Page 33 of Wild About You

My shoulders fall, and I let myself sink into bad posture to match my messy hair and the makeup I sweat off. Generic hot person, I am not right now. But still. “Am I not allowed to have a little fun? It’s been a long day!”

We’re all a lot worse for wear since this morning’s hike. Apparently no one but Enemi and I had any horse experience, and most struggled through the whole challenge. Daniel and Luis, the last team to make it to the checkpoint, didn’t get there until twenty minutes after us. The medics had mostly finished checking Zeke over, and the two stragglers were deeply confused, having been too focused on the race to notice the commotion.

Zeke’s accident turned out to be Luis and Daniel’s gain. The whole ordeal shook everyone up so much that producers, with Burke Forrester as bearer of good news for us Co-EdVenturers and the future audience, decided there would be no elimination at this checkpoint.

So here we are, one big, happy-ish, bone-tired family of people who still want to beat each other to win $100,000.

It should feel weirder, hanging out with the competition like this, especially as the group thins out challenge to challenge. But it’s like once we reach each checkpoint, we all want to recharge more than anything, and being hostile or calculating with anyone else takes too much energy.

At the same time, I can see how making friends with your competitors can bring out complicated feelings. I learned while talking to Meena in the buffet line, for example, that the living-learning program she was in during her freshman year, which paid for her room and board and half her tuition, is being phased out. If she doesn’t get more scholarship money, her family’s going into debt with a ton of loans. Harper told me last night, revisiting our talk by the creek, that the only thing her parents still fight about is paying for her school. She’s hoping to make that go away if she wins the money. Even Daniel got to me, as he told us on the hike about watching Wild Adventures as long as it’s been airing, and dreaming since he was a kid of winning the whole thing.

How am I supposed to wish for any of these folks to lose so I can win? Do I really deserve it over any of them?

“Are you done?” Finn asks, making me realize I’ve been ruminating over my empty pasta plate for who knows how long. I grab my dishes and follow him to the return area, and gradually everyone else wraps things up in the dining hall. The crew leads us out as a group, Harper and I making faces at each other in the back of the pack and, rather interestingly, I catch Zeke making an entirely different kind of face at Harper when she’s not looking. The moony-eyed kind. Maybe I can tease her about vibes later.

We’re directed to our accommodations for the night—a full glamping experience in little bare-bones cabins dotted around the stables’ property, with one set of bunk beds and barely enough room for two people to stand up in each of them. We also learn there’s a laundry room we can use, so I immediately start a load with almost all the clothing in my pack. But best of all—there are communal bathroom buildings. With showers.

I take my sweet-ass, still-bruised-ass time, absolutely basking in the low-pressure stream of lukewarm water. There’s a shelf on which I can set my entire toiletry bag, and I luxuriate in the chance to have clean hair and armpits and every other nook and cranny for the first time in almost a week. I’ll never take indoor plumbing for granted again, I swear to Dolly.

I’ve never been so refreshed as when I step out of the steamy stall and head to the bay of sinks. I stand before a mirror for another half hour, applying various serums and even a “heavy-duty repairing and replenishing” mask. I’ve probably given this product the heaviest duty it’s ever faced.

With my last pair of clean undies and pajamas on and my whole body basically having gone through its own spin cycle, I truly feel like a new me. I’m certain no one’s ever looked as happy as I do when transferring clothes from the washer to the dryer after my shower rendezvous. When I return to the cabin afterward and find Finn—also freshly showered and clean-shaven, though he likely took a quarter of the time—sitting on its tiny front porch reading, he looks at me with a semblance of concern.

“You’re making that face again,” he says.

Feeling my own wide eyes and smile that shows every molar, I say, “What face?”

“The one from your commercial acting at dinner, where you look like a Muppet that stuck its finger in a light socket.”

I put my hand on my hip. “What a uniquely offensive insult, sir! Ex-cuuuse me for feeling joy!”

He shrugs, unrepentant. “I didn’t say it was a bad look.”

I laugh as I enter the cabin to put away my stuff. When I come back out, Finn still sits there, hands clasped over his flat stomach, taking in the view of the sun setting over the pasture. I sit in the chair next to his.

“Was Enemi about to strangle Zeke with a fettuccine noodle at one point, or was I seeing things?”

“Was who about to strangle Zeke?” Finn’s forehead scrunches up.

My eyes widen, realizing my slip. “I meant Alli.”

He gives me a dubious look, which I avoid by staring straight ahead.

“I don’t know. But I’m more curious about why she’s your enemy.”

“All right, Mr. Eagle Ears, congrats on your stellar auditory comprehension,” I say, giving him fake-impressed jazz hands.

“It’s ‘eagle eyes.’ I don’t think eagles have good hearing,” is his reply.

“I said what I said!”

I peek at Finn out of the corner of my eye.

He smirks.

I sigh.

“It’s just a nickname I call her in my head, because she was kind of a dick to me, and that was even before she tripped me while we ran for the same backpack, and yeah, it’s a whole thing. I’m not great at burying hatchets. But it’s fine.”

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