Million Dollar Marriage

by Evans, Katy

  Ugh.

  I look at Luke for the pep talk. He’s the one who galvanized me during the really intense challenges, like the run through the cornfield in the mud and the zip-lining thing. But he just looks . . . tired. His eyes are glassy and sunken and . . .

  Oh god.

  I realize something, right then.

  He’s my spirit. If he’s lost it, then I have too.

  “Come on,” I say to him, pulling him toward the sled. “So, do you want me to pull or you?”

  I meant it as a joke, but he doesn’t even smile. “Sit your ass down.”

  He says it so abruptly, it’s like an arrow to my heart. I wish he’d call me baby again. Call me baby and look at me with that hint of mischief that says he’s undressing me with his eyes. Just once. Just a little.

  But he’s just surveying the hill up ahead, preparing for the climb. All business. Like I’d wanted. I wanted this to be a business transaction, and I got it.

  I am such an idiot.

  I sit. We pile our bags on my legs, and he starts to pull the sled through knee-deep snow. I expect the challenge to be easy for him, considering the way he dominated the corn maze with my weight wrapped around him. But he wavers on his feet, straining, breathing hard.

  Something suddenly occurs to me.

  Is he not feeling well?

  I’ve been so preoccupied with how I made a fool of myself. But maybe this has nothing to do with the other night in Boston at all. I keep asking him if he’s okay, and he keeps saying yes, but maybe he’s just trying to hide from everyone that he’s coming down with something. Because if the producers find out he’s sick, he could be eliminated.

  When he lets out a grunt and falls to his knees for the second time, I say, “Luke. Do you want to rest?”

  “No,” he grumbles, not looking back. “I just want to get there.”

  I look over my shoulder. We haven’t gone far. I can still see the oily smirk on Will Wang’s stupid, plastic face, the cameras pointed at us.

  I bite on my lip. The rules are that one person has to sit on the sled the whole time. “You want me to pull it?”

  “Get real.”

  I frown. “I may have no muscle, but I can still try. Maybe we can trade—”

  “No.” He turns to me, his cheeks red and wind-slapped. “You’re half of me. You’re not going to be able to pull me anywhere.”

  “Luke, I—”

  “Stop.” The tone of his voice is heartbreakingly savage, silencing me at once. “I don’t have the energy to argue with you right now.”

  He wraps his hands around the rope and hoists it over his thick shoulders. I watch his magnificent body, the wide span of his shoulders as he strains to pull the sled. It’s not so much my weight as the snow in his way and the steep angle of the hill. He’s right; I’d probably let go of the rope and send us slipping back down the hill.

  The sun is up, but the day is overcast, so it doesn’t bring any warmth. It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever seen, watching him try to pull the sled up the hill, only to have it slide back down every so often, as I sit there, helpless, weighing him down. He’s in pain. The wind is whipping and working against him. And I can’t do anything to help.

  Finally, miraculously, we get to the camp. There are five large mounds there—the basis for our habitat for the evening. The four other couples are well on their way to constructing their igloos. The other teams barely look at us when we arrive, but Ace, whose structure is nearly complete, scoffs at us. “What’s the matter, pussy boy? Your sled too heavy for you? Maybe you should go back to your playpen, little man.”

  Luke doesn’t say anything, but his fists clench. I jump off the sled as soon as I can and step between them. “Don’t listen to him. I’ll start with the igloo. You just rest for a minute.”

  Unbelievably, he listens to me. He sits down on the sled for a minute, skullcap down low over his eyes, face down and out of the wind, as I start to walk around our shelter, taking little peeks at the others, trying to figure out where to start. They’ve given us tools to dig with, so I set to work, clearing a small hole in the snow. It’s slow going.

  When I turn back to see if Luke is okay, he’s lying on his side, his eyes closed. Pulling off one of my gloves, I crawl over to him and start to lay my hand on his forehead, but even before I do, I feel the heat.

  Oh my god. He’s burning up.

