Page 32 of Hunter

As though reading my mind, he leans forward, close to my ear, and whispers to me, “Do Speed Chopping, Axe Throwing, and Speed Sawing. You’re strong. You’ve got this.”

I lean away, staring up at him with wide eyes and feeling that rush of attraction that had first compelled me to fall into his arms last July.

“Thanks.”

I’m dying to ask him why he’s helping us, but Beto takes my hand and drags me into the arena. As we rush to the axe throwing area, the reason for his kindness occurs to me.He feels sorry for you, Isabella.He said as much last night.

As a lumberjack-dressed employee hands me an axe and explains how to throw it, I reject Hunter’s pity in my mind. I don’t need his sympathy. I don’t want him feeling sorry for me. Screw that. Just because I’m practical about romance and relationships doesn’t mean I’m broken.

Looking over my shoulder as Beto steps up to throw his axe, I notice that our biggest competition, Team Outlaws, has arrived, and Hunter’s giving them his spiel at the entrance to the arena.

Forget Hunter Stewart, I tell myself.You’ve got a race to win!

Beto hits the target easily, but it takes me five or six throws, which are increasingly harder as I get more and more tired. When we finally clear the challenge, Teams Brady, Hot Docs, and Newlyweds have arrived, and are making their own ways around the lumberjack circuit.

Spying an opening at Speed Chopping, Beto pulls me over to the station, and we’re given a quick tutorial on how to chop a log. We’re also warned that while one team member can do the majority of the chopping, the other must swing the axe at least five times. As tired as I am, Beto instructs me to go first to get my five swings out of the way.

While finishing the final swing, with my hands aching from the effort, I hear Team Outlaws cheering for themselves. I look over as they race out of the arena to the royal blue mat outside where Nat Keegan is waiting to check them in as Team Number One!

How did they finish so quickly? What the hell?

I narrow my eyes. Instead of giving up, I double-down on whatever energy I have left, cheering on Beto as he rips into the log I’ve barely chipped at with my weak swings.Whack. Whack. Whack.He finishes it quickly, his face slick with sweat as we race over to our last challenge, Speed Sawing.

Jenny, from Team Newlyweds, stands on one side of a giant, two-person saw, crying and hiccuping as her husband, Roy, holding the other end of the saw, encourages her to keep going.

“We’ve got this, Jen! Second place is still up for grabs!”

“I c-can’t!” she wails, showing him the blisters on her hands. “I’m t-too t-t-tired!”

Beto turns to me. “Ugh. They’re going to take forever. But look! Logrolling is open. Let’s go.”

The thought of falling off the log, into the water and getting soaking wet all over again has zero appeal, but the sooner we finish, the sooner that hot shower back at the ship is mine.

“Okay,” I say, taking off my shoes and socks as we run over to the logs floating in a small pool.

“Tell us what to do!” says Beto.

“Think of it like dancing,” says the lumberjack standing by the water. “Dance on the logs. Get them rolling. Then sustain the roll for five full seconds. That’s all you need to do.”

“And not fall in,” I say under my breath.

“Even if you do,” says the lumberjack, “it’s only about a foot deep. Just jump back on the log and get it rolling again.”

“Dancing, huh?” I ask my cousin. “Think we can handle that?”

In Mexico, and therefore in most Mexican American families, dancing is something we learn in our mother’s bellies, in their arms, in the cradle. We hold on to our father’s legs and dance before we walk. We dance at birthday parties and weddings and BBQs. We dance when nobody’s looking. We dance because it’s part of who we are. Welovedancing.

“Vamos a bailer,” says Beto, winking at me. “Ready to salsa,prima?”

That’s when I notice that the cameraman to our left is eating this up. I don’t know where my sudden burst of positivity comes from, but I nod at my cousin with a wide smile.

“Sí!Let’s dance,primo!”

In bare feet, and a little reminiscent of the scene with Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey inDirty Dancingminus the sexual tension, Beto takes my hand and carefully side-steps onto the log. We bend at the waist, staying loose, staying low, and listening to the instructions from the lumberjack.

“When you’re ready,” he says, “stand side by side and start walking backward. It may take a minute for you to get the rhythm, but—”

Just then, the speakers in the arena start playing a salsa. The jaunty, rhythmic music of Marco Antonio Muñiz’s “Un Caminante,” surrounds us as my cousin and I trade bemused, then gleeful, looks. The cameraman who’s filming us must have shared our conversation with someone in the sound booth, and they’ve come up with a soundtrack for us.

---