Teddy Spenser Isn't Looking for Love - Kim Fielding Page 0,47
good to get off his sore foot anyway, and now he was snuggled side to side with Romeo. Which distracted Teddy for a few seconds, until the obvious revealed itself. “They’re complementary colors in the RGB model.”
“Yeah?” Romeo grinned delightedly.
“Yep. Like this.” Teddy moved the tiles back and forth until red was over cyan, orange over azure, yellow over blue, and so on. It reminded him of a frustrated and fruitless week he’d spent trying to solve a Rubik’s cube. Here, though, he finally had all the colored pieces arranged, with the white tile hanging out by itself.
Nothing happened.
Romeo tapped the red. “Are they in the right order?”
“I know my complementary colors.”
“Right. But how do you know red and cyan are first?”
Teddy scratched his head. “Because red’s the first color in the rainbow’s ROY G BIV.”
“But it’s possible they could be in a different order.”
“I guess. How’m I supposed to know? You’re the smart one.”
Romeo huffed. “Well, this smart one can’t calculate the number of permutations in his head, but it’s a lot. No way we have time to try them all.”
Time! Teddy leaned out of the closet and nearly panicked when he saw the clock. They had eleven minutes left. Shit. “I’m going to ask for a hint.”
“It’s our last one.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“No,” Romeo said, apparently defeated. He looked so sad that Teddy couldn’t stop himself from leaning over to kiss his cheek, all chaste and comforting. Except Romeo turned his head at the last second, and his lips met Teddy’s. The smooch wasn’t at all chaste. Teddy’s libido had been idling ever since they made out, and now it accelerated smoothly into high gear, as if eager to get him to the finish line.
“Eight minutes,” Teddy said in a strangled voice when they paused.
“Right.” Then Romeo raised his voice. “Another clue, please?”
Apparently it wasn’t necessary to push the button; the woman answered right away. “Try pushing.” She sounded annoyed.
Romeo and Teddy pushed: the tiles, the floor, each other—when they got in each other’s way—the doorknob, and the back of the closet wall. That last push turned out to be the right move. The wall swung open, revealing an entire new room. They climbed through.
“Well, shit,” Teddy said.
This room was bigger than the first and full of way more stuff. It was supposed to look like a laboratory: beakers and test tubes and scales, a whiteboard scrawled with equations, mysterious instruments, and a bunch of other objects that gave Teddy an unpleasant flashback to high school chemistry class. In which he’d accidentally caused a fireball that nearly incinerated himself and his lab partner.
“I think,” Romeo said quietly, “we’re supposed to find the werewolf antidote. And then an exit.”
“We’re never going to manage that in six minutes.”
“And we’re out of hints.”
“Yeah.”
Romeo sighed loudly before shrugging. “Might as well, then,” he murmured. And he swept Teddy into his arms for the type of kiss that usually existed only at the ends of sappy movies. Teddy secretly loved those movies, and now he swooned with abandon. The only things missing were a surging orchestral score and a majestic wind, but he could survive without them as long as he had Romeo.
Which wasn’t going to be much longer, was it? They’d head back to Chicago, listen to Lauren fire them, and go their separate ways. Romeo was brilliant and would surely find another tech job right away. Teddy would likely end up working in someone else’s store.
“What’s the matter?” Romeo had broken the kiss but continued the embrace.
“Workplace romances are terrible ideas. But soon we’re not even going to have a workplace.”
“We made it into this room. Maybe Joyce will give us partial credit.”
Although Teddy nodded, he wasn’t hopeful. He and Romeo hadn’t come anywhere near solving the puzzle, and they’d only made it this far with help from the hints. They’d done very little to demonstrate their intelligence, which had been the point of the game.
And it was Teddy’s fault again. Yesterday he’d screwed things up by hurting his ankle. Today he’d been dumb and distracting. Romeo would have done better if he’d been alone. He would have aced both tests.
The two of them spent a couple of minutes idly picking items up and setting them down, and then an obnoxious buzzer sounded and a hidden door popped open. Both of the employees stood there, peering in. “Time’s up,” one of them said, completely unnecessarily. “Want us to show you the solution?”