Playing Games (25 page)

"Luck," he said softly.

I didn't know what to think of that response.
He didn't touch me, and his voice was flat. I stared at him a long
moment, then shrugged and headed inside. I couldn't read him, and
it was bothering me. He'd shut down completely and it hurt me more
than I cared to admit.

"Hi," I said as I walked in. There was a
judge there, waiting on the mat. It was a woman with blonde hair, a
chef hat, a green apron, and way too much lipstick. "I'm here for
the challenge."

She gestured at one of the nearby tables and
a cameraman scooted out of the way as I approached it. There were
three massive tables laid out in the kitchen, all three covered
with big bowls of dough and trays. I was the first one there, and I
eyed the tableau, sizing it up.

The judge hurried to my side. "Let me show
you how this works." She took one of the bowls and fed the dough
into a strange looking machine. As I watched, it pushed out a long
tube of dough, and she picked it up and began to weave it into the
pretzel shape. She moved fast - so fast I was dazed watching her -
and immediately picked up the next length of dough, then began to
braid it, too. I watched her do three of them before she turned the
machine off, gave me a thumbs up, and then returned to the mat.

All right, I guess that was all the
demonstration that I was going to get. I flicked the machine back
on again and waited for the first tube of dough, then snatched it
when it came up. Immediately, it squished and lost its shape, and I
yelped, trying to push it back into a semblance of shape. By the
time I'd wrangled my dough into a mangled figure eight, looked
nothing like hers, and the machine kept spitting out tubes of
dough. I groaned and slapped my ugly pretzel down on a nearby tray.
I'd save that pile for rejects.

It took me sixteen pretzels before I figured
out what I was doing, and sixteen more before I started to get any
sort of speed with it. My shoulders cramped because I was
concentrating so hard that every muscle in my body was tense. But
my pretzels weren't looking like rejected limp doodles, so that was
a win. I filled the first tray, exhausted, and counted.

Thirty two out of two hundred. Dear god, it
felt like I'd been here forever.

To my annoyance, Brodie strolled in a moment
later, breathless. Damn it! He'd caught up. I had lost whatever
advantage Liam had gotten us. And unless I sped things up on this
challenge, Liam was going to think I blew it on purpose.
Frustrated, I wiped my brow, ignoring the flour I got on my face,
and continued to work on my pretzels.

Brodie strolled past my table, eying my
handiwork. He looked at my tray, grinned, and then moved to a table
across from mine. The judge hurried over and started the
pretzel-dough machine for Brodie, demonstrating three pretzels to
him.

I paused for a moment, watching him as the
machine began to spit out dough, and couldn't help but grin when he
confidently grabbed the first tube of dough…and it fell apart in
his hands.

I smirked and returned to my pretzels,
twisting the next one slowly into shape.

The room grew quiet, nothing but the sound of
the machines whirring. I twisted a few more, noticing that I was
getting better at this, if not faster. I sneaked a peek over at
Brodie, since he was being so quiet. My brother stood over his
tray, but his gaze was on my hands as I twisted my pretzel, and I
could see that he was clearly trying to copy my much slower
movements.

That jerk. He was going to profit off of my
hard work? Again? Not likely. I tossed down my pretzel and grabbed
a few of the big metal trays, propping them up so they formed a
shield.

"Hey, not fair," Brodie told me, a whiny
protest in his voice.

"Neither's cheating off of me," I retorted.
"You've screwed me enough in this game, thanks."

"Katy, I'm supposed to win, remember? That
was our deal."

"No," I hissed. "You think I agreed to that,
but I didn't. We were supposed to be a team, remember? Except you
threw me away for the hot rock chick and didn't give a shit. And
ever since then you've been trying to sabotage me."

"I have not!"

"No? Remember that whole Ace thing?" I
twisted the next pretzel viciously and noticed that it actually
looked closer to the demonstration pretzel. Huh. Maybe angry
pretzeling was the way to do it. "Or maybe the whole 'gee, Katy,
don't forget what we talked about' thing?" I mocked his deeper
voice.

"Oh, come on. I was just having fun."

