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“Your challenge tonight,” Mina says, pointing up, “is to lead your partner across the skybridge . . . while they’re blindfolded.”

Beside me, Cristina goes rigid. She’s terrified, and the worst part is, I can feel that fear like it’s my own.

“Ladies, you will be harnessed and blindfolded. If your partner can safely steer you across this bridge, which is missing planks, you will have successfully completed the challenge. However, if you miss a step”—a mannequin attached to a harness drops from the bridge, the cord snapping taut, catching the mannequin before it hits the ground—“you and your partner will both fall, and you will receive zero points.”

The other contestants murmur uneasily. Cristina’s body is stiff, her arms crossed, fingernails biting into her biceps.

I whisper in her ear, “You’ve got this.”

She nods—just enough to acknowledge me and just enough to tell me she doesn’t believe a damn word I’m saying.

“The bridge is high enough to be terrifying,” Mina continues. “Your harness will catch you before you hit the ground. There’s also a safety net as backup. But trust me, you don’t want to drop. If anyone would like to back out now, I understand. But this is a trust challenge.”

One fall.

One misstep.

One wrong call from me and I won’t just have broken Cristina’s trust, I’ll have broken my own.

Clarice raises her hand. “Can Beau be blindfolded instead of me?”

“Of course.” Mina absently strokes Flame, who rests on a dais beside her. “If any of you want to switch, you’re welcome to.”

No one else does, and Mina gets that sparkle in her eye that often appears when she’s excited about something.

“Y’all should know, there’s a twist.”

Holly groans.

Mina grins. “Remember when I told y’all we would occasionally throw a monkey wrench in the scoring? This is one of those times. Tonight’s challenge is pass-fail. If you successfully cross the bridge, you’ll be awarded fifty points. If you fail, you get zero, which means even though Rhett and Cristina are in the lead, if they fail, someone else can easily replace them.”

“And knock someone off his money horse,” Jace mutters.

The bridge is maybe fifty feet long, but it looks like it’s made of Christmas tinsel. All it needs is one gust of wind—or me not spotting one of the removed planks—for Cristina to lose her footing.

Suddenly, I’m twelve years old again.

The beeping heart monitor. My sister crying as she’s stuck with a needle. The cold vinyl chair sticking to my legs and Mom whispering, Stay awake, Rhett, like I was the one thing holding the world together.

I sway on my feet.

I can do this. I have to do this—for Cristina.

I lean down and catch a whiff of her sweet summer-night scent. The desire to bury my face in her hair is nearly overwhelming.

“We can switch if you want,” I whisper.

She swallows so hard that I hear it. “No. I can do this.”

“You sure?”

A ghost of a smile flickers across her face before she nods, hard. “Yep. Let’s win this challenge.”

Something unspools from my chest—tight and terrifying and undeniable. I’m falling for her. Have been since we pinned our names on that quilt.

As if Flame senses this from her perch on the dais, she sneezes a cloud of glitter.

“There’s a step in front of you,” Jace calls to Holly. “Go ahead and put your foot down.”