Starving With the Stars
Author: Janci Patterson; Megan Walker
Date: 2019-10-19 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Contemporary Romance
Description: "Oh my god, please tell me that was not your plan." After being pushed off the stage at the VMAs last year, Alec Andreas's life hasn't gotten much better. Music fans everywhere hate him for his poor treatment of ex-girlfriend and former bandmate, Jenna Rollins. Afraid of falling into obscurity, Alec reluctantly takes a spot on the new reality show Starving with the Stars , where failing celebrities are stranded on a desert island to compete in challenges and outlast one another-and hopefully revive their flagging careers. Alec is certain that only one thing will make him likeable in the public
Publisher: Independently published

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Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Thirty

Thirty-one

Acknowledgments

One

Two

Three

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

STARVING WITH THE STARS

Copyright © 2019 The Real Sockwives of Utah Valley

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, printing, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author, except for use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover Design by Melissa Williams Design

Acoustic guitar by gstudiogroup, Adobestock

Swimsuit by lanamaster, Adobestock

Fire and Palm trees by jemastock, Adobestock

Sun by wektorygrafika, Adobestock

Published by Garden Ninja Books

ExtraSeriesBooks.com

First Edition: October 2019

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Stephanie Holman,
who we had at “Kanye crotch dive”

One

Alec

I’m stuck in traffic on my way home from a label meeting when my manager calls. I answer the phone over Bluetooth.

“Alec!” Bobbi says. “How’d the meeting go?”

“Badly. But you already knew that.”

“Yeah,” she says. “I told you they weren’t ready to sign you for a new album. Not at this point, anyway.”

“They said it wasn’t developed enough. But they hadn’t even listened to the recordings I sent them.” I slam on the brakes in tandem with the car in front of me. Now we’re just sitting here on the freeway, going nowhere.

Just like my dying career.

“It’s not the album,” Bobbi says.

I hired her because she tells it like it is, none of the bullshit the other people I met with were trying to give me. I get that the public is pissed at me because Jenna and I lied about the end of our relationship to keep our band going. It was a peril of headlining a band with my girlfriend that I wish I’d considered when we started out. “It’s me, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Bobbi says. “It’s definitely you.”

The car in front of me still hasn’t budged. I hit the top of the steering wheel with the heel of my hand. “Damn it. I am the only thing I can’t change. If it was the music they didn’t like—”

“I know. But I think if you want to get back into pop music, you’re going to have to do something drastic.”

I know this. I’ve been doing everything I can think of over the last year, but because Jenna and her new boyfriend—now husband—are so damn cute, I got cast as the villain. Jenna and Felix tried to play that off for me by inviting me on their tour, and I even wore actual devil horns to show we were all in on the joke.

Still, the image persists. “I’m open to suggestions.”

“Are you?” Bobbi asks. “Because in the past you’ve been less than receptive.”

The car in front of me starts moving. Slowly. “Yeah, okay,” I say. “But I really thought that single was going to work. Especially after Felix and Jenna more or less exonerated me.”

“Yeah. And ‘Two Sides to Every Story’ was a good song. But I don’t think people were ready to consider your side of the story, even before that douchebag politician quoted it to exonerate himself from that sexual harassment scandal.”

Yeah. That wasn’t my finest moment. Or his, for that matter.

“But I didn’t harass anyone. And Felix shoved me off a stage and I landed on Kanye West—”

“Yeah, I heard Yeezy’s got a song on his new album about it. I don’t think that’s going to help you any.”

Shit.

“Okay,” I say. “I know I’ve been less receptive in the past, but I swear. I’m ready to listen.”

“All right,” Bobbi says. “We have an interesting offer.”

“Really? You should have led with that.”

“I think you’ll see why I didn’t. It’s not for music. It’s for TV.”

TV. I can work with that. “Like, an American Idol type thing? Or late night?”

“No. But you’re getting closer. It’s a new reality show called Starving with the Stars.”

I groan. She was right not to lead with that. “What is it? Some Biggest Loser clone with a bunch of has-beens?”

“No,” Bobbi says. “It’s a Survivor clone with some fellow celebrities.”

“Has-beens,” I say. “Are you saying I’m a has-been who should be desperate enough to go starve on an island for public attention?”

“No. I’m saying you are at the tail end of a crucial window of time in which you’re either going to turn this around or become a has-been. And that this show would give you a lot of screen time to show the public you’re likable, and convince them to give you another chance.”

“You think music producers are going to give me a chance based on me appearing on this show.”

“I think music producers want to work with you,” Bobbi says. “But none of them want to be connected to your flaming descent into infamy. The audience hates you, Alec. You’re polling like John Mayer.”

The car in front of me stops again, and I slam on my brakes. “I am not John Mayer. How can you say I’m John Mayer?”

“I’m saying people hate you like they hate John Mayer,” she tells me, like this makes it all better.

“I’m not John Mayer,” I say. “I do not do interviews where I rate the sexual proclivities of different actresses. I don’t talk in pseudo-philosophical riddles trying to sound like I’m smart or deep. I don’t—”

“Alec. What do you suppose the odds are that you saying that is going to change the public opinion?”

I sigh. “Zero. Given that nothing I’ve said in the past year has made any damn difference.”

“Exactly,” Bobbi says. “Which is why we need an opportunity for them to reconsider you. The show will give you a different platform and a new chance to make a different impression. Think of it as evolving your image. Another chance to show people how charming and likable you are.”

I see her point, but that doesn’t mean I like it. “And you don’t think this will evolve my image in a way that makes everyone perceive me as a has-been?”

“I think this is a chance for you to make the public love you again, if you play it right.”

“And putting me on an island with a bunch of other famous people that I’m supposed to ruthlessly vote off while simultaneously starving and sleeping in the dirt—this is what you think will bring out this lovable, charming side of me? I’ve never even been camping, Bobbi. I don’t think I’m going to be full of sunshine and roses under conditions like that.”

“Okay,” Bobbi says. “Can you be full of shit? Because last time the public loved you, you were lying your ass off.”

I groan. “Yeah, okay. But I kind of suck at lying. When I was pretending to still be with Jenna, all I had to do was act like I like her. And I do like her. So it didn’t feel like as much of a lie as it looked.”

“You were pretty convincing when you proposed on stage.”

I groan again. “Yeah, I know. Thanks for reminding me.”

“Seriously, Alec,” Bobbi says. “People used to love you. Every woman in America wanted you to be her boyfriend.”

“Yeah,” I say. The traffic is starting to pick up, but I’m not getting my hopes up. We’re probably going to stop again in a mile. “But did they like me, or did they like Jenna?”