"Yeah?" I slapped another pretzel down on the
tray, noticing viciously that his pretzels looked like shit. "It's
not fun for me, Brodie. You don't seem to care about my feelings at
all."

He snorted. "I didn't realize you were going
to be such a baby about it."

"Liam's pissed at me, Brodie!" I twisted
hard, then laid the new pretzel next to its brothers before
scooping the next long tube of dough off of the machine. I was
almost keeping up with it now. "You think I'm going to be happy
about that? I happen to really like the guy."

"He doesn't need to win," Brodie countered.
"He's rich."

"So's your partner. You're still trying to
win."

"You know I want to win!"

"Yeah, well, I want Liam," I yelled at him.
"And you fucking ruined that for me, so thanks a lot."

"Language," one of the cameramen hissed at
me. "We're still filming."

I sighed and yanked another piece of dough in
my direction, pleased to see that Brodie was still trying to watch
me, but my table was shielded. Good. And he was still on his first
tray. Double good.

"He's a rock star, Katy," Brodie said, and I
recognized the tone of voice. That was his whole 'big brother knows
all' voice. The patient, almost too-knowing, too-smug tone of voice
that I normally tuned out. Today? It got on my damn nerves. "You
know just as well as I do that we won't see him or Tesla again
after this race."

"Well, you made sure that was the case,
didn't you?" I said bitterly. "Blackmailing me for the Ace was
pretty low."

"I don't get why you care so much," he said,
and for a moment he sounded genuinely confused. "You said you just
wanted the money. You'll still get the same amount for second place
as you would for last."

"Would you give up on the money?" I bellowed.
"It's not about that for me. Not anymore." I was getting a
throbbing headache just trying to reason with Brodie. Why was I
even trying? "You know what? Never mind, Brodie. Just never
mind."

Summer rushed in a moment later, her eyes
wide. She grinned happily at the sight of us. "I could hear you two
yelling down the block. Led me right to this place."

"Only one of us is yelling," Brodie said in a
sulky voice.

"Fuck off, Brodie," I said in my sweetest
voice, and stuffed another pretzel in the tray.

“Language,” the cameraman said again, and we
fell quiet.

Everyone twisted in silence for a while, the
tension in the room utterly palpable. I couldn't help but notice
that once Summer got set up with her table, Brodie propped up a few
trays and made his own fort so she couldn't copy his hand motions.
I peeked over at Brodie, and was discouraged to find that he'd
started moving quite a bit faster than I'd hoped. If his pretzels
looked halfway decent, he was going to make up a lot of time.

I finished the tray I was on and counted
pretzels. Ten more. I got nervous at that, my hands shaking as I
rapidly twisted and squished the pretzels into the proper shape.
And then I was done. I leapt up, waving for the judge.

She strolled over to my table as if in slow
motion and I twisted my doughy, flour-covered hands so I wouldn't
reach out and shove her toward my table. As I hovered, she counted,
and then nodded. "That's two hundred."

I hopped with excitement. "Now I do a
delivery?"

She nodded and moved back to the mat. A large
box of hot pretzels was waiting, painted black for my team color.
It was about the size of a large ice-chest, and I hoisted it up,
frowning. It was bulky and awkward to hold.

"You need to wear a delivery hat and apron,"
she told me cheerfully, and produced a boat-shaped hat with a big
plastic pretzel on the front, and a plastic apron.

I set back down the pretzels, took the
clothing from her, slapped the hat on and tied the apron around my
waist. "Address?"

"Independence Hall," the woman said in a
sweet voice. "Good luck."

"No street?" I didn't know where that was.
This was Philadelphia — what if there were four different
Independence Halls? "No directions at all?"

"No." Her smile remained in place.

"And I can't take a cab?"

"You have to walk."

Figured. I hefted the box and headed for the
exit, trying not to panic. And here I'd thought twisting pretzels
would be a challenge. I should have done the stinking flag task -
Liam had been out of there within moments. Me, I'd spent the last
hour twisting dough into knots and now had to hike across town with
an enormous box of pretzels.

As soon as I emerged from the pretzel shop, I
was greeted with polite clapping. "Good job, Katy," Polly called,
and Tesla clapped her hands.

