Page 93 of Ex Marks the Spot

He mumbles something that sounds like, “I’m gonna openyouto interpretation,” which doesn’t even make sense but is still sexy nonetheless.

And to think I almost murdered him that first day.

Really glad I changed my mind about that.

I’ve done my fair share of yelling at Xtreme Quest contestants through the TV.

“You’re holding it wrong!”

“You just ran past the clue box!”

“If you stack them like that, they’re all gonna fall!”

This is why I’m certain that when our season finale airs in four months, viewers will be yelling at me.

“The brush is at the wrong angle!”

“You forgot to turn the sprayer on again!”

“You’re too far away from the curb!”

And I know, okay? But operating a street sweeper is a hell of a lot harder than it looks when you’ve had four hours of sleep after a six-hour time change, and you only get a five-minute crash course on how the glorified Zamboni vacuum works.

“I’m so sorry,” I say to Court when I finally run back to him with our next clue. I’ve put us behind by about fifteen minutes, which isn’t insurmountable, but also isn’t a good feeling—especially when the Wise Asses have managed to keep their early lead on us and the Bombshells.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll make up time.”

He gives my shoulders a reassuring squeeze as I rip open our envelope.

Make your way to Ellen’s Stardust Diner to receive your next clue.

This, we soon learn, is easier said than done thanks to traffic, detours, and one very angry bicyclist on a power trip. The sound guy uses our time as back seat captives to fire off a few questions for our confessional.

“Court, how is today different from day one?”

“There are a few obvious differences from day one.” He catches my eye and rubs his thumb against the back of my neck. “But as a whole, I guess it’s that I don’t really care about winning anymore.”

I snap my head in his direction because this is news to me.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I’ve spent most of my twenties feeling like a failure for not reaching the goals I set when I was nineteen. All I wanted to do was come on this show, win some money, and make a fresh start in a place that didn’t represent all the things I’m not. But”—he shifts his hand from my neck to my shoulder and squeezes—“a few wise people from the race have helped me realize the things Iamaren’t half-bad and that I’d get out of my rut a lot quicker if I stopped digging and put down the shovel. So I guess that’s a long way of saying the difference from day one to day twenty-one is that I’d like to win but I don’t need to anymore.”

His words trigger a rush of pride and love and admiration so big that I grit my teeth and fold my hands to keep from reaching over and squeezing him until his head pops off.

Ironically, I wanted to do the same thing in our first taxi ride but for very different reasons.

“How about you, Hartley,” the sound guy says. “Would you change anything about the race if you could go back and do it over again?”

I could say yes, that I’d set aside my ego and my anger to have an honest conversation with Court on the first day so we could reach this point two weeks before Greece, but it’s not that simple.

“I wouldn’t change anything about the race if I could do it again because it would mess up all the layers.”

“Is that a code word?” he asks.

I smile and shake my head. “Art is just a series of layers, and all of them play off each other. When I’m painting, I start with an idea and build on it. One layer may not turn out like I wanted, but it gives me an idea for something else I wouldn’t have thought of without the one underneath. By the time Ifinish a painting, there are usually a handful of hidden layers that helped me get to the final image.

“I would’ve loved to have more time with Court when I wasn’t stupidly hating his guts but skipping that layer could’ve changed the final image and I happen to quite like this one.”

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