‘Fine,’ I said. His tone was light and jokey, but I was suddenly gripped by the fear that he might mean it, that he might leave and not come back. ‘You want to know what I would do?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Have I not made that clear?’
‘I would eliminate them both.’
He looked as horrified as when he’d found out about my love of gummy bears. ‘I can’t do that!’ he said. ‘Imagine what it would look like! Z saying, “Juliets, there are eleven of you, but Dylan only has ten necklaces to give out, one of you is going to have to leave the Villa tonight,” and me turning around and saying, “Hmm, actually, I decided only nine of you are worth my time and energy, it’s bloodbath o’clock”.’
‘But you know it’s not going to be either of them in the end,’ I said. ‘Why string them along?’
‘So I don’t look like a total bastard?’
‘Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is to end it,’ I said. ‘When it’s not going to work, it’s not going to work. No point getting someone’s hopes up.’
I shifted my position in the friend-zone armchair, curling my legs up under me. ‘I had this boyfriend a while back,’ I said. ‘Jordan. We were together for three years. I thought we were going to get married. But then he got this job overseas. He was all, “Don’t worry, babe, I love you. We can make long distance work, I promise.”’
‘I take it things didn’t work out,’ Dylan said, taking another piece of melon off the fruit platter.
‘No, they did not,’ I said. ‘We lasted a whole three weeks after he moved.’
He winced. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Thank you, but he actually did me a favour,’ I said. ‘He could have strung me along for months, but he didn’t. He ripped the Band-Aid off. He might not have loved me enough to put in the effort, but at least he respected me enough to break it off quickly.’
Dylan was silent. He started tapping the middle finger and thumb of his right hand together.
‘Does that help?’ I asked. ‘With your Jess K versus Heather dilemma?’
‘Not really,’ he said, his eyes fixed on a point in the middle distance. ‘Not that it’s not good advice, but… you know Murray and his plans. If I eliminated more contestants than I was supposed to, he’d probably yell at me for messing up his production schedule.’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I wish I could be more helpful.’
‘Talking to you is always helpful,’ he said, his gaze refocusing on me as he smiled. ‘I was just thinking about my parents, actually. That thing you said. About loving someone enough to put in the effort. That reminds me of them.’
‘Oh?’
‘They love each other so much,’ he said. ‘They’ve been together for thirty-five years, and they’re still head over heels for each other, but it hasn’t all been smooth sailing. They’re still in love because they were willing to love each other when it was hard.’
I shifted again, throwing my legs over the arm of the friend-zone armchair. ‘Tell me about them.’
‘I’m a diplobrat,’ he said. ‘My dad’s a diplomat. He met Ammi – my mum – when he was on a posting in Sri Lanka. She was one of his Sinhala interpreters. The way he tells it, they fell in love super quickly. Not quite love at first sight, but fast. Weeks, not years.’
I’d always thought that the idea of someone’s face lighting up was a cliché, but Dylan’s face legitimately glowed as he talked about his parents. ‘There were a lot of people that didn’t want them to be together,’ he said. ‘Dad’s from a rich white establishment family – the Mellors are old money – and they weren’t too thrilled at the idea of him marrying a Sri Lankan woman.’
‘Kind of a Harry and Meghan situation?’
‘Little bit, yes,’ he said. ‘Although Ammi’s family aren’t terrible like Meghan’s. They’re great. We visit them all the time. But they still weren’t happy when Dad and Ammi got together, because diplomatic postings are usually only a couple of years long. They’d only been together six months when Dad got posted to Argentina. They either had to break up or Ammi had to leave her family and her job and her home and basically everything she knew.’
‘She went?’
‘She went,’ he said. ‘They got married in Sri Lanka and flew to Argentina two days later. They had my brother Jamie there, me in South Africa, and my sister Gita in Norway. Then we were in France for a couple of years, then the UK. I lived in four countries before I was eight.’
‘Oh, wow,’ I said. ‘I’ve never even left the country before.’
‘It’s nice, getting to experience all these different places,’he said. ‘But it’s very hard to live like that. Constantly moving around. Never really being able to put down roots.’
‘Trust me, I know,’ I said. ‘Nine group homes.’
‘Of course,’ he said, smiling. ‘You get it.’