Bobbie pauses. “If you can only be likable in a relationship,” she says after a moment, “maybe you should think about how to work that angle.”

I’m silent. “You want me to get another fake girlfriend.”

“No. I want you to go on this show, pick some hot girl you’re able to at least pretend to like, and cuddle up to her to remind the women of America what a good boyfriend you can be.”

I consider that. It’s not a terrible plan. “Get in a relationship on national TV,” I say.

“Right. It worked for Rob Mariano.”

“I don’t know who that is,” I tell her.

“You also need to beef up on your Survivor,” she says. “He was this total nobody who everyone had pegged for a villain, and then he hooks up with this cute girl on the All Stars season and suddenly they’re both America’s sweethearts. They got married and had a bunch of kids and are cute as hell.”

“I’m not going to get married to some girl I just met on a reality show,” I say. I’m willing to do a hell of a lot for my career, but even I have limits.

“You don’t have to get married. Just be a decent human being for the duration of the show and flirt it up. Remind everyone why they want to sleep with you.”

I take a deep breath. “You make a good point. I’ll do it. But they better be letting us take those luxury item things, because I’m a hell of a lot more likable when I’m holding a guitar.”

“I’ll put in that request for you,” Bobbi says. “But I hear Cece Martinez agreed to join the cast, and I doubt she’s going on TV without a guitar of her own.”

I nod, a little impressed despite myself. Cece Martinez was a huge country singer, though she’s a generation older than me. She lost a lot of her audience when she came out ten years or so ago, mostly because the demographic of country music fans she catered to wasn’t quite ready to jump on the pride train.

She’s not as popular as she once was, but she’s definitely not what I would call a has-been.

“Do you know who else will be there?” I ask

“Not for sure. I heard a rumor that Chad Montgomery is considering it.”

Ha. Then I wouldn’t be the only one on the show trying to clean up my image. Chad’s an action movie star who lost his agent a while back for grabbing said agent’s wife’s ass at a dinner party—a story I heard through Jenna and Felix, who are friends with the wife of the agent in question. That probably wouldn’t have affected Chad’s career much if it hadn’t been followed with a long line of sexual harassment accusations by various actresses who worked with him, including several of the women who stand behind him in formation in those ridiculous V movies.

Next to him, it shouldn’t be that hard to look likable.

“All right,” I say. “Tell them I’m in.”

“Thanks, Alec,” Bobbi says. “You’re going to do great.”

The traffic stops again, just like I thought it would, and I lean my head back against the headrest.

I had better rock the hell out of this gig, or I’m going to end up writing commercial jingles for car dealerships—or worse, that failing airline with the sexy dancing stewardess ads.

I can do this, I tell myself. They always get hot girls for these shows, and Bobbi is right. I’m more sympathetic when I have a girl on my arm.

I just hope they cast someone who doesn’t annoy the hell out of me, because otherwise it’s going to be a really long show.

Two

Alec

Let’s try that again, Alec,” the producer with the shockingly square jaw says, frowning at me from where he stands behind the cameraman. “But this time, when you come out of the water, could you pause and survey the island? Maybe run your hand through your hair? We want a good shot of those abs.”

It’s probably a good thing I’m already squinting from the bright sun reflecting off the wet sand so I don’t automatically glare at him. I’m a musician, not an actor or a model, but clearly this guy doesn’t care. And really, I put a lot of time into working out the last few months to get ready for this, so I might as well show that off. Sex sells, after all, and if America wants washboard abs on her Favorite Boyfriend, then I’m ready to give them to her.

Anything to get me back in the music scene again.

I wade back into the ocean, which looks cool and refreshing from the shore, but feels like warm bathwater. I submerge myself again, and then “burst forth”—a direct request for this special shot they want of each of us. I’m not sure if they’re hoping it’ll look like we swam all the way from LA for this, or like we’re emerging from some underwater Atlantean city full of celebrities ready for a comeback.

I pause, looking around the island as if I’ve never seen one before (and haven’t just been standing around here on the beach for the last hour, waiting for my turn), run a hand through my wet hair, and try to stand so the camera gets the best view of my newly-enhanced and now glistening ab definition.

I feel like a complete tool. But Square Jaw approves. “Great, man. Got it. You’re done.”

Thank god.

I can hear even more enthusiastic approval from the producer/cameraman team about twenty feet down the shore, finishing up with a similar shot of a tall, leggy blond girl who appears close to “bursting forth” from her tiny string bikini. On the boat ride from Trinidad to this deserted island where we’re shooting, I heard this girl—whose name I can’t remember—mention to Chad Montgomery that she’s a famous underwear model, but I’m pretty certain the thing that actually earned her the dubious fame for this show was the two seconds she dated A-list actor Blake Pless.

“All right,” Square Jaw (who seriously looks like a character from that Minecraft game I used to play with Jenna’s son, Ty) says to all the rest of the contestants. Most of them are standing around uncertainly, though some—particularly this really cute Asian girl in a neon green bikini and matching shorts—look downright excited to get started. “You’re all on your own now. Don’t speak directly to the cameras unless it’s for your aside interviews. Your first challenge will be tomorrow, and you’ll receive details on where to go for that later.”

“What about our luxury items?” This from Cece Martinez, the country singer. She’s an older Mexican-American woman, probably in her late fifties or early sixties, and she’s wearing a modest one-piece swimsuit and board shorts. I kind of hope Bobbi was right and that Cece brought a guitar too—I’d love to get a chance to do a duet with her. I’m not a big country music fan in general, but she’s a fantastic songwriter and a bit of a legend, and hell, I can do some country if that’s what gets me back in the industry.

Not that she’s a potential on-screen “relationship” to win back the love of my betrayed fans. Massive age difference aside, she’s both married and a lesbian, so I doubt I’d have much luck regardless.

Fortunately, I’ve got several other possibilities here.

“You’ll receive them soon, don’t worry,” Square Jaw assures us. “And tomorrow at the first challenge, you’ll finally get to meet Krissy Calhoun.”

There’s some general interest from the other contestants, though some of the bigger names here—Chad Montgomery, for one—don’t look overly impressed. Krissy Calhoun is our Jeff Probst for this show (I studied up on Survivor these last couple months, marathoning most of it while on the treadmill.) Although unlike Jeff, Krissy brings extra survivalist credentials to her role as host. Not only was she the wife of the late “Alligator Wrestler” Mack Calhoun, but she’s the star of her own survival-themed show, Wild Woman. Which sounds like porn, but trust me, it’s not.

