Playing Games (11 page)

Liam's arm over my shoulder tightened, and I
felt the muscles in his leg tense as I continued to scratch him.
Then, I felt his fingers play along the edge of my shirt sleeve,
brushing against my exposed skin. It sent tingles through my
body.

"How do you feel about Brodie and Tesla's
partnership? They seem to be dominating."

I glanced over at my brother, who was still
sucking face with his partner, oblivious to the cameraman that
filmed them a few short feet away. "Um, Brodie and Tesla are
interesting, I guess. I was really hurt when he abandoned me, at
first. But I think Liam and I are making a pretty good team." I
looked up at my tall partner, whose shaggy hair was halfway in his
face, covering one of his eyebrow piercings.

Liam smiled at me, that finger still teasing
along my arm. "I think so."

"You two seem to be getting friendly," the
cameraman prompted.

To my horror, my face turned bright red. I
could feel the flush moving up my cheeks, heating them. Liam
chuckled and tugged me against him, tucking my head onto his
shoulder. "She's not going to answer that right now. She's too
tired."

I gave the camera a yawn and snuggled closer
to Liam, who made a surprisingly delicious person to rest against,
and closed my eyes. I felt his fingers begin to play with one of my
blonde pigtails, and I smiled to myself. Eventually, the cameraman
moved on and we were left alone again.

"The coast is clear," Liam murmured. "You can
wake up now."

I could. But I was suddenly exhausted and
Liam was so good to lean against. I yawned again and turned my face
into his neck. "Do I have to?"

I felt his laugh more than I heard it. "Nah,"
he said. "Take a nap. We can plot our race domination on the
plane." His fingers continued to play with my ponytail, almost
idly. "I'll stay awake."

And even though it wasn't fair and I should
have stayed up to keep him company, he was warm and snuggly and I
was so incredibly tired. Liam smelled wonderful, his neck barely
brushing against my nose. I drifted off to sleep.

CHAPTER SIX

"Can I put in a request that we have more
legs like the Paris one? More partner on partner action?"
—
Liam Brogan, Paris Leg of The World Races

When we arrived at the airport in Naples, it
was late at night. We took a cab out to Pompeii, and even though it
was dark, we bought tiny flashlights at one of the airport stores
with the last of our money and hunted up and down along the roped
off tourist areas until we found The World Races mat.

To my surprise, it wasn't a local waiting for
us, but Chip Brubaker and a camera crew. Brodie and Tesla were
already there, sitting off to one side, and so were Dean and Abby.
Liam and I arrived in third place, and we were promptly handed our
next clue.

The clue indicated that our team task would
start once Pompeii opened at seven in the morning. Until then,
there was nothing to do but wait.

The nice thing about this leg, though, was
that we were given two hundred dollars, which we carefully
pocketed. We'd been almost broke up to this point, every dollar
carefully spent on food and taxis. Two hundred dollars would be a
total luxury.

With nothing else to do and hours to go
before daylight, we sat down with the teams to wait for the others
to arrive. There was an open spot between Dean/Abby and
Brodie/Tesla, but Liam's hand tugged mine, indicating we should sit
a short distance away, and so we did. We kept a flashlight out,
pulled out our guide book, and began to plot.

"It's a team challenge," I told Liam as we
re-read the clue. We could choose 'Apollo' or 'Jupiter' according
to the clue, which didn't tell us too much. "The guidebook mentions
a Temple of Apollo, and a Temple of Jupiter. That has to be
it."

"Maybe we have to visit one of the temples?"
Liam suggested.

Made sense. "I think there's a floor plan in
this thing. We could figure out which one is simpler and go to that
one—"

A shoe scuffed to my side, and then Brodie
was squatting next to me. "Hey, sis."

Liam leaned in front of me protectively,
glaring at my brother. “Buzz off.”

I closed the guidebook and gave Brodie a
suspicious look. "I see you remembered that I exist?"

"Nice to see you too." Brodie smirked. "So I
guess you're still mad at me?"

"You'd guess right. You ditched me, and
you've been ignoring me to play tonsil hockey with the rock star.
Like I'm supposed to be grateful that you're paying attention to me
now?" I shifted, moving a little closer to Liam. "You made it quite
clear that you're not in this for family, and that's just fine with
me."

