He’s right behind me, so I push off his hand, and he sends me right to the top. He scours the rest like a freaking spider, then picks me up, draping me over his shoulder, and runs across the bridge. It’s hard for me to keep it together, because this is so ridiculous, and if we’re doing this for another basket of condoms and dildos, then our hard work will go unrewarded.

But to add to the fanfare, I yell, “Put me down! You never let me do anything.”

“Because you have the coordination of a geriatric wildebeest,” he yells back and then tosses me down the slide.

I roll down and almost off into the water but thankfully hang on.

“You almost threw me off.”

“It would be the first time you were wet in years,” he yells back.

“Doesn’t say much about you.”

He joins me, and we stand in front of Ellison. When did she get here?

With pursed lips, she looks us in the eyes and asks, “Do you feel truly happy in your marriage?”

“No,” Wilder says. “But I know we could be.”

“No,” I answer. “And I like to think there’s potential, but I just don’t know. He’s too selfish.”

“She’s too focused on work.”

“He thinks because he’s helping save the environment with his green roofs that my work isn’t important enough.”

“Because you could be writing about something other than putters.” He leans toward Ellison and whispers, “No offense.”

“We don’t see eye to eye, and I’m not sure we ever will.”

Ellison looks between the two of us and then says, “Say something nice about each other.”

I look at Wilder, my chest heaving as I try to catch my breath.

My mind draws a blank, and isn’t that incriminating?

Thankfully, Wilder steps in and says, “Even when she’s mad at me, she kisses me good night. Every night. I think it’s her way of saying that we might have a lot of animosity, but there’s still love there. She…she gives me hope, and that’s why I’m here.”

I wet my lips and look Wilder in the eyes. “He reminds me to not be so serious all the time, that there is more to life than just the day-to-day. That it’s okay to break routine. To let loose. To be the person that maybe I hold back from being.”

And isn’t that the most honest thing I’ve said through this entire obstacle course?

Smiling, Ellison moves to the side, and Wilder shouts, “Let’s go, Pips!”

We both leap into the water and swim to the shore. Wilder’s clearly faster than I am, to the point that he comes back and pulls me up by the waist, dragging me across the finish line, where we both sprawl across the grass, gasping for air.