One contestant’s big smile at this news, though, catches my eye—mostly because of how gorgeous that smile is. Another girl whose name I don’t know, but this one I definitely recognize. I may have watched her viral “sexy singing stewardess” airline commercial more times than I care to admit, like pretty much every other straight guy in America. She’s got dark brown hair and light brown skin, and a lean dancer’s figure.

She sees me looking at her and her smile drops a little, like she’s embarrassed to be caught. But she eyes me for a long moment before flicking her dark-eyed gaze back to Square Jaw.

Yep, some definite possibilities.

Square Jaw finishes reminding us for like the tenth time to ignore the cameras, which seems excessive even for a group of attention-starved celebrities desperate enough to be on a reality show. Then he and the other producers head off on the boat to wherever their little production base camp is, where they (and the cameramen who will rotate out) will actually have food to eat and a comfortable place to sleep.

Unlike the ten of us.

And looking around at the other “stars,” I have a sinking feeling that none of them have any more practical experience than I do at obtaining these things.

I go over to my small pile of personal belongings—basically a long-sleeved, light button-up shirt they didn’t want me wearing for the “bursting forth” shot, a pair of sneakers we were each advised to bring, and a small bottle of sunscreen (one of the very few luxuries we’re allowed—apparently they’re cool with us starving to death, but not with any unattractive farmer’s tans.) Nearby we have a crate with a few more things—a machete, some canteens, and a pot for cooking, should we ever figure out how to start a fire. The sun is sweltering overhead, and I’ve already been bitten by about a dozen of these tiny gnat-like bugs, so I put on my shirt to protect my arms, re-apply some of the sunscreen to my face, and survey the island for real this time.

It’s honestly beautiful. Aquamarine ocean laps up against golden sands, which end in lush green jungle vegetation about a dozen yards back from the beach. It reminds me of the weekend trip Jenna and I took to Costa Rica to celebrate the breakout success of the first AJ album.

Except then, we were lounging on the beach under a silk canopy and getting Mai Tais and shrimp cocktail brought to us by waiters, and we had plenty of bug spray and I had both a girlfriend (real, at that time) and a music industry reputation on the rise.

I can’t do shit about the bug spray, but the others—food, shelter, girl, and image—I can, and I might as well get started. I walk up to the closest group.

“. . . Not to mention more than a few awards for Soap Opera Digest’s ‘Hottest Medical Professional,’” a tall, dark-haired guy is saying. Ryan something, I think his name is. There are several people standing around listening to him, not to mention the camera and sound people we’re supposed to ignore, but he’s pretty directly focused on the blond underwear model—or at least the parts of her squeezing out of her bikini.

“Have you ever saved someone’s life?” the model asks, her blue eyes wide.

Ryan blinks. “Well . . . no. But my character Trevor Everlake has, many times.” He leans in closer. “He defused a bomb once, too—saved the whole pediatrics ward.”

“So cool,” the model gushes. “I bet you know lots of medical stuff from being on that show. You could probably be a doctor yourself!”

Good god. The producers of this show aren’t shattering stereotypes about lingerie models by casting this girl. I check her off my list of possibilities. There’s no way I’m a good enough actor to seem into that for long. Besides, no audience is going to find me super likable if I’m going for the hot but dumb underwear model.

An older woman standing next to them—Judge Liz, from that daytime courtroom show—snorts in disbelief. “He’s an actor, Melissa. On a soap opera.”

Ryan glares, but Melissa the model shakes her head. “When I dated Blake Pless—he’s also an actor,” she adds, completely unnecessarily, “he told me he learned how to do Morse code when he played some famous dead guy for a movie.”

“You mean Samuel Morse?” I can’t help but ask. Three of my sisters were obsessed with that movie, though really, they’re mostly just obsessed with Blake Pless. Melissa looks blankly at me.

Liz opens her mouth, perhaps to tell her that learning Morse code isn’t exactly the same as getting a medical degree, but Chad Montgomery steps in. “For my last V film, V Five, I trained with one of the world’s experts in Krav Maga. So it’s true that actors can learn a lot from their roles.”

If I wanted to be an asshole, I might ask him if consent was finally one of those things. But I don’t exactly want to alienate anybody this early on in the game—we’re going to be voting each other off, and if this show is going to make me likable again, I’ve got to be on it long enough for it to do so. And there’s also the million-dollar cash prize, I suppose, which I don’t exactly need, but could use to start my own damn production company, if it came to that.

But what I really want right now is to not dehydrate out here. “Hey, does anyone have any ideas about getting started on food and water? Maybe shelter?” I ask, and all the heads swivel towards me.

“Good idea,” Ryan says, nodding. “We’ll need to boil the water first, so we need fire.”

“Technically, we need to find water. Because we aren’t drinking salt water,” I say.

“Right. That’s what I meant,” Ryan says, though I’m one hundred percent positive he was planning on drinking boiled ocean water. “I’ll get started on the fire.” He squints into the jungle. “We just need a couple sticks, rub them together . . .” He leers at Melissa on this last part.

“I could do the fire, too,” Chad says, scratching at a bug bite on the top of his head, where he’s sporting a buzz-cut so short it looks like he’s about to start boot camp. Or one of his V films.

I have seen enough Survivor to know how hard it is to start a fire by rubbing sticks together, even for the most hardened Navy Seal. There’s no way a soap opera actor and the wannabe Jason Statham will be able to do this, but whatever. I’m not going to create a good first impression by arguing with these people.

Meanwhile, the cute Asian girl in the neon green bikini top has wandered over to our group, along with a broad-shouldered guy with spiky blond hair. They look almost comical next to each other, because she’s so petite—barely above five feet tall, I would guess—and he’s got to be at least 6’3”. But they both have big grins on their faces.

“Hey, guys,” the girl says.

I’m the only one that says “hey” back, because the other two guys are too busy posturing for Melissa, and Judge Liz just looks annoyed at them.

“I think we’re supposed to eat fish,” Melissa says, clearly thinking hard. “But I don’t know how to catch them.”

“I can get fish,” Chad jumps in. “I just need a sharpened pole. Like a spear. My character in V once—”

“We don’t have a pole,” I say. “Or a spear.” I’m starting to get a headache, and I doubt dehydration has already set in.

The big blond guy with the spiky hair folds his muscular arms across his chest. “Only the weak need a fishing pole,” he says, way louder than necessary. Does he think the mics aren’t picking us up at normal decibels?

“Really,” the green bikini girl says, lifting an eyebrow. “So how do the strong get a fish, Jason? Do they run out there and grab it?”

The spiky hair guy—Jason—shrugs. “Sure! Just watch!”

