First Sight (24 page)

“Yeah, that’d be fun,” I agreed
. 
“
May
be
later this week when we’re back in the office
?”

“
That s
ounds good,” she said.
  “Travis?”

“Definitely,”
he
had agreed.

We wandered back to join the others, and
after
m
y colleagues and I had stood around drinking beers
and chatting
for an hour or so, people
eventually
broke
off
in
to
small
er
groups.
Travis and Jeff had been teaching
Elizabeth
to play poker, while
Marissa
and I had wandered
over to the pool table with another woman from our office.  I’d been exhausted by 10:30 though, and
Marissa
had gone to her own room shortly before that.

I pulled some clean clothes out of my duffle bag
and
walke
d into the bathroom and stepped onto the cold tile floor. 
I
quickly
showered and blow dried my hair, pulling on my old jeans and a long-sleeved
grey
tee shirt.
 
We had to check out of our rooms even though we’d be here all day,
so
I stuffed the rest of my clothes and toiletries in
to
my duffle bag.  I planned to swing by
my car to drop my things off and
the
n head over to the
cafeteria for breakfast
.  We
had to be back in the conference room a
t 8:00.

I heard a door click shut in the hallway, and I figured that one of my coworkers was
already
on their way to breakfast.  I slung my bag over my shoulder and stepped into the hallway
to
find
Travis walking ahead of me, wearing jeans and a dark fleece.  He was just pushing the door open to leave when he heard m
y footsteps and
glanced behind him
.

“Hi,” I called ou
t
as I
approached
.

“Hi
Maddy
,” he
replied
with a smile.
  He stood in the doorway waiting for me.

“Thanks,” I said as he held the door open.

“Are you going to eat?” Travis asked.
  He followed me outside into the cool morning air.
  It was chillier than I expected, but the cool blast did wake me up a bit more.

“Yeah, I just want to drop this off
at
my car
first
.”

“I’ll come with you.  Here, let me take that,” he said, lifting my duffle bag off my shoulder before I could respond.

He slung it over his shoulder, and I noticed how much short
er it was on him than me.  I’d adjusted
the strap, but it still bounced off my hip
s
when I walked.  The bag barely reached his waist
.

“You should have played poker with us last night,” Travis said as we walked into the parking lot.

“Poker?”
I said with a small laugh.  “I don’t know how to play.”

“
We would’ve
shown
you,” he said easily.  “Jeff and I
were teaching
Elizabeth
how to play.”

“Oh yeah?”
I asked absently, opening the trunk of my car.
  “How’d she do?”

Travis dropped my duffle bag inside and closed the trunk for me. 
“
Pretty well for a beginner.
  Practicing with friends is
the best way to learn.”

“Some other time, I guess,” I said, looking up at him.

“Yeah, some other time,” he repeated.

“So, did you win big?” I teased as we headed back toward the building.

“As a matter a fact, I would have, had we actually been playing for money.”

“Ah, I see,” I said with a smile
.  “So I really would have learned something.”

“You doubted me?” Travis asked, pretending to be offended.

“Never,” I replied
.  “
So you haven’t eaten yet
?”

“Nope, I’m starving.  I was actually headed over to the cafeteria when I bumped into you. 
Hey, I mean
t
to ask
,
h
ow’s your mom doing?”

“
Good. 
I talked to her a little on Sunday, and she sounded okay
.
I mean she’s still totally exhausted, but she’ll be fine. 
It was
such a relief to see her at home
this weekend
—you know, out of
a hospital bed, relaxing in her own kitchen
.  I’ll probably
try to head out there one night this week
.”

“
That’s great,
Maddy
.  I’m glad she’s doing so well.
”

“Me too,” I said
softly, my thoughts wandering back to the night of the accident.

We walked a little bit in companionable silence before he continued.
 
“
So your brother seemed nice.
”

“Brian?  Yeah, he’s great.”

“He’s your older brother?” Travis asked.

“Yep,” I said, nodding.

“I could tell,” he said with a laugh.  I looked up at him and noticed his eyes crinkled a little
around the edges as he smiled
.

“How so?”
I asked, curious.

“Oh, he just seemed a little protective of you.  He looked at me kind of funny when you gave me a hug goodbye.”

I blushed
as I
remember
ed
how I’d impulsively hugged Travis
as we said goodbye
that night
at the hospital
.
  I’d almost forgotten about it with everything else that had been going on and had kind of hoped Travis had as well.  Now he was bringing it up as a topic
of discussion
?

