“All ages. Whoever wants to learn can, I don’t discriminate by age. I adjust the program accordingly to fit their skill level.”
“So what made you decide to come on the show, if you don’t mind my asking? Was it for the adventure of it, since that seems to be your thing?”
“That was part of it.” Miles stopped talking. His gaze flickered to where Ben sat, then back to catch Paige’s eyes again. She got the distinct impression there was more to Miles than he let on. He’d come on the show for more than the adventure and the reason had to do with Ben, but what it was, she couldn’t figure out without more information. It probably wasn’t any of her business anyway.
“I think the only ones here who’ve been on a show before are you and Zoe. Are you girls all head over heels for cameramen like that Cassidy girl was? Is that why you both agreed to be on another show?” Miles asked with a smirk, his expression softening and his voice taking on a distinctly teasing quality. The combination made her breathing falter.
“I came on the show for the experience. Not the hot guys.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her as if he was insulted.
“Not that the guys here aren’t hot. You’re all very hot.” Paige felt her cheeks grow warm. This conversation had taken a sudden turn into embarrassing territory. How had she managed to put her foot in her mouth during a perfectly normal conversation?
A little chuckle escaped Miles as her face grew warmer, no doubt also growing redder by the second.
“I’m calling it a night,” Paige said, getting up from the chair, completely forgetting the hot chocolate in her hand. It sloshed over the rim of the mug and down the front of her shirt. Great. Just what she needed on night one at base camp — to look like the clumsy girl she normally wasn’t. Now they’d all think the reason she and Cassidy were such fast friends was because of their affinity for accidents — clumsy girls united.
Not to mention, now Miles would realize she could be flustered with a simple smile from him. Awesome. One of the many reasons guys as sexy and confident as Miles didn’t go for girls like her … why Brad hadn’t gone for her either. Because no guy who could make you forget yourself with a smile or a nod — or hell, by sitting in a chair in a fitted tee — could ever find an ordinary girl like her worth his time or interest.
At least now she wouldn’t have to worry about how she acted around him since there was no possible way he’d ever look at her as anything other than the girl who spilled hot chocolate on herself.
Paige let herself back into the room she shared with Zoe. It would be a long, long month sharing a room with her, but there was nothing she could do about it. Better to suck it up and make the best of things as always.
She grabbed the tank top and shorts she wore for pajamas and quickly changed, thankful that on this show she didn’t have to change in the bathroom every day like she’d had to on The One. This time, Chip hadn’t been allowed to put cameras and microphones in every corner of every room in the hotel. Only the common areas had cameras. She’d heard something about privacy laws since parts of the hotel were still open to regular guests.
Paige didn’t mind at all. She’d hated feeling like a caged mouse in some giant lab experiment on the other show. At least here she could escape to her room for privacy as needed.
Zoe strolled into the room just as Paige pulled her tank top down to cover herself. So much for privacy.
“Could you knock next time?” Paige asked. “I don’t really want to flash my chest to everyone walking by the room when you barge in unannounced.”
“Go change in the bathroom if you’re a prude. It’s not like anyone would see anything anyways.”
“Gee, thanks.” Paige climbed into bed and propped herself against the wall so she could relax with her book for a while before falling asleep. Reading always helped her unwind and de-stress after a busy day. “I’m not a prude. I just don’t believe in showing off my assets to anyone and everyone.”
“First you’d have to figure out what your assets are to show them off. When you’re ready for your big girl boobies, you just let me know. Until then, I wouldn’t worry about anyone noticing you — naked or not.” Zoe laughed and disappeared into the bathroom.
Paige gritted her teeth and forced herself to focus on the words in front of her. What she needed tonight was to get lost in her book and forget that Zoe even existed for a while. Just as she felt her shoulders relaxing, sounds of Zoe singing filtered out of the bathroom.
Sighing, Paige put her book aside, clicked off her light, and rolled away from the bathroom and the noise Zoe called singing. No chance of forgetting she existed when her squawking made it impossible to read.
Nope. Better to just go to sleep and let today end. Finally.
Chapter Five
Miles pulled off the winding dirt road and into a small deserted parking lot at the beginning of the trail. This was their third cache of the day and they still had yet to find a prize in one. He’d hoped this one was remote enough that they’d be the first to find it and maybe there’d even be some money inside.
They grabbed their logbook, GPS, and a couple of water bottles and started down the trail. The GPS said they had half a mile to go. A long hike made longer by Ben having to trek on the uneven terrain of the dirt trail. So who knew how long it could take them. If the trail got rougher or steeper, it could take them the better part of the day. Best to be prepared with the waters even if it sucked having to carry them.
“It looks like it’s straight ahead,” Miles said.
“I hope it’s right beside the trail in a big easy box to find. It’s too hot to be traipsing through the underbrush looking for another pill bottle sized cache.”
“Whatever it is, we’ll find it.”
“What do you think about the other teams? I think Team Firefighters are our biggest competition for sure. Possibly Team Frat Boys will give us a good race too, if they can keep the beer pong tournaments to a minimum.” Ben stumbled, but caught himself, shooting a glance at Miles. “I’m fine.”