He takes off at a dead run into the ocean, and the girl laughs. One of the cameramen follows him. The rest of us just stare.

I’m not going to be accomplishing any of my goals with this particular group, and my ability to remain likable on camera is diminishing the longer I stand here. It’s time to start figuring out who I’m going to be cuddling up to. I look for the girl from the sexy stewardess commercial. She’s standing over by the jungle’s edge, talking with Cece Martinez and a short, older, black man named Fez Richards. Him I recognized right off the bat—he’s a celebrity pastry chef, and Jenna used to watch all his baking segments on TV. I’m pretty sure she also had like three of his cookbooks.

I would get a signature for her, but it’s not like there’s anything for him to sign with. Or sign at all, I suppose.

But the girl. She looks about my age, her long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail—a difference from the sharp, face-framing bob she had in the commercial. She’s got a maroon top that looks like one of those buffs the girls wear on Survivor, only without the tribe logo, and small tan shorts that show off her long legs. She’s got slightly darker skin than Cece, but not as dark as Fez. I’m not sure if she’s Hispanic or black or maybe Indian, but whatever her racial background, she’s gorgeous.

She’s laughing at something Cece says—she’s got a great laugh, too—but between how happy she looks to be talking to Cece and how happy she looked at the idea of meeting Krissy Calhoun, I can’t help but wonder if I’m not exactly her type.

“He’s going to be out there awhile, I think,” Green Bikini Girl says, shaking her head at where Jason is splashing around in the ocean. “But at least he’s happy. Like a big, happy puppy.”

I smile at her. She’s a good possibility. I don’t know anything about her, but I’m guessing she’s in her early twenties. She’s really cute, seems to have a good sense of humor, but has kind of a sweet, innocent look about her. I could see audiences finding her adorable.

Which means they might very well find me adorable with her.

“Hey,” I say to her. “You want to go see if we can forage anything from the jungle? I think we might have more luck finding something there than anyone’s going to have fishing bare-handed.”

She grins up at me. “Sounds great.” We peel away from the larger group, and one of the cameramen tags along with.

“I’m Alec Andreas,” I say.

“You’re a musician, right? You were in AJ? You’re the A?”

“Lots of people certainly think so,” I say, and she raises an eyebrow at me. “But yeah. That’s me.”

“Awesome! My sister Lan was a huge fan of yours,” she says.

I can’t help but notice the “was” in that statement. “That’s nice to—”

“She’s twelve,” the girl continues, perfectly happily, like it’s just a fact and not an insult.

“Okay.” I am starting to have regrets, and we’ve only barely reached the edge of the vegetation.

“I’m Su-Lin Liu, by the way,” she says, pushing aside a big green frond that swings back and slaps me in the chest. “Definitely not a musician, though I do like music.” She laughs. “Dumb thing to say, right? Who doesn’t?”

I don’t answer, but an answer clearly wasn’t what she was looking for anyway.

“I’m a YouTuber, actually,” she continues. “Sock puppets. I did The Real Sockwives of Los Angeles. It’s a reality show parody, like—”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of it.” This does manage to impress me a little. My old bandmates Leo and Roxie were super into that show a couple years ago, quoting from it and then dying laughing. The idea of watching a sock puppet show, even an apparently funny one, makes me want to gouge my eyes out, but it seemed to have a lot of reach. “Are you still doing new episodes?”

“Nope. I’m between projects,” she says.

“Yeah, I think that’s pretty much all of us.”

She grins. Clearly she’s less bitter about this fact than I am. “So what kind of food are we looking for?”

I open my mouth to answer, but she keeps talking, practically bouncing as we walk through the pressing vegetation. “Probably whatever won’t kill us, right? Speaking of food, you know what you remind me of? Cheeseburger Lo Mein.”

I blink at her. “Um—”

“It’s a dish at this crazy restaurant I used to work at, Fong’s All-American. I think of everyone as having a spirit dish there, you know? I can usually tell within a few minutes of meeting someone. That’s definitely yours. Jason’s is the Mountain Dew Chicken, obviously, and—”

She chatters on at length about this random restaurant and its weird-ass food, barely taking a breath. With my growing annoyance at her perky, nonstop voice, and the even more sweltering humidity in the jungle, and the knowledge that my best chance for eating today lies in the hands of some oaf trying to grab fish out of the ocean, I’m hating Bobbi for ever suggesting this, and myself even more for agreeing to it.

And it’s only the beginning of day one.

“Hey, look, there are coconuts up there,” I say, cutting into her bubbly monologue about . . . the best kinds of felt for sock puppetry? She stops and looks up at the tall palm tree I’m pointing at. “I could probably boost you on my shoulders, and if you just climbed up a little farther—”

“Oh, hell no,” she says. “I don’t do heights.” Like everything else she says, though, she sounds happy about it. Even despite the fact that her face is flushed red with the heat and her black hair is stuck to her face with sweat.

“We could throw something up there, try to knock them down.” I look around, then pick up a rock and a stick.

“That sounds super fun!”

“Does it?” I say, way more sourly than I should. I’m already finding it easy to forget the camera trained on me. I toss the stick up and miss.

She picks up a rotten coconut and chucks it into the tree, missing by a mile, but laughs. “Hey, we should go back and organize some beach games! That could be amazing.”

“Not dying of dehydration will also be amazing.” I lob the rock up there. That toss also goes wide.

But Su-Lin has already dropped the next rotten coconut she picked up. “Eh,” she says, like the idea of actual survival bores her. “We could do like a coconut mini-golf course. Or coconut soccer! I wonder if these things would split when they’re kicked, though. But if we—” She stops and her eyes go wide. “Ooh, hey, are those mushrooms? I bet we could eat those! There was this dish at Fong’s that—”

And that’s when I decide I can’t take it anymore, and turn and head back. She doesn’t seem to notice, too busy talking at a patch of something that might be mushrooms, but most likely is not edible. The cameraman seems torn between which of us to go with, but stays with her.

Probably that’s better. I don’t need them to get a shot of me trying to hang myself on one of these vines. I suppose I should be glad that Su-Lin doesn’t seem any more interested in me than I am in her—I don’t need to be seen as a player or a heart-breaker—but the truth is, I’m not particularly concerned that anyone on this island is going to develop real feelings for me. Sure, I’ve been with my share of groupies since Jenna and I broke up, but once you’ve achieved a certain level of celebrity status, dating becomes transactional. Every dubious relationship I’ve had in the last year has been about trading sex for status—and there’s no shortage of women who want to sleep with a pop star, even one everyone hates.

I might be concerned about what this means for my future actual relationship prospects if I weren’t so much more concerned about my failing career.

