No, I decided. I would not be offering Romeo-Dylan an out. Lily would be delighted that I’d conceded, and I was not giving her any more ground.
Especially because I had, in the end, decided to go with her plan, and was sending her on the Episode Six single date. Her dramatic instincts were, as usual, flawless. The show needed a tonal reset after the Heather incident. Lily Fireball was many things – including my personal tormentor – but she was, above all, fun.
That didn’t mean I was going to letherhave fun, though. I’d co-written the book on malicious compliance a long time ago.
‘What?!’ Lily exclaimed. ‘Is this a joke?’
‘… no?’ Romeo-Dylan said.
‘Who told him?’ she demanded, looking around at Z and all the assembled crew. ‘Who told him I can’t dance?’
Her gaze passed over me.I’m going to kill you, Murray.
I shifted position, adjusting my earpiece.
‘Which one of you was it?!’
Her gaze whipped back the other way, passing over me again.I mean it. I’m going to murder you in your sleep.
‘No one told me anything,’ Romeo-Dylan said. ‘Look at me, okay, Lily? Breathe. It’s going to be all right. It’s going to be fun. I can’t dance either. We can look like idiots together.’
‘I don’t make a habit of looking like an idiot.’
‘Are you telling me that someone who’s named herself Lily Fireball takes herself seriouslyallthe time?’
Lily looked down, eyelashes fluttering.
‘Are you?’
‘No.’ She infused her voice with just the right level of vulnerability to offset the tantrum. ‘But this is different. I’m a hard bitch. Who’s going to believe that when they see me falling over my own feet?’
This was a play on one of our classic single date formats: the commitment date, where the lead and the contestant had to totally commit to some ridiculous task as a way of symbolically demonstrating their capacity to commit to each other. It was a great way of making it seem like two people were compatible when they weren’t, so I’d been intending to send the Dylans on a commitment date in Episode Eight or Nine. However, if you made the task absurd enough, it could also be very funny – and as I wanted to infuse Episode Six with lighthearted hijinks after the serious drama of Episode Five, I’d decided to use it here.
We’d set up a game called Pash Mash Smash, which was somewhere between Dance Dance Revolution and Twister. Romeo-Dylan and Lily would have to learn a dance routine that involved mashing some coloured light-up buttons with their hands and smashing some with their feet. As they went along, the buttons would light up faster and faster.If they won the game, it would send electricity along a fuse and start a fire, AKA the strongest visual code there was for passion.
The fuse wasn’t connected. I had the button that would turn on the firepit in my utility belt. If and when it ignited was completely in my control.
Lily wasn’t lying. She couldn’t dance. I still had the scar on my left foot from going clubbing with her and her friends on her twenty-fourth birthday, when she’d slipped and somehow managed to pierce my shoe and several layers of my skin with her heel.
‘We’ll start slow,’ Romeo-Dylan said, urging her onto the Pash Mash Smash mat.
Over his shoulder, she caught my eye.I know I asked for this,her pained gaze said.But please don’t let this go on too long.
I found my stoniest, most implacable expression. I’d spent the last few weeks trying to get things out of her and getting nothing back. She needed to know what that felt like.
I took mercy on her after two hours.
‘Oh thank god,’ she said, flopping flat on her back as the firepit ignited, chest rising and falling rapidly as she sucked in huge gasps of air.
Romeo-Dylan flopped down next to her. ‘Screw the Olympic flame. This is the only flame I care about now.’
It was a warm day. They had discarded various layers of clothing. He was shirtless, rippling six-pack on display. Lily was down to a tank top, sweat glistening on her collarbone.
It was archetypical thirst trap stuff. Fucking Greg was going to be delighted.Look at her,I could practically hear him saying, leering at her.She really is a spicy meatball, isn’t she?
‘I hope you know,’ Lily said, turning her head to look at Romeo-Dylan, ‘that if you ever tell anyone how bad I was at this, I will hunt you down and seek revenge on you and everyone you love.’
‘Lily, this is a TV show. I suspect a few people might see.’
