“Oh.” Sure enough, in the distance she could see everyone on her favorites list, including her parents. Her mother was wearing the same dress she’d worn to Georgie’s wedding and applying lipstick in an endless coral oval. “Great.”
As Bethany was escorted from the van to the staged filming area, butterflies swept through her stomach, surprising her. All morning, she’d been hollow and calm—heartbroken, to get technical—but now . . . she wanted to win. She needed the win. Not for herself, but for her and Wes. She desperately needed something positive to come from their relationship. Sure it had been painfully short, but it had impacted her like nothing else. Their time together might as well have lasted a decade and she needed something to show for it. For the changes he’d inspired in her, for the unconditional support he’d given.
Bethany reached the crowd of family and friends, everyone speaking to her at once and none of the words penetrating. Stephen exited the house, capturing her attention. He was wearing a shirt that read ONE HUNDRED PERCENT THAT FATHER without an iota of shame and Bethany could only shake her head.
“You’re really going to wear that on television.”
“Kristin got one for you, too.”
“Do either of you need a bottle of water?” a harried intern asked.
“We’re fine,” Stephen answered for them, sending the young man scurrying off into the swelling crowd of crewmembers. “It’s okay, Bethany, you don’t have to congratulate me on the pregnancy. Saying congratulations twice in one day would be too much.”
“Oooh, you should have saved that zinger until the cameras were rolling.”
Her brother shrugged. “I’ve got plenty of them.”
“All right, everyone,” shouted the director, holding up a hand. “I like the energy here. Let’s keep it going, so I can get a panning shot of the audience. On my signal, everyone cheer like your lives depend on it. Like you’re outside of a Best Buy on Black Friday, or whatever excites suburbanites.”
“What a tool,” Bethany muttered.
“We can agree on that,” Stephen said out of the corner of his mouth. “So who is going to crack first and ask for an opinion on their flip?”
“Not it.”
Stephen cursed.
“All right! Here we go! Black Friday energy!” The director settled his hands on his knees. “Action.”
Behind Stephen and Bethany, whistles and woos filled the mid-morning atmosphere, calling more attention to her loneliness. This wasn’t right. She wasn’t supposed to be standing there by herself.
Slade disrupted her thoughts by stepping between her and Stephen, rubbing his hands together. “Two small-town flips, condensed into an incredibly short time frame. Brother versus sister. Ultimate bragging rights on the line.” Dramatic pause. “I have to say, both of you delivered beyond our expectations. But who will come away victorious?” He fired a finger gun at the camera. “Stay with us. We’ll be announcing the winner after the break.”
“Cut! Perfect, Slade,” called the director. “Let’s go right into the announcement next. Build the drama. Stretch it out. Folks, on my signal, cheer your faces off. Cameras ready?” He waited for a nod from the cameraman. “And . . . we’re rolling.”
Once again, the sounds of clapping and cheering filled Bethany’s ears, the bright lights blinding her until all she could see were vague outlines of human beings and blurs of color.
Slade’s voice cut through the noise like a buzz saw. “Flip Off is back, coming to you from Port Jefferson, Long Island! If you’re just joining us, we’re primed to announce the winner of a brother-sister showdown of epic proportions. How are you feeling, Stephen? Confident?”
Bethany’s brother puffed up his chest. “Always.”
“Bethany? What about you?”
“Nervous,” she breathed, the honesty beginning to come easier.
She only caught a hint of Stephen’s frown before Slade blocked her view. “Our judges have done a thorough inspection of both houses, and while both of you did an outstanding job, there can only be one winner. Without further ado . . . we’re going to announce who impressed them the most. The winner of Flip Off is . . .” He stopped talking for so long, Bethany almost pinched the host to see if he was alive. “Stephen! Congratulations, buddy.”
Bethany felt every camera train on her face and knew she should grin and bear the news, but she couldn’t seem to make it happen. It was insult to injury. She’d lost Wes, and now this home they’d worked on tirelessly for weeks had been declared a loser, just like their relationship. It hurt, like a nail in the coffin.
Still, she stepped around Slade, prepared to shake Stephen’s hand. “Hey, congratulations. It’s a well-deserved vict—”
“Now, hold on one second,” Stephen blustered, avoiding her hand. “What exactly were the judges’ criteria? Because my sister started with a ramshackle nightmare and I started with a slightly outdated house. And she had little to no experience, on top of everything.” His face was starting to turn red. “I just went in there and . . . Bethany, you killed it. All those little details are going to sell the place. The broken-up backsplash in the kitchen, those built-in bookshelves, and the ornamental trim you ran along the middle of the bedroom walls. I mean, what the hell were the judges even looking at?” He jabbed a finger at Slade. “My sister won. Announce it again.”
Somewhere in the distance, Bethany heard her mother burst into tears. “My children love each other.”
“Stephen,” Bethany said thickly. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I’m not blowing smoke, Bethany. You won.”
“Your house was beautiful, though. Your staging was spot-on.”
“You know why? I pulled up one of your past furniture orders and put everything exactly where you did.” He threw up his hands. “I just copied one of your old stages.”
A gasp went up from the crowd.
“Oh. Come to think of it, the arrangement did look pretty familiar,” she murmured to herself.
“The twists and turns keep coming on Flip Off,” crowed Slade.
Bethany swiped at the gathering moisture in her eyes. “You know what? I wanted to win. I wanted to have something positive to hold on to in the middle of the mess I made, but . . .”
“But what?” prompted the host.
She stared into the abyss of people behind the cameras. “It doesn’t feel right accepting the win without Wes here. My foreman. My . . . ex-boyfriend, I guess?”
Her mother was in full vapors now. “She already broke up with him? I didn’t even get a Sunday dinner out of it.”
“Wes saw every side of me while flipping this house. Stubborn Bethany. Scared, stressed, and silly Bethany. And he stuck it out. He was patient. More patient than I deserved. I would have spun out so many times if he wasn’t standing beside me, making me fall in love with him.” She could practically feel the cameras zooming in on her face, but she’d stopped hearing anything but the rapid pound of her heart. “So, maybe . . . hopefully six to eight months from now he’ll watch this show on his couch and he’ll hear he made a difference. Wes, you were always more than a pit stop for me. You were the destination. I just got lost on my way there one too many times—”