These thoughts do nothing to improve my mood when I emerge from the jungle onto the beach, my shirt and shorts plastered to my body with sweat. There’s some excitement from the others, though—the big guy, Jason, apparently found a mud crab, which is currently attached to his finger. He’s swinging it around, alternately swearing and laughing. Loudly.

“Hit it with a rock!” Ryan offers from where he’s crouching with a couple of sticks. He finds one and tosses it to Jason, who proceeds to gleefully smash the living hell out of the crab. Then he detaches the claw from his finger, and a long trail of blood drips down onto the sand.

Cece looks a little woozy; next to her, the sexy stewardess just looks amused.

“How are we going to cook it?” the stewardess girl asks. “Did those sticks work out for you yet, Ryan?” It’s clear from her tone she has as much faith in his fire-making skills as I do.

“You know,” Melissa says to the group at large. “Raw fish is a delicacy in some parts of the world. It’s called sushi.”

Judge Liz groans and walks away. Jason grins up at Melissa. “Here you go!” he says, tossing her a chunk of crab, which she dodges with a shriek. It lands in the sand.

“Ryan,” she says, picking it up gingerly. “Do you want some?”

Ryan looks torn between his desire to do anything he can to get inside Melissa’s string-bikini bottoms and his desire to not eat raw crab of indeterminate safety, which is covered in sand and Jason’s blood. “Sure,” he says, after a long pause, and pops the small chunk in his mouth.

The rest of us stare. Sexy Stewardess wrinkles her nose, and Fez the chef makes a gagging noise.

“Hey, Alec,” one of the cameramen says. He taps an earpiece he’s wearing. “Producer says it’s time for your aside.” He motions me over to a spot out of listening distance from the others. “So, day one,” he says, keeping the camera trained on me. “You got any thoughts about your castmates?”

Oh, I’ve got thoughts, all right.

The challenge is going to be keeping them to myself.

Three

Alec

By the time I get back from my interview with the producers, I’m pretty sure my plan isn’t going to work. There may not be a girl on this island who is straight, available, and a person I can listen to for more than thirty seconds without wanting to jam a pointed stick in my ear.

Given how few people in the world fit all of those qualifications, I guess I should have anticipated that. Maybe I should just fake a life-threatening injury and go home. I wonder if fake-doctor Ryan knows how I could best pretend to be dying.

Back on the beach, Jason is digging in the sand, presumably for more crabs to feed to Ryan, while Ryan and Chad are gathered around Melissa. Fez, Liz, and Cece are huddled, discussing something, and Sexy Stewardess is standing back, taking it all in.

This is my opportunity to feel that situation out, so I wander over, trying to look casual and probably failing.

“Hey,” she says. “You’re Alec, right?”

She knows who I am, which I once would have thought was a good thing. I manage a smile. “Yeah. And you are . . .”

“Jillian. Did you just abandon that girl in the woods?”

I look over my shoulder. “I was called away for an interview. Is she not back yet?”

“No,” Jillian says. “Maybe she got lost.”

I’m betting high on mushrooms, but I decide not to say that.

“Did you have any luck finding food?” she asks.

“No,” I say. “There are coconuts in one of the trees, but they were pretty far up there.”

Jillian smiles at me. She has an even better smile up close, and I sure wouldn’t mind looking at it for the rest of our time on the island. “Not planning on climbing the tree to get them?”

I would probably break my neck. I tilt my head towards Jason, whose hole in the sand is getting so large, I wonder if he’s trying to tunnel off the island. Not that I would blame him. “I was thinking about aiming Mr. Excited over there in that direction.”

“Ah,” Jillian says. “That sounds like a good plan.”

No time like the present. “Hey, Jason!” I shout, pointing into the woods. “There are some trees with coconuts back there. Think you can get them?”

“Sweet!” Jason shouts back, and runs off through the woods.

If Su-Lin is out there hallucinating on mushrooms, I wonder if Jason will even notice.

I turn back to Jillian and catch her checking out my chest through my unbuttoned shirt. I smile and check her out right back. She’s got a great body—I know from the commercial she’s a kick-ass dancer, so that’s no surprise. She smiles at me like she notices and appreciates this.

Maybe I am her type, after all. I start to feel a little flicker of hope.

I nod toward Cece’s little council. She, Fez, and Liz clearly represent the older generation in our dysfunctional island family, and I wonder if they’re banding together already. Setting aside finding someone to flirt and be generally attractive with, I’m going to need to find some allies fast if I want to stay on this island long enough for anyone to develop any kind of opinion of me at all.

“I hope that’s the brain trust over there,” I say. “Because I don’t want to try surviving off raw crab.”

“Aw,” Jillian says. “But in some cultures it’s a delicacy. Ever heard of sushi?”

We exchange a look, and I’m grinning widely. Jillian clearly feels the same way as I do about these people. She’s just not wearing it plainly enough on her face to get called off to do an aside. Yet.

“So I watched a lot of Survivor to prepare for this,” I say.

“Did you really?”

“Yeah. And as far as I could tell no one ever started a fire with a couple of sticks.”

Jillian raises an eyebrow. “You don’t think you could start a fire with your wood?” She says this with such an exaggerated tone, it’s clear she’s both making the innuendo and mocking it at the same time.

I laugh. “Not a fire you want near your drinking water.”

Jillian smiles. Yeah, she’s definitely into this, and surprisingly, so am I.

"Actually," Jillian says, "they eventually did figure out how to start fire with sticks on Survivor. Rob Mariano did it, his third time playing."

Huh. I'm now familiar with Rob and his genuinely adorable wife Amber, but I didn't make it through quite enough seasons to get there.

"I don't think either of us is Boston Rob," I say.

Jillian smiles. "Good point."

“If we don’t have fire,” I continue, “then we can’t get water. But I don’t see that happening any time soon. So we’re probably better off building a shelter and hoping they decide to give us a flint at the first challenge, or with our luxury items.”

Jillian nods. “Agreed. So we’ll need some branches, and maybe some vines to tie them together?”

“Possibly.” I eye the trees back towards the jungle. “And probably a bunch of palm fronds to thatch the thing.”

“Palm fronds,” Jillian says. “Very technical.”

I shrug. “They remind me of church growing up. They’d give them to us to wave around on Palm Sunday, but I’d mostly use mine to slap my sisters in the face.”

Jillian looks surprised. “Church boy. I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“My family is Greek Orthodox,” I say. “But now I’m a heathen. At least according to my mom. She’s always worried about me with my rockstar lifestyle, which I think she somehow imagines is all cocaine and prostitutes, even though the best years of my career were in a committed relationship.”

