Tired of dodging her, Emilia bends to pick Salmon up, tucking the puppy under her arm. “You’re so annoying,” Emilia groans.
The dog’s tongue lolls out of her mouth as Emilia struggles with the deceptively heavy golden retriever. I reach over to scratch behind Salmon’s ears as we continue toward the activity. “Aw, she’s not annoying. She’s a baby.”
Emilia’s brows pinch together as she looks over at me. “I was talking to you.”
We finally reach the rest of the counselors standing around several planks of wood and platforms arranged in groups of four. “I don’t know what the hell we’re going to have to do,” Maya says.
I’ve seen this activity before, but I’ve never done it. “You have to get your entire team from the first platform to the one at the end, but it gets harder to move between them because the gaps gets bigger and the platforms get smaller. Nobody can touch the floor.”
“Bedlam then,” she smiles. “I’m going to say hi to my friends, I’ll be back in a sec.”
“I wonder if you’d annoy me less if you still had a British accent,” Emilia says quietly, watching Maya as she walks away from us.
“I never sounded like Maya. I still sounded mostly American. It got stronger depending on how much time I spent hanging around at Dad’s work.”
Xander, Russ and Clay finally stop whispering with each other, turning to face Emilia and me. “Okay, game plan,” Xander says seriously. “We’re going to jump between the platforms.”
Emilia bursts out laughing and I immediately shake my head. “No, we’re not.”
“Why not? It’ll be the easiest way,” he immediately counters.
Emilia is still laughing at the idea of us trying to make those jumps. Xander looks genuinely surprised, while Clay is trying to fight a laugh too. Russ is . . . observing. “Maybe for you Mr. NBA hopeful, but for the rest of us mere mortals, jumping that far isn’t possible.”
“We’ll help you. You’ll be fine.”
Xander’s mouth doesn’t move and that’s when I realize the person talking to me is Russ.
“Oh.” Say something, Aurora. “Cool.”
I hate myself.
Russ does that nod thing guys do, without saying anything more. It was nice to hear him speak, so now I know he is real and he’s not just a figment of my imagination haunting me like the ghost of hook-ups past.
“Is this thing on?”
We all turn our attention to Orla standing at the end of the challenge with a megaphone. She’s had that megaphone for as long as I’ve known her and every time it breaks, she gets the maintenance team to fix it for her instead of investing in one from this century.
I stole it once. Used it to scare the shit out of Jenna when she was flirting with one of the other counselors and ended up in a time out for the rest of the afternoon, but it was worth it.
Orla goes over the rules, explaining that you can’t start moving to the next platform until your entire team is together. If anyone in your team falls off, your team has to start again from the beginning and whoever makes it to the end, managing to stay on the platform for thirty seconds without falling is the winner.
Maya wanders back to our group and Xander immediately turns to her. “We’re jumping.”
“No, we’re not,” Emilia and I say in unison.
“You’re tall—” Maya says, looking him up and down.
“Thank you for noticing . . .”
“—if you’re so confident, why don’t you just lie down between them and we can all walk you like a plank?”
“Yeah, Xan,” Russ says, grinning. “Why don’t we just walk you like a plank?”
“I don’t think I’d like being crushed by a hockey player, funnily enough.”
“Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,” I say quietly, without thinking.
Thankfully, most of the group didn’t hear my little admission, but Russ and Xander did and Russ’s cheeks flush pink.
Xander’s eyes flick between us quickly, but the whistle blows, putting an end to anything he might be about to say. The six of us rush toward the first platform, only just fitting on comfortably.
“We are at a distinct disadvantage because the three of you are so massive,” Emilia groans into Clay’s back, which is pressed up against her face.
“Aurora, I’m really sorry my hand is touching your bum, but I can’t move it,” Maya says.
“It’s touching mine too,” Xander adds.
Russ sighs. “No, that’s mine.”
The platform creaks as Russ jumps to the next one, followed by Clay and Xander. There’s enough room for the three of us to maneuver now the boys are gone and we coordinate moving the plank of wood we have to the next platform to walk along it.
“Just jump!” Xander shouts.
Maya holds her arms out to keep her balance as she walks to the next platform. “I am not bloody jumping when there is a walkway!”
“Come on, Mary Poppins,” Clay says, holding his hand out to Maya, helping her to take the final few steps. It’s easy to follow and when we’re all together on the next platform we start the whole ordeal again.
“Xander, you’re going to push me off!” I cling to Clay behind me and his hands immediately land on my waist. I switch to holding onto Emilia beside me, looking up at him over my shoulder. “It’s okay, you don’t need to hold me.” He lets go slower than I’d like.
We realize that the wood hardly reaches the next platform, which is further away than the last, and the guys work out a plan that has one of them jumping over last, then they’ll help those of us who aren’t part kangaroo get across. The sound of all the other teams shouting instructions at each other is flooding the air and realizing that we’re slightly in the lead kickstarts the competitive part of me.
Xander easily jumps to the next platform, kneeling and reaching to accept the end of the plank that isn’t long enough to rest against the edge of where he’s standing. He keeps it steady with his hand and we all pat his head as we climb over him, keeping as close to the edge as we can to let Russ and Clay jump over too.
“Oh my God,” Emilia squeaks. “Someone jump before we lose our balance.”
The guys all spring across, making it look ridiculously easy, but as soon as they’re all on the final platform together it’s immediately clear that there is not enough room for six people. Even if there was enough room, there’s no way we’re making that jump.
“How the fuck are we supposed to do this?” I’d put my hands on my hips but there isn’t enough room without nudging Maya off.
“Is anyone concerned about the weight limit of these platforms?” Clay says, looking at the creaking box beneath their feet.
“Was anyone a cheerleader?” Xander asks.
“This isn’t the type of teambuilding we’re supposed to be doing right now, buddy,” Emilia says sarcastically.
Rolling his eyes, he points at the distance between us. “Two of you can launch the other across the gap. We can catch.” We’re all silent. “You’re telling me nobody was a cheerleader in high school?”
“Yeah . . .” Maya says. “That’s not a thing where I live.”
“Aurora got kicked off the cheerleading squad freshman year and, as for me—ballet and human pyramids aren’t a good mix.”
“You also aren’t very cheerful,” I mutter under my breath.
“What did you get kicked off for?” Clay asks immediately.
“Not importa—”
“She stole the other team’s mascot and lost it.”
“Emilia!”
Xander peers over to the other teams, his face twisting in concern. “Guys, we really need to get moving . . .”
“How do you lose a mascot?” Russ asks, looking right at me.
“I, uhm, it ran off.” That gets his attention. His eyes widen and I immediately feel the need to clarify. “It was a pig, not a person. They found him a few hours later, he was totally fine. He was hanging out with the janitor’s dog, but, uhm, they felt my actions did not align with the team’s core values. Anyway, can we get on with this? Who are we throwing?”