  “Luke,” I whisper, grabbing his jacket and shaking him. “Luke! You have to get up.”

  His heavy lashes flicker open, and he focuses on me. “Hey.”

  “You’re sick. Like, really sick. We have to tell the producers.”

  Now he’s starting to stand up. He’s insane. “No. We don’t. Listen, we don’t. I’m fine.”

  “You’re going to get yourself killed. You can’t—”

  “No. We gotta win this.”

  I almost laugh. “Win? We’ve been practically dead last since that first day. It’s only sheer luck that we’ve gotten this far.”

  “Right,” he says, his voice gravelly. “And that’s how we’ll win. I brought my lucky Penny.”

  He reaches up and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. And I almost break down right there. “I don’t think I can make a shelter for us alone. Can you help me?”

  “Yeah.”

  We’re slow. Really slow. Luke takes a lot of time to rest. Night comes around by seven, and we end up working in the dark, with floodlights overhead. Everyone else ends up snuggled up in their igloos for hours as we work. And our igloo really leaves a lot to be desired. We only manage to carve out enough space for the two-person sleeping bag and our bodies.

  But we finish it.

  When we crawl inside, it’s a struggle just to get comfortable. There is snow everywhere and I’m freezing, and I decide I will probably spend the whole night awake and shivering.

  “Well, this sucks,” he says.

  And I laugh in total agreement.

  That is, until Luke reaches out and pulls my body up against his, engulfing me in the warmest, most comforting hug. I don’t know if it’s that he’s sick, but his body is the perfect furnace, even with the many layers of clothing between us. I breathe in his thick, masculine scent, and suddenly I would be perfectly happy staying in this insulated bubble with him forever.

  “Come to think of it,” he rasps out faintly in the absolute darkness, “this ain’t so bad.”

  I giggle.

  “I’ve been thinking about it, Penny . . . ,” he says, his voice listless.

  I expect him to talk competition strategy or tell me that he’s feeling really bad and should go to medical after all. I suck in a breath.

  But instead he says, “You shouldn’t let your daddy or anyone tell you you’re doing things wrong. You’re good. You’re damn good. You can do whatever you want and be damn good at it. I got no doubt about that.”

  He’s babbling, probably half out of his mind, but I don’t care.

  Those are just the words I need to hear right now. He’s warming me from head to toe, but those words? They warm me from the inside. I settle into them, and the more I think about them, the more I want to cry. Not from sadness. It’s because I’ve been waiting twenty-five years to hear them.

  He holds me tight, and that’s how I fall asleep, my face buried in his chest, calmed by the steady thrum of his heartbeat.

  Luke

  I was a little under the weather there. I’m better now, and we’re in it to win it. How we got through? That was all Penny.

  —Luke’s Confessional, Day 10

  An air horn jolts me awake. I’m in pitch blackness, and it takes the smell of the snow and the feel of Penny’s body against mine to remind me where the hell I am. She stirs, and I feel her eyelashes fluttering against my neck. Her skin is warm and dewy and smells sweet, like something I want to taste.

  I find her glasses and help her put them on. “You don’t feel as hot.” Her voice is hopeful.

  I tense my muscles, and they don’t
ache like last night. “I don’t feel so shitty anymore.”

  “You don’t?” Her arms tighten around me. Her nose bumps against my Adam’s apple. Her breath is warm on my skin. Her lips move with the words “I’m so glad,” feeling like a kiss.

  I dip my head down to seek her lips out, and as I do, the air horn blares again.

  Time to start the next leg of the race.

  I help her push up and out of the small opening, hardly able to believe that this is what we made last night. I was half-delirious. When I slide out into the bracing Alaska cold, stand upright, and take a few breaths, I’m sure of it.

  I’m ready to kick ass.

  “What are you smiling about, pussy boy?” a voice calls from the igloo across from us. Fucking Ace. “You’re dead last. This is gonna be your last challenge.”

  Next to me, Penny scowls, punching her open hand like a regular firecracker. “We’ll just see about that, you . . . pierced-nosed . . . gross . . .” She trails off, lost.