“Ah,” Jillian says. “So she was only right about the cocaine.”

“AJ had mandatory drug testing, actually. I don’t even smoke pot. But I’m also not moving back to Michigan and marrying a nice Greek girl who’ll pop out a dozen kids, so there’s no convincing my mom of that.”

There are two cameras eagerly glued to us as we talk, and I’m not sure if talking about my family like this is making me more or less sympathetic. My whole family is going to watch it, for sure, but I’m not sure I can lower their opinion of me more than I already have by not coming home much since I’ve been out in LA.

“So the shelter,” I say, not particularly inclined to think about them right now. Besides, it appears that if this group doesn’t get some actual work started, we’re not only going to be without water, but we’re going to be sleeping right on the sand, which I imagine feels far less charming than it sounds—especially if it rains. “We could try to enlist help from the brain trust. I don’t think those guys—” I indicate to Ryan and Chad “—are going to be much use.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Jillian says, a mischievous look in her eyes. “Watch and learn. Hey, Melissa!”

I expect Melissa to be annoyed that Jillian is calling her away from the adoring attentions of Chad and Ryan, but she hops up and trots over like a happy poodle.

“Hey!” Melissa says. “You’re Alec, right? And Jillian.”

“Right,” Jillian says. “We were just thinking about trying to build a shelter, since none of us want to sleep out in the open. What do you think?”

“I think that’s a great idea.” Melissa says. “I don’t think the sand is going to be great for my skin. I mean, I’ve done treatments that have sand in them before, but they’re always mixed with something else, like organic oatmeal.” She pauses. “Do you think this sand is organic?”

My mouth hangs open, but Jillian somehow smothers her smile. “I don’t know,” she says. “We’d probably be better off in a shelter, anyway. Do you think you could get Chad and Ryan to help us get some wood?”

Melissa turns and looks back at Chad and Ryan who are sitting uselessly in the sand. “Oh, yeah, totally.” Melissa lowers her voice conspiratorially. “I think maybe I could make a wood joke.”

I decide not to point out to Jillian that she and Melissa apparently have the same taste in suggestive phrases.

“Great idea,” Jillian tells her, and Melissa bounds happily back over to Chad and Ryan, and puts her hands on her hips. Chad and Ryan watch raptly as she issues her challenge, then hurry off towards the jungle as if in a race to see who can fulfill Melissa’s wood-related wishes first.

I grin over at Jillian. “Good call.”

She grins back, and I feel warm all over in ways that have nothing to do with the sun beating down.

“All right,” I say, forcing myself to focus on the immediate task at hand. I look over to Cece and the others. Everyone knows leaders get voted off these shows first, since no one likes to be bossed around. Better to be the worker bee everyone feels they can’t live without. “We’re going to go find some palm fronds for the shelter,” I call to them. “You guys want to pick out a place where it won’t get washed away?”

Cece and Fez both nod and start scanning the beach. Judge Liz just stands there with a sour look on her face.

I guess I’m not winning any points there.

I tromp back into the jungle, and Jillian follows. I wish we’d gone the other way around so I could check her out while we walk, but when I look over my shoulder I catch her eyeing my ass.

Can’t say I mind that.

A loud, strangled yell echoes out of the trees, and I wonder for a moment if there’s a territorial gorilla nearby. They gave us a run-down of all the animals we’re allowed to kill and eat and the ones we aren’t, based on species protection laws and the network’s tolerance for pissing off animal rights groups. Gorillas weren’t mentioned, but if there are any on this island, I’m guessing they’d be on the second list.

Then I spot it. It’s Jason, and he’s got his legs wrapped tight around the trunk of a palm tree, a good twenty feet off the ground. And he’s bellowing and beating his chest like he’s George of the Jungle.

That makes more sense. He reaches up for a few coconuts and tosses them out of the tree. As we get closer, I see Su-Lin catching them and lining them up to make smiley faces in the dirt.

I guess she found someone who wants to play beach games with her, after all.

“Dude!” I yell to Jason. “How did you get up there?”

He looks down at me. “I climb shit,” he says.

“He does,” Su-Lin says brightly. “He has a YouTube show about it. It's called Jason Climbs Shit.”

I blink. “All right, then.”

Jason leans precariously away from the trunk with both hands, holding on with nothing but his thighs and his ankles. I step back, and Jillian winces.

“He’s going to break his head,” Jillian says.

“No, I can reach this one,” Jason shouts back. He yells like we’re a mile away, instead of several yards, and I’m beginning to think this is just his regular voice.

He does, in fact, reach the coconut, and one just beyond it as well. “Catch!” Jason says, preparing to toss it down to Su-Lin.

“Let Alec get this one,” Su-Lin says. “I’ve touched enough of your coconuts.”

Jillian snickers, and I catch the first coconut and miss the other, which lands on a rock in front of me. As I pick it up some of the juice drains from a four-inch crack, and I lift it to my mouth, drinking some of it, and then offering it to Jillian. I don’t want to be the asshole who monopolizes what is now our only source of water and nourishment, but from the look of the piles Jason and Su-Lin have collected, there’s plenty for everyone.

Jillian takes a long drink and passes the coconut back to me, while Jason shimmies out of the tree. Neither of them seem to mind, so I take a second drink. Su-Lin starts piling Jason’s long arms full of coconuts, and then picks up a couple broken shells herself, which she’s piled high with mushrooms.

I guess she’s planning to give all of us some freaky trip—and possibly an airlift to the closest emergency room. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to eat random mushrooms,” I say.

Su-Lin’s perpetual smile turns down very slightly. “They aren’t random. I did research about what you can eat out here, and these are Trinidad oyster mushrooms. They’re fine.”

Jason juggles an improbable number of coconuts, and he and Su-Lin head off to the beach.

“I still think I’m going to let someone else try the mushrooms first,” I say.

“All right, Choir Boy,” Jillian returns.

I laugh. I didn’t exactly mean to represent myself that way. I’m no saint, that’s for sure. But my past is still cleaner than what everyone assumes about me.

Jillian and I make several trips out to the beach with arms full of palm fronds. There are a couple times I want to offer to help Jillian, but she’s easily as capable as I am, balancing on roots and stones and carrying mountains of palm leaves almost as big as she is. After our fourth load we’re both drenched in sweat, but Fez, Liz, and Cece have picked a spot up under the trees, and I can’t see any evidence that the tide washes up that high or that we’re in the middle of any dry creek beds—both mistakes I’ve seen made on TV.

