Until then, she’d stare at the postcard in the corner of her screen and cuss his and the other Blue’s Clues’ names. The postcard showed the Sacsayhuaman Ruins, but what was even more amazing, Lucy’s abuelita was one of the guides in the photo. It had been taken like 20 years earlier, but the bureau of travel or whoever was responsible for luring tourists to Peru still used it. Lucy saw her own smile when she looked at Abuelita. Her dad agreed that they shared that trait.
But it would be another year at least until Lucy got to see it for herself with her own eyes. As a recent college grad, she couldn’t just up and fly to Peru. All the brushing up on her Spanish ever since college had been pointless. Sure, she’d go someday, but she really didn’t feel like working on present conditional tense when the trip was so far away.
Now, with the second-place winnings from Questival, she could up and fly to Salt Lake City again. That was the big prize in the runner-up adventure pack. Along with the modest airline voucher she’d been given another backpack, some beef jerky, and various decals from Cotopaxi, the company who ran Questival. Oh, and a water bottle.
Lucy caught herself looking at Abuelita’s smile again so she pulled the postcard down and slid it into her desk drawer. In a few weeks when it didn’t sting so bad she’d tape it up again.
Her phone made a notification chime she didn’t recognize, then it repeated again and again. Some kind of phone call. She picked it up and saw that it was a FaceTime call from Blue Reed. That was weird. They’d texted plenty and even talked on the phone but this was the first video call and she was excited to see his face.
But wait. He’d see her too. She pulled half of her hair over her shoulder and ran her fingers through it. No time to do makeup, unless she wanted to miss his call, so she accepted it
The smile that played onto her face wasn’t forced in the slightest. In the month since they’d seen each other, he’d only gotten hotter.
“Hey, Lucy.” He was grinning back every bit as joyfully at her, making her swoon with his ever-so-slightly crooked smile.
“Hi.” Maybe she should say more, but she just sat there enjoying the strong features of his face: jawline, cheeks, lips.
“You busy?”
“I’m at work,” she said. “I have a minute.”
Lucy could see him look past her and she remembered the UNM banner and posters of the UNM Women’s Cross-County and Men’s Basketball teams. Good. She didn’t want him forgetting about her loyalty.
He grimaced briefly, then looked back at her and that gorgeous smile came back to his face. “I have some good news.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Jeremy broke his leg!”
“Wait, what?” The connection must have garbled his words. “Did you say good news?”
“Yep.”
“No, that’s horrible news.”
“For Jeremy it is.”
Lucy knew the guys teased each other a lot, but a broken leg was a big deal and Blue was being pretty flippant about it. “What happened? How long does he have to miss work? Is he okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. He doesn’t abuse his sick time—none of my guys do—so he’ll be able to just be off for a month and a half. And if the day workers can’t find him a light duty job after he burns all his time, there are enough of us who will donate some of our sick time so he doesn’t have to go Leave Without Pay.”
As a new employee, Lucy valued her sick and vacation time like gold. Before working here in the marketing department of UNM, she’d never had a job that paid her to stay home from work.
“So how is the broken leg good news?” she asked.
“He had a trip scheduled to Cuzco, Peru in four days.”
“Oh, that’s even worse!” He’d been way closer to going than Lucy ever was. That had to be killing him. “Can he postpone it or reschedule?”
“No. I talked to the people at Questival. The prize trip has to be taken along with the rest of the winners. They did say there is some flexibility on the name on the ticket.”
Was Blue saying what she thought he was saying? Was there a chance for her to go to Peru?
No way. They’d texted and talked on the phone for a month, but they weren’t close enough for him to take her to South America. Maybe if things hadn’t fallen apart at Pineapple’s. Plus there was that other guy on his crew who hadn’t done Questival—Wade. Wasn’t he the natural fit?
“What … uh … I feel so bad for Jeremy.”
“Yeah, well, I’m still really happy for you.”
“No,” said Lucy. “You aren’t saying …” She couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud.
