Page 16 of Touchdown

I can see that Brandon is trying, but he still manages to spill a fair amount of water on my head. The rest of the team is giggling behind me.

“You just wait until it’s your turn!” I shoot at them.

In the end, the challenge doesn’t end up being nearly as bad as I expected. It takes five tries before Brandon is satisfied, and we’re all soaked by the time it’s done—even Brandon, who decided to alternate the front spot—but it was actually kind of fun. There was a lot of laughter and teasing, which distracted from the freezing water being dumped on us.

Everyone seemed to hold their breath when I accidentally spilled half the bucket all over Luke, but Luke just grumbled under his breath and playfully poked me in the shoulder before trying to tip his own water backward.

When Brandon finally declares the game over, we all hurry into our tents to get changed into dry clothes before coming to warm ourselves by the fire.

“So, team, what have we learned from that?”

“Never give Cody a bucket of water,” Jason mutters.

There are murmurs of agreement. I was undeniably the worst at the game, and whoever was standing behind me quickly came to regret it.

“Hey, I never claimed to be good at this stuff! Give me a ball, great, but water? No way, man. You can all get your asses soaked for even thinking I’m competent in this shit.”

Everyone laughs, even Brandon. “So, up next…”

The entire team groans.

“Hey, don’t worry! I didn’t mean for today. I was just filling you in for our exercise for tomorrow. We’re going to do a scavenger hunt. We’ll split into two teams. Each team will make a scavenger hunt for the other team, and whoever completes the other team’s hunt the fastest wins.”

“What do we win?” I ask at once.

“You win my approval and the other team’s respect.”

“Lame!”

“Shut it, Luke.”

Brandon’s eyes are twinkling as he says it. “If you all behave, I’ll think of a good reward for you all for putting up with all this once we’re done.”

“It had better be a spectacular reward.”

“Don’t even try, Jason. I saw you laughing your ass off during that bucket game. You loved it.”

“I may have not hated it,” Jason admits. “But I still can’t feel my toes.”

“Your toes will survive.”

“For all you know, I could have frostbite.”

“Don’t be dramatic. You don’t have frostbite. As long as you don’t sleep outside with your feet wet and freezing in the open, you should be fine.”

We continue to banter around the fire for a while before Brandon announces that it’s nearly time for dinner. Of course, dinner out here is easier said than done. There’s no orderingUber Eats when you’re stuck in the wilderness. Brandon has a cooler bag with some ice bricks and frozen meat in it, and we have to cook it. Not only do we need to cook it, but Brandon wants us to smoke it so we can keep it to eat later.

“Brandon, do you even know how to smoke meat?”

“Um, it can’t be that difficult. You just hold it in the smoke, right?”

I roll my eyes so hard that I’m surprised they don’t come out of their sockets. “No, that’s not how it works. You have to have a proper smokehouse. Do you have the right things to set that up here?”

“I… I have spare tent?”

Luke makes an indignant noise. “You have a spare tent and you still made Cody and me share?”

“You two didn’t seem to mind so much last night, judging by the noises coming out of your tent.”

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