Miles nodded. No sense in arguing with Ben. And he was fine. Just the trail was rough. Anyone could trip. “I think you’re right but I don’t know what we can do about it. It’s not like we can sabotage the other teams or anything.”
“True, but there has to be a way to get a little advantage over them. I just have to think of how.” Ben was quiet for a moment. “Maybe an alliance with another strong team?”
“It’s worth considering. We’d have to be very careful about who we chose to ally with.”
They trudged on in silence for a few more minutes. Miles racked his brain trying to find a way they could beat Team Firefighters. How could you beat the team that was stronger than yours, faster than yours, and who was from the area? It was a massive task to conquer.
But that hadn’t stopped them from climbing Everest a few years ago.
If they could climb Everest together, surely they could find a way to find more caches than any of the other teams. They just needed to figure out a winning strategy.
For now, the best they could do was to get each cache as quickly as they could. And this one was proving to be a total pain in the ass and complete time suck. The sooner they got there the better.
They wandered on. Miles watched the GPS screen and tried his best not to accidentally pick up his pace faster than what was comfortable for Ben. After coming up with no good strategies, he decided to worry about it later and let his mind drift. And drift it did.
Right over to Paige and the wet shirt clinging to her chest. He wasn’t really a hot chocolate kind of guy, but he would have helped her clean up if she’d asked. She was cute when she got all flustered around him. What he wouldn’t give for just a little taste of chocolate flavored Paige.
“What was that?” Ben asked suddenly.
“What? I didn’t hear an
ything.” Maybe his thoughts were too loud.
“I thought I heard voices behind us. Girls.”
They stopped and listened for a moment. Sure enough, the sound of Zoe’s sharp voice cut through the air. Bitching about hiking in the heat, of course. Like she should only have to find caches hidden in an air conditioned mall or poolside, and not have to tough out the heat for these other ones like everyone else had to.
That girl was something else. Poor Paige. She should get a bonus prize just for enduring Zoe’s company for the duration of the show.
“Let’s go. It looks like we’re only seven hundred feet away now. If we hurry, we can get there before the girls and I know we can find it before them.” Miles started down the path again, faster now that he knew they were only moments away from the other team catching up. This was the first time they’d met another team while looking for a cache and he didn’t want to lose out on a possible prize because of it.
Ben caught up and did his best not to fall behind as the girls’ voices grew louder. At four hundred feet, they broke into a jog, but only for a minute or two before they heard the girls spot them on the trail.
“Run, Zoe!” Paige yelled. “There’s another team ahead of us. We can’t let them get there first.”
Miles heard the fall of footsteps growing closer and closer. He knew it would only be another moment or two before the girls caught up and passed them. But Ben obviously struggled at their current pace. He couldn’t ask him to push it any faster.
The girls and their cameraman rushed passed them on the trail, leaving behind a cloud of dust that caught in Miles’s throat, making him cough. “Shit.” He meant to curse under his breath but he knew Ben had heard when he stopped running.
“I’m sorry,” Ben said, his breath uneven. “I tried, but I’m not that good in this stupid prosthetic yet.”
Miles turned to him, all thoughts of the girls gone. Ben should never have to apologize to him or anyone else about his challenges with his lower leg amputation. Hell, it couldn’t be easy to adjust to wearing a prosthetic leg.
If anyone should apologize, it should be Miles — again.
“Never be sorry. You’re doing great. This competition is challenging for all of us.”
“Not the girls. They’ll probably pass us on their way back at this point.”
“No way. It’s only a little further. I bet when we get around that next bend, they’ll still be trying to figure out which way is north and nowhere near the cache.”
They jogged again and sure enough, when they came around the bend in the trail, the girls were up ahead still searching. And it didn’t seem quite like they knew where they were searching. Paige was on one side of the trail with her head down and her foot kicking the soft grasses around, while Zoe peered around a few large rocks. Neither looked at the GPS unit sitting on the trail where they’d abandoned it.
The boys slowed as they came up to the girls. “Let’s stick together and watch the GPS. I bet we can find it first.” Miles held his hand out between them so they could both see the little screen.
“Nice of you to finally join us,” Zoe said from her spot near the boulders alongside the trail. “Took you long enough.”
“Zoe, don’t be so rude.” Paige glared at her from across the path.
“Well, I ran in stilettos. What’s your excuse, boys? Aren’t you at all concerned that two girls beat you in a foot race?” Zoe laughed.
“Considering I only have one foot still attached to my body, I think that’s a pretty good excuse, don’t you?” Ben said, raising his pant leg to show off his prosthetic leg.
Zoe held her ground, barely acknowledging her error in judging Ben too quickly. “I didn’t know. How’d you earn that trophy?”
“I’m not sure I’d call it a trophy.”
“Better than being stuck with a scar,” Zoe mumbled. She sat on the rock and folded her arms across her chest. “Scars are something you regret, but a trophy is something to be proud of because it helped make you who you are. So which is it?”
