!”

  Georgie clung to my arm. “Is it them?”

  “I can’t tell!”

  “Look harder!” She shook my arm.

  I turned back to glare at my impossible twin. Seriously? But when I turned again…

  I could make out faces. The color of shirts.

  Cheers exploded around us. “Come on up here, boys!” Chip called out from the stage. Georgie grabbed my arm tighter and started hopping up and down.

  Swift and Plate jogged up to the finish line and onto the stage.

  First place. They’d done it. First place. Georgie screamed in my ear, then began to clap wildly. I couldn’t move. I was so numb with relief. I put my hands together slowly, trying to clap, but I felt like a marionette.

  I was just so relieved.

  Plate was the first one to get on the stage. He threw down his backpack and did a Rocky-style punch-and-jog, and then flung his arms around Chip Brubaker. Chip laughed and clapped Plate on the back, and then turned to Swift. He wasn’t exuberant like Plate, or laughing and joking. His face was pale and he was sweaty.