So we go to work on the shelter. The sun is sinking low in the sky, and Su-Lin and Jason chase each other up and down the beach more than they help, but they do bring in a whole mountain of coconuts, which Fez takes to cracking and handing around while he lectures everyone on the finer points of the differences between coconut milk and coconut juice. Between the rest of us, we manage to get a pretty good lean-to going, with a bed of palm material nestled underneath. The sky grows dark and stars begin to appear, and we’re all a little freaked out by a loud barking roar from the jungle, until Cece tells us it’s just the howler monkeys. Those suckers may look cute in pictures, but they sound like the screams of the damned, especially as other monkeys chime in.

God, I hope they don’t plan on doing that all night.

Soon after everyone piles into the shelter, I realize we’ve drastically underestimated the amount of space it takes to sleep ten adults. Even with Ryan and Chad happy to squish Melissa up between them, there’s barely an arms-width of space left for Jillian and me on the end, where Ryan and Melissa are making noises more satisfied than I imagine are justified given the comfort of the shelter.

“So,” I say to Jillian. “Did we build a shelter, or an orgy hut?”

“Pretty sure it’s an orgy hut,” Jillian says.

I nod. “Should have thought of that a few hours ago.”

Jillian sits down in the sand. “I think I’m going to give them a few minutes to get settled. And maybe we can build an addition tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a solid plan.” I settle down beside her. The roar of the ocean almost drowns out the noises from the hut, though not those damn monkeys, still intermittently screaming into the night. And then Jason joins them, yelling about who farted. “Sounding better and better all the time.”

Jillian smiles and wraps her arms around herself, rubbing her shoulders, which, like the rest of ours, are covered in bug bites. Despite the heat of the day, the breeze off the ocean is growing colder now, and I wonder how chilly the night is going to be. None of us have anything except the clothes we’re wearing.

I consider putting an arm around Jillian, but think better of it. She was flirting with me earlier, but while we’ve been working, she hasn’t made much indication that she’d welcome any advances. The last thing I want is to be caught getting rejected by a girl on national television.

Even as it’s getting darker, it’s impossible to miss the camera guy crouching not far off in the sand. At least he’s not shining some spotlight on us, which means they have some sort of night-filming capabilities.

“So make a bet with me,” I say. “Which moment from today is going to be most widely made into a meme and passed around the internet?”

“Hmm. I’m tempted to say your face when Ryan ate the crab.”

I laugh. “Mine? I thought Fez won that one by a long shot.” I’m pleased she was watching me, though. Further indications she’s interested. Or maybe just gathering information, the way I’m positive she’s been doing all day long.

“Nope. Fez was good, but yours was better.”

“I’ve had worse images go viral.”

Jillian giggles, so I know she’s seen the footage of Felix shoving me off the stage at the VMAs. Along with the rest of the internet-connected world. “Yeah, well,” she says, “I know what it’s like to have unflattering memes passed around about you.”

“I guess you would.”

“So you did recognize me.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I did right away. No one can forget the sexy singing stewardess.”

She groans. “I was so excited when I landed that commercial, even though I knew it set feminism back forty years. But I was the star, you know? If I’d had any clue it was going to be that big—” She shakes her head. “And it’s not like my previous commercial work as Dancer Number Three for Tornado Rush energy drinks left me much to fall back on.”

“You have a hard time getting roles now?” I ask. Not that I want her career to be suffering, but misery does love company.

“Yeah,” she says. “I come with baggage attached, no pun intended. And that was even before the airline went under for failing to follow safety protocol . . .”

“It could be worse. Have you seen the gif someone made where they forward and reverse my fall from that stage into Kanye’s lap so it looks like I’m giving him a blow job?”

“I have,” Jillian says. “Have you seen the Bad Lip Reading ripoff where I’m singing a catchy ditty about how good I am at giving blow jobs?”

“I haven’t. Where is Google when you need it?”

“It’s for the best. Trust me. If you think the original song was an earworm . . .”

Jillian smiles at me, and I smile back. I can tell this stuff really bothers her, which I get, but I also like that she can still have a sense of humor about it.

Then again, I probably sound like I have a sense of humor about the Kanye thing, which I most definitely don’t.

“So is that why you’re here?” I ask. “To get known for something else?”

“That’s part of it. What about you?”

“Yeah,” I say. I need to be careful not to spill the whole story for the cameras, and also not to say anything that makes me sound like a total douche. These are both harder tasks for me than I’m comfortable admitting. “There are some things I sure wish I’d done differently.”

“Like announcing on stage at the VMAs that you and Jenna were married, when she was actually in a relationship with someone else?”

Her directness takes me by surprise a bit, but despite the topic, I actually like it. I can be pretty direct myself.

“Yeah,” I say. “That. To be fair, though, I had no idea they were going to get married and be so happy together. They’d known each other a couple of weeks. I thought Jenna was being a total idiot throwing her career away for Felix.” When I look back at it, I get that I should have let Jenna make her own choice. Mostly, anyway. But I still don’t think I can have been expected to believe they were going to be together forever when they’d known each other for such a short time.

“It’s all hindsight, you know?” I continue. “I don’t really believe in love at first sight, but I know it’s happened at least once in ever, because it definitely happened to them. If I had realized that at the time, I would have made some different decisions.”

“But the lie you told when you broke up,” Jillian says, “when you decided to pretend to be together. You don’t regret that?”

Damn. I remembered to be on my guard when the producers were grilling me, but I’m unprepared for that one. There are a million reporters who would love to get me to answer that question.

If I dodge now, though, there’s no way the camera will miss it, and I doubt Jillian will, either. “I regret it because of how many people got hurt,” I say. “But at the time, from my perspective, keeping the band going was the best thing for everyone. I don’t think people really understand what it feels like to watch your career trajectory take off like that, and to have to make a decision that could ruin everything. It’s what every musician dreams of, and the idea of letting a personal issue sabotage it all—it would take a better person than me to see in the moment that telling the lie was the wrong choice, that’s for sure.”

Jillian considers this and then nods. “That makes sense. When you want something that bad and it's handed to you, it's hard to say no.” One side of her mouth tugs up. “Even if it means being a singing stewardess.”

“I hope this show helps you.”

“You, too.” Jillian scratches at one of the bug bites on her leg. “What are you looking to get out of it? Just a different kind of press?”

“Pretty much.” I glance over at the shelter, where the noise has died down, though now there’s not an inch of room left for us. “But it’s not going to be as hard as I thought to be one of the likable ones.” I cringe. “Great. Now that I’ve said that, they’re going to run it in every ad and make me look like an asshole.”

