Page 28 of Wildfire
While the team-building exercises take place in larger groups across roles, all our specific training is done in our group of six, making it impossible to sneak in undetected.
“You are”—Jenna looks at her watch—“six minutes late, Rory.”
Normally I wouldn’t care about being late, but feeling everyone’s eyes on me is making the blood rush to my cheeks. Well, all but oneperson. I mutter a “sorry” quietly and keep my head down as I fill the empty seat between Emilia and Clay. He leans in, lowering his voice. “You haven’t missed anything. Basically, fire is bad.”
“I’ll try to remember that.” I fight the urge to chuckle and try to concentrate on Jenna starting with the evacuation drill procedure. He offers me a grape from the bag in his hand, which, after yesterday, feels a little like a gesture of goodwill.
Jenna is busy explaining the campfire rules when I feel a tugging on my foot. Looking to the floor, there appears to be a ball of fluff chewing on my shoelaces. Picking up the chubby puppy, I turn the tag toward me. “Which one are you?” Salmon. “Where’s your brother, little girl?”
As soon as I look up, I spot Trout cradled like a baby, snoozing on Russ’s chest. Oh man, this is not fair. I can’t drag my eyes away from the cuteness, which is a mistake, because when Russ finally glances up from the sleeping dog, he looks right at me.
We stare at each other, and it’s as awkward and weird as it sounds, right until Salmon decides to chomp on the ends of my hair, distracting me. When I look back at him, he’s focused on whatever Jenna is saying.
The rest of the training flies by without any further staring contests, and by the time we’re all walking across the main lawn on our way to our team-building activity, I’m feeling better than I was a couple of hours ago, snooping where I shouldn’t be snooping.
“I’ve decided I don’t care,” I announce to Emilia.
“That’s good,” she says nonchalantly, trying not to trip over Salmon, who’s weaving around our feet as we walk, trying once again to eat shoelaces. “What are you talking about exactly?”
“Everything.”
“That feels healthy and definitely not like it’ll backfire on you in the future.”
She expertly dodges my elbow when I try to poke her in the ribs.“I’m going to delete my spam account and lock my cell phone in my suitcase. If I don’t see it, it doesn’t exist.”
“I support it. I’ve said it before, nothing good can come from putting your faith in a man. Let Chuck and Norah play happy families online and you concentrate on you.”
“Jesus, it was like being with my mom for a second,” I tease.
Tired of dodging her, Emilia bends to pick up Salmon, tucking the puppy under her arm. “You’re so annoying,” Emilia groans.
The dog’s tongue lolls out of her mouth as Emilia struggles with the deceptively heavy golden retriever. I reach over to scratch behind Salmon’s ears as we continue toward the activity. “Aw, she’s not annoying. She’s a baby.”
Emilia’s brows knit as she looks over at me. “I was talking to you.”
We finally reach the rest of the counselors standing around several planks of wood and platforms arranged in groups of four. “I don’t know what the hell we’re going to have to do,” Maya says.
I’ve seen this activity before, but I’ve never done it. “You have to get your entire team from the first platform to the one at the end, but it gets harder to move between them because the gaps gets bigger and the platforms get smaller. Nobody can touch the floor.”
“Bedlam then.” She smiles. “I’m going to say hi to my friends, I’ll be back in a sec.”
“I wonder if you’d annoy me less if you still had a British accent,” Emilia says quietly, watching Maya as she walks away from us.
“I never sounded like Maya. I still sounded mostly American. It got stronger depending on how much time I spent hanging around at Dad’s work.”
Xander, Russ, and Clay finally stop whispering to one another, turning to face Emilia and me. “Okay, game plan,” Xander says seriously. “We’re going to jump between the platforms.”
Emilia bursts out laughing and I immediately shake my head. “No, we’re not.”
“Why not? It’ll be the easiest way,” he immediately counters.
Emilia is still laughing at the idea of us trying to make those jumps. Xander looks genuinely surprised, while Clay is trying to fight a laugh, too. Russ is… observing. “Maybe for you, Mr. NBA hopeful, but for the rest of us mere mortals, jumping that far isn’t possible.”
“We’ll help you. You’ll be fine.”
Xander’s mouth doesn’t move, and that’s when I realize the person talking to me is Russ.
“Oh.” Say something, Aurora. “Cool.”