“Yep.” Blue nodded once and kept on smiling.
Still there had to be a catch. “Is he going to sell it? I don’t have the money for the trip otherwise I would have just gone.”
“No, he …” Blue looked upward, as if trying to figure out how to say it. “He owes me one.”
Lucy realized she was leaning forward in her chair, looming over the phone and not giving a very flattering view of herself. She brought the phone up to a straight on angle. “What about Wade?”
Blue shook his head. “He’s married. We can’t even get that guy to leave his wife for an hour to go to Pineapple’s with us. He’s not going to leave the country without her.”
“Okay, so just so we’re both clear, Jeremy’s going to give the trip to me?” Saying it that way sounded presumptuous. She had to have misunderstood.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” said Blue.
“Just because he owes you one?”
“Yep.”
“Well you’re going to owe him about a thousand after this.” Lucy barely knew what she was saying. “Or I’ll owe him or owe you or something.”
Blue’s eyes got shifty. Something was making him uncomfortable and he continued slowly. “He’s been saying for a while that he owes me a big one. I disagree with him but, he knew how bad I wanted you to have the trip. In fact, him and the guys haven’t stopped razzing me about voting up all of your challenges.”
Lucy had also voted up her own challenges and had voted down most of the other top ten teams unless they’d done something truly extraordinary. “You were pulling for me?” She barely made it through the words before she started to choke up.
“Yeah,” said Blue. “I could tell you weren’t making up your little abuelita so I wanted you to go.”
Lucy gulped and put her phone face down on the desk. As she reached for a Kleenex she bobbled the phone as if she’d dropped it and was trying to get it under control again. Between the trip and her number one rival pulling for her, she was totally overcome and didn’t want him to see her bawling. She let the phone fall to the ground and left it there as she tried to catch the deluge of tears before it completely ruined her mascara. Hopefully he couldn’t hear her sniffling.
He’d probably see right through the dropped phone ruse anyway, so it didn’t really matter if she got totally cleaned up or not. She grabbed the phone and blew out a sharp breath before turning it back toward her face.
He looked concerned. “Are you—”
“Sorry, I, uh, dropped my phone.” It wasn’t really a lie.
“Oh.” There was the hint of that cute, crooked smile. He knew what she was up to. “So what do you say? Got a passport? Can you make a trip happen in four days?”
“Yes!” She didn’t even care now if she sounded overanxious. She was going to Cuzco! “I could make it happen if the flight left in ten minutes.”
“Alright, good. Jeremy will be happy. He says he’s been trying to pay me back for years.” Blue rolled his eyes.
“Sounds like a story for an eight-hour flight,” she told him.
“We’ll see.”
Lucy had no idea what to do or say next. Four days was too much time, she wanted to leave now! “I really can’t believe this, Blue.” By the end of the week she’d be hanging out with Abuelita and cousins and aunts and uncles. Oh, wait, hopefully that wouldn’t be a problem.
“I need to make an, uh, a disclaimer. I don’t know what’s on the itinerary or what the plans are, but based on what I’ve seen from other winning teams’ blogs, it’s a high adventure, go go go trip, but I was planning on spending a lot of time with my family. Even if it means missing a zip line or a canoe excursion. Is it gonna be okay if I ditch out on you guys?” Lucy crossed the fingers of her free hand.
Blue kept a completely straight face as he stared back at her. Oh no, was he trying to figure out how to tell her no or insist that she spend all of her time with the rest of the Blue’s Bachelors guys?
The interminable paused ended when he cracked his smile again and said, “I was so close to dragging that on and teasing you more, since it’s so ingrained, but I can’t do that to you. You don’t owe me or any of us anything, Lucy. Consider it the runner’s up prize. I know first place to second place is a huge step-down in prize packs. Just fly down there with me. Live your Peru dream. Fly back. That’ll be enough.”
“This is … I don’t even know what to say.”
