“Your mom,” I finally manage to say after spending way too much time staring at him. “What does this have to do with your mom?”
He throws his arms up a little. “It’s a long story. I just…We need a win—the whole company needs a win.”
Faraway voices carry down the pathway to—
“Where are we?” I ask, looking around to see a half-made bed and a suitcase on a luggage stand. “Is this your room?” I have so many more important questions. “Your bed is, like, huge. Did you know they have us four to a room up there in the château? What kind of château requires four grown women to sleep in twin beds in the same room?”
That gets a chuckle out of him. “Yes, I know. I’m very lucky. But we’ve got to get out of here before they find us.”
My eyes widen. “Oh yeah.” I can only imagine what kind of drama it might cause if on the first night the suitor went missing with one of the contestants during a blackout.
He moves to open the door but stops. “Wait. We have to decide what we’re going to do.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“We’re going to keep quiet, right? About knowing each other. I think that would be best,” he says.
I press my lips together in a thin line as I think for a moment. I know that logically that is the absolute best choice, but a very small wiggling familiarity in the pit of my stomach is reminded of the one or two times when some jerk has convinced me to be his secret for whatever reason, usually because he didn’t want to be the guy dating the fat girl. I shake the thought from my mind. That’s not the case here. I’m on live TV, practically courting this guy for the whole world to see, but old habits die hard, especially when you’re a fat girl who will forever be untangling her body-image issues no matter how okay she is with herself.
I should tell him that I told Anna and Drew, but then that might uncover my other and perhaps even bigger secret. Stepmom, sisters, and the whole shebang.
“Okay. It’s going into the vault. As far I’m concerned we’ve never met.”
He turns, like he’s just remembered something, and begins to dig through the hulking wardrobe in the corner of the room.
“Is…Is everything okay?” I ask, like I’ve interrupted something.
He glances over his shoulder. “Yes, just give me a sec…. You look great tonight, by the way. I mean, you did on the flight too, but…you know what I mean.”
My cheeks flush immediately. That’s not something I ever expected the Prince Charming from the plane to say.
“Follow thirty seconds behind me,” he says. “If people ask if we snuck off, play coy. Keep it innocent.” He spins on his heel and walks back to me with something clutched to his chest.
I nod.
“Better for us to fess up to this than…well, you know.” He smiles, his gaze lingering on my lips. “Here,” he says, handing me a slim walkie-talkie with an antenna.
“What? Did you bring this straight from your tree house? Breaker, breaker one nine, this is Cabbage Patch, do you copy?”
He shakes his head impatiently, but he’s still smiling. “I swiped them from one of the trailers when no one was looking. I don’t even really know why, or how much battery they have, but I guess if we’re going to keep a secret, we should at least have some sort of secret form of communication. But, uh, Cabbage Patch, huh?”
“Henry!” a woman’s voice calls.
Startled, I drop the walkie-talkie and we both reach for it at once, knocking heads. “Ow, sorry,” I say.
“I got it,” he says as he rubs his forehead. He stands upright and hands me the walkie-talkie again, but this time his hand holds on for a beat or two and his thumb grazes my wrist, leaving a trail of goose bumps that travel up my arm as I suck in a breath.
His gaze holds mine for a moment before the voice calls his name again, and he snaps out of it with a chuckle. “Shit. Okay, I gotta go.”
“Go,” I tell him. “I’ll follow after. See you later, stranger.”
“Try to avoid the lava.” He winks and dashes out the door before I can say another word.
I plop down on his bed and begin to count. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi…
I try shoving the walkie-talkie down my bra, but the antenna isn’t helping anything. Finally, I manage to maneuver it, and thank goodness it’s a flexible antenna.
With a few more seconds to burn, I begin to nose around a little. I can’t help myself. On his nightstand is a small Moleskine notebook. I reach for it and find the front page to be speckled with numbers and doodles. Flipping through the pages, I don’t find much else except for a few funny stick figure drawings and one page that says JAY, GET ME OUT OF THIS MEETING in huge caps. I laugh. Subtle.
Doubling back to the first page, I find a clear space and press my lips to the paper, leaving the impression of my red lips for him to find later. It’s a secret, untraceable message from me to him. And I instantly regret it. I’m about to swipe my thumb across the page when I realize that it’ll just create a smudge, which might actually be creepier. No, no, no. This is way more stalker energy than I meant to give off.
Nice, Cabbage Patch, real nice.
Elimination takes place around three in the morning. We’re all bleary-eyed and yawning, but that doesn’t stop the nervous shifting as we wait for Henry to make his entrance. In the row behind mine, a girl yawns loudly, and I find Allison, who fell in the pool, wearing a matching track suit with her still-damp hair swept into a ponytail. At least I can say I didn’t have her night.
The crew staggers all of us on the steps of the château. This is the big elimination that will send home seven girls, and despite the moment Henry and I shared in the guesthouse and the walkie-talkie stuffed down my bra, I think I stand a fifty-fifty chance of going home. Maybe he thinks it would just be easier for us both if he sent me home and we didn’t have to pretend like we’ve never met. Or maybe he doesn’t care, and he’s really just here for his mom—whatever that means. Regardless, I know exactly what I’m here for, and if I stand any shot of taking home that prize money or at the very least making a big enough splash that might end in a job offer or two, I have to last beyond tonight.
“Look alive, ladies!” Beck shouts.
“Roll camera!” someone calls.
“Rolling,” the camerawoman calls back.
“Roll audio!”
“Rolling!”
Behind us the doors of the château open with a creak good enough to be a sound effect, and I can’t help but turn around. This could be the last time I see Henry.
But it’s not Henry. Instead, Chad Winkle, the longtime host of Before Midnight, steps out in his signature tux with sparkling deep navy lapels and a matching bow tie. He’s a little more salt-and-pepper than I remember, but in general, Chad has aged well thanks to modern science. He lets out a chuckle as he waves to the contestants, and my stomach flip-flops as I recall the last time I saw him—a New Year’s Eve party hosted by Erica when I was just a freshman in high school. It was my first semifamous-people party after she and Dad got married. (Unless you count the wedding.) Surely, Chad doesn’t remember Anna, Drew, or me, and even if he does, I remind myself that he’s a professional television show host and is totally capable of keeping his cool.