  I tug on her jacket, smiling at her. She ain’t much of an expert when it comes to trash talk, but we need that spirit if we’re ever going to come out on top of the rest of the teams.

  “Hey, girl?”

  She looks up at me.

  “When you don’t got anything good to say . . .” I point a middle finger at Ace. “This speaks volumes.”

  She tries it, but by then Ace isn’t paying attention. Ace and Marta are still solidly on top, but Brad and Natalie have been giving them a run for their money, and Ivy and Cody and Tony and Charity have been working really well together too. It’s anyone’s game right now.

  The staff members give us cereal bars and juice, and then we’re called to assemble in front of a large log building. Will Wang is there. He says, “Hope you guys had restful sleep last night!”

  He means it as a joke, because everyone’s walking around looking like the living dead. But you know what? I did. I slept damn well.

  “Before the next challenge, we hope that you’re ready for Marriage Test Number Three.”

  Everyone groans. Us included, because hell. We haven’t done so well on these tests. We’ve yet to get a question right about each other. Penny’s eyes are wide because these are probably the first tests in her life she’s ever failed. I lean over and whisper to her, “We’ve got this,” as encouragement, even though I ain’t sure.

  She goes up with the rest of the women, and a crew member hands her an electronic board. Will smiles his big, fake grin. “First question, ladies! What or who is your husband’s biggest inspiration?”

  Holy shit. We really have got this. Behind her, I see the muscles of her back tense. She starts to scribble feverishly.

  Amazingly, Penny and I are the only ones who get the question right.

  “His granddad.” She grins at me as she shows her scribbles and I show mine.

  I grin back at her, because she’s A fuckin’ right.

  “Annndd that is correct!”

  “YES!” Penny jumps up and high-fives me.

  Then she gets the question right about where I’m from. Easy question. Most everyone gets that one right.

  But still. We’re making up ground. We are turning this fucking thing around.

  “This last question was taken from your last confessionals. What would your husband say is your best feature?”

  She doesn’t hesitate. She writes it down immediately, then looks back at me and winks.

  Does she really know what I said?

  Will Wang goes down the line. Natalie goes next, suggesting her courage, which is wrong. Brad had said her sassy attitude. Marta gets the answer right—she wrote her tits. I’m sure he said his cock. The two of them once again proving they have absolutely zero regard for the “keep things clean” rule.

  Still looking a little flustered, Will comes up to Penny. “Okay, Dr. Carpenter! What is your answer?”

  She flips her board around. “My intelligence.”

  The buzzer sounds almost before she gets the last word out. “I’m sorry, that is incorrect. What did Mr. Cross say about his lovely wife? Her . . . freckles! Ladies and gentlemen, her cute little freckles.”

  She looks back at me, blushing and feeling her face. She seems astonished that I didn’t choose her brain. But hell no. Those freckles are what got me from the minute I set eyes on her.

  Doesn’t matter.

  I can’t wait to find out what she said was my best feature. I figure it must be my dick, but knowing her, she’d be too embarrassed to write that or any other part of my anatomy. So I play it safe and write my eyes. And what did she say? “Your smarts, Mr. Cross!”

  Me. Smart.

  When she’s the one with all the degrees. I turn around and stare at her, shocked as hell, thinking she must have heard the question wrong.

  We end up getting four out of six right, tying with Ace and Marta. Now the little trash talk from Ace bounces right off me. I said I’d clean the floor with someone’s ass . . . and it’s going to be his.

  “Well, this next challenge is going to eliminate one team, and it’s a bit of a mucky one.” He smiles broadly. “You and your partner will both be working together on this one. Let’s go on inside and see what you’ll need to do.”

  We go inside and strip off our outerwear so we’re in our regular clothes. As we do, I murmur to Penny, “What were you, drunk in confessional?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I laugh. “You said smart. What, you think they were talking about you? Ain’t no way I’m smart.”

  “Yeah. You are.” Then she lowers her voice an octave and says, “Ain’t no way freckles are my best feature.”

