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“We’ve got this. Great form…nice and easy, Lo…you’re doing great.”
Someone raced past us, but I kept my focus on my stick and my pucks. If it was meant to be, it would be.
The last few feet to the basket took forever, and then Archer carefully deposited his stick into the basket, letting the pucks slide in. I followed, then I dropped the stick and looked around.
Archer was doing the same, and when he got the attention of Sal, a production assistant, she held up six fingers and grinned.
“Sixth!” Archer wrapped his arms around me and swept me from the ground, spinning us in a circle. “We did it, Lo!”
I held on tight, tears of happiness spilling over. I’d thought this was about the money, but this feeling had nothing to do with money. I was doing this damn thing. I’d eaten snake this morning and I hadn’t used a proper toilet or taken a shower in more than a week. I’d gotten through another competition with Archer, and I didn’t even care that we wouldn’t be eating steak tonight.
We’d be back on our quiet little patch of beach, eating tasteless fish while bugs feasted on us, and I couldn’t have been happier about it.
When Archer set me back down, our eyes locked, and for an instant, it was like the sixteen-year-old boy who thought I was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen was looking at me. Like he wanted to kiss me more than he wanted anything else in the world.
Rod came over to fist-bump Archer, and the moment ended. My pulse still pounded, but it wasn’t arousal abrading my nerves. Those few electric seconds were over, and now I just felt guilt toward the eighteen-year-old girl Archer had devastated.
When I’d decided to do the show, I’d vowed not to develop feelings for him again—unless those feelings were renewed disgust and resentment. Admittedly, it was hard to feel those things when he looked at me the way he just had.
This was only a reality TV show. I had to keep my head in the game and remember it was only that—a game. And at the end, win or lose, Archer and I would return to our separate lives.