"Thanks," I said, touched by their
encouragement. I squinted into the bright squinting sunlight and
glancing over at my partner. Liam leaned against a wall, his pose
utterly casual. But he was clapping, his hands slowly moving
together, his gaze on me.

Did he hear me arguing with Brodie?

Our eyes locked for a long moment. Liam
didn't speak.

Guess not. Feeling awkward, I hefted the box.
"I have to deliver this before I get the next set of
instructions."

"Good luck," Liam called as I turned to
leave.

I glanced back at him, then hurried down the
street. The hall surely couldn't be that far away. I just had to
find it, and I had a lead on the others.

I'd been mistaken about one thing, though -
the hall wasn't close. And all too soon, the Katy-curse came back
to haunt me. I went down a few streets, asked for directions,
followed the directions I'd been given, and twenty minutes later,
was hopelessly lost. Downtown Philadelphia was kind of crazy. There
was an enormous amount of buildings all clustered together, and I
had no idea where I was going. Not only that, but the box was
getting heavier by the moment. Why on earth did the five foot tall,
direction-challenged girl get the task that involved delivering a
heavy box?

Frustrated, I grimly hefted the
getting-heavier-by-the-minute box onto my shoulder and kept
walking, only to realize I'd passed by the same tree twice now.

I was lost.

And this was the final leg.

And Liam was going to think that I was doing
this on purpose so Brodie could win.

I admit, I panicked. I ran to the nearest
building. I'd just ask for fricking directions, if that was what it
took.

There was a small coffee shop nearby, and I
hefted the box under my arm, pulling the heavy glass door open.
Someone was coming out at the same time as I was going in, though,
and nudged my box. It fell to the ground, pretzels spilling
everywhere.

I gave a small scream of dismay. "No!"

"Sorry," the man in a suit said, holding a
cup of coffee. He watched me as I knelt over the pretzels, and then
turned away and left, as if it wasn't important to help me.
Dick.

I hurriedly scooped pretzels back into my
box, trying to place them back the way they'd been neatly stacked.
That was a losing battle, though, and by the time the box was full,
I still had twenty pretzels sitting on the ground and couldn't
close the lid. Frustrated, I mashed pretzels and tried to stuff
them back into some semblance of order. Pushing the pretzels back
into place took another five minutes of my time, but I couldn't
leave any of them behind. Once the lid was back in place, I headed
into the deserted coffee-shop. "Do you know where Independence Hall
is?"

The guy behind the counter peered at my hat,
then stared at the cameraman trailing me. "You on TV?"

"Something like that," I told him, impatient.
"Independence Hall?"

He waved a hand. "Back that way several
blocks."

"I just came from there," I exclaimed.

"Well then, you're heading in the wrong
direction. Go back that way a few blocks. You can't miss it."

Can't miss it? Apparently I had. Heart
sinking, I wondered if the delivery location had been closer than
I'd thought. I'd gone at least eight blocks by now, maybe more.
Hefting my box again, I murmured a thank you and headed out the
door.

Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was on
the line, and I'd gone the wrong direction. Two hundred and fifty
thousand
.

And I'd screwed us because I was no good with
directions.

The box seemed to get heavier with every
block I jogged. I couldn't afford to walk at this point. Who knew
how much time I'd lost by going the wrong way? When I'd gone a few
blocks again, I stopped and asked for directions once more. I got
the same thing — a few blocks in this direction. You can't miss
it.

I arrived at Independence Hall twenty minutes
later, having missed it again and gone in a circle. By that time,
one of the handles on my box had broken, the bottom of the box was
sagging, and I was near tears. At the front of the massive,
historic hall stood a man in front of the doors, dressed in a
George-Washington-style coat and a powdered wig. He stood on the
World Races mat and gave me a pleased nod when I thumped my worn
box of pretzels down on the ground. "Very good. Here is your next
task."

I took the disk from him, weary and defeated.
I wanted to lay down on the ground and give up, but I owed Liam an
explanation.

Not that he'd believe me. This was the most
critical task, we'd had a huge lead, and I'd blown it. The moment
that Brodie had come running back before me? He'd assume the
worst.