  Is she pretending to be me? Is that how she thinks I sound? It’s kind of fucking adorable.

  “Oh hell yes they are. That and a few other parts of you, but it wasn’t a shopping list. And I didn’t want to make you blush too much when you found out.”

  Her eyes widen.

  Will says, “This here is an indoor fish hatchery, providing sustainable Alaskan salmon to the world. Salmon that are raised indoors provide more food to keep up with demand. The tanks that keep these salmon hold up to ten thousand fish!”

  He’s going on, but the rest of us aren’t listening. We want the challenge.

  We walk into a large room on a metal gangplank overlooking tanks. They’re some big tanks, about five feet high, with fish practically sandwiched together. There are five of them.

  When we signed the agreements for the show, we were told that we could be exposed to potentially dangerous situations. I’d say this is definitely one of them.

  I’m fucking game.

  “When you are given the okay to start—we’ll go at three-minute intervals, starting with the first-place team, based on when you arrived at the camp yesterday afternoon—both team members will choose a tank, climb into the tank, and attempt to find the clue. I’m not saying what this clue is, but you’ll know it when you see it. Once you retrieve the clue, read it and proceed on to the next leg of the journey.

  “However, please note that since only four of you will be proceeding on from this point, only four of the tanks will actually have a clue. Good luck. Teams ready?”

  We all applaud.

  As expected, Ace and Marta were first, so when the whistle blows, they rush down the stairs, jumping into the first tank. I look over at Penny. She looks ready, rubbing her palms together, her brows narrowed in concentration. “You know, girl, you have a competitive side. An inner beast.”

  She nods. “I want to win. And I’m so happy you’re feeling better. I was really worried.”

  She’s so damn cute. Worried about me?

  “You could take a break this challenge,” I suggest. “Since you did almost all of it yesterday.”

  “No. You dragged me all the way up the hill. Plus, if the two of us go in the tank, we’ll find it faster.” She points to Ace and Marta’s tank, where the guy is cussing up a storm. “It must be hard. They’ve been looking for five minutes
and haven’t found a thing. We should work together.”

  “All right. You said it.” I hold out my fist.

  She stares at it.

  “Bump?”

  “What?”

  “Or . . . should we have a team handshake? Put out your hand like this.”

  She does. I bump it, grab her hand, give her skin, then let go and run my hand through my hair. She’s still staring. “I don’t get it.”

  “I forgot. You ain’t into sports. It pumps you up. Gets you riled. Ready to go.” She’s still confused. I shake my head. “Forget it. Let’s do this.”

  By then, it’s our time to go. Will Wang counts down and says, “Team Prince Charming and His Doctor, are you ready? Annnnnd go!”

  We race down the stairs. I get to the ladder of the last remaining tank first and climb in, diving headfirst into a murky tank full of fish. I reach in, trying to find who the fuck knows what, but all I keep feeling are handfuls of fish and the flat sides of the tank.

  Penny climbs the ladder and slowly slides into the water. “It’s freezing!”

  She looks around carefully, like she did that first day in the swimming pool, her face twisted in disgust. Meanwhile, I’m splashing around her, reaching blindly down into the bottom of the tank, trying to take ahold of something that doesn’t feel scaly. I dive under, but the water is green and putrid and I can’t see a goddamn thing. I look over and notice that the other teams are having the same luck.

  Suddenly, she says, “Luke. Luke!”

  I push the water out of my eyes. She’s holding a tiny white canister, only about the size of her thumb.

  “Look at that! The lovely doctor may have just been the first person to find a clue!” Will Wang shouts as the cameras zero in on us. The rest of the teams stop what they’re doing and watch as she unscrews the lid and pulls out a long piece of paper.

  And just like that . . . we’re in first place.

  HEAD OF THE PACK

  Nell

  It’s funny. Luck brought us to the bottom of the pack that first day. And then luck went and brought us to the top of it. So I guess things are evening out. We’re not ready to go home yet.