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Gia reached out and patted Sophie’s hand sympathetically. “It’ll be okay. I mean, they’re both good guys. Things will work out how they’re meant to work out.” She looked up at Daniel with hearts in her eyes like that cute-ass emoji.
I chuckled. She was living her best life and experiencing the exhilaration of new love while I couldn’t even get the girl I was pseudo-dating to calm down long enough to have a decent conversation. Today was stupid.
“Aaron, you okay?” Daniel asked. “Did you two work it out?”
I shook my head. “No, but it’s done now.”
“Oh,” Daniel said, chewing on his bottom lip.
“What? What’s thatOhfor?”
“It’s just… Today is Friday. The votes will be counted before the audience knows you broke up. What if the viewers gave you two private time to work it out?”
“Oh, come on!” I groaned, pressing my hands together in prayer and staring up at a camera. “Please don’t be this cruel.”
Gia’s face was full of sympathy. “Can you say no?”
“Nah, the contract was clear: if you’re picked, you go. Or you can choose to leave the show entirely.” Zander looked over at me. “Is that what you want?”
“No. I like everyone here, and even though I’d rather not be sharing a house with Kayla anymore, I want to be here. These types of shows always bring in new people halfway through. Maybe I’ll have better luck then.” It’s not like I could insert myself into the Sophie-Oliver-Diego triangle, no matter how awesome I thought she was. She was so confident and sure of herself, and even though the pressure to choose one of them was weighing on her, she didn’t pit them against each other. It took a strong woman to balance both and be fair, and the last thing I wanted to do was add more stress to her experience here.
Sophie waved the cards to Gia and Daniel, silently asking if they wanted to join us. They shook their heads, so she dealt for me, Zander, and herself. “I bet whoever they bring in will be perfect for you. It’s smart to stay if you want to be here.”
Why did the thought of someone new not excite me as much as it would have a few days ago?
Gia and Daniel said their goodbyes, heading into the house to do… whatever they were planning to do while we played outside and listened to the soft lapping of the waves on the sand and Zander’s inhuman screech of terror when a tiny spider scuttled across the table.
He hopped up, his cards flying in the air and raining down on us, but before they could even land, Zander was jumping into the pool to escape. He popped back up, rubbing his hands over his head and shoulders while shouting, “Get it off me! Get it off me!”
I looked down at the table, finding the little spider there, and offered it the pad of my finger for a mini-fist bump. The little guy climbed aboard instead, and I made a big production of moving him onto the lawn and away from the patio furniture.
One hour,two beers, and a slight sunburn later, we were all surrounding a ringing phone.
“Hello?” Cheryl answered.
Troy’s voice boomed through the speakers. “Hello, everyone! It’s Friday!” he singsonged. “You know what that means!”
The others cheered while I merely stared at the phone. While my mood had improved after Zander flipped the fuck out over a spider the size of an ant, it wasn’t all better yet.
“Our audience has been watching all week, and voting has been open for twenty-four hours. We’ve tallied the count and now it’s time to hear which couple our audience thinks deserves some time away!”
I didn’t have to fake my anticipation as I looked from the phone to Kayla’s pouty face.Please, fucking please, don’t do this to me.
“Before I share who the viewers have chosen, who do you guys think deserves some time away?”
We exchanged looks around the low couches, and I shrugged. Kayla was glaring daggers at me, with Cheryl by her side, looking just as disgusted. Gia and Daniel were snuggled up together. Sophie was between Diego and Oliver while Viv and Zander were beside them, not quite coupled up, but looking more and more like they were headed that way.
“I think Viv and Zander deserve it,” I said, trying to keep my tone light and unaffected. “They’re getting to know each other and going slowly.”
“Not like you know how to do that,” Kayla muttered.
“You were there as much as I was, Kayla. I didn’t do any of it by myself. Don’t twist this.”
I could take the verbal abuse as painful as it was. After all, my bastard father had exposed me to enough of that before my mom left his drunk ass. But I couldn’t stand when people shifted blame around like my father—and Kayla—did. My dad used my mom as the reason for his shitty behavior, instead of accepting that alcoholism was a literal disease. To him, it was a weakness he could blame someone else for. Shithead. Kayla was blaming me for everything that had gone wrong this week, and yeah, while I had stirred the pot, this was something that could have been solved with a simple conversation instead of the knock-down, drag-out fight she had turned it into.
Kayla rolled her eyes and scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I’d vote for Gia and Daniel,” Diego offered, steering us back onto the topic. Oliver and Sophie agreed.
