Page 9 of Down and Dirty Celebrity Edition

It took Savannah’s brain a mortifying half-second to realize she had just cupped Amy’s breast. But if Amy noticed, she didn’t say anything. Though how could she not notice? Savannah had even given it a good squeeze.

“Over there!” Amy called, sounding completely focused on the game. Clearly, that was something Savannah should be doing too. She quickly ripped her hand away as if she’d just touched a hot stove. “Over where?” she shot back, because frankly, the only way she could see a flag was if it was right in front of her face.

“The orange flag,” Amy huffed. “It’s right there.”

“I can’t see it.”

“What do you mean you can’t see it?”

“Never mind,” Savannah snapped. They were losing precious time, and although Naomi had yet to announce the reward, Savannah knew she wanted it more than anything. Outlast Her rewards proved to be extremely decadent, and after less than a day on an island in the middle of nowhere, Savannah needed decadence. Even if it meant getting a whole lot closer to Amy. “Just lead the way.” Then she wrapped her arm around Amy’s soft middle.

Was she imagining it, or did every inch of Amy’s body tense up?

Amy didn’t hesitate, though. She locked her own arm around Savannah’s waist, anchoring them together, and then called, “Left. Right. Left. Right.”

Savannah assumed she meant their legs and obliged, matching her strides blindly as Amy’s hips guided her through the darkness. For all intents and purposes, Savannah was the blind woman and Amy the well-trained golden retriever. She even had an urge to pat Amy’s head and say, “Good girl,” and then thought, how embarrassing is this?

But in the next moment, Amy yelled, “We’re at the orange flag.”

Savannah couldn’t see anything more than black static. Before she could even process the statement, Amy pushed down hard against Savannah’s hips until they were both in a crouch.

“Dig!” Amy instructed. Savannah started digging. And it wasn’t like digging a neat little hole in the garden; it was a frantic, feral clawing through cold sand. Grains flew into her eyes and mouth, but she kept scraping with her fingernails, praying she was digging in the right place.

And luckily, she was. “I’ve got it,” Savannah yelled a minute later, yanking out what felt like a heavy canvas sack with loose wooden pieces. “I’ve got the pieces.”

“One down, five more bags to go,” Amy said, already pulling both Savannah and the bag up. For a woman so soft, she was surprisingly strong. Like really strong.

The next moment, Amy was directing them toward another flag while Savannah relied entirely on the heat of Amy’s skin and the sharp tugs of her waist to know whether they had to dodge another team or leap over a heap of sand that could easily trip them up. Savannah couldn’t think of a better word than sandbox to describe the massive square of sand. Even with all that space, there was no guarantee another team wouldn’t clobber her.

“LUNA AND KATE ARE STILL DIGGING AT THEIR SECOND FLAG!” Naomi called out suddenly. “EZRA AND SLOAN ARE ON THEIR FOURTH AND LEADING THE CHALLENGE... SAVANNAH AND AMY ARE CLOSE.”

And they were close. “We’re at the green flag,” Amy muttered close to Savannah’s ear. “Only two more to go after this. I hope you’re good with puzzles.”

“I am,” Savannah said. And she was. A two-thousand-piece puzzle of the Amalfi Coast sat fully assembled on her dining table back home, complete with a border of identical bright yellow sunflowers. “But only if I can see, and right now I can’t see a thing,” she admitted, since it was bound to come out sooner or later. There was no way she could fake her way out of the puzzle, especially not when every second counted.

“What do you mean you can’t see?” Amy asked, and Savannah heard her pause, heard the scraping of her fingers against the sand end abruptly. “Like nothing?”

“I’m night-blind,” Savannah said, hoping the cameras were pointed elsewhere. The last thing she needed was for Abi or Marjorie to invite her to an evening doubles match. They were exactly the sort to exploit a weakness, and with the main court’s floodlights broken since Barack Obama took office, Savannah would be flat on her ass in under a minute. “Congenital stationary night blindness. It’s nonprogressive. I’ve had it since I was a baby and inherited it from my dad.”

Amy didn’t say anything at all. The silence was not only deeply annoying, considering Savannah had just shared one of her deepest secrets, but it also made her feel like a fragile, wounded sparrow. Savannah Rigsby was no porcelain doll. She was just a little night-blind. She was about to take it all back with a quick, “Ha. Ha. I’m just joking,” when Amy let out a kind of breathless huff that sounded suspiciously like a suppressed laugh. “And here I thought you were perfect.”

“Perfect?” Savannah frowned. What a weird thing to say.

Amy laughed out loud this time, then continued digging. “Come on, we need to win this challenge, Kiwi. Keep digging.”

Kiwi?

As if Amy could read Savannah’s mind, she quickly added, “Kiwis are nocturnal birds from New Zealand, which is hilarious because they’re basically blind in the dark. They have to survive entirely on their sense of smell and touch. Sound familiar?”

“How do you even know that?” Savannah asked, ignoring the well-placed jab. If Savannah weren’t in such a fragile position, she would’ve allowed herself to reevaluate her opinion of Amy. But what would that opinion be? Savannah was just about to think it through when Amy laughed out loud again.

“When you write books, you Google a lot of weird facts. My search history is unhinged. If the FBI ever subpoenaed my laptop, I’d be in a federal holding cell within an hour.”

This time Savannah couldn’t help it. She smiled.

But that smile turned to a scowl when Naomi’s voice shot through the air like a bullet. “EZRA AND SLOAN... AND WAIT... WYN AND MAYA ARE HOT ON THEIR TAIL.”

“Don’t worry,” Amy quickly said. “The puzzle is always the great equalizer. We still have a chance of winning this.” And she was right. Ten seconds later, Savannah’s hands struck canvas. “I’ve got it.” Together they yanked the bag out of the sand and scrambled to their feet.