I looked back over at Cassie. “See? Tracy gets it. That’s what we’re going for. Not paintballing, but that feeling.”
“I getcha, boss.” We giggled. I still loved it when she called me boss.
“Aren’t you worried?” Cassie asked. “You could be out there in the woods or whatever, and if you get scraped or bruised, some random Amazon will decide that you’re too fragile…?”
“Not really,” Tracy said. “Derek’s an Amazon.”
I cocked an eyebrow so that Tracy could see it in her mirror. “Derek?”
“My husband…?” Oh right! The husband she was joking with Janet about…the one that she barely ever talked about at work. I could feel the surprise on my face. Obviously, Tracy saw it. “Yeah. He’s an Amazon. Can’t help who ya love.”
Cassie laughed. Actually laughed. “Nope. Really can’t.” In the backseat of the car we exchanged middle finger salutes and blew a quick kiss to one another. You know you love someone when you can flick them off as a way of flirting.
“We’ve got a plan worked out,” Tracy told us. “If some Amazon decides I’m too immature or whatever, he’ll pretend to adopt me and then we’ll get out of town and act like it never happened. He’s a mechanic, he can work anywhere. Also he’s great at modding my paintball rifles.”
Huh. Solid contingency plan.
The last fifteen minutes of the car ride was spent on increasingly twisting and empty streets with a few “shortcuts” off the paved roads. Tracy spent most of those fifteen minutes of the car ride explaining the nuances, positions, and common strategies in paintball. Apparently, in the competitive paintball circuit (yes there is such a thing she told us) there’s a formation called ‘Master Blaster’ where an Amazon puts a Tweener or a Little on their shoulders and runs like hell while the person on top shoots in all directions from their living perch. Not tactically sound, but it’s a hell of a show when it works.