Page 4 of Wild About You

Burke just laughs, fortunately, defusing the potentially awkward moment as he brings his hands together in front of him. “Well, I’m pleased to share that neither of you are the last to arrive. You may join your fellow adventurers before me and get ready for your wild adventure to commence.”

My whole body sags in relief, knowing for certain that I’m sticking around. The only sign that Finn feels the same is the relaxing of the wrinkle in the middle of his forehead. As I thank Burke and turn to take my place with the others, relief simmers into adrenaline, eagerness. It’s really real now, and I’m actually, definitely in.

There’s no dress rehearsal for Wild Adventures. I don’t have a script, and I’ve never set foot on a stage like this. But I want—no, need—that prize money more than any standing ovation or Tony award in the world.

And I’m ready to perform my ass off to get it.

Chapter Two

I wedge myself into the semicircle of fellow adventurers between a friendly-looking blonde who reminds me of Reese and a not-unattractive athlete type. High School Natalie would have taken a bite out of him in a heartbeat. Good thing she and her overly romantic heart have been left in the dust by College Natalie, who has so many bigger fish to fry.

I can still appreciate the view, though.

As I’m doing just that, surreptitiously checking out Mr. Gun Show in his very revealing T-shirt with cutoff sleeves, my eyes drift without my permission. To Finn, my non-ally, who is tossing a judgmental look in my direction as he takes a spot as far away from me as he can possibly get.

So he doesn’t like fun, cool people who are good at reading maps. Good for him! No skin off my nose.

I glance at the girl beside me. She really does look like my best friend—cute, wholesome, girl-next-door vibes, down to the spray of freckles across her cheeks. A potential ally if I ever saw one.

“Hey, I’m Natalie,” I say, leaning toward her with my warmest smile.

Her eyes flick my way, and my grin falters. Is she deciding whether I’m worth a turn of her head?

But no, benefit of the doubt. We’re all nervous here and new to being on camera. I stay cheesing while awaiting her verdict.

Her chin angles my way, lips turning down at the corners. “Ally.” Oh my god! Her name is literally ally pronounced differently. If this isn’t a sign we’re going to be best friends, maybe even teammates—“With an i,” she finishes.

Ah. Okay, close enough.

She turns her head away again, so I lean back. It’s fine—this is a weird environment in which to meet people.

“Where are you from?” I blurt out anyway before I can stop myself, because I just can’t leave well enough alone. Can’t let yet another person dislike me today without a clear reason.

Alli’s still-downturned lips twitch, her brows pinching together. At this rate, all of my fellow “Co-EdVenturers” are going to need Botox before they turn thirty.

“Colorado.”

I wait to see if she’ll ask where I’m from, or look at me again, but nope. That’s all I get.

“Oh, awesome. I hear it’s beautiful there! I’m from Kentucky,” I offer.

In return, Alli’s eyes dart my way again before making a quick up-and-down assessment of me, much like Finn did. Then she snorts. A derisive little sound, capped off with a short yet highly judgmental “Oh.”

My mouth drops open. I’m…befuddled. I’ve always been a girl’s girl—not someone who’s ever had trouble making friends of the female variety, always flying my feminist flag, Very Much Like Other Girls. And until college, I thought I was pretty good at making new friends. But when Alli angles her body away from me, I decide to leave this one be for now.

The more I think about it as we watch the rest of the competitors arrive, one by one, the madder I get. Mad that no matter where I go, no matter how little people have to base their judgments of me on, it seems like no one takes me seriously.

Not my parents, when I spent years working my ass off toward my dream of going to college for theater. They’ve both worked on a horse farm doing manual labor for their whole adult lives, so they see higher education as a waste of time and money and eagerly await the day I come back home to get a “real job.” And not my classmates at Oliver, who I thought would finally get me like no one else had. Instead, they were unimpressed by a freshman who’d been good on a small-town stage and in performances in her grandma’s living room, and in all the theater camps she went to in these very Tennessee mountains growing up, but was nothing next to former Broadway child stars.

And now, here, among a group of people who I’m pretty sure have also never been on a reality competition show in the wilderness before, I already feel like the last kid any of them would pick in gym class.

The soft thuds of another adventurer’s jogging footsteps pull me back to the present before a girl bursts out of the woods. Counting in my head, I see that with this latest girl, there are now sixteen of us in the semicircle. How many teams are in a normal Wild Adventures season? Surely no more than ten. Are we close to the last arrival?

“Amanda,” Burke Forrester bellows. His expression is stern as he faces the girl still trying to catch her breath in front of him. If he’s making me this nervous, I can only imagine what she’s feeling. “As you can see, many Co-EdVenturers have arrived before you.”

Oh, damn. I can feel the discomfort rippling through the circle of us looking on, everyone shifting on their feet, adjusting backpack straps and not making eye contact with one another—and especially not with the poor gal on the chopping block.

Burke lets us wait a brutally long, awkward minute before he speaks again. “Unfortunately…for the remaining arrival, you are still in this competition as the last Co-EdVenturer to make the cut. Congratulations, Amanda!”

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