“3, 2, 1 …” When Blue’s team yelled, “Go!” he fell backward off the stone block with his eyes closed, arms crossed in front of his chest.

If the Chinese tourists they had enlisted to help them with this challenge hadn’t grasped the five-second explanation—and grasped hands firmly with Blue’s teammates—the six-foot drop could end his Questival. With only six hours left in the 24-hour adventure race, Blue’s Bachelors was in the top five out of 712 teams. If they could bump up a few spots, and if Blue survived this trust fall, the crew of Park City Fire Department Station Two would be off to Cuzco, Peru on an all-expense paid trip.

Man, this was a long way to fall. The challenge didn’t have to be so elaborate or risky. A simple, standing trust fall with one stranger would have sufficed, and Blue’s Bachelors could have walked away with their six points, but extra points were awarded in peer judging for style points. All of the top teams would earn beaucoup points, and in the end the peer judging would decide the competition among the top ten teams.

It took everything Blue had to not check over his shoulder, and just when he’d decided he was heading for Concussion-ville, a cradle of arms hit him in the back. His fall slowed, but didn’t stop. Blue wasn’t a lightweight—up to about 260 since he’d been bulking up for the annual firefighter charity calendar.

The catchers collapsed around Blue, everyone falling forward into a pile. Middle-aged Chinese tourists tumbled from the right and Blue’s crew from the left. Everyone laughed as they untangled themselves from the pile. One woman ended up on her backside and sat there chuckling and speaking Chinese.

Blue jumped up, feeling uninjured, and along with Stone, helped the woman to her feet. “Everyone okay?” he asked, and both groups nodded vigorously.

“Uploaded,” announced Jeremy, tucking his phone into his pocket. “Six points, that puts us in third, just ahead of the Spiky Hyenas.” Jeremy had been the only one not involved in the trust fall because someone had to document and upload proof of the challenge in order to earn the points. Since he was the youngest and most tech-savvy of the group, he was doing a lot of the uploading.

“Thank you,” said Blue to the group of amused tourists.

“Thank you,” they repeated, bowing with their hands together, still highly amused. “Thank you.”

“That’s it for the Capitol,” said Stone when Blue’s five-member crew was back in the huddle.

Nikola said, “Next is Ensign Peak, right?”

“Yeah,” said Blue. “Trade shoes here for the ‘Walk a mile in your teammate’s shoes’ challenge.” It was a perfect day for a quick mile jog—overcast and not too hot for August in Utah.

The four who had already been set to trade shoes bent to untie them. Jeremy told them, “We do the ‘Pick up 50 pieces of trash on a trail’ along the way.”

Dax was the one not doing the shoe swap. “Hold up, boys,” he said. “I just spotted our next six points.”

Coming up the steps in hot pink shirts was another Questival team consisting of four women in their early 20’s. If the matching outfits didn’t give them away, the teal handkerchief-like totem with #DoGood stamped on it did. Of course, two team members were giving piggy-back rides to the other two team members as some random guy followed them, catching the whole thing on video.

Blue recognized that team, the Red Hot Lobo Llamas. Like Blue’s Bachelors they’d been in the top five pretty much since the starting line.

The clouds broke right above the ladies like a spotlight, catching the lead piggy-back pair. The bottom half of the pair was a gorgeous brunette with a Latina look to her and huge, bright nearly black eyes. She had her head forward and was huffing as she crested the third staircase. Blue expected her to drop the cute little redhead from her back since the challenge specifically required her to ‘Give a teammate a piggyback ride up three flights of stairs,’ but the beauty kept trucking.

The pillar of sunlight tracked them across the concrete and Blue couldn’t look away. He watched her cross the long, flat open stretch and start up the last and longest set of stairs. She didn’t slow down! Blue realized he was staring, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Like the rest of the Red Hot Lobo Llamas, she had on black spandex shorts and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen someone make spandex look so good.

Finally, on the last few steps her pace flagged, but they were still moving at a decent pace as they crested the final step. The raven-haired woman set the other one down and they both jumped up and down in a Rocky-like celebration.

Sixty-five steps. He knew because another challenge involved counting the number of steps leading to the Utah State Capitol and doing some funky math with the number. It didn’t sound like all that many, but on an 85-degree day, schlepping another person, without resting even on the flat parts of the long trek, that was a heck of a workout.

The random dude who had been filming handed off the phone to one of the ladies and walked off, but Blue’s eyes were glued to the dark-haired woman.

“Hey,” said Stone. “Eye on the prize, not the competition.” He gestured at Blue with his phone. To win this thing it would take all five of them consistently keeping an eye out for any and all points they could gather along the route they’d painstakingly mapped out as soon as the challenges had been released.

Blue pulled out his phone and unlocked it, but kept one eye at the top of the stairs. Dax was starting up the steps after the second set of pink, piggybacking girls. He motioned to Blue. “Come video this. Fifteen-second hug.”

Shoot! Why hadn’t Blue thought of that when he’d seen the black-haired beauty? One of the challenges was to hug a complete stranger for fifteen seconds. They’d been waiting for the right time to make it epic.

Dax, that big flirt, had beaten Blue to the punch, but Blue had just the thing to take it to the next level.

“Hold up, Dax!” Blue motioned to the rest of his team to run up the stairs with him, then caught up to Dax.

Used to following Blue’s orders without question on the fireground, they jumped to obey. Blue tried to hide his huge smile as he pumped his arms and legs toward his newfound crush. He was going to get that hug after all.