My heart beats, but what about after?
What?
I have no answer for that, and I feel dumb because I want to ask him. He’s literally shaking next to me.
“Hold it together,” I say under my breath. “They’re just actors, temple guard actors.”
“Easy for you to say.” He whimpers. “Does this make me less sexy? Wait, I still get sex, right?”
“Win and you get all the sex,” I remind him. “Lose and I’m locking you in a closet with Olmec.”
“Whoa, whoa!” Jack stumbles. “Max-Olmec or Olmec Olmec?”
I laugh. “Which is worse?”
“Max Olmec. He breathes fucking fire, Ivy!”
“Fair.” I laugh as we ascend the final steps of Olmec’s temple to gather our medallions.
Jude and Stacey are still halfway up. We won the extra points, so we get the advantage, which is perfect since I know we’ll need it like crazy.
Olmec’s voice booms. “Let the countdown begin, in ten, nine, eight—”
“Shit, shit, shit.” Jack does a little jump next to me, still holding my hand. “Shit.”
“You said that already.” I smack him and release his hand.
Olmec Max breathes fire out of his mouth. “All you have to do is find three of the medallions that make one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, put them together, and bring them to the top of the pyramid and hit the buzzer. Winners get massages, yay!”
Jack and I share a look like, really? Near-death, and you get massages?
He shrugs. “I mean, it’s better than a slap in the ass.”
“True.” I nod. “Okay, let’s find one piece, just focus on one piece, then we can search for others that match it; otherwise, we’ll be spread too thin.”
Jack takes a deep breath.
“Three, two, one.”
Jack and I run up the remaining stairs and into the first room and start searching around the fake grass and rocks for something—anything.
Jack stumbles behind a large fake boulder and makes a cross on his chest as a temple guard in full OG garb comes up behind him and lingers. The guard looks like he could be a Polynesian fire dancer except a bit more terrifying with what looks like a real spear.
They wouldn’t give them real spears, right? I’m afraid to focus on it. It’s over, Jack’s going to be exposed to the guard, and we’re going to lose. I just know it.
Jack takes a deep breath, reaches over, and grabs a rock next to him, then throws it in the opposite direction, grabs something from the ground, and mouths, “Run!”
He doesn’t need to tell me twice. I chase after him while the temple guard is distracted and stumble onto my knees. The temple guard turns just as Jack grabs me and pulls me into his arms, slamming me back against the concrete wall as it turns into a secret room. Like an actual secret room that we just Indiana Jonesed.
“Whoa!” he shouts. “Look, there’s another medallion over on that stone!”
I’m still trying to process the fact that I’m in his arms and that he actually risked his sanity to grab me. “You saved me.”
“What?” He looks down, and I realize we’re in the exact position as we were in college, with him pressing me against a wall and me wanting so much more than I will ever be able to admit. “You’re my partner; no man left behind.”
“But you’re petrified.”
He smiles down at me, a gorgeous smile that I’ll remember until death; his hair glistens even as lit torches give the room a romantic ambiance lining the walls. “I was more afraid for you.”
“That’s…” I don’t have words. “That’s—”
He kisses me.
He kisses me in the exact spot where I know he’s afraid, as if he’s more afraid not to have me. I cling to him so hard I forget we’re even playing a game until I hear a buzzer sound.
We pull away from each other.
“Kissing and sex later,” he instructs with a wink. “Now we need that next medallion; we only have one more to find; we just have to hope it’s for Zeus’s temple.”
“Right. Focus.” I nod. “Right.”
He kisses me again.
I cling to him.
I almost slap myself.
He just laughs and grabs my hand.
We run toward the medallion.
“Shit!” He doesn’t pick it up. “It’s the Babylonian Gardens.”
“Well,” I put my hands on my hips. “Let’s pick it up just in case; maybe since this is a secret room, they have more in here? Kind of like a bonus thing?”
He frowns. “Wouldn’t that be too easy?”
“Nope.” I shake my head. “I refuse to even entertain the attempt to get into Max’s brain. What if the secret room holds the rest?”
He nods. “Fine, so we grab a torch and just walk down that creepy hallway all confident like we’re finding hidden treasures, and if we die…”
“We won’t die,” I remind him. “I mean, you might have a slight accident, but we won’t die; I think the spears are real, by the way, so you’ve been warned.”