Playing Games
Page 18

On our second try, Liam flubbed the lift and I didn't help by giggling when he touched me.
The third time, though? We nailed it. As we finished the Coda, we held our positions, waiting for the ballerina's verdict. She scrutinized us, then gave a sharp nod and held out the disk for our clue.
I gave a happy cry of delight, and turned and leapt into Liam's arms. He grabbed me and twirled me around, and my legs automatically went around his waist as I clung to him, cheering. When we slowed, I was reminded of the fact that we were both wearing skimpy ballet leotards that allowed you to feel every curve of your partner's body, and he was wearing a belt that gave him a massive bulge.
A bulge that I slid down as my feet landed on the floor.
We stared at each other for an electric moment longer, and then Liam recovered his senses and took the disk the ballerina held out to us.
Everyone stared and waited for us to leave the stage, so I grabbed Liam's hand and dragged him off to the side. "Come on. Let's go."
He gave himself a little mental shake. "We need to change clothes and get out of here."
"We could stay in the ballet clothes," I told him thoughtfully. "Buy ourselves a few minutes and just head straight to the next task."
"Hell no," Liam told me, and grabbed his bulge.
I laughed at that. “Point taken.”
He held the clue disk out, flipped it over, and then smiled at me.
Damn, that smile. I gave myself a little shake, then started to read the instructions in a low whisper.
Time to concentrate on the game once more.
 
 
~~ * * * ~~
 
 
As we left the Palais Garnier behind, we passed by two teams working on the chandeliers, and had left Hal and Stefan still at the dance challenge. That meant we had a decent lead on the others, though we were pretty sure we weren’t in first place.
The disk instructed us to head to a French patisserie, and we ran into Abby and Dean there. Liam and Abby decided to take the first challenge, since it involved bicycling through the streets of France. Unless I had a map? I was bad with directions, so we’d elected to have Liam participate for our team.
He and Abby worked together to deliver baskets of fresh baguettes to six different locations in Paris while on bicycles. Dean and I sat at the corner of the bakery and split a hot, fresh loaf of bread ourselves, speculating as to what the next challenge would be. We agreed to run it together, since we knew we were ahead of at least three other teams.
The next challenge sent us into l'Ossuaire Municipal - the French catacombs. We headed down the dank steps into the shadowy cavern, and a chill raced through me. Inside, the walls were covered with hundreds of years of graffiti, and some of the rooms seemed to be nothing but skulls.
Our task was to find the hidden message that would give us our next clue. Dean took one portion of a wall while I took the next, and we worked our way through wall after wall, looking for a message.
My heart nearly stopped when I saw along the bottom of one wall, written in English, "Make your way to the Italian ruin of Pompeii at the base of Vesuvius and look for the Games flag."
Yes! Hiding my excitement, I quickly read the phrase over again, memorizing it so I could repeat it back.
Summer from the Olympian team moved to my side, scanning the wall. "Find anything yet?"
I blinked in the low light, considered, and then shook my head. "Nope." I headed further down the wall and pretended to keep scanning. I sucked in a breath when Summer crouched at the base of the wall I was standing in front of, gave it a cursory look, then sighed and flounced over to a row of lined up skulls, peering at them as if they'd have the clue.
She hadn't seen the phrase.
Biting my lip, I pretended to keep looking, and moved closer to Dean. I tapped him on the shoulder when I passed by and gave him a meaningful look. When Summer headed further into the tunnels, I leaned over to Dean. "I found it."
"Really?" His eyes widened and he jerked around. "Where?"
"Base of the wall nearby," I whispered. I gestured at it furtively, making sure that Summer didn’t see my hand motions. "We need to fly to Pompeii."
Dean left my side and pretended to continue searching the wall, knelt, read the clue, and then wandered away, still pretending to look for the answer. He circled back to me a moment later, an excited look on his face. "That’s it," he breathed, grinning. "Flying straight through to the next leg without a rest? Damn."
“I know. We need to tell the others.”
He leaned past me and gazed to where Summer was. "She find it yet?"
I shook my head. "She'll suspect something's up if we leave together, though."
"I'll leave," he told me. "After a few minutes, come up and we'll all head to the airport together."
I nodded and pretended to examine the wall he'd been staring at while he sneaked out. Slowly, I counted to sixty as Summer moved past again, then shook her head and headed further into the long, dark tunnels.
I pretended to keep searching the walls until she disappeared down a tunnel curve and was no longer in sight. As soon as she was gone, I raced up the stairs and headed back out to where Liam was waiting. Abby and Dean were still there, practically bouncing with excitement.
"So should we head straight to the airport? Or do you think there’s another part of the clue that we missed? That almost seems too easy," Dean commented, shrugging on his backpack.
"I didn’t see anything else on the wall," I told him, then glanced at Liam. "I guess we'll know for sure if we head to the airport and the other teams are there."
"Good point," Liam told me. He leaned and whispered so only I could hear him. "And good eyes."
"Thanks," I said as he handed me my backpack, and wondered why that small bit of praise made me so freaking flustered. It wasn't like he'd told me that I looked hot, or he'd been as aroused as I'd been when he'd grabbed my inner thighs.
He'd simply told me I had good eyes. Good lord, I needed to get over this crush I was forming.
 
 
~~ * * * ~~
 
 
When we arrived at the airport, we purchased tickets to Naples, the closest airport to Pompeii, and I purchased a travel guidebook. There was a three-hour wait on the flight, which meant the other teams might have time to catch up to us.
Sure enough, we arrived at our gate, and there was Joel and Derron, the war heroes, and Brodie and Tesla. Brodie and Tesla were cuddled by the gate, wrapped around each other like they'd been a couple for years. As I watched, my brother leaned over and gave Tesla a long, tongue-filled kiss.
Ew.
I shot a look at my partner, and he was eying Tesla and Brodie with the same mixture of disbelief and disgust. Abby and Dean went to go find something to eat, and Liam and I found a quiet corner of the terminal and sat down with our travel guide. There were plenty of chairs, but I wanted to stretch out my legs, and I was getting used to sprawling on the airport floor to get comfortable, so I sat down against a nearby wall and stretched my legs out in front of me. Liam sat next to me on the ground, his shoulder pressing against mine.
"They're kind of ridiculous, aren't they?" I told him, and nodded at Tesla and Brodie, who were still making out and hadn't acknowledged our presence.