"Look, I said I was sorry, Katy."

"Actually, you didn't—"

"How was I supposed to know the Ace would
split us up?"

"Why did you use it to save another team
anyhow?" I looked over at Liam. "Sorry. No offense."

"It's okay," he told me, but his face was
tight with dislike as he watched my brother.

"Cause it was Tesla Spooner," Brodie told me.
"Fucking hottest rock chick ever."

"So you sold me out because you wanted to
make out with a rock chick?"

"Well, yeah." And he grinned boyishly.

I wanted to kick him in the nuts. "You suck,
Brodie."

"I'm sorry you're still mad, Katy. I just
wanted to see if you two wanted to work with me and Tesla for the
rest of the race. We can still make it to the end with both of our
teams, you know. I think it'd be a good thing."

I stared at my brother. "Are you serious? You
ditched me and now you want my help? Our help?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Makes sense to
me. Now instead of just me and you, it's two teams. We can work off
of each other and push to the end." His gaze moved to our
guidebook. "And we can share information."

"Or," I said in a sarcastic voice, "we could
share our information and you could use it to hose me again. Nice
try, Brodie."

"Fine. If you're going to hold a grudge, I
can't stop you." Brodie gave me a sad look that I didn't buy for a
minute. "Can we borrow your guidebook for a few, at least?"

"No," Liam said. "Get your own."

"We didn't have the money on the last leg,"
Brodie said, talking to me and ignoring Liam. "It'd be really
helpful if you could let us just see it for a few minutes—"

"No," I said this time. "There's plenty of
time before seven am. Go get your own guidebook."

"But you've got one right here—"

"And we said no," Liam reminded him. "You've
been a dick to your sister the whole time. You shouldn't be
surprised that she doesn't want to help you."

"Fine. You don't want to help me?" Brodie
reached over and plucked the guidebook out of Liam's hands, getting
to his feet. "Then I'll just take it—"

Instantly, Liam was on his feet, going after
Brodie, and grasped the guidebook. “That’s not yours.”

Brodie put a hand on Liam’s jaw, planting it
and trying to shove him aside to keep the guide from him. The two
men began to scuffle, and I screamed as they started to get a bit
violent. What the hell was happening? "Stop it, Brodie," I yelled,
leaping to my feet.

"Liam, quit it," Tesla bellowed off to the
side.

"Hey, buzz off," I called at her, even as the
men's struggles got more aggressive.

A ripping sound cut through the air.

Suddenly, Chip was there, pulling Brodie off,
and Dean stepped in, blocking Liam. "What's going on here?" The
host asked. Cameras hovered all around, catching every humiliating
moment for TV.

"This asshole stole what wasn't his," Liam
said, waving what was now one half of a tourism guide to Italy.
"And I'm tired of him walking all over my partner. Katy's been
nothing but nice about this whole shit deal and her brother thinks
he can just do whatever he wants."

My jaw dropped a little to hear Liam defend
me like that - against my own brother. It was…really nice.

Chip frowned at the two men. He looked at
Brodie. "Is it true that you stole from this team?"

Brodie gave a sigh of disgust and tossed the
ripped half of the stolen guide onto the ground. "I didn't realize
they were going to be such pussies about it."

"I'm sorry, but stealing is against the
rules. Yellow team, you will have to take a two-hour penalty for
rules violation at seven am, when the facilities open."

The look Brodie shot my way was withering.
"Seriously?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Too bad," Liam said in a bland voice, then
scooped up the discarded half of the guide.

"Careful," Chip said. "I can give you a
penalty too."

Liam returned to my side and said nothing
else. I could practically feel the tension vibrating off of him. I
put an arm around his waist and steered him away from the tense
little group. "Come on. Let's just go sit down."

The crowd dispersed, and a cameraman came to
our side, filming as Liam and I sat down off to the side again. I
barely noticed that another team came up to the mat, looking
confused as everyone scattered. Summer and Polly. I looked at Liam,
noticing that his lip was swollen on one side. My fingers brushed
over it. "You okay?"

