Partner Games
Page 19

I looked at Georgie. “What do you want to do?”
“Why don’t Plate and I pick a task and go together and you and Swift do the other? We can share taxis again and help each other out.” She glanced at the doors of the supermarket, where another pair of teams raced inside. Team Daddy. Shit. Everyone was catching up. We needed to move fast. No time to debate….and talking to Georgie right now was like walking on eggshells. “Do you want to pick?”
She looked over at Plate.
“Viking ship?” he asked. “It sounds kinda badass to me.”
She nodded. “Viking ship it is.”
Which meant I was going to zipline. The thought made me want to puke up the pizza I’d just eaten.
“Now, wait a moment–,” Swift began.
“It’s fine,” I said quickly, and separated the pieces of the clue, handing half to Georgie. “Let’s just get out of here and get this done quickly, all right?”
“Let’s go,” Georgie called to Plate, and ran for the first cab. Swift grabbed my hand and we raced for the other.
We crawled inside and handed the driver the instructions for how to get to the zipline.
“I can’t believe you volunteered to do this,” Swift said. “You’re scared of heights!”
Yeah, but I was more scared of what was going on with my twin. For a moment back there…she’d seemed perilously close to breaking. For now? Whatever Georgie wanted, Georgie was going to get.
 
 
Chapter Twelve
 

“So…that was a disaster. And this time it wasn’t even Georgie’s disaster.” — Swift, Team One Percent, The World Races  
 
We split the taxis and Swift and I got into one, Georgie and Plate into the other. Georgie waved at us as we pulled away, and I tried not to feel a stab of resentment for my twin. Oh sure, she was going to have all kinds of fun building a Viking ship. Me? I was going to fling myself hundreds of feet through the air, tied to nothing but a cord and a harness. Just the thought of it was already making me nervous. I rubbed my sweating palms on my pants.
Swift gave the directions to the taxi driver, and then we were off. He sat back on the seat and looked over at me. “Please tell me Georgie’s not normally like this.”
“She’s not normally like this,” I echoed. “Seriously. I have no idea what has crawled up her butt lately, but this is insane. She’s usually the most even-keel, easygoing person I know.”
“You need to talk to her. She’s going to end up sabotaging you guys, and I don’t want you bringing us down.”
I gasped, because that hurt. Bringing them down? After we’d saved them? “Heaven forbid my team slow your team down.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said wearily. “It’s just…it’s important that I win, all right?”
“We all want to win,” I said grouchily. First bagging on my twin, and now this? “All of us can use a million dollars.”
“Some of us more than others,” he muttered. “I’m not trying to pick a fight with you, Tiny.”
“Then quit saying jerky things and making me feel defensive!”
He stared out the window of the cab, and I crossed my arms and moved to my side of the cab. We both ignored the cameraman in the front seat who was filming all of this.
Being on competing teams was hard, especially when you liked someone. Especially when half of your team was self-destructing and you had to defend that person and you weren’t sure why.
The taxi stopped in a parking lot, and ahead, I could see a giant metal ‘thing’ rising into the air an impossible height. “What is that?” I asked.
“Holmenkollen is a ski jump,” the taxi driver said helpfully.
Oh, yippee. Could this day get any better?
“Wait at the bottom of the jump for us, all right?” Swift told the driver, and handed him money.
“Ya,” the man said in accented English.
We got out, leaving our bags in the trunk. I strapped my fanny pack full of money and my ID at my waist and started to head for the ski jump when Swift grabbed my wrist.
“Hang on, Tiny, we need to talk.”
“I don’t feel like talking right now,” I told him stiffly. “Let’s just go and get this nightmare over with, all right?”
“No,” he said, and wrapped his arms around me, holding me against him despite my struggles. “I want to clear the air first.”
“It’s fine—“
“It’s not fine,” he said, voice husky. His hands gripped my waist and he tried to meet my gaze despite me looking away. “I hurt your feelings and I’m sorry. It’s just…really important to me that we win the money.”
“And like I said—“
“I’m not on this race because I like to compete, or I want to see the world, Tiny,” he interrupted, voice low and gentle. “I’m happier at home, puttering around in my garage and working on cars. But my dad…” his voice broke and then he cleared his throat. “My dad has cancer. Insurance only covers so much. He can’t work while taking chemo, so I’m trying to win for him. That’s why it’s so important to me.”
The knot in my throat became huge. “Cancer?”
“Yeah. So if I come across a little asshole-ish and driven, it’s because I want to bring home the money for him.”
I got it now. I thought he was just obsessed with winning the money so he could soup up his car business, or whatever it was he’d planned on doing. I knew if I won I was going to help fund the latest dig and not worry about making an income while I pursued my love of fossils. That suddenly seemed…a bit selfish. “Oh.”
“I mean, I know everyone needs the money. It’s not that my need is less or more than anyone else’s. But I just wanted you to know. Because this is important to me, and you’re becoming pretty important to me, too.”
And that kind of made everything a little better. I nodded and we linked hands and headed toward the building.
As soon as we entered the building, there was a long line of people that wrapped around the room, waiting for the elevator. An area had been cordoned off for The World Games players, and someone gestured us through to the front. I shot a few apologetic looks at curious people as we raced forward and got to the front of the next elevator. Great, not only were we dealing with heights, we were cutting in line. It was just another thing I wasn’t keen on.
We got in the elevator and two of the ever-present camera crew followed us in. The thing was full of windows, which would show us just how high we were going. Which was not what I wanted to see. I sucked in a breath as the thing inched ever upward, and then backed away a step. “I hate this.”
“Breathe,” he said, his hand going to my neck and rubbing it. “Seriously. Breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“You’re breathing way too fast. Are you going to be able to do this?” He shot me a concerned look. “Do we need to go back and have Georgie switch with you?”
The thought of admitting defeat to my volatile twin did not sit well, especially when I was supposed to be the steady one. “I’m good. I can do this.”