Page 75 of False Start

“First, we have a swim party. Use our rally account to get people to meet us at the stop.”

She shook her head. “Our account is too popular. Tom will hate that.”

I nodded. “Fair. Second idea, we hold our own pool party. We grab some blow up floaties and go down on a unicorn or flamingo or whatever, really embrace the challenge.”

“That’s better. Still not really wow-worthy, but I could see a bonus point or two.” Kit pursed her lips. “What’s your third idea?”

I ran my thumb over the third idea, lifting an eyebrow. “We go down naked.”

She sputtered out something between a cough and a laugh. “We what?”

“We don’t have swimsuits, anyway.”

“There will be other people around.”

“I don’t know about that. It’s been pretty cool lately. The river is probably still close to freezing. And we won’t get there until after dinner.”

“You can go down naked.”

“No problem there.”

Her warm brown eyes widened, slinking over to me with a faint hint of pink on her cheeks. “I’m not bailing you out of an indecent exposure charge.”

“We’d definitely get points for that. Hell, that’s actually not an option I’d even considered. How about a ticket? Do we get points for those?”

“I’m not getting a speeding ticket for you, Trent. And I’m certainly not bailing you out of jail.”

“Tom would definitely give us bonus points if you didn’t bail me out,” I laughed.

“I’d win the whole damn thing if I left you in some podunk jail in Alabama.”

“But you’d miss me,” I teased.

No, not teased. I wanted to tease her, but really, I’d asked a question under the guise of a joke. My stomach clenched as I waited for her response, wishing it didn’t matter what she said, but admitting that it did.

“I’d miss you.”

I exhaled, relieved. Confused. Kit’s response shouldn’t matter. We’d come into this rally as less than friends, and my only goal had been to finish the rally and stay out of trouble. If I could make Kit a friend along the way, great. If I couldn’t, oh well. But somewhere between Virginia and the kiss and the pure shot of lust I’d felt for her on the bus the night before, what I wanted had become muddled.

“For now, let’s focus on the next stop and try to cross a few of the hidden clues off the list.”

I nodded. “Next left for the world’s largest metal giraffe.”

Kit waited for the light to turn green and turned down a residential street. “Are you sure? This is a neighborhood.”

“Oh yeah. I’m sure.” I pointed over a griege mansion to our right where a metal head peered over the roof.

Kit navigated down tidy streets flanked by cookie cutter houses with manicured lawns. “These houses are too nice not to have a homeowner’s association. How did someone put up a giant giraffe?”

“No idea, but I bet their neighborhood meetings are absolute dumpster fires.”

The Cougar turned right, and the giant houses abruptly ended in woods and a dirt road.

“Or,” Kit drawled. “Maybe the neighborhood went up around the giraffe.”

The car tumbled over rocks and stones toward a tiny house with a pair of metal toucans perched on the mailbox.

“Yeah, the owner definitely isn’t in an HOA.”

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