I woke up from my dreamless sleep to my alarm clock ringing angrily. My hand instinctively slapped the clock off, but when I drew my hand back in, I felt something else on my nightstand. I slowly opened my eyes, yawning and stretching as I did so. I delicately sat up, taking care of my pounding head. I looked over and noticed there was a bottle of Gatorade and two Advil sitting beside my alarm clock with a note saying, Happy Birthday Champ. I smiled weakly, taking the two pills with a long swig of Gatorade. This should help my head.
Emily came flooding back to me, as I sat in bed, drinking my Gatorade. I smiled, remembering the way she tasted, and the way her hair felt caught between my fingers. The memory of her writing her number on my arm hit me like a wall, and I quickly looked. There it was, written in blue ink. I recognized the number as the hotel's, since that was where we were supposed to stay, but I couldn't see the extension number for Emily's room. My mood dropped; there was no way the hotel was going to give me her extension.
I crawled out of bed, making my way to the common room where Henry, Matt, and George were sitting sipping coffee. I looked at them enviously. "Where did you get the coffee?"
Matt looked up with a grin on his face. "Morning sunshine. We got the coffee from downstairs – continental breakfast, remember?"
I nodded, yawning, my drink still in my hand. I sat down next to Henry, who replaced the drink with fresh coffee. "There you go Champ."
I smiled at them. "Thanks guys," I said, taking a long drink of the coffee. It was better than I expected it to be.
"So..." Matt grinned at me. "George told us all about Lily –"
"No, Lily told us all about Lily," Henry grinned. He turned from looking at Matt to me, "George brought her back here... you should have been up earlier this morning – it was awk-ward!" Henry and Matt burst out laughing.
I laughed with them, giving George a sympathetic smile.
"Anyway," Matt continued, "we heard all about Lily, now tell us about that cute blonde you went home with last night!"
I sighed, taking another drink of my coffee. "I didn't go home with her... I just walked her to her room, and then left."
Silence came over them as they stared at me. I didn't know why they were staring at me so blankly, and I was about to ask them why when George said, "You have got to be the most boring guy in Mexico right now, you know that?"
I shrugged defensively. "She was completely drunk!"
Before any of them could reply with what I knew was going to be 'you were drunk too!' I stood up. "What time did Dr. Bright want us ready for?"
George looked at his watch. "We got twenty minutes to be in the lobby."
I nodded; that was plenty of time to shower and get ready.
An hour later, we were bending over a jungle clearing, gently brushing away the dirt from more dirt. I yawned, still tired from last night. I could hear Henry chuckle behind me, so I turned to shoot him a glare. It was not my idea to go out last night. Now that I thought of it, I was glad I went, but disappointed that I didn't get more information on Emily. I didn't even know her last name. An hour passed, and all I was finding were small stones and rocks – nothing of any value. I was getting frustrated, wishing even more that I had just waited a year and gone to Jordan instead when -
"Hey stranger danger."
I looked up, and saw Emily, smiling cheekily down at me. She was wearing my jacket, with her hands tucked into her jeans pocket. I stood up, brushing the dirt off my pants. I met her eyes.
"Thank God you're still cute." She sighed, apparently relieved. I frowned at her, so she explained. "I was worried that you wouldn't be cute anymore, you know... now that I'm sober." She laughed.
I laughed with her, but awkwardly. Was that a compliment? We both fell quiet. To break the awkward silence, although it was clearly only awkward on my side of the conversation I said the first thing that came to mind. "Hey, how's your head," I joked, knowing that mine was pounding just as strong as it was that morning.
Emily shrugged. "I don't really get hangovers that often. Just one of the lucky few I guess." She paused, and grinned at me. "How's your head?" I watched her tuck a stray curl behind her ear – the rest was tied up in a low ponytail.
I straightened up my stance. "Oh, it's good." I mentally smacked myself for saying that. "So... here to give me my jacket back?"
Emily shook her head. "Nope. It looks better on me anyway."
I raised my eyebrow at her cockiness. "Well. You're welcome for the jacket and for the walk home last night."
Her jaw tightened, and I could see she was still angry. Oops. "I could have taken care of myself. You were just too intent on impressing me with your masculinity; you decided to punch out who ever that guy was."
"That guy was Nick, who just happens to be on our wrestling team," I scoffed.
Emily gave me a pitiful look. "Your wrestling team must be dreadful."
This girl was unbelievable! I helped her, and she still insists that she could have taken an almost-pro wrestler by herself, even when she's sober! I was about to give her a piece of my mind, when she spoke first.
"Well, have fun playing with dirt boys," she waved at Matt, George and Henry who were watching us. She turned her focus back to me. "I'm going to finish digging up the stone tablet I found." She gave me another cocky grin, before walking away.
