No Peru for Lucy and her Lobo Llamas. She thought about taking the postcard Abuelita had sent her down from the corner of her computer screen because it killed her to see it all day long. By the smallest of margins, Blue and his crew had edged out Lucy’s team and even a month later it still stung.

It was a miracle she still liked him after the Questival results. It was also a good thing they lived 600 miles apart because she liked him enough to get entirely too close too soon if not for that distance. They did the best they could from so far away—texting almost every day with a few long phone calls thrown in. Talking and flirting with him turned out to be almost as much fun as hugging and kissing him, but she was definitely ready for more of the latter. In a couple weeks he was coming to Albuquerque to visit and she couldn’t wait.

Until then, she’d stare at the postcard in the corner of her screen and cuss his and the other Blue’s Clues’ names. The postcard showed the Sacsayhuaman Ruins, but what was even more amazing, Lucy’s abuelita was one of the guides in the photo. It had been taken like 20 years earlier, but the bureau of travel or whoever was responsible for luring tourists to Peru still used it. Lucy saw her own smile when she looked at Abuelita. Her dad agreed that they shared that trait.

But it would be another year at least until Lucy got to see it for herself with her own eyes. As a recent college grad, she couldn’t just up and fly to Peru. All the brushing up on her Spanish ever since college had been pointless. Sure, she’d go someday, but she really didn’t feel like working on present conditional tense when the trip was so far away.

Now, with the second-place winnings from Questival, she could up and fly to Salt Lake City again. That was the big prize in the runner-up adventure pack. Along with the modest airline voucher she’d been given another backpack, some beef jerky, and various decals from Cotopaxi, the company who ran Questival. Oh, and a water bottle.

Lucy caught herself looking at Abuelita’s smile again so she pulled the postcard down and slid it into her desk drawer. In a few weeks when it didn’t sting so bad she’d tape it up again.

Her phone made a notification chime she didn’t recognize, then it repeated again and again. Some kind of phone call. She picked it up and saw that it was a FaceTime call from Blue Reed. That was weird. They’d texted plenty and even talked on the phone but this was the first video call and she was excited to see his face.

But wait. He’d see her too. She pulled half of her hair over her shoulder and ran her fingers through it. No time to do makeup, unless she wanted to miss his call, so she accepted it

The smile that played onto her face wasn’t forced in the slightest. In the month since they’d seen each other, he’d only gotten hotter.

“Hey, Lucy.” He was grinning back every bit as joyfully at her, making her swoon with his ever-so-slightly crooked smile.

“Hi.” Maybe she should say more, but she just sat there enjoying the strong features of his face: jawline, cheeks, lips.

“You busy?”

“I’m at work,” she said. “I have a minute.”

Lucy could see him look past her and she remembered the UNM banner and posters of the UNM Women’s Cross-County and Men’s Basketball teams. Good. She didn’t want him forgetting about her loyalty.

He grimaced briefly, then looked back at her and that gorgeous smile came back to his face. “I have some good news.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Jeremy broke his leg!”

“Wait, what?” The connection must have garbled his words. “Did you say good news?”

“Yep.”

“No, that’s horrible news.”

“For Jeremy it is.”

Lucy knew the guys teased each other a lot, but a broken leg was a big deal and Blue was being pretty flippant about it. “What happened? How long does he have to miss work? Is he okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. He doesn’t abuse his sick time—none of my guys do—so he’ll be able to just be off for a month and a half. And if the day workers can’t find him a light duty job after he burns all his time, there are enough of us who will donate some of our sick time so he doesn’t have to go Leave Without Pay.”

As a new employee, Lucy valued her sick and vacation time like gold. Before working here in the marketing department of UNM, she’d never had a job that paid her to stay home from work.

“So how is the broken leg good news?” she asked.

“He had a trip scheduled to Cuzco, Peru in four days.”

“Oh, that’s even worse!” He’d been way closer to going than Lucy ever was. That had to be killing him. “Can he postpone it or reschedule?”

“No. I talked to the people at Questival. The prize trip has to be taken along with the rest of the winners. They did say there is some flexibility on the name on the ticket.”

Was Blue saying what she thought he was saying? Was there a chance for her to go to Peru?

No way. They’d texted and talked on the phone for a month, but they weren’t close enough for him to take her to South America. Maybe if things hadn’t fallen apart at Pineapple’s. Plus there was that other guy on his crew who hadn’t done Questival—Wade. Wasn’t he the natural fit?

“What … uh … I feel so bad for Jeremy.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still really happy for you.”

“No,” said Lucy. “You aren’t saying …” She couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud.

“Yep.” Blue nodded once and kept on smiling.

Still there had to be a catch. “Is he going to sell it? I don’t have the money for the trip otherwise I would have just gone.”

“No, he …” Blue looked upward, as if trying to figure out how to say it. “He owes me one.”

Lucy realized she was leaning forward in her chair, looming over the phone and not giving a very flattering view of herself. She brought the phone up to a straight on angle. “What about Wade?”

