Page 49 of Wild About You

“Harper,” I say, and her head jerks my way, her expression still hard and unsettled. “Let’s go down together, okay?”

Her breath whistles between her gritted teeth, and she seems so frustrated with herself as her eyes drift to the side that my heart breaks a little. “It should get easier after doing it this many times, shouldn’t it? I need to get my shit together. I spill, like, half the water every time.”

I reach my hand out on instinct. “Let me take your water too, then. Come on.”

Harper’s shoulders slump, her chin dips, every inch of her emanating embarrassment. “You don’t need to do that. I—I’ll get there.”

“I know I don’t have to, but it’s probably my last chance to offer and your last to take me up on it, so.” I try to look flippant, like I couldn’t care less if she lets me return the generosity she’s extended to me. “What’ll it be?”

My descent is a blur, two full rain gauges clutched in one of my hands, and I only vaguely register Harper starting her way down beside me with two free hands and nothing to stress about this time but getting to the ground. I pass off one of the gauges to a confused Evan then run to my own confused partner and our bucket, pouring the last of my water to get us to roughly seventy and one-quarter inches. It all comes down to Finn.

So of course, he delivers, and we finish in third behind Zeke and Enemi and Meena and Cammie. When we get the official stamp of approval on our full bucket, Finn picks me up in one of his tight, squeezing hugs again, but this time, it’s a struggle not to wrap my legs around his waist and kiss the smile from his handsome face.

In fact, I find it hard to resist that impulse even when he’s not hugging me, all through the end of the challenge—where Karim and Max narrowly beat out Harper and Evan—to setting up our campsite a while later in a nearby clearing with the other teams, and the campfire dinner with the whole exhausted group.

My craving for Finn’s affection is briefly sidetracked by affection from a different source, when Harper and Evan catch me in a two-sided hug sandwich while I’m assembling a s’more for dessert. I don’t feel entirely deserving, considering they still came in last place, but who am I to look a gift hug in the mouth, and all that? Especially from Harper, known Not-A-Hugger, who tells me she’s making the exception for “these extenuating circumstances.” The embrace makes me feel warmer than the fires I find myself near most nights. It also makes me realize how much I’ve been aching for this kind of platonic affection, which I had gotten so used to growing up with my two best friends. Not just out here on the trail, but for most of the past year.

I’m tapped out of energy, both emotional and physical, by bedtime. But looking at my partner, thinking of our entire day together and all the time we haven’t spent kissing since leaving the hotel, I’m struck again, intensely, by the want coursing through me. Want to be near him, hold his hand, press my face into his neck, feel his grip on my waist, and so. Much. More.

I’m buzzing as much as my electric toothbrush when I finish my nightly routine and go back toward our tent. The area we’re camping in is more wooded than some of the others, and I’m glad we’re separated from neighboring tents by several trees on all sides. Not that I’m planning on mauling Finn or anything, but even whispered sweet nothings feel risky when all that stands between you and another team is a little thin nylon and two feet of air.

“You in there?” I ask softly into the darkness as I start to unzip the side flap. There’s no headlamp or e-reader glowing from inside, but Finn never takes longer to get ready than I do.

“Yep,” he answers. “Been making the bed.”

I give a confused laugh as I pull the flap open and crawl inside. When I grab for the top of my sleeping bag, it doesn’t pull down as easily as normal.

“What did you…?” The material swish-swishes as I feel around, followed by Finn’s stifled laugh when I connect with his torso under the bag.

“Stop, stop,” he chuckles, and his hand reaches out to clasp mine and halt its roaming. “I, ah, zipped our sleeping bags together to make one mega bag. I thought it might be kinda fun, but also know it’s goofy and might not be comfortable for the whole night, and it’s okay if you don’t want to keep it this way.”

I hope it’s too dark for him to see my unstoppable toothy smile. Talk about goofy.

“Uh, obviously we’re keeping it,” I squeak as I scramble to the top of the mega sleeping bag and slide my feet in. Finn unzips it part of the way and helps me wriggle down next to him before zipping us in. “Well isn’t this cozy! We’re like…like two hermit crabs sharing a shell.”

I can barely make out the amusement flickering across Finn’s face when he says, “I don’t think hermit crabs do that, do they?”

“Okay, two joeys in a mama kangaroo’s pouch.”

He winces. “So we’re siblings? Yikes.”

“All right, fine,” I huff. “If you insist on being this way, we’ll go with two peas in a pod. My mistake for trying to be original.”

His hand finds my waist, slides around to my back and pulls me in to rest against his chest. I bring an arm up to loop around his neck and idly run my fingers through the short hair on the back of his head.

“I don’t think you could be unoriginal if you tried,” Finn whispers. Then finally, his lips are on mine.

A strange kind of relief flows through me as it feels like we pick up right where we left off. Like our chemistry and connection wasn’t a fluke spurred by a luxurious getaway from our real lives or, I don’t know, the romantic power of mini golf. It’s still here in our tiny tent and every bit as magical as before.

When we pull apart to catch our breath, Finn rolls to his back and I rest my head on his shoulder like it’s as natural for us as poking fun at each other. His fingers toy with the ends of my hair while I trace small circles over his chest with my pinky.

“You know,” I whisper sleepily after a while of listening to nothing but the sounds of the forest. “King beds are nice and all. But there’s something to be said for pea pods.”

Finn’s laugh is soft and just as weighed down with tiredness. “Hermit crab shells.”

“Kangaroo pouches.” I smile as my eyes fall closed.

But I’m jostled a few minutes later. I see Finn reaching for the sweatshirt he always puts over his head while he sleeps, subtly enough that I know he’s trying not to wake me, and I frown. “Why do you need that?”

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