Nate was late.
In the back seat of the Uber, I reread the driving directions on my phone. This was the right place. SUVs and RVs pulled into the parking lot around the same time I arrived. A procession of hardcore hiker-camper types walked northbound in the freezing rain.
And here I was, running up the tab, squatting in the back of a cherry-red Corolla. But that was better than standing out there like an idiot in the rain, waiting for late Nate.
My pulse mirrored the seconds ticking rapidly by. The competition started in less than half an hour—was it possible that my partner was not just tardy, but had abandoned me? In a remote campground. During a thunderstorm.
Maybe my middle-of-the-night visit freaked him out. Maybe my super quick, awkward, barely audible goodbye early that morning shouldn’t have been so super quick and awkward. Maybe I should have texted him a thank-you.
When Nate’s Accord rolled in, high beams blazing, I let out a deep sigh, partly relieved, partly angry that he could have ruined my chances in this competition.
“Thank you, that’s my ride!” I said to my driver. He popped the trunk for me to retrieve my backpack. Assaulted by the precipitation, my parka and gear darkened as I splashed my way to Nate’s car.
Banging on his windows in the dark wasn’t a good strategy. Nate startled, but when he saw it was just me and not some roving campground serial killer, he unlocked the doors and waved.
“Good morning,” he chirped.
“You’re late.” I threw my pack in the back and plopped down in the front passenger seat.
“Not a morning person?”
I cleared the frog in my throat. “I am, actually. But you’re late.” Don’t you dare wave this off and distract me with one of your cute, coy smiles.
He shrugged. “I’m sorry about that. My sister woke up and kept me home longer than expected. I tried to leave as soon as I could.” He mustered an apologetic look, and my heart softened. His sister was so little.
“Okay. You’re forgiven, but only because Lucy is cute. And it’s your birthday.” I threw a small package into his lap. “Happy birthday. I should have bought you a watch with an alarm.”
He shot me a lopsided grin. “Hopefully I won’t piss you off anymore this weekend. I’ll open it later since we’re running so late.”
My floppy, drippy bangs fell into my eyes as I retied my shoe. “Good call with your priorities.”
When I sat upright, my head whooshed. The car cabin tilted, and I steadied myself by grabbing something stationary.
That something was Nate’s hand.
Regrettably, I’d skipped a sensible breakfast. I’d been too worried I might toss it during the start of the competition, not thinking about the ramifications of low blood sugar.
Oh God.
His hand was a little calloused in some parts, but soft to the touch in others—a nice hand to accidentally squeeze, all in all. Warm and strong. Not like my clammy grip. Tingles ran through my fingers, and the sweat in my palms threatened to push to the surface. I let go like we were playing hot potato, just as Nate pushed my damp bangs out of my eyes with his other hand.
I searched for words. “Your present was on sale.”
He coughed and laughed at the same time, just as some chipper dude with a megaphone made an announcement in the parking lot. “Participants need to load onto one of the three charter buses! We leave in five minutes! Cinco. Minutos!”
Nate cracked a smile. “We’d better go. We don’t want to be late.”
I blew out my cheeks, letting out a big breath. My eczematic hands itched and burned, and my palms were sweating buckets by that point. I could single-handedly solve California’s eternal drought problem with my leaky glands.
We left Nate’s car and swished through the muddy puddles, loading our gear beneath one of the two remaining buses. Then we stood in line and boarded bus number two. The aisle and seat lights were off, making it hard to find an empty row. My eyes hadn’t adjusted, so making out any faces was virtually impossible.
We took some open seats toward the back. Across the aisle were two vaguely familiar people, a guy and girl in their midtwenties, both with approximately zero percent body fat. It took me a few seconds to remember where I knew them from. They were the grand prize winners of the American Muscle Hustle show, which had just been renewed for another season. The red, white, and blue star-spangled parkas should have tipped me off.
I leaned in and whispered, “Hey, don’t look right now, but those guys are the winners from that life-or-death obstacle course reality show on CBS.”
Gah. He looked. “Well, obstacle courses are one thing. Outdoor survival is totally different.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head on the window. Staring at the unremitting rain, I tugged on my garnet pendant on my necklace and slid it back and forth on the chain.
