Page 60 of Chasing Forever
He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me into him. “My eyes are only on you.”
I pat his chest and push back. “Stop your sweet talk and get into your booth.”
Jennie gets on the speaker. “Go to your rooms, I’m starting.” Her voice is flat.
This girl is about to let us drown in puzzles with zero hints. I can tell.
We both go to our booths that face one another, and she comes back on the speaker. “Cupid has kidnapped you both and brought you to the love lab. He wants to test if you’re truly compatible. The only way to escape? Solve four love-themed puzzles that measure different dimensions of a relationship: communication, trust, memory, and passion. Go.”
I stare at my bingo-style boxes with words inside of them, wondering what I need to do to figure this out.
Brooks’s voice comes out of the radio hooked on the wall, and I jolt, picking up the small walkie talkie. “Did you read the directions?”
I press the small button. “No.”
“We have to work to get our boards to match. Do you have images on yours?”
“No, I have words.”
“Okay, I’ll explain my image, and you find the word that matches. Ready?”
“I guess.” My stomach knots. What if I screw this up? What if I disappoint him when we can’t make it past the first test?
Luckily, we get through that one pretty easily and are able to get free of our soundproof rooms once we each get a code from Jennie to unlock the lockbox with a key in it after we’ve matched our bingo cards.
“That was easy,” Brooks says, glancing at the clock.
“A little too easy.”
He shows me the instructions for the next part that he got from his booth that says, Do you trust your partner? One of us has to be blindfolded, and the other has to give directions to follow without leading us to the trap.
“I’ll be the blindfolded one,” I volunteer.
And of course, Brooks guides me perfectly, getting us our next instructions.
“Man, we’re breezing through this,” Brooks says, way too optimistic because I’m sure the next two are going to be tricky.
We somehow figure out that we have to turn off the lights, then we find a bunch of magnets on a wall lit up from the blacklight. We rush over to see pictures. But I’m not sure I understand what we’re supposed to do with them.
A slap bracelet
A broken water balloon
An old school soda glass bottle
A hotel room key
Triple 7s on a slot machine
A ripped-up wedding invitation
Coffee cup
“I don’t get this.”
Brooks laughs. “They made me fill out a questionnaire that asked about my memories of us. Each of these symbolizes one of them. I’m wondering if we have to put them in chronological order.”
“Good job! You’re so smart.” But then I stare at the pictures again, just as confused. “A slap bracelet?”
