AllFreeNovel
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I watch as she interacts with the rest of the crew. She seems to know everyone’s names and everything about their families.
The funny thing is, she really does seem genuinely interested in people and how they’re doing.
I look around for hair and makeup. We’re a few days into filming now, and I’ve learned that Alex is the hair guy and Macey is the makeup artist. They’re quite entertaining as a duo, usually bantering back and forth.
“What are we doing for this?” I ask them as they work on me.
“You’re going to some garden. I think it’s at a different hotel. We were told we get to have lunch there, so I’m not complaining.” Alex steps back and gives my hair a nod.
I chew the inside of my mouth. “Okay. That’s not too bad, I suppose.”
Macey giggles and I know there’s probably more to the date, something the producers have up their sleeve.
There are about six producers and four assistants running around, and they usually blur together in my mind because they’re just varying degrees of exhaustion personified.
I can tell when they’re up to something, though, because they all end up here at the same time at the same place and right now I can see all of them.
I know they’ve been pushing Natalie as a potential fan favorite, so I feel like they’re going to do something to make sure that happens.
I wonder why they had us start at this location instead of the garden.
Once we start rolling, I run through the plan for our date. Natalie looks like she’s genuinely excited.
“I wanted to thank you for opening yourself up to this experience, so I asked the crew to organize something fun for us.”
She looks over to the path that leads to the beach.
Two people on horses make their way to us.
Natalie smiles. “I know it’s cliché, especially given where I grew up, but I wanted to share something with you that’s close to my heart, which is horse riding. I thought we could ride them to the gardens.”
They pause filming for a minute, and I quickly check my phone.
“I’m sorry, they made me do this,” Natalie whispers.
I glance up from my phone. “Oh, don’t stress. They’ve made me do a lot of things I haven’t wanted to.”
She laughs and I can’t help but smile.
“I can imagine. It seems like they’ve put you through a lot of dates in a short amount of time. That must be draining, especially when you’re probably still working.” She glances at my phone.
I sigh. I don’t know how much I should be admitting to her.
Her brown eyes search my face. “Do what you’ve got to do.” She walks over to the horses and starts petting them and making conversation with the horse trainers. She gives me a subtle thumbs-up as if to sayI’ll distract them for a little bit.
I manage to get a fifteen-minute phone call in with Jason, which helps.
I put my phone in my pocket and notice how the crew are smiling as Natalie tells them a story about the time she thought she could train a pony as a little girl.
There’s something about her that people seem drawn to, and she does seem like someone that would brighten your day just to be around.
She helps me get onto the horse, which results in laughter from the crew. That’s probably why they’re all here, to watch me humiliate myself.
Riding on the horses isn’t as bad as I expected, but it’s not exactly comfortable.
As we walk through the gardens, Natalie carries most of the conversation, which I’m grateful for.
We get to the end of a path where there’s a white arch — it’s sort of a gazebo, but with the architecture of a gate.