He ran his tongue over his lip, and it slid
against my fingertips, which just made my entire body flare up.
"Yeah. Your brother elbowed me in the face."

My eyes narrowed. "He's such an ass. You want
me to say something?"

"Nah. They'll kick him from the game."

“And you don’t want that?”

“Not if it’ll make Tesla run screaming to the
label about what I did.” After a moment, he grinned. "Pretty sure I
elbowed him in the gut, though."

I smiled back, and let my hand drop back into
my lap.

To my surprise, he picked up my hand and
kissed my fingertips, right where his tongue had brushed against
them. "He doesn't know what he missed out on when he lost you as a
partner."

Warmth flooded through me. I tried to think
of what to say, but my gaze was fascinated by his mouth on my
fingertips.

A large hand clapped me on the back,
startling me. "You guys ok?" Dean leaned over us. "That was some
messy shit, huh?"

I nodded and pulled my hand back toward me,
hoping Dean and the others hadn't noticed that electric moment
between Liam and I. "We're fine. Thanks, Dean."

He nodded. "You let me and Abby know if you
need anything."

As Dean left, I squeezed in next to Liam and
tucked my legs close. Like at the airport, I pulled my body close
to his and snuggled in as we waited for dawn. Neither one of us
spoke, and it seemed like a bad move to pull our guide out right
away again.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to Liam.

His fingers reached out and brushed along my
jawline in a tender caress. "I'm not."

~~ * * * ~~

Wendi and Rick, the mother and son team, were
the last to arrive in Pompeii. They showed up some time around four
in the morning, while I was trying to sleep, and the sounds of
Wendi's high pitched bawling woke me up. We were a little sad to
see them go because they were genuinely nice, but teams had to
leave. That was just how the game worked. As long as it wasn't us,
I didn't much care.

When six am rolled around, the remaining
teams started to head back to the entrance designated for the
competition. Liam and I waited a bit, then consulted our guide
again.

Two major temples inside Pompeii - Jupiter
and Apollo. We studied the floor plans, then decided that we'd head
to the Temple of Jupiter, despite it being just a bit further into
the city than the Temple of Apollo, since everyone would probably
head to Apollo first. Then, we joined the others.

At seven, the teams flooded into Pompeii. The
ruins were magnificent – from the cobbled streets to the
graffiti-covered and frescoed buildings around us. I wanted to stop
and look at the fascinating city, but we didn't have time. It was a
race, after all.

The first temple we passed was the temple of
Apollo, and we could see the challenge areas set up. Immediately,
four teams broke off and headed for it. Abby and Dean hesitated and
looked at us, and we headed on to the next temple. They followed
us, since we’d agreed to work together on this leg of the race as
well.

Each station was set up with dozens of white
broken pieces, all supposed to resemble marble but felt like
plastic. Our goal was to create a replica of each temple as it
stood once upon a time, and a judge would swing by with our next
clue. Except we had a mountain of pieces, and they all looked the
same.

More puzzles. Ugh. I picked up one block,
studied it, and gave Liam a helpless look. "I don't even know where
to begin."

He took the piece from me, studied it, and
then handed it back. "I wonder if the other temple's any
easier."

I flipped to my diagram of the Temple of
Apollo. The Temple of Jupiter had one single row of columns. The
Temple of Apollo had many, many rows of various sized columns. "Not
according to this."

"Nothing to do but get started, then," Liam
said, and sighed.

I echoed the sentiment and gave a heavy sigh
of my own.

~~ * * * ~~

By the time the Italy leg was over, I never
wanted to see anything Roman ever again. It was easily the longest
day of my life. We'd ran around on only hours of sleep, and as the
day wore on, the weather became oppressively muggy and too
warm.

The temple build took hours to do. Abby and
Dean and Liam and I worked together, consulting the chart in our
guidebook, the current ruins, and good old fashioned hunches. We
tried, failed, tried again, and failed once more. When Abby and
Dean finished theirs, Abby immediately ran over to me and whispered
what was wrong with our model. We fixed it minutes later and
received our clue, just as Brodie and Tesla ran up, their penalty
completed.