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“I can take the one by the window,” I offered, heading in that direction. I enjoyed waking up with the sun and getting a jump on the day. But since there was no work stuff to do other than wear the clothes, maybe that would be different here.
Diego started to follow, when Oliver, the quiet British guy from earlier, beat him to it. “Me too. I’m a morning person.”
I turned, looking over at Diego as he glared daggers at Oliver.
Diego cocked a brow at the Brit and asked, “Really?”
“Really,” Oliver responded, walking across the room and standing beside me.
Shrugging—because what the fuck else was there to do?—I waited for the others to establish their sleeping arrangements.
Viv and Zander ended up in the bed beside mine and Oliver’s, with Kayla and Aaron on the other side of them. The opposite wall had Diego and Cheryl across from us, and then Daniel and Gia opposite Kayla and Aaron. Proclaiming he needed his beauty sleep in the mornings, Aaron let out a whoop and jumped onto Kayla’s bed with a grin.
Most looked pleased at their arrangements aside from Diego, who kept shooting glances over at Oliver and me.
“So what’s next?” Cheryl asked, peeking over the little divider to look at the rest of us.
“Food?” Zander asked, popping up from his own bed. It was like looking at meerkats.
“Food,” Aaron agreed.
“You know, I’ve never seen people eating on these types of shows,” Viv said from beside Zander. “Unless it was on a date or whatever.”
“Well, they have to feed us, right? Otherwise we would be onSurvivor,” I mused. “I certainly didn’t sign up for that.”
The others laughed, and we headed down to the kitchen to explore our options.
Daniel pulled open the door to the fridge and let out a joyous sound. “There’s a ton of prepared food in here. All we have to do is heat it up. What do you think? Family dinner?”
“Sounds good,” Aaron said, taking the glass dishes of lasagna out of the fridge and reading the little sticky note on top with the instructions. He turned on the oven while the rest of us went about finding dishes in the cupboards and cutlery in the drawers.
“And for you gluten-free people, one lasagna is made with special noodles. Plus, there’s everything we could need for salads and stuff in here if that doesn’t work. Or I could raid the pantry for something else,” Aaron offered, standing in front of the fridge. He started pulling out all the pre-cut vegetables and fixings.
“Thank God,” Gia, the olive-skinned beauty, muttered, eyeing the lasagna with the orange sticky note on it like it was her personal savior. “The last thing I want is to get sick while being filmed. Lasagna sounds good, Aaron. Thanks!”
He tipped his imaginary chef’s hat and went back to work.
“That bad, huh?” I asked. “I don’t know anyone that’s actually gluten intolerant. Just people who avoid it because it’s on trend in LA.”
“Yeah,” she replied. “When I was a kid, we thought it was just an allergy, then the doctor suggested Crohn’s, but when I finally cut out gluten, things got so much better and I got an official diagnosis after the antibody blood test was available.”
“That’s got to be rough,” Oliver said from beside me as we laid out all the silverware.
“It was for a long time, but when I heard about the gluten-free thing picking up steam, suddenly, it wasn’t so weird to avoid it. Nor was it as expensive as it had been. Years ago, a box of gluten-free pasta was like six bucks. Thankfully, that’s changed.” Gia shrugged and started making a salad for everyone to share, turning it from a simple garden salad into something a swanky restaurant would charge an arm and a leg for.
Once the lasagnas were bubbling and ready, Aaron delivered them to the table with a flourish. Daniel found the perfect wine to pair it with, and half an hour later, we were all slightly tipsy, with full bellies and smiles on our faces. This show—unlike others, as I had learned—had no limits on drinks for the participants. Seemed like an oversight on the producers’ part, to be honest, but maybe it would make for better situations and ratings for them.
As we ate, we talked about the elephant in the room. Or rather, in the bedroom.
“Did you guys see the cameras in the bedroom?” Cheryl asked.
“Yeah,” Diego said. “They’re in the corners and along the wall, and there are microphones in the headboard.”
“Dude,” Aaron said, wide-eyed.
“Makes sense,” Zander commented. “They can’t show sex on the show, but they can play voices over wide-angle shots.”
“Is there going to be sex in the room with everyone in there?” Gia asked.
