Lacey went through all the Langham men on the bus. Some golfers. A couple of cross-fitters. The rest wouldn’t last a game of Little League. All had an inflated sense of their own abilities. As fun as it would be to watch them all crumble under pressure in any other circumstance, they wouldn’t bring a thing to a team.
Victor had been a pain, but it had been an hour and a half before he’d started with his mansplaining. It would have taken most of her male colleagues from Langham all of five minutes. And he’d apologized. Give me a second. Let me do some digging.
“Do you still row?” She asked the question quietly. He didn’t move, so she gave him a little poke in the shoulder.
Victor turned his head. “Sorry, am I in your space?” He tried to shift over even more, but he had nowhere to go short of out of the window.
“No.” She kept her voice down. “Do you still row?”
His brow crinkled. “How did you know I row?”
Because Emelia told me. “Research.” If she told him about their connection, he would immediately put up the front of the person he wanted her to report back to Emelia.
“Occasionally. As I’m sure your research also told you, my brother is the real rower.”
“But you rowed for Oxford in the Boat Race. On the winning team.” If it wasn’t for her cousin, she wouldn’t have any clue what that meant or how impressive it was. Jen was right. She may have underestimated Victor. Being any kind of elite-level athlete took grit and determination. Even if his motivation was to be a jerk to his brother.
“That was years ago.”
Interesting. Every other man she had ever met still dined out on any and all of their athletic achievements. Even when they were decades old.
The five miles to Ely sign flashed past them out the window. If she was right about where they were going, then she had less than ten minutes until they got there.
“I think we might be going into the Minnesota wilderness.” Her words were so quiet, Victor leaned in to hear what she was saying. His blue eyes had grey flecks in them. “If I’m right, we’ll be split up because there’s a maximum of nine people in a group.”
“How do you know this?”
“I’ve spent some time here.” She said it nonchalantly, like her family had a summer cottage or something. The truth was that in the first eighteen years of her life, the only time she had left the state was for her aunt’s funeral. “We’re five miles from Ely. The only reason anyone goes to Ely is to access the National Forest or Boundary Waters.”
Victor looked down at his pants. “And here I was, thinking we were going to some military-themed boot camp.”
“We might be. I could be wrong.”
Victor turned more toward her, wedging his back against the window. “But you don’t think you are.”
“No.” If Meredith had wanted to send them to a boot camp, there were plenty of places closer to New York that would provide the same kind of experience.
“So if I’m Meredith and I’m sending people into the wilderness, and I want to keep them unbalanced …” His words trailed off as he thought for a few seconds, then he looked at her with something that seemed to hint at respect. “You think she might make us chose our own teams. Of course.” He continued talking, almost as if to himself. “That would be complete chaos.”
“You row, so you should be able to pick up handling a canoe. And you’re strong, so you can carry stuff.”
One side of Victor’s mouth lifted. “So basically you want me for my body.”
“Entirely.” Lacey refused to let her gaze go anywhere south of his chin.
He blinked. For a second, she thought he might have recognized her, but the look was gone as quickly as it came. “Okay, I’m in.”
Lacey tapped on her phone and messaged Jen to stay close when they got off the bus.
“What else would you do if you were Meredith?” Victor kept his voice low.
He was probably pumping her for information in case they did get separated, which was a smart move on his part. But it wouldn’t do him any good. Whatever she said wouldn’t give him an edge. Not over her, anyway. “Good try, Mr. Carlisle, but you’ve gotten all you’re getting from me.”
“Mr. Carlisle sounds like I’m your teacher. Please call me Victor.”