I tried not to think about how much it sounded like rough sex.
Mercifully, the music soon returned to cover our hacks and groans. It was some big, orchestral action movie score with deep choral voices under horns and timpani. I thought I recognized it as The Avengers theme music.
We mowed through the first ten pieces at a frenzied pace, neck and neck, our movements in unison.
My stamina held for the first two-thirds of the race. I was definitely keeping up with Gunner, matching him stroke for stroke. The pieces were splitting easily, building my confidence. I could do this. I could definitely win this.
But then I started to hit hard pieces full of sticky pitch. Albie and Kevin had purposefully designed the lines with the bigger, knottier pieces toward the end, and they hadn’t played favorites.
Turning the existing cracks into alignment had only gotten me so far. I was giving it everything I had, but suddenly it was like I couldn’t even make a dent, let alone a deep crack. They weren’t opening up for me. If your axe got stuck, these fuckers were too heavy to lift overhead and drop. You had to keep freeing the blade in order to take another whack.
It felt like it was taking forever.
Gunner was struggling too. He was spending twenty blows just trying to get that first split. But he wasn’t slowing down as much as I was. He was pulling ahead.
The fear that I might lose this close to the end should’ve spurred me on, but it had the opposite effect.
I hadn’t really slept for shit. I’d tossed and turned all night, all my plans and everything I had riding on this contest swirling in my head.
The panic sapped my power.
I was out of breath and my arms felt like lead.
I was burning up and my shirt was soaked with sweat. I would’ve taken it off at the beginning like Gunner had but the sleeves helped keep the perspiration from running down onto my hands.
Stripping down now would at least give me a moment to catch my breath.
I was only half aware of the crowd’s response. No telling what I must have looked like at that moment with my wet hair standing on end and my cheeks flaming.
Then I realized the wolf howls weren’t for me. Gunner’s chopping had also ceased. He was fiddling with the waistband of his kilt, adjusting it or something.
“Uh-oh, folks!” Jim shouted. “It looks like we’ve got ourselves a reveal.”
The crowd started chanting, “Take it off!”
“Gunner,” Jim said in a warning tone. “I can’t be putting full-frontal on Facebook, now. I don’t have the editing skills to blur anything.”
Gunner whipped off the kilt with an exaggerated flourish… to reveal a swimmer’s jock that perfectly matched the blue of his hair ribbon.
Gunner in any state of undress was always a welcome sight, but the crowd had mixed reactions.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to wear anything under your kilt!” someone bellowed.
“All’s fair in love and war!” Gunner yelled back.
And then he looked over at me and smiled. He was panting from exertion, but his brown eyes were soft.
I knew better than to stand there gawking at the sight of him, hands on his hips, the dark-red thatch of his pubic hair spilling over the waistband of the skimpy jock, his package straining the stretchy knit material.
I didn’t really need to look at all; I’d already memorized every fucking detail of his body.
This was not over.
I had four pieces left. Gunner had three.
But he was stalling.
While he tried to buy himself some recovery time posing for the crowd, I took the opportunity to push on.