Partner Games
Page 18

“Pff,” Georgie said, but she sounded less stressed out. “Your name is Plate. You’re gonna eat it way faster than me.”
He nodded at the lady with the microwave. “Does it say it has to be cooked?”
The woman’s eyes widened. “I, um…no?”
He turned to Georgie. “You eat yours cooked, and I don’t wanna wait for mine to get cooked. I can eat it frozen. What about you, Swift?”
“I’m game,” Swift said, looking over at me. “Whatever Clementine’s eating, I’ll have that one.”
“So if you pick one,” Plate said to Georgie, his voice soothing, “We can all get started. And I bet yours will taste a shitload better than mine.”
Georgie gave a watery giggle. “You’re really going to eat it frozen?”
“Really,” Plate said solemnly. “I’m sure I’ve eaten worse.”
“Fine,” Georgie said, and pointed at the box. “I want skinke og salami.”
I stared at Plate in amazement and a bit of wounded jealousy. Why was my twin listening to him and shunning me? I was her dang partner.
The woman in the chef outfit microwaved the pizza and we all waited, tense, until it dinged. She placed the pizza on a new plate and handed it to Georgie.
By that time, I’d finished scarfing mine and was drinking from a bottle of water to cleanse my mouth of the meat-and-corn flavor. Plate and Swift were unwrapping their frozen ones.
“Come on, Georgie, you can do it,” I said, keeping my voice cheerful as she lifted the pizza to her mouth.
She immediately put it down again. “I can’t do this if you’re watching me, Clemmy!”
My eyes widened. Everyone stared at me. What the heck was I supposed to do? Close my eyes? Leave? We were in a race around the world and she was my friggin partner. “Um.”
“Here,” Swift said, his mouth full of frozen pizza. He grabbed me by the elbow and steered me away from Georgie, down a few aisles. “We’ll eat over here.”
Immediately one of the cameramen split to follow us.
And again, I felt hurt. I was being sent away and Plate could stay? She was my twin. I glanced over my shoulder again, and saw Georgie was taking a tentative nibble out of her food while Plate gnawed on the frozen edges of his. As we watched, another team pushed through the supermarket doors – the brown team, the Newlyweds. Drat. That meant others would be arriving soon.
I looked at Swift. “Eat fast. Someone else just got here.”
He grabbed my arm and pulled me back behind the shelf so we were hidden again. “Eat fast?” he said around a mouthful of food. “You ever try to eat a frozen pizza? It’s fucking gross.” He grimaced. “And I think this has corn on it.”
I chuckled, a bit of my worry for my twin dying down as he joked. “It does have corn. Maybe it’s a European thing, like nude beaches.”
“I’d be okay if that was our next stop,” he said, tossing his last huge bite of frozen pizza into his mouth. He peered around the corner. “They’re microwaving pizza for the others and Georgie’s still eating. I think Plate is keeping pace with her. No, don’t look—“ he grabbed my arm before I could peer around again. “Don’t distract her.”
“She’s my damn twin,” I said. “Why’s she turning on me?”
“Maybe she’s afraid of failure.”
“Are you kidding me? She’s Georgie Price, world famous supermodel. She’s never failed at anything before.” She’d always been super cheery and even clingy when it came to me. Why was she pushing me away now?
“Everyone’s got fears,” Swift said. He leaned closer, craned his neck to check on our teammates, then looked back at me again. “What’s yours?”
“My fears?” I blinked rapidly, trying to pay attention to our conversation. My brain was a whirlwind of anxiety from this leg of the race, adrenaline, and…a little something else. Something that wanted Swift to lean a bit closer, and maybe steal a kiss.
Or two. Or three. I wasn’t picky.
“Yeah, what are your fears?” he repeated.
“Um. Heights, I guess. I haven’t really had a chance to test things but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t like to be dropped off a thirty story building or anything. What about you?”
He grinned and reached out to tweak one of my braids. “Spiders.”
A giggle escaped my throat. I pictured this big, sexy, buff biker…terrified of a spider. “Really?”
“Really and truly. That shit’s not right.” He leaned a bit closer and tweaked one of my braids again. “And I really love it when you laugh, you know.”
His mouth was startlingly close to mine now. I pushed back against the shelf, seeing a camera out of the corner of my eye. “Everyone’s going to see…”
“Let them see,” he told me, and leaned in to brush his lips over mine in the briefest of kisses. “You know, if Georgie continues to give you the cold shoulder, you can always come bunk with me tonight. I’d kick Plate out into his own room for you.”
My breath caught. Holy crap, was that ever an invite.
“Uhhhh.” I lost the ability to say anything sensible. All I could see was Swift’s gorgeous face, and I could still taste his lips moving over mine. This guy was confidence and hotness and…and he had to have no freaking clue of who he was talking to.
I’m guessing if he knew I was a virgin, he wouldn’t have offered. Maybe I needed to tell him. I contemplated it, worried. If I said something, would he stop kissing me at every opportunity?
Because really, I was getting addicted to these stolen kisses.
“Done,” Georgie cried in the distance. “Clemmy, where are you?”
“Over here,” I called, scooting out of Swift’s embrace and racing back to my twin. I wrapped my arms around her in a big hug. “You did awesome!”
Now was not the time for getting angry at her. We had another leg of the race to run. But later tonight, when we had downtime? We were going to talk. We couldn’t keep going like this, having one good day and then a total breakdown over nothing the next.
“The clue,” Georgie squealed. “Let’s get the clue and go!”
I nodded and we grabbed our clue disk from the chef at the same time that Plate and Swift got theirs. My cheeks burned as we four sprinted to the exit, because I was thinking about that kiss again.
You can always come bunk with me tonight.
Oh lordy, lordy, I was in serious trouble.
Georgie flipped the clue and offered it to me. Instead of reading theirs, Plate and Swift gathered around me as I read aloud. The clue was split in half down the middle, and it was obvious that it was two identical pieces this time, meant to be separated.
I read the instructions. “It’s time to split up for this task. One of you will head to Bygdøy and put together a Viking ship. The other will ride the Holmenkollen Zipline in Oslo. You will each receive one half of a clue when you are finished with your task, and instructions on where to find your partner.”
“Oh man, we’re splitting up?” Plate clapped his hands and hooted. “This shit gets crazier every time I turn around.”