“Are you blushing?” Travis asked
, looking somewhat amused
.
  “Don’t worry,” he teased, “I didn’t mind.”

I didn’t get a chance to ask if he didn’t mind my hugging him or Brian watching
it all
, because Jennifer was
walk
ing
toward us
.  She was carrying her bag to drop
off
and seemed to be in a bit of a hurry
.  “Hi
Maddy
, Travis,” she said as she
approached
.  “Did you hear
Marissa
went home sick?”

“She did?” I asked, surprised.  I knew
Marissa
hadn’t been feeling well, but I thought she would have said something if she left.
  She knew I had my cell phone with me.

“Yeah, she left early this morning.”

“Wow,
that’s too bad,” Travis said.

“I hope she’s okay,” I
replied
before
Jennifer
changed the topic and
asked what we thought about yesterday’s activities
.  We gave her a brief rundown, and although I asked about
what we’d be doing today, she wouldn’t give us any hints
.

After
a quick
breakfast we all headed
to the conference room
and once again divided up into teams.
  Somehow Travis had ended up in my group once again.  He was talking to Jeff, and I wandered along by myself
as we left the building
, lost in thought.  We
head
ed
toward the
nearby
woods
,
and I wondered what we’d be doing today.  My colleague Kristen
, one of the IT gurus,
was just ahead of me, pulling her brown hair up into a ponytail.  As I caught up and fell into step beside her, she leaned over and whispered confidentially, “I heard today’s activity involves height.”

“Height?”
I asked, flummoxed.  The course we did yesterday was only a few feet off the ground.  Were we doing something else with ropes, but
high
er
up in the air? 
Hopefully it didn’t involve
walking across a tightrope or
bungee jumping or something
.

Kristen shrugged.  “That’s all anyone would tell me about it.”

“I almost don’t want to know,” I joked as we
follow
ed
our instructor and the rest of my coworkers along the path in the woods.

A few minutes later w
e came into
a clearing
that
contained a
giant obstacle course.
 
There were tires lined up on the ground that we had to run
across
by stepping into the center of each
one
, a steep ramp with ropes to
hold onto
as you climbed up to the top,
and
even some tunnels to crawl through.  I wondered what Kristen had been talking about when she mentioned that today’s activity involved height, and
my heart dropped as I
finally noticed that fa
rther in the distance
was
the “height” challenge that we were here to do—a zip
line
.
  There was a ramp leading up to a small wooden deck area, and from there you crossed a cable bridge to a zip
line attached to a tree
where the earth started to slope down.  I couldn’t even really tell how high off the ground it was from here, but it looked absolutely terrifying.

Today we had a new instructor, a tall guy named Jason.  He was 6’3” and looked rock solid. 
As he stepped up to speak to our group, he end
ed
up
beside
Travis, and I noticed they were both about the same size.
 
“All right,”
Jason
said,
holding up his arms
to get our attention
and gesturing for
those still meandering along to
come over.
“Today we have a new challenge for you. 
First,
as a little warm
-
up, we’re going to do
an obstacle course
. 
I’m sure you all noticed
it
as soon as we entered the clearing. 
And a
fter that,
” he said, breaking into a big grin,
“
we’re
going to do
some
zip
-l
ining.”

“Cool,” came a few whispers from some of the guys in our group. 
Elizabeth
was standing near me,
and
she let out a little groan
.
 
I glanced up
at the wire high in the air and felt my stomach clench
in fear
.  I’d never been zip
-
lining
before and hadn’t
exactly
planned to start today.

“But, first things first,” Jason said loudly, drawing attention back to him. 
“We’ll go over instructions for the zip
line in a little while.  Now we’re going to have some fun on the obstacle course.”

The course was rather self-explanatory, but he went over a few details. 
We paired off into teams of two and were having a friendly competition to see
which team
could finish the course the fastest. 
I’d been
teamed up
with Jeff.  B
efore long it was
our
turn, and I
was
running along beside
him through the tires.  I quickly ducked down to crawl through the tunnel and found myself
actually
coming out ahead of Jeff because I was smaller.
  The next part was climbing up the steep ramp.  There were ropes hanging down to assist us, but because Jeff was stronger, he quickly was able to run up it, pulling himself to the top.  I was about 3/4 of the way up when I’d begun losing momentum. 
I kind of felt like I had yesterday during the ropes course—not exactly failing the challenge, but unable to complete it either.
  Luckily we were working in teams today, because I don’t think I could have finished the obstacle course on my own.  Jeff was able to reach down and pull me up slightly.  With his help, I soon found myself scampering over the top.