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With a stomp of her foot, she tore past the rest of us and into the villa.
Cheryl moved to go after her, but Zander cleared his throat. “Give her a second. She’s pissed, but it’s not like she can go anywhere until the boat comes.”
“Besides,” Troy said after the drama died down, “I’m not done delivering news yet.” I groaned, and Aaron chuckled beside me.Whatelse?“We know not to end on a grim note, so to keep things exciting, we’ll have some new people joining us here on the island tomorrow.”
A chorus of “Oohs” went up around the table. Maybe this was what I needed. Fresh faces and a fresh start. Part of me had balked at Kayla asking for the same thing less than a week ago, but now it seemed like I was the one looking forward to a change of pace.
“Thanks, guys! That’s all for you today. I’ll see you at the dock bright and early tomorrow to welcome our new visitors!”
Troy hung up, and Zander put the phone down.
“You okay, bro?” Aaron asked.
Zander looked up at him, his hand still intertwined with Viv’s. “Yeah, man, I’m good.” Zander turned toward Daniel and Gia. “You guys deserve this. Enjoy the break and have fun, yeah?”
“Thanks, Z,” Gia said. She and Daniel headed up to the villa to pack for their time away. They’d miss the newbies tomorrow, but I don’t think they would regret it.
“If you need us to clear out of the villa for a bit, we can do that,” Aaron said to Zander with a cheeky wink and a grin.
Viv ducked her head, color staining her cheeks. “No, dear God. It’s fine,” she said, her voice high and squeaky.
My island bestie was excited to get Zander alone for a bit. They’d fooled around a little, according to what she’d told me over the past few days, but she felt awkward doing more than that with the cameras on them. Maybe next week would be their week.
We split up now that the call was done. Zander and Viv headed toward the beach; Cheryl, Diego, and Oliver went inside, where Kayla was still yelling about being booted; leaving Aaron and me on the couch together, twiddling our thumbs.
“I’m honestly surprised the producers didn’t boot me too after the drama of the past week,” I admitted. “I fucked up good.”
“You didn’t fuck up, Sophie girl. You just didn’t know what you wanted.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and gave me a side-hug. He was so sweet and had taken what could have been the shittiest week ever and made it fun.
“Oh!” he blurted. “They didn’t say how many people were coming, right?”
“Nope,” I said, but then pointed to Jess and Tobias making their way toward the villa, carrying a mattress between them. “But I think it’s safe to say it’s more than one.”
“You want to go get drunk?” Aaron asked. “We can celebrate Kayla’s departure.” His lips curled up into a sinister grin, and it was an odd look on him because he always gave off golden retriever vibes.
“You know what, Aaron? I really, really do.”
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
Sophie
“That’sthe thing you’re not getting, Aaron. I can’t fucking choose. Not when I’m such a mess.” I hiccupped, tasting a bit of the tequila from earlier.Gross.
“Isn’t there a whole smut genre called why-choose?” he asked. “My mom keeps reading these books and saying the whole point of her life now is to have a harem of men.” He shivers in disgust. “No son should have to hear about his mom getting railed by anyone—let alone a bunch of dudes.”
“Yeah, but that’s books,” I grumbled. “That doesn’t actually work in real life.”
“I disagree.” He threw an arm over my shoulder and looked up at the palm tree we were using as back support. This little spot was close enough to the villa that the lights brightened our little hideaway, but not so close as to be picked up by the cameras. I’d noticed it when we went on that hike last weekend, and right now, it was serving as the perfect place to get a little sloppy and a lot introspective. We had dinner, then took to avoiding everybody inside and left our mic packs on the kitchen table when we swiped the booze.
“Have you seen real estate prices? It would take at least a group of three to afford a house.”
I couldn’t disagree. Even renting my little apartment had set me back a very pretty and shiny penny. I missed my home. It was all messy and colorful, and there weren’t exes—or whatever they were—around every corner, popping up like those fucking whack-a-mole things at Chuck-E-Cheese.
I wasn’t a car. You couldn’t call shotgun, dibs, or whatever else Ryan tried to do. I groaned, my head tilting forward—not a result of the tequila, but not entirely unrelated either. “I’m not a car.”
“No,” Aaron drawled in a confused tone, not following my random thoughts as they crashed through my head. “You’re a Sophie girl.” He sounded so confident in his correction. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. There are new people coming tomorrow. Maybe there’ll be someone that you like from that group. Collective? Horde? Gaggle? Cohort? What do we call the group of people coming tomorrow if we don’t know how many are in the group?”
“Um… People?” I ventured.