“The marketing genius doesn’t know what to say?” He smiled broadly, making her want to reach through the phone and pull him close. Even though he was 600 miles away, he was suddenly only four days away. “Go talk to your HR or your boss or whoever you have to in order to get the time off and I’ll email the details I have. We are flying out Thursday morning. Does that work for you?”
“Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah! I can fly out any time.”
“Perfect,” said Blue. “Talk to you soon.”
“Bye,” said Lucy, then she kissed the camera of her phone and ended the call. She stared at the blank screen. It couldn’t be a prank could it? They’d introduced Jeremy as a prankster and Lucy wouldn’t put a prank like this past an Aggie. You always had to be suspicious when dealing with Aggies.
Three years in the mascot costume taught her to be wary. People just didn’t look at mascots like real people, more like a giant, walking cartoon. She’d been pushed and squeezed, even groped, punched, and kicked by full grown men. As if the heat exhaustion she faced every time she put the suit on wasn’t bad enough, she frequently ended up with an array of bruises. And no one was worse than New Mexico State Aggie fans.
There hadn’t been any sort of mockery or mischievousness in Blue’s face. There was no mask or costume between them to obscure her vision; it was face-to-face, and he knew how important it was to her. He wouldn’t tease her about this.
Lucy was going to Peru. She started bouncing in her chair. She was going to Peru!
She let out a giant whoop and punched her fists into the air.
Within seconds Janice and Brad were poking their heads around her cubicle wall. They were used to the quiet, mild-mannered office worker.
“Are you okay?” asked Brad.
“Yes! I’m going to Peru. In four days! I gotta get those days off.”
They parted as Lucy hurried from her cubicle.
Peru, Peru, Peru. She had to call Abuelita!
7
Blue squeezed down the narrow aisle with his carry-on above the level of the seats, the only place there was any extra space. They didn’t build airplanes for big guys like Blue. The flight was eight-plus hours. The quarters would be cramped but at least he’d be cramped with Lucy.
Her flight from Albuquerque had arrived early in L.A. and Blue’s had arrived late, so she’d gone ahead and boarded. He couldn’t wait to see her again and he pinballed off each seat as he hurried down the aisle to her.
“Slow down there, Hulk,” said Dax from behind him. “You damage half the seats on this plane and they’ll have to ground it. She’s back there, don’t worry.”
Blue apologized to the woman in the seat he’d just bumped and slowed down a little. Since he’d boarded, he’d been scanning ahead, watching for her and finally he caught sight of a pair of dark eyes peeking between two headrests. If he didn’t feel like a rhino trying to squeeze into a Volkswagen Bug, he’d run to where she was.
Just when he was ready to finally get to her, a short man in front of him found his row and was trying unsuccessfully to get his carry-on into an already full overhead compartment. There was no way it was going in there, but the guy was insistent. Maybe from his low vantage point he couldn’t tell there wasn’t enough room to fit a football, much less a carry-on that was probably too big to be allowed.
Calm down, Blue, he told himself. You’ve waited a month, you can wait one more minute.
The guy looked back, and up, at Blue and said, “It’ll be just a sec. I’ve almost got it here.” He kept shoving and making no progress.
As calmly as he could manage, Blue said, “There’s some space back here in this other compartment. Can I give you a hand?” He reached for the bag.
The guy leaned away from Blue and almost tipped over under the weight of his bag. “No, thank you. I’m going to need it in flight. It’s eight hours and eighteen minutes. I’m going to need to change out books.”
Blue saw that he had a thriller novel sitting on his seat already. He went back to shoving his carry-on.
What now? Ask if he could squeeze by? Tell the guy he should invest in an eReader?
Blue looked past the spatially-challenged gentleman. Lucy was leaning into the aisle to see what the holdup was. Even though he could only see half of her face, he was blown away by how gorgeous she was. Lucy waved and tapped her watch. Blue just shrugged.
“I almost got it,” said the guy with the bag, but he was no closer to fitting the bag. At this rate it was going to be an eighteen-hour flight.
