The Perfect Escape (The Perfect Escape #1) - Suzanne Park Page 0,55
splashed my way to Nate’s car.
Banging on his windows in the dark wasn’t a good strategy. Nate startled, but when he saw it was just me and not some roving campground serial killer, he unlocked the doors and waved.
“Good morning,” he chirped.
“You’re late.” I threw my pack in the back and plopped down in the front passenger seat.
“Not a morning person?”
I cleared the frog in my throat. “I am, actually. But you’re late.” Don’t you dare wave this off and distract me with one of your cute, coy smiles.
He shrugged. “I’m sorry about that. My sister woke up and kept me home longer than expected. I tried to leave as soon as I could.” He mustered an apologetic look, and my heart softened. His sister was so little.
“Okay. You’re forgiven, but only because Lucy is cute. And it’s your birthday.” I threw a small package into his lap. “Happy birthday. I should have bought you a watch with an alarm.”
He shot me a lopsided grin. “Hopefully I won’t piss you off anymore this weekend. I’ll open it later since we’re running so late.”
My floppy, drippy bangs fell into my eyes as I retied my shoe. “Good call with your priorities.”
When I sat upright, my head whooshed. The car cabin tilted, and I steadied myself by grabbing something stationary.
That something was Nate’s hand.
Regrettably, I’d skipped a sensible breakfast. I’d been too worried I might toss it during the start of the competition, not thinking about the ramifications of low blood sugar.
Oh God.
His hand was a little calloused in some parts, but soft to the touch in others—a nice hand to accidentally squeeze, all in all. Warm and strong. Not like my clammy grip. Tingles ran through my fingers, and the sweat in my palms threatened to push to the surface. I let go like we were playing hot potato, just as Nate pushed my damp bangs out of my eyes with his other hand.
I searched for words. “Your present was on sale.”
He coughed and laughed at the same time, just as some chipper dude with a megaphone made an announcement in the parking lot. “Participants need to load onto one of the three charter buses! We leave in five minutes! Cinco. Minutos!”
Nate cracked a smile. “We’d better go. We don’t want to be late.”
I blew out my cheeks, letting out a big breath. My eczematic hands itched and burned, and my palms were sweating buckets by that point. I could single-handedly solve California’s eternal drought problem with my leaky glands.
We left Nate’s car and swished through the muddy puddles, loading our gear beneath one of the two remaining buses. Then we stood in line and boarded bus number two. The aisle and seat lights were off, making it hard to find an empty row. My eyes hadn’t adjusted, so making out any faces was virtually impossible.
We took some open seats toward the back. Across the aisle were two vaguely familiar people, a guy and girl in their midtwenties, both with approximately zero percent body fat. It took me a few seconds to remember where I knew them from. They were the grand prize winners of the American Muscle Hustle show, which had just been renewed for another season. The red, white, and blue star-spangled parkas should have tipped me off.
I leaned in and whispered, “Hey, don’t look right now, but those guys are the winners from that life-or-death obstacle course reality show on CBS.”
Gah. He looked. “Well, obstacle courses are one thing. Outdoor survival is totally different.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head on the window. Staring at the unremitting rain, I tugged on my garnet pendant on my necklace and slid it back and forth on the chain.
Nate opened one eye. “And I bet their cheap-ass parkas aren’t even the good temperature-controlling kind.” I nodded in agreement, though I wondered if my all-weather jacket was anything more than a low-end raincoat.
The emcee on our bus rattled off rules, regulations, and changes to the event schedule, not even caring that almost everyone was asleep. Some of the