A small ripple of applause travels through the crowd, though from the looks of it, most of the party guests have already lost interest in her speech and probably just want more free booze.
Natasha turns to me. “I’m sure these two faces are familiar to all of you. When I first met Lana Parker, she was a bright young college student with the world at her feet. She had everything: talent, looks, brains—and terrible taste in men.” She pauses for the crowd to laugh, and they do. “I watched Lana go from bad relationship to bad relationship, and I knew she desperately needed my guidance, not just as her boss, but as her just barely older and yet much wiser friend.”
I bite my lip to hold back a scream. My cheeks are flaming. My eyes glue themselves to the ground, so I don’t have to watch a party full of strangers literally laughing at my love life, as Natasha continues to tell my private stories to the crowd. My intense studying of the wooden-planked floor means I have the perfect view of Seth’s foot as it gently taps against mine in some sort of subtle sign of solidarity. It’s our first real physical contact since, well, our extreme physical contact two weeks ago. Somehow it affects me almost as much.
“And when I found out Seth and Lana had a history together, and that that history had led them down opposite romantic paths, I knew we had a blockbuster series on our hands,” Natasha continues on, oblivious to my embarrassment. Or maybe she just doesn’t care. “But even I couldn’t have predicted just how much these two would capture your hearts.”
Seth leans into me, ever so slightly, our shoulders pressed together. It helps soothe the sting of Natasha’s words but does nothing to calm my heart, which has been racing at 5G speeds. I want to slip my hand into his, but I don’t knowhow he would react. And like it or not, the eyes of the crowd are on us.
“It almost pains me to have to pit these two against each other in a final vote, but a deal is a deal and we do need to determine a winner. Now, remember, you’re not voting for the person who wrote the best columns but the person you feel did the best job with the challenges presented. Who showed the most growth and made a real change.” Natasha grins as she comes to her favorite part. “Voting is going to be open on theAlways Take Fountainwebsite—that’s AlwaysTakeFountain.com—as soon as the final columns are posted on Friday, so make sure you vote early and vote often!”
At that the crowd begins to perk up. People love an arbitrary vote. Shit. This whole thing is going to bring a ton of traffic to the site. I can practically see the dollar signs cha-chinging in Natasha’s eyes.
Suddenly, Seth shifts next to me and his arm reaches toward Natasha. She thinks he’s going in for a hug, but really, he’s grabbing for the mic.
He steps to the front of the faux stage and clears his throat. “I just have one quick thing I need to say.”
My breath catches in my chest as I mentally run through all the possible things that could come out of Seth’s mouth. The one-night stand. The breakup. The reunion.
How he’s still in love with me.
How I’m still in love with him.
Except, he doesn’t know that last part yet.
I search for May in the crowd. Her eyes are as wide as mine, but she looks excited too, like this is going to be the beginning of some rom-com-level grand gesture.
Seth clears his throat again, directly into the mic, causing the sound to echo around the patio. “As many of you probably know, one of the bigger tasks I was assigned during this whole series was abstinence.”
My stomach drops right into my butt.
“And unfortunately, at least in terms of the competition, I did not follow through.” He shoves a hand in his pocket and I know it’s to hide his clenched fist. “I had sex when I wasn’t supposed to, and therefore, in good faith, I cannot say I completed the assignment.”
Natasha’s face is stricken. She’s scrambling, and I know she’s about to brush Seth’s slight off, tell him it doesn’t matter and the readers can still vote. She needs those clicks more than she needs to have a fair competition.
But Seth doesn’t give her the chance. “I didn’t follow the rules, and because of that I forfeit the contest.” He turns to look at me. “Congratulations, Parker. You win.” He drops the microphone into Natasha’s outstretched hand, gives me the smallest of smiles, and turns away, pushing through the crowd and making his way to the exit.
The silence is deafening until the DJ attempts to defuse the situation by restarting the playlist. It somewhat works, with the crowd dispersing, most heading for the bar or the servers who are tray-passing cocktails.
Natasha looks at me, and her eyes could cut glass. “Did you know he was going to do that?”
I purse my lips and shake my head. “I haven’t spoken to him since that day in your office.”
She grits her teeth and I can practically see her calculating all she’s lost. All Seth cost her by dropping out. “Well, Iguess congratulations are in order then. As soon as theChroniclehas an opening for a columnist, it’s yours.”
The champagne I guzzled when I got here fizzes in my stomach. “What do you mean as soon as there’s an opening? I thought the whole point of the competition was that therewasan opening.”
She shrugs, the move barely wrinkling her impeccable suit. “Openings come up frequently, I’m sure there will be something soon.”
“And in the meantime?” I clench my fists at my sides, fully aware that we are still very much in public and punching my boss would probably be a bad look.
“In the meantime, you’ll remain on relationships and dating.” She turns to walk away from me.
“And if I say no?”
She doesn’t even bother to look my way, barely throwing her response over her shoulder. “You won’t. A boxing class and a volunteer gig haven’t changed who you are deep down, Lana. You’re a people pleaser. You always will be.” And with that, she walks away from me, circulating back into the crowd, smiling like her entire evening’s gone to plan and her ploy for clicks didn’t just blow up in her face.
I slump into a chair at a table in the corner of the patio, partially hidden by an umbrella.
