Partner Games
Page 40

Or he did until she licked her finger and then stuck it in his ear. “Wet willie!”
“You are so paying for that, Georgie Price,” he roared.
My twin squealed and flung herself toward me, hiding her slightly-skinnier form behind mine.
“We gotta go,” Swift said, and hauled Plate away before he could come after Georgie in their mock-fight.
Plate pointed at Georgie as they walked away. “This isn’t over, Price! You think you’ve won but just you wait!”
“Bring it, son,” she called fiercely, and then dissolved into giggles again.
“You guys are weird,” I told her, amused. Georgie and Plate’s flirting seemed to be grade school level. What was next? Note passing? Do you like me, check yes or no.
“Hey, you do things your way, I’ll do them mine,” Georgie said, but there was a bright smile on her face. I could handle a happy, goofy twin. It was the sad one that worried me.
I gestured at the busy airport. “Let’s go find our gate and see where we’re at on standby?”
 
~~ * * * ~~
 
Our cab driver must have been a slow poke, because when we got to the gate, the other three teams – Green Machine, Endurance Island, and Red Hats were all there. I was relieved to find out they were on standby, too. Even if we were at the back of the pack, we were all still on the same plane.
Georgie checked her watch. “We’re going to be boarding soon. I’ll go change in the bathroom and then you can, all right?”
I nodded absently. I had a roll of Scotch Tape that someone in production had given me (probably out of guilt) and I was busy working on fixing the bridge of my glasses. “Leave your bag here. I’ll watch it.”
She dug her clothes out of her backpack and left it in the chair next to me while I tinkered with my glasses.
A few minutes later, I almost had the bridge taped when one of the Red Hat ladies dropped a water bottle and it rolled under my seat. I put my glasses down on top of Georgie’s open backpack and scooped the bottle up, then stood to hand it to Muriel. “Here you go.”
She gave me a sweet smile. “Thank you, sweetheart. Which twin are you? Beauty or the Geek?”
“I’m the geek.” Yeah, this was why we hadn’t made many friends with the other teams. I got all pissy when people called me a geek. Actually, Georgie got more upset than me, come to think of it.
“You’re a good girl,” she said in a condescending grandma voice, and patted my hand.
“Thanks,” I said flatly.
“Hey, Georgie, can I talk to you?”
I turned and squinted at the man coming up to me. My heart sank. Drew from the Green Machine. What did he want? “I’m Clementine.”
“Oh. Right.” He laughed. “You guys look the same when you’re not wearing your glasses.”
I glanced down at the great big CLEMENTINE written across my chest. Uh huh. “What’s up?”
“I just…” He shifted on his feet and put a hand on my shoulder, turning me away. “Can we talk for a second?”
I stiffened at his touch. This was…awkward. I resisted the urge to cringe away. “Um, talk about what?”
“Me and Foster were talking, and we haven’t been too fair to you guys. We wanted to apologize.”
They…did? “Um, okay?”
“It was kind of a dick move of Houston to ruin your glasses like that.” Drew’s voice oozed sympathy. “You got another pair on you?”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, so we realized when they did that, that things were out of hand. We want to win, but we want to win after a good, fair race, you know? So no hard feelings?”
“I guess not?” I was utterly bewildered by this change of heart. I needed to talk to Georgie. Something about this didn’t ring true.
“Cool. Good talk.” He clapped me on the back. “See you later.”
Weirded out by the conversation, I watched Drew head off until he became a blur, then peered around until I found my seat again. My glasses were in my seat instead of on top of Georgie’s bag. Strange. Maybe they’d slid off. I checked them for more damage and then put them back in my pocket again.
My thoughts strayed back to Swift, and I touched my lips. Was he thinking of me? I knew he wanted to win, and desperately. If it came down to them versus us, what would we do?
 
~~ * * * ~~
 
“Oh no,” Georgie exclaimed as we hurried through Marrakech Menara Airport. “Plate and Swift’s flight was delayed.” She paused under the flight time board, scanning it. “They haven’t landed yet.”
“That means we’re ahead,” I told her. “And that means Green is in the lead. Which means we need to hurry.”
We’d been at the very back of the plane, and Green had been at the front, seated conveniently near the Red Hat ladies. They’d been awful chatty, according to Georgie. She also didn’t buy Drew’s apology, and we wondered what they were up to.
“Let’s get a taxi,” Georgie said, and we shouldered our backpacks, rushing out of the airport and outside. “We need to keep pace with the Green Machine. I don’t want them getting a massive lead.”
“I’m with you,” I told her, holding onto her arm. “Lead the way.”
We found the taxi stand and Georgie waved a hand at the first one. “Taxi! Taxi! Can you take us to Hammam de la Rose?”
The man nodded and spouted a stream of fluid Arabic. He gestured at the trunk, and we dumped our bags in, and then Georgie pulled out her wallet.
“You think we should get money exchanged first?” she asked me.
“I don’t know. We’re in a time crunch.” I glanced around the airport as blurs of people moved past. “How much do we have?”
“Let me check….oh fuck.” She sucked in a breath. “Oh…fuck.”
“What?” I turned to her, my eyes wide.
She held her empty wallet out to me. “It’s gone.”
“Gone? We should have a couple hundred!” I grabbed her wallet and looked. We’d been so careful not to spend money. I’d been with her bag at all times…except…I gave her a horrified stare. “Drew.”
“Yup,” she said, exhaling heavily.
They’d stolen our money when he’d taken me aside to ‘apologize’. Those bastards. “I bet those horrible grandmas were in on it, too.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Georgie said. “We’re fucked.”
 
 
Chapter Twenty-Six
 
 
“All in all, I think this was a pretty good leg for us so far. A bit of a plane delay but we’re still ahead of the other teams that were on the flight with us. Haven’t seen the girls, but that doesn’t mean they’re not doing well. I hope.” – Swift, Team One Percent, The World Races
 
 
“Well?” Georgie asked, arms crossed as we stared at our camera guy, waiting.
He held up his finger, listening to something on his satellite phone. “Uh huh. Uh huh. Okay. Got it. Thanks. I’ll pass it along.” He hung up and then looked over at us. “Production says four hour penalty for the green team.”