Stone tablet? "Wait, what did you say?" I rushed after her, following her over to edge of our workspace, where no one was really working.
Emily raised her eyebrow at me. "I found a stone tablet. Judging by the language, it was probably one of the Aztec's religious texts." She stopped, and pointed to a small spot she had cleared from dirt. Part of a stone was showing, with markings on it that looked a lot like the language from my textbook.
"It could be poetry," I replied, squatting down to get a closer look. I grabbed one of her brushes and began to brush away more of the dirt. "The Aztecs loved poetry, it was the only suitable job for warriors –"
"During times of peace," she finished, snatching her brush from me. "I'm majoring in Pre-Columbian native history. I know about the Aztecs." I watched her begin to brush away the dirt, just as I was doing. "Don't you have somewhere else to work?" I could hear the irritation in her voice.
"You should brush more gently, that way-" the look in her eye when she glared at me terrified me even more than Nick did.
"Go. Away." She told me, her teeth visibly clenched.
I stood up, and backed away. "Fine, have it your way. I was just trying to help."
"Well stop."
"Okay. Let me know when you've brushed away the markings on the pottery."
"Shut up."
I turned and walked away from her, going back to my own station.
---
At lunchtime, my curiosity about the stone tablet Emily had found had reached a breaking point. Every so often my eyes would wander from the dime-sized pieces of broken pottery I was finding, over to where Emily was working, expertly hiding her work from everyone else – which was another thing that had grabbed my curiosity. Why was she hiding her work? I wondered if it was for the same reason I would.
Lunch was served; slightly soggy sandwiches and warm soda. Henry, Matt and George, being the great friends that they are, refused to let me sit with them while we ate.
"If you don't go over there, and talk to her, you're gonna be sleeping in the hallway tonight," George grinned. I hesitated. "Seriously, get over there."
"Do you know how annoying she is? How frustrated she makes me?" I protested.
"Patty's in love!" Henry laughed, pushing me over towards where the Maryland university students were sitting. "Go talk to her!"
After a couple more minutes of protesting, I ended up walking over to Emily. She was sitting away from the group – thankfully – her blue eyes glued to her station. I sat down beside her on the sand. "Any luck with the stone?"
She turned to face me. "Yes... it's not out fully yet, but I believe it's a poem."
I gave her my best smug grin. "I think that makes me right and you wrong."
Her eyes narrowed. "I never said it was definitely religious. I said that it might be religious."
I shook my head. "No. That makes me right and you wrong." She opened her mouth to say something back to me, but I interrupted her. "So wait, how do you know that it's poetry?"
She looked at me like she thought I was an idiot. "I... translated them?"
I felt my cheeks growing warm. "Oh... ya."
She sighed, and raised her eyebrow at me. "You didn't think I could translate them by myself, did you?"
"No, I just... wasn't expecting it." I picked at my sandwich.
"What that I could translate them by myself?"
My head shot up to meet her eyes. "No! I just wasn't... okay, I didn't expect you to be able to translate them yourself... but not for the reasons your thinking!" I watched her roll her eyes at me. "It's just... you're really young... and not many people my age have a grasp on that language, including me."
Emily laughed. "Nice save. I know it because it's what I do with my spare time. You have to be passionate about your work, and I'm passionate enough to do it not only as a career or school work, but also because I love it."
"I feel the same way." I smiled at her.
There was a pause between us, but this time it wasn't awkward at all.
"So, what is Patrick..." she let out a chuckle. "I don't even know your last name."
"Gates." I replied.
She smiled. "Emily Appleton. Nice to meet you Patrick Gates." We shook hands, both laughing.
"So what is Patrick Gates passionate about?" she asked, taking a bite of her sandwich.
"The Templar Treasure," I grinned.
"Do tell," she invited me to tell her my story.
I took a deep breath, and I told her all about my family's history, the clue my father was hunting down, trying to follow, how certain I was that I could find it; I told her everything. I knew I was going on about it, even coming off as a bit over-zealous, but she was patient. She was actually listening – probably because it was the first time I had told her about it.
"Sounds interesting... so you plan on getting your archaeology degree, and then go off hunting down this clue?"
"That's the plan." I replied. "How about you?"
"Research," she replied. "I've always loved being out in the field, doing research, unlocking languages... even if it's only to myself. I don't want to let these dead languages stay dead. They were widely spoken at some point. Someone should remember them."
Our eyes locked, when she finished, and I could feel myself smiling at her. It wasn't until Henry called over to me for me to hurry up, that I realized our lunch hour was over, and that we needed to get back to our stations to finish up.
