Stuck on You by Heather Thurmeier Read Free Book Online

having to trek on the uneven terrain of the dirt trail. So who knew how long it could take them. If the trail got rougher or steeper, it could take them the better part of the day. Best to be prepared with the waters even if it sucked having to carry them.
    “It looks like it’s straight ahead,” Miles said.
    “I hope it’s right beside the trail in a big easy box to find. It’s too hot to be traipsing through the underbrush looking for another pill bottle sized cache.”
    “Whatever it is, we’ll find it.”
    “What do you think about the other teams? I think Team Firefighters are our biggest competition for sure. Possibly Team Frat Boys will give us a good race too, if they can keep the beer pong tournaments to a minimum.” Ben stumbled, but caught himself, shooting a glance at Miles. “I’m fine.”
    Miles nodded. No sense in arguing with Ben. And he was fine. Just the trail was rough. Anyone could trip. “I think you’re right but I don’t know what we can do about it. It’s not like we can sabotage the other teams or anything.”
    “True, but there has to be a way to get a little advantage over them. I just have to think of how.” Ben was quiet for a moment. “Maybe an alliance with another strong team?”
    “It’s worth considering. We’d have to be very careful about who we chose to ally with.”
    They trudged on in silence for a few more minutes. Miles racked his brain trying to find a way they could beat Team Firefighters. How could you beat the team that was stronger than yours, faster than yours, and who was from the area? It was a massive task to conquer.
    But that hadn’t stopped them from climbing Everest a few years ago.
    If they could climb Everest together, surely they could find a way to find more caches than any of the other teams. They just needed to figure out a winning strategy.
    For now, the best they could do was to get each cache as quickly as they could. And this one was proving to be a total pain in the ass and complete time suck. The sooner they got there the better.
    They wandered on. Miles watched the GPS screen and tried his best not to accidentally pick up his pace faster than what was comfortable for Ben. After coming up with no good strategies, he decided to worry about it later and let his mind drift. And drift it did.
    Right over to Paige and the wet shirt clinging to her chest. He wasn’t really a hot chocolate kind of guy, but he would have helped her clean up if she’d asked. She was cute when she got all flustered around him. What he wouldn’t give for just a little taste of chocolate flavored Paige.
    “What was that?” Ben asked suddenly.
    “What? I didn’t hear anything.” Maybe his thoughts were too loud.
    “I thought I heard voices behind us. Girls.”
    They stopped and listened for a moment. Sure enough, the sound of Zoe’s sharp voice cut through the air. Bitching about hiking in the heat, of course. Like she should only have to find caches hidden in an air conditioned mall or poolside, and not have to tough out the heat for these other ones like everyone else had to.
    That girl was something else. Poor Paige. She should get a bonus prize just for enduring Zoe’s company for the duration of the show.
    “Let’s go. It looks like we’re only seven hundred feet away now. If we hurry, we can get there before the girls and I know we can find it before them.” Miles started down the path again, faster now that he knew they were only moments away from the other team catching up. This was the first time they’d met another team while looking for a cache and he didn’t want to lose out on a possible prize because of it.
    Ben caught up and did his best not to fall behind as the girls’ voices grew louder. At four hundred feet, they broke into a jog, but only for a minute or two before they heard the girls spot them on the trail.
    “Run, Zoe!” Paige yelled. “There’s another team ahead of us. We can’t let them get there first.”
    Miles heard