Solution? There had to be something Blue could do to speed things up. The overhead across the aisle was full, so no luck there.
The airplane had two aisles. Maybe he could cut over to the other aisle then cut back after getting past this traffic jam. But the plane was about three-quarters full already and cutting across would require climbing over passengers who were already seated. He wanted to see Lucy bad enough to do it, but didn’t think creating a scene on the plane was a good idea.
The row where the gentleman was working had a young couple in the window and center seat. Maybe he could rearrange the baggage.
“Do you have carry-ons up here?” he asked the couple.
The man answered, “Yeah, a Dillards bag and a maroon bag with wheels.”
“Would you mind if I moved the maroon one up to this compartment?”
“Not at all,” said the man with a sideways glance at his seatmate, who was still trying to cram his bag into too small of a space.
“Hold on there,” said Blue, putting a hand on the shoulder of the guy in the aisle. “I’ll make some space.” With his free hand he pulled the maroon bag out and slid it into the next compartment up. “There you go.”
There was plenty of space for the guy to slide his library in and finally Blue was on his way. He thanked the middle-seat passenger as he passed. Forget Dax and the other two behind him, Blue pushed ahead, keeping his hips and shoulders turned at an angle so he didn’t clip any seats.
“Hi,” said Lucy, as Blue put his own bag into the compartment over her head. “I thought you’d never make it.” She was sitting in the center seat. The window seat in their row was still open.
“It was a challenge but I pushed through.” He took his seat and realized there was even less space here than in the aisle. The armrest between him and Lucy was up and it was a good thing because he didn’t know if he’d fit otherwise. “I feel like I’m practically in your lap. It’s a good thing we like each other, huh?”
“Yeah,” said Lucy, giving him a smile that made him just want to stare at her for eight hours and eighteen minutes. “Here, try this.” She adjusted, and rather than Blue feeling like he was overflowing his seat onto her, she was sort of perched on his side. “Better?”
“Better.” It was better than better. He loved the contact along her arm, side, and athletic leg.
Dax, Nikola, and Stone said hi to Lucy as they passed, then took the row behind them. If Blu
e had been thinking, he would have put those jokers in front of him and Lucy, rather than behind where it would be easier to eavesdrop or play pranks. There were only a handful of people in the aisle who still needed to be seated. He hoped one of them would come and share the row with him and Lucy so they wouldn’t have an excuse to spread out.
“Thanks again for making this happen,” she told him. “I’m so excited I could do cartwheels all the way down the aisle, but I’m afraid they’d think I was too drunk to fly.”
“I’d just tell them you were a UNM Lobo and they’d get it.”
“Oh,” said Lucy, elbowing him. “You’re going to start that already?”
“We haven’t talked about it since Pineapple’s,” said Blue. “Figured we’d get it out of the way.”
“I googled you,” said Lucy.
Good, she’d know that he’d sweated and bled for his school.
“Big time college quarterback,” she said.
New Mexico State wasn’t big time. Even a college sports fan from his rival school didn’t recognize him until asking google who he was. And that was perfectly fine. Football was in the past; that wasn’t his current identity. But the same didn’t hold true for his dad and brother who couldn’t separate college sports from real life.
He said, “Talk about a Romeo and Juliet story, huh?”
Lucy chuckled and said, “And the star quarterback thing isn’t even the worst of it.”
“So you found out about my dad and my brother too?”
“No.” She looked sincerely confused. “What about them?”
“My dad is Jeff Reed.”
Still no comprehension on Lucy’s face.
“He’s the Athletic Director for New Mexico State.”
“Oh, so the crimson and white really do run deep in your blood. Wait, what about your brother?”
“He’s a lawyer, but his firm’s biggest client is NMSU. I was raised to love New Mexico State like a soldier’s kid loves America. Like a fireman’s kid loves fire trucks.”
Sparks Will Fly: Park City Firefighter Romance: Station 2 Page 4