Nate opened one eye. “And I bet their cheap-ass parkas aren’t even the good temperature-controlling kind.” I nodded in agreement, though I wondered if my all-weather jacket was anything more than a low-end raincoat.
The emcee on our bus rattled off rules, regulations, and changes to the event schedule, not even caring that almost everyone was asleep. Some of the information was brand-new to us, like the fact that we were being driven to the middle of God-knows-where in a storm instead of having the event at the campground. Other details were not—like bringing automatic weapons or handguns would warrant disqualification. After a few minutes of him “warming up the crowd,” I’d completely tuned him out.
Thanks to the twisty-turny roads, I completely lost my bearings. The bus hurtled along through the forest, around and down, then up again. Our phones barely got any reception. Unable to pinpoint our precise location, GPS was showing that we could be anywhere within a five-mile radius of the campgrounds. Google Maps showed us in a large green area in the middle of nowhere.
Nate was fast asleep, so I stuck in my earbuds, cranked up my playlist, and stared out the window. The condensation made it hard to see, so with one horizontal arm swipe, I cleared the glass.
Straight ahead, thousands of majestic evergreen trees touched the heather-gray sky. Far away, they were compact, but next to them it was hard to peer upward to see the emerald tips without knocking our heads fully back like Pez dispensers. The dark clouds in the distance never drew any closer. Maybe we’d be lucky and the rain would pass.
Nearly an hour later, the bus turned into a gravel parking lot and pulled in next to another charter bus. “Okay, last stop! Everyone off!” the bus driver boomed. He let us know this was the last chance we had to use a civilized bathroom, either in the back of the bus or the portable one a few feet away outside. The rain had finally let up, and a handful of people were braving the drizzle to use the facilities.
We descended the bus’s steps. The emcee-turned-luggage-handler opened up the storage in the belly of the bus and held up each pack for the owner to retrieve. He held mine up, and Nate grabbed it for me.
“Thanks, partner,” I said. Without me asking, he helped me with the second strap, lifting it so I could pull through my arm.
His backpack came out, and someone behind us whistled, “Whoa, that looks heavy!”
Nate hoisted his pack on before I could offer my help in return. He smiled at me and placed his hand on the back of my upper arm, pushing me gently toward the fence opening. A tingle ran down my entire spine just as my arm warmed to his touch. My face flushed, overheated despite the cool weather.
By some miracle, the menacing rain clouds passed over us and sun breaks streamed through the tops of the trees. In the distance, the sound of a running brook caught my attention. If we weren’t about to spend up to forty-eight sleepless hours in the freezing cold, being massacred by biting insects and possibly bears, fighting off zombies for a minuscule chance of winning a competition, I’d say it was a picturesque Pacific Northwest day.
The final bus pulled up, but rather than wait any longer for them, the event organizers—discernable from their whistles and walkie-talkies—ushered us to the left side of the lot, where we collected our team T-shirts. Unfortunately for us, we got the hideous magenta ones. Mine was a men’s XS and hung huge on my frame, even when tucked in. Nate was issued one in an impressive XXL, passable as a wind sail. Hardly the outfit I would have chosen to wear in a survivalist competition, where blending in was key.
We were each handed electronic wristbands, similar in style to a high-end Fitbit. “What are these for?” I asked.
The guy at registration demonstrated for us. “It’s weatherproof, has GPS, tells time, and it also has a half-mile-range walkie-talkie for your team.” His voice dropped deeper. “If it’s removed from your wrist, or tampered with, your team will be disqualified. The ops teams will be deployed and will collect you, along with your belongings.”
Nate and I practiced using the walkie-talkie function.
“Breaker one-nine. Testing, testing, one-two-three,” I chirped.
“Copy,” he responded. “Should we go join the others at the start line?”
“Affirmative.”
“Roger that. Over and out.”
Speakers blared above our heads on the large wooden poles lining the parking area. “Bus One, you’ll start the competition at the red marker. Bus Two, you’ll start at the blue one. Bus Three starts at green, straight ahead.”
Nate put his hand back on my arm. “You ready to win this?”
“Affirmative.”