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“Makes sense,” she agrees.
I flip over to the rules section.
“Rule one. Contestants will be given six locations with checkpoints. Couples must travel and stay together at all times. Rule two. You may not use any of your personal money. The show will provide the funds that each couple is permitted to use during the game. Rule three. You must check in to a hotel each night by midnight and may not leave for eight hours after check-in. Rule four. You must drive the speed limit. At no time should you exceed the speed limit by more than five miles per hour. Penalties will be assessed each time a rule is broken.”
Once I’m done reading the rules, I look up at Jess expectantly.
“Nothing too crazy,” she says. “Anything else? What are we going to be doing? I’m kinda unclear as to what the actual game is.”
“Yeah, there’s another section for gameplay. Here. You read that part.” I hand Jess the contract.
“Okay.” She flips through to the appropriate page and begins reading out loud.
“Game play. Each couple will start the race from Manhattan. You will be given a series of six locations throughout the United States. Each couple will drive to each location in the order given and then use a downloaded app to pinpoint the exact GPS location of the checkpoint. Once you’ve found the checkpoint, you will be awarded prizes based on the order you arrived. The first to arrive will win the top prize for the checkpoint. These prizes will be in the form of money and hotel upgrades. Please note that there will also be required stops and challenges along the way. And remember, you must stay together at all times.”
“Seems pretty straightforward,” I comment. “It’s basically a driving scavenger hunt. I’m curious about the challenges, so that should be interesting.”
Jess is silently reading over the gameplay again. Her brow is crinkled in concentration. “I don’t know. I feel like they aren’t giving us all of the information.”
I shrug, unconcerned. “I’m sure we’ll find out more as we get closer to the start. There’s also a section in there about a medical exam. We have to get cleared to play. Is that a problem for you?”
“Nope, not a problem.”
“Okay, good. I’ll read over the rest of this contract tonight and make sure we’re good before turning it over to the lawyers tomorrow. Do you want to go ahead and sign it so that we don’t need to meet up again?”
“Yeah, I think that would be okay. Could I get a copy?” she asks.
I pass her two stapled copies. “Here you go. They’ve marked where we need to initial and sign on the original. You can keep the bottom copy.”
She flips through the pages, initialing and signing where noted. She stops as she gets closer to the end. “Did you read over the Terms for Cancelation section?”
I’m not going to admit that I barely glanced at it. The lawyers are going to read over it anyway. They won’t let me sign something unless it’s okay. “Yeah, looks good. I mean, once we agree to do the show, we can’t quit. But I think we both understand that anyway, right?”
She nods. “We can make it to the end. No problem. I don’t see a reason why we’d want to quit in the middle of the show. It’s only three weeks. We can do anything for three weeks.”
Anything? I bet she’s temporarily forgotten about the fake engagement part. “Can we pretend to be madly in love for three weeks?” I ask.
She gives a cheeky grin. “No, but I can pretend to be able to stand you for three weeks.”
I don’t try to hide my chuckle. “I hope you can do better than that. We’ll have to put on at least a little bit of a show. They have to believe we’re engaged.”
“I guess you’re right.” she agrees reluctantly. “We need to agree on some ground rules before we start.”
Oh, this should be good. I can’t wait to hear what she’ll come up with. “Okay, shoot.”
She holds up a finger. “One, no intimacy, no kissing on the mouth. If you need to kiss me for the camera, a cheek will do just fine.” She holds up a second finger. “Two. No sleeping in the same bed. And three. No fake lovey-dovey, touchy-touchy stuff. Keep your hands to yourself.”
“Fine, but I counter that with a stipulation of my own. If it’s out of my control, you have to roll with it. For example, if the show books one bed, we’ll have to deal with it. I don’t want to deal with any hysterics because you don’t get your way. And also, we’re probably going to need to do at least some fake lovey-dovey stuff for the camera. We’re supposed to be engaged, after all.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Fine. I concede the occasional, as-needed, quick kiss on the mouth. But you know we aren’t going to have sex, right?”
I didn’t expect that to come out of her mouth. Here we are having a nice, reasonable conversation, and she has to say something like that. “I’ll do my best to control my raging hormones in your presence. It’s going to be hard, you know, since I like to have sex at least five times a day,” I respond dryly.
Instead of recognizing my dry sarcasm, she nods in agreement. “Good. See that you do.”
“What if you get so overwhelmed by my handsome masculinity that you try to come onto me? After a few days in my exalted presence, you may come to find me irresistibly tempting. I’d hate to have to turn you down, but it sounds like we have a strict no-sex agreement here.”
She raises an eyebrow in question. “Have you ever turned a woman down? Like in the history of ever?”