Blue shook his head. “He’s married. We can’t even get that guy to leave his wife for an hour to go to Pineapple’s with us. He’s not going to leave the country without her.”

“Okay, so just so we’re both clear, Jeremy’s going to give the trip to me?” Saying it that way sounded presumptuous. She had to have misunderstood.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” said Blue.

“Just because he owes you one?”

“Yep.”

“Well you’re going to owe him about a thousand after this.” Lucy barely knew what she was saying. “Or I’ll owe him or owe you or something.”

Blue’s eyes got shifty. Something was making him uncomfortable and he continued slowly. “He’s been saying for a while that he owes me a big one. I disagree with him but, he knew how bad I wanted you to have the trip. In fact, him and the guys haven’t stopped razzing me about voting up all of your challenges.”

Lucy had also voted up her own challenges and had voted down most of the other top ten teams unless they’d done something truly extraordinary. “You were pulling for me?” She barely made it through the words before she started to choke up.

“Yeah,” said Blue. “I could tell you weren’t making up your little abuelita so I wanted you to go.”

Lucy gulped and put her phone face down on the desk. As she reached for a Kleenex she bobbled the phone as if she’d dropped it and was trying to get it under control again. Between the trip and her number one rival pulling for her, she was totally overcome and didn’t want him to see her bawling. She let the phone fall to the ground and left it there as she tried to catch the deluge of tears before it completely ruined her mascara. Hopefully he couldn’t hear her sniffling.

He’d probably see right through the dropped phone ruse anyway, so it didn’t really matter if she got totally cleaned up or not. She grabbed the phone and blew out a sharp breath before turning it back toward her face.

He looked concerned. “Are you—”

“Sorry, I, uh, dropped my phone.” It wasn’t really a lie.

“Oh.” There was the hint of that cute, crooked smile. He knew what she was up to. “So what do you say? Got a passport? Can you make a trip happen in four days?”

“Yes!” She didn’t even care now if she sounded overanxious. She was going to Cuzco! “I could make it happen if the flight left in ten minutes.”

“Alright, good. Jeremy will be happy. He says he’s been trying to pay me back for years.” Blue rolled his eyes.

“Sounds like a story for an eight-hour flight,” she told him.

“We’ll see.”

Lucy had no idea what to do or say next. Four days was too much time, she wanted to leave now! “I really can’t believe this, Blue.” By the end of the week she’d be hanging out with Abuelita and cousins and aunts and uncles. Oh, wait, hopefully that wouldn’t be a problem. “I need to make an, uh, a disclaimer. I don’t know what’s on the itinerary or what the plans are, but based on what I’ve seen from other winning teams’ blogs, it’s a high adventure, go go go trip, but I was planning on spending a lot of time with my family. Even if it means missing a zip line or a canoe excursion. Is it gonna be okay if I ditch out on you guys?” Lucy crossed the fingers of her free hand.

Blue kept a completely straight face as he stared back at her. Oh no, was he trying to figure out how to tell her no or insist that she spend all of her time with the rest of the Blue’s Bachelors guys?

The interminable paused ended when he cracked his smile again and said, “I was so close to dragging that on and teasing you more, since it’s so ingrained, but I can’t do that to you. You don’t owe me or any of us anything, Lucy. Consider it the runner’s up prize. I know first place to second place is a huge step-down in prize packs. Just fly down there with me. Live your Peru dream. Fly back. That’ll be enough.”

“This is … I don’t even know what to say.”

“The marketing genius doesn’t know what to say?” He smiled broadly, making her want to reach through the phone and pull him close. Even though he was 600 miles away, he was suddenly only four days away. “Go talk to your HR or your boss or whoever you have to in order to get the time off and I’ll email the details I have. We are flying out Thursday morning. Does that work for you?”

“Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah! I can fly out any time.”

“Perfect,” said Blue. “Talk to you soon.”

“Bye,” said Lucy, then she kissed the camera of her phone and ended the call. She stared at the blank screen. It couldn’t be a prank could it? They’d introduced Jeremy as a prankster and Lucy wouldn’t put a prank like this past an Aggie. You always had to be suspicious when dealing with Aggies.

Three years in the mascot costume taught her to be wary. People just didn’t look at mascots like real people, more like a giant, walking cartoon. She’d been pushed and squeezed, even groped, punched, and kicked by full grown men. As if the heat exhaustion she faced every time she put the suit on wasn’t bad enough, she frequently ended up with an array of bruises. And no one was worse than New Mexico State Aggie fans.

There hadn’t been any sort of mockery or mischievousness in Blue’s face. There was no mask or costume between them to obscure her vision; it was face-to-face, and he knew how important it was to her. He wouldn’t tease her about this.

Lucy was going to Peru. She started bouncing in her chair. She was going to Peru!

She let out a giant whoop and punched her fists into the air.

Within seconds Janice and Brad were poking their heads around her cubicle wall. They were used to the quiet, mild-mannered office worker.

“Are you okay?” asked Brad.

“Yes! I’m going to Peru. In four days! I gotta get those days off.”

They parted as Lucy hurried from her cubicle.

Peru, Peru, Peru. She had to call Abuelita!