Playing Games
Page 5

She smiled over at me and waved a hand at the empty flight attendant stand in front of the rows of seats. "Air Iceland doesn't fly out until the morning, and we all hit Reykjavik at the same time. From there, the charter flights are staggered, but it looks like we're starting this race all grouped together." She shrugged and stuck out her hand. "It'll give us a good chance to get to know each other. I'm Abby."
"I know," I said with a grin. "I saw you on Endurance Island last year."
She groaned. "You probably saw way too much of me, then. I swear, I'm never going to live that down." She thumbed a gesture at her spouse a short distance away. "That's Dean, though I guess that was easy to figure out."
"I do. I'm Katy." I pointed at my brother, who was shaking hands with the black-dressed duo. "That's my brother, Brodie."
"Ah, the brother-sister team." She nodded, as if this answered some things for her.
"That's us."
She glanced over at me. "Not sure why we're sharing names. We're practically tattooed with them." She gestured at the bold ABBY written across the chest of her shirt. "They think viewers won't remember who's who unless they brand us."
I chuckled at that. Abby didn't seem dazzled by all of this, and I liked that about her. "We can at least try and be normal about it.” I studied her. "I'm kind of surprised to see you and Dean here. I thought after watching Endurance Island that you guys were done with this sort of thing."
She sighed, as if suffering. "I thought so, too. But we do strange things for love." Her gaze warmed and she watched Dean's back with affection. "It's not so bad, though. At least in this, no one can backstab us out of the game." As a cameraman circled close, she grimaced. "Though I can't say I missed that aspect of things much."
I didn’t blame her. It was getting a little weird for me, too. I carefully stepped aside as a cameraman zoomed past and headed for Liam, Brodie and Tesla. I guessed they were more exciting than we were. "You're old hat at this sort of thing. Any advice for me?"
Abby tilted her head, thinking. After a moment, she gave a calculating grin and leaned in. "Make good TV."
"Good TV?"
"Yep," she said, and flipped one of my perky pigtails. I flushed at that - she must have guessed that it hadn't been my hairdo of choice. "Make good TV," she repeated again. "Dean doesn't believe me, but I know I'm right. You make good TV and the producers will tweak things to go in your favor so you last longer. Not all of the challenges are random."
Interesting. As we stood there, I heard Brodie burst out into a wild laugh, and it was joined by Tesla's flirty one. I glanced over at them and they seemed to be having a grand old time. Well, except for Liam, who was ignoring my brother as Brodie proceeded to make a fool of himself all over Tesla. Liam stared out the window onto the tarmac, his fingers drumming a beat on the bag across his lap, as if he were writing a song.
"Looks like your brother's already decided he wants to make good TV," Abby commented. "Unless he's wrangling for an alliance with them."
I snorted. "He's more likely trying to get her phone number." Though I did frown a little in Brodie's direction as Tesla flipped her red and black hair and giggled at whatever my brother was saying. We were not about to ally with those two. Not when the guitar-playing jerk had knocked me to the ground and stolen my number. Forget that. I glanced back at Abby. "I don't want to ally with them."
"Well," she told me in a low voice. "You look harmless and you’re not hamming it up for the camera, so you’re on my good side. We could always have a private alliance just between us two. Help each other out if we get the chance and all." She raised a pinky in my direction.
I locked mine with hers and grinned. "Now you're talking. Us wallflowers can stick together."
She laughed. "I knew there was a reason I liked you."
 
 
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Abby and I ended up chatting for hours off to one side as the others played social butterflies - including her husband, Dean. She didn't seem to mind that, though. She was relaxed and comfortable in her own skin, and it showed. Dean didn't ignore Abby the way Brodie did me, though. He flirted with her, teased her, brought her snacks, and pulled her into his lap when the seating area got full. She would give me tolerant looks, as if she were enduring this for his sake, but there was a constant smile on her face and a glow to her that bespoke happiness.
Me, I was content to people-watch and chat with Abby. People came up and slowly introduced themselves, but I let Brodie be the chatty, friendly one. That was what he was good at. The others were nice enough, though, and I chatted with all of them while we waited for our flight. The strong girl team? I learned Summer and Polly were Olympic beach volleyball players. The strong guy team, Joel and Derron, were vets from Afghanistan. Hal and Stefan were the other guy team, both TV weathermen and married to each other.
And after Brodie had gotten to know everyone, he zoomed right back to Tesla's side. She seemed to take all his attention with a pleasant smile, and I couldn't tell if she was just tolerating Brodie, or if she was genuinely interested in him.
Her bandmate was sitting right there, so it was awkward for me to watch Brodie hit on her right in front of him. Were Tesla and Liam in a relationship? I guessed not, but I had no way of knowing. He glanced over at Tesla and Brodie occasionally, but seemed bored by them.
Actually, he seemed bored by pretty much everything – cameras, teams, airport, you name it. He ignored everyone. He just put a pair of earbuds in, listened to music, and stared out the window. I thought I was kind of unfriendly, but out of all the racers, he was the only one that hadn't come by to say hello.
And I certainly wasn't about to go over and get friendly with him.
"Flight 1222 to Reykjavik, now boarding," an airline attendant said in a smooth voice, interrupting the hum of voices.
I yawned, remaining in my seat as everyone else leapt to their feet. I had never understood the rush to get onto the plane. After all, seats were assigned. It wasn't like shoving to the front of the line changed your priority. So I sat and waited for the crowd to disperse and for Brodie to reappear.
After a few minutes, the sea of legs cleared and I noticed only two people still sat, waiting for the congested crowd to disperse. Me, and Liam. I ignored him, getting to my feet and shrugging back on my heavy backpack.
Brodie returned to my side in a cheery mood. "Isn't this awesome? We're on our way to our first destination!"
"It's pretty exciting." I studied my brother as we got to the back of the line. Tesla had moved to Liam's side and was nudging him with one of her metal-covered boots. "You didn't make an alliance with them, did you?"
"Tesla and I talked about it," Brodie told me. "They're in second place, so it'd be smart."
"Brodie Short," I hissed at him. "Did you or did you not see that guitar-playing asshole knock me to the ground and steal second place from me?"
"I’m sure it was a mistake," Brodie said easily. My brother had zero killer instinct. "And Tesla told me that Liam was pretty remorseful about it."