Page 14 of Wild About You
Burke laughs and I smile as if the latter part was indeed a joke.
“So, Finn, you and Natalie are becoming ‘besties,’ then?” He points between my partner and me.
I look to Finn, who is now running a hand over his face in what I’ve come to recognize as one of his signature moves. He only sighs and shrugs in answer, so I jump back in.
“He might seem shy by day, but let me tell ya, boy, does this guy love him some pillow talk! Throw him into a sleeping bag, and bam, you won’t get him to hush. I was like, ‘Finn, please, I need my beauty rest,’ and he was like, ‘Natalie, you’re just so easy to talk t—’ ”
“Okay, we get it,” Finn cuts in, nearly making me jump back in surprise. “What place are we in? Do we get to stay or what?”
He puts his hands on his hips and eyes Burke Forrester like the guy just said there’s a global shortage of khaki. Despite Finn’s hard expression, I don’t think I’m imagining the pink tint to his cheeks. I bite down on my smile.
Burke looks less than pleased to be rushed, but it’s only half a second before his professional host mask is back in place. “All right, we’ll get to it, then! Finn and Natalie, you are the second team to arrive at this checkpoint. That means you will be continuing on Wild Co-EdVentures. Congratulations!”
I whoop and bounce on my heels, turning to Finn with my hand up for a high-five. “Not bad, partner!”
His lips twitch in something almost resembling a grin as his hand meets mine in a weak smack. We’re waved over to the side, where the first team who made it here—Enemi and her partner, naturally—is waiting under what we learn is one of the AT’s shelters for backpackers. Stone walls close it in on three sides with a roof over top and a dirt floor under our feet.
One by one, the other teams arrive and join us in and around the shelter, looking varying degrees of disheveled and exhausted. It turns out everyone completed their tasks last night, including the team with only one pack, so the team eliminated is the last one to make it to the checkpoint.
I feel a little bad as I join the others in giving the two girls leaving, Sam and Amanda, goodbye hugs, because I haven’t spoken two words to either of them. Not that I really had the time to do so. Mostly, it seems like a shame that the team name “Samanda” didn’t get a longer run.
But I resolve to make more of an effort to get to know everyone here, especially once we learn we’ll all be camping together around the shelter tonight. Keep your friends close, competitors you want to ruthlessly defeat so you can win a college fund closer, and all that.
As Enemi’s team’s prize for coming in first, they each won a five-hundred-dollar shopping spree at a fancy outdoors store, so I’m feeling especially unfriendly where they’re concerned. Meaning I should probably keep them closest of all.
I wince with each step I take toward the other side of the clearing once filming is paused, all the aches and pains catching up with me now that I’m not in go-go-go mode. When I get to a tree where I can offload my pack and prop it up, I groan with the relief of taking all this weight from my shoulders.
“What’s wrong?” Finn’s voice at my back catches me by surprise, and I spin to face him.
“What? Nothing!” I’m totally fine and capable, just like you!
“You just made a really unpleasant sound.”
“Well, that’s rude,” I say, putting my hands on my hips. The movement makes me wince again. He doesn’t miss it.
“Is your pack uncomfortable?”
I catch myself before I shrug. Not in the most shrug-friendly shape right now. “A little. But it’s fine. Maybe my shoulders will go numb soon and I won’t feel anything when I’m carrying it.”
Finn’s critical eyes sweep over me slowly, from my shoulders to around my hips, and while I feel about as unsexy as I ever have, a bizarre little shiver runs down my spine. But the conclusion he seems to draw from his perusal is not what I expect.
“Put the pack back on.”
“Huh?” Does he enjoy inflicting pain? That’s gonna be a hard no.
“Put it on, however you’ve been wearing it. I want to see if there’s a way to adjust it so you won’t be so sore.”
Oh. Reluctant as I feel to agree, it’s a good idea. So I bend and grab the straps, carefully easing it back on, mentally apologizing to my poor, abused shoulders. Then I’m distracted from any feeling but surprise, because Finn is reaching for my hips…
…and grabbing the waist straps on my pack.
Whew, okay. Chill out, Natalie.
“You’re not even using these,” he says, tugging on the wide, padded straps and making me take a stuttering step closer to him.
Flustered, I try to figure out what he means. “Well, no. I clipped them together yesterday, but they kinda just circled around my butt and didn’t really serve a purpose, so I leave them unclipped now.”
Finn starts to adjust the length of the straps, jostling me with each pull on them. “They didn’t serve a purpose because you weren’t wearing them right. And you have the shoulder straps too loose. None of it is fitted to you like it’s supposed to be, both for comfort and to not destroy your body.”