“Then I guess I earned this trophy with Miles on the side of a mountain. Not that I feel like reliving the incident play-by-play. Let’s just say I climbed up fine, but getting back down wasn’t so easy.”
A silence fell over the two teams while they took in the seriousness of his words. The only sound was the cameramen as they circled the group for better angles. Miles wanted to be pissed at Zoe for bringing up a painful past that he and Ben were working so hard to overcome. But when he went to send her a warning look, her eyes were rimmed in red as she blinked away tears.
Her gaze flickered up to his and for a moment he wanted to go to her. To comfort her. Thank goodness she took that moment to pull her back up straight and put her bitch mask on again, quickly reminding him why it wasn’t worth giving her the time of day.
“So, you girls still looking for the cache box or have you already found it and you’re just having a little siesta out here on the trail?” Miles said, finally breaking the silence.
“We looked, but can’t find it anywhere. I’ve double-checked our coordinates and everything looks right. I don’t know what we did wrong.” Paige walked back on to the trail and peered down at her GPS unit still sitting on the ground. “It says it’s right here. I guess it’s an invisible cache or something because the thing doesn’t exist.”
Miles joined Paige, his shoulder brushing lightly against hers as he compared his screen to hers. His earlier thoughts of her and her chocolate flavored breasts filled his brain again and he instantly forgot what he was doing standing beside her in the first place. Was he supposed to lick her? Because standing so close to her, peering down at her as her chest heaved with the exertion of hiking in this heat, licking her was really the only thing he could think of doing.
She turned her head, peering back at him. His gaze fell past her gorgeous dark eyes, past her soft pink lips, and landed on the patch of ivory skin peeking out of her top — the skin reddened and glistening in the intense summer sun.
She opened her mouth a couple of times, but did little more than lick her lips before closing her mouth again. Finally, on her third attempt to speak — not that he was any better at finding words himself — she managed a simple sentence. “Can I see yours?”
Yes. Yes, you can.
“Your screen,” she squeaked. “Your GPS screen, I meant.”
He smiled. He couldn’t help it. She was too damned sexy. “Of course you can see my GPS screen. What else would you refer to, Paige?” Her name rolled across his tongue like a ripe berry — sweet, fresh, and leaving him wanting more.
She blushed. His smiled widened. He loved causing a reaction in her so easily.
Moving his arm so she could see too, they compared their units. And both looked the same. The cache was here. But who would find it first?
• • •
Paige took one last deep breath, hoping that after she moved away, Miles’s scent would somehow stay with her. He smelled … manly. And yummy.
And the second she’d looked up to see him staring at her cleavage, his scent had hit her. She’d thought her knees might give out right then. They probably would have if she hadn’t made an ass of herself asking if she could see his GPS in a way that made it sound like she’d asked to see his penis.
Not that she wouldn’t like to see his penis. She could imagine that it was just as gorgeous as the rest of him. But they were in the middle of a trail, under a blazing sun, with their teammates and cameramen standing around. Not exactly the time to check out anyone’s goods. Not even Miles’s.
With her lungs full of his aroma, and her belly a pool of molten lava, she stepped away from Miles. “So, um, I guess we should keep looking then, huh?”
“Yep,” Zoe said, springing up from her spot on the rocks. “Well, if you two can stop eye-banging.”
>
Paige choked, her throat feeling like it had closed. Eye-banging? Is she implying what I think she’s implying?
“I — ” Paige started.
“Save it for someone stupid. Neither one of you are fooling me.”
“As witty and sharp as ever, aren’t you, Zoe?” Miles asked. His jaw looked more set than it had a moment ago. Apparently Zoe annoyed everyone she came in contact with — that wasn’t a privilege saved for Paige.
“I don’t believe it,” Ben said. He walked in between Paige and Miles and looked up into the tree hanging over the trail. “They are really sneaky.”
Ben reached up and plucked something from the branch, directly above the GPS unit on the ground. Whatever it was, it was tiny. Literally the size of an acorn.
“What is it?” Paige asked, stepping closer to get a better look.
“A nano-cache. I read about these online on the geocaching websites, but I’ve never seen one in real life.”
“That’s what we were trying to find?” Zoe sneered at the acorn as if it had purposefully wronged her.
“Yep. It was exactly where it was supposed to be.” Ben beamed triumphantly.
Zoe held out her hand. “Awesome. I’ll take that now, thanks.”
“The hell you will,” Miles said, stepping in front of her as if Ben needed some kind of protection. “We found it. And if we’re the first ones to open it, the prize inside is ours.”
“Like hell it is,” she fired back. “We were here first. It’s ours.”
Miles laughed then turned his back on her. “Sure, you may have gotten here first but that’s not what the rules say. It’s the team who finds the cache that gets the prize.”
Paige moved closer, watching as Ben twisted off the miniature acorn top. He pulled out a tiny piece of paper and unfolded it at least six or seven times before it was large enough to read. The cache number card was easy to spot, but there was another paper with it. A smile grew on Ben’s face.
“Ten thousand dollars.” Ben voice wavered as if he fought back tears. “Each.”
Unscripted Love: The Complete Reality TV Romance Collection Page 28