“I don't know,” Jillian says. Her dark eyes study me. “I can definitely see you being one of the likable ones.”

I like that she thinks that, maybe more than I should. I’m kind of startled to discover that I actually care what she thinks about me, which is more than I can say for most people. But Jillian seems observant, like she cuts through the bullshit most people present and sees right into their core.

I like that, and it makes me a little nervous, too.

“They obviously cast us all into a role, right?” I say. “We have the hot dudes and the hot girl they’re all macking on—congratulations on dodging that role, by the way. There’s the overly-peppy girl and the token older people. And I’m clearly supposed to be the villain.”

“Who does that make me, then?” Jillian asks.

“You’re the smart girl who has it all figured out, but who’s so hot that everyone underestimates her.”

Jillian smiles at this, and I’m pretty pleased with myself. It’s easy to flirt with her like this, telling her how gorgeous and competent she is. Just like it was with Jenna after the breakup—hardly like a lie at all. And I definitely don’t have to pretend about how much I’d love to spend quality time with Jillian in my bed.

Not that there’s a real bed around here for miles and miles.

“I think I’m the token cabaret singer,” Jillian says. “They want me to sing that damn jingle, but I never will.”

“I have a guitar coming,” I say. “I could play it.”

“I bet you could. You could make it into a duet. You’re good at those.”

Jenna wrote most of our stuff, but I was sure as hell good at singing them. We look out at the sea for a while, at the stars reflecting across the ocean. And despite the bugs and the sand that has wedged itself into crevices I don’t want to think about and the stale sweat on my skin, this whole thing is a little bit romantic.

I look over at Jillian, admiring what I can see of her profile in the starlight. I hope the cameras are getting this—watching me watch her.

This is exactly what Bobbi was talking about. It’s not even a little bit difficult to act like I want her.

“What do you think we should do for tonight?” I ask. “Interested in wedging yourself between Ryan and Melissa?”

“God, no. I’m thinking maybe grabbing some of those extra palm fronds for a mattress, and maybe a few more for a blanket.”

“Good plan. But they have body heat in there.”

“You’re welcome to join them,” Jillian says. “They have a lot of things in there. Melissa especially seemed excited about the crabs.”

I laugh. We were all medically screened before we could come out here, though I wouldn’t put it past Chad to have contracted crabs in the meantime.

I’m trying to think of a good way to ask Jillian to curl up in my arms and sleep against me. I’m not specifically looking to put moves on her—yet, anyway—just to spend some quality cuddling time with the hottest, coolest girl on the island. If I don’t freeze my ass off tonight, that’s icing.

“There is no delicate way to ask this,” I decide finally.

“Then don’t try,” Jillian says, with a little shrug.

I’m quiet for another minute, and she turns toward me. Her knee brushes mine, and I almost reach down and put my hand right there on her smooth skin.

“Are you still trying to be delicate?” she asks.

“No. Now I’m trying to decide if I should ask at all, or just be cold.”

Jillian looks up at me. The stars catch in her eyes, and she’s inches away. “You want to huddle together for warmth.”

“I do,” I say.

Jillian doesn’t take her eyes off of mine, and my breath catches. For a half-second, I think she’s going to kiss me.

Then she looks away, out at the ocean. “In the interest of survival.”

I nod. “Absolutely. It’s only survival I’m thinking of.”

The monkey howls have pretty much stopped by this point, thankfully. We drag a pile of palm material over next to the shelter, so it will at least block the wind, and try to assemble it over ourselves. I’m not sure how much that helps, with the gaps between the leaves, but Jillian curls right into me, fitting as natural as anything into my arms. Her head rests on my chest, and her skin is soft and smooth against mine, and while the sand and the leaves are uncomfortable as hell, my whole body feels like it’s at peace. I hope the cameras are watching this. I hope they see that she likes me, that a girl as gorgeous and confident and smart as Jillian thinks I’m worth cuddling up to.

And from the way her heart beats against my chest, I’m pretty sure she’s not the only one thinking of more than survival.

Four

Jillian

I wake up snuggled closely against Alec Andreas’s chest, his arm tight around me and his hand resting on the skin of my waist, while we lie on a bed of palm leaves and sand, and I have this surreal moment of how did I get here?

At first, that thought has a dreamy quality to it, as my mind trails lazily over the night before—over the way those sky-blue eyes of his crinkle at the sides when he smiles. Over how easy it was to talk with him, to laugh with him, to curl up under the crook of his arm. Over how strangely safe I felt in his arms, falling asleep to the sound of the ocean and his deep, even breathing.

I close my eyes again, listening to those sounds.

Then I hear the scream of another of those damn howler monkeys out in the jungle, which sounds more like some demonic bear than a cute little monkey. I shift, and my shoulder and hip flare in pain from the hard-packed ridges of sand beneath me, and the bug bites along my arms and legs start itching. I notice my hair is starting to frizz out from the humidity even more violently than it had yesterday and will need to be restrained with some of the extra hair bands I put in my hair for exactly this reason. There’s another monkey roar and a loud sawmill-snoring coming from one of the celebrities in the shelter, and that first waking thought suddenly seems a good deal less positive.

How did I get here?

I sit up, and startle at seeing a cameraman a few feet away, camera pointed straight at us. Of course. There’s no way they’re not getting a shot of Alec and I all tangled up like this. I’m not used to having a camera shoved in my face first thing in the morning. I’m also not used to waking up in the arms of some guy I barely know.

A really hot guy I barely know, and cuddled to sleep with.

And I enjoyed the hell out of it.

Well, I said I wanted to be known for anything other than that damn commercial. This is definitely something else.

“Good morning,” Alec says, squinting up at me. His dark hair is pressed against one side of his face, curling a bit in the humidity. It’s a little goofy-looking and adorable.

I open my mouth to respond, but then there’s a squeal from inside the shelter—Melissa, I’m guessing. “Oh my god, it’s huge!”

A giggle sounds—Su-Lin, clearly—and then Cece drawls, “Good lord, girl, it’s just a spider.”

“That’s not what Ryan was hoping she was talking about,” Su-Lin says, giggling some more.

“Could you all kindly shut up? Some of us are trying to sleep.” That’s Fez, who’s apparently not as friendly this early in the morning, when packed into a tiny hut with all those people—not that I blame him.

“Tell that to the monkeys, man,” Ryan says.

I look back at Alec, who is covering his face with his palm.

“Is it?” I ask. “A good morning?”

He laughs, then takes his palm away and sits up. He shrugs, then gives me a side-eyed smile that, dammit, makes my heart beat a little faster. “It’s got its advantages,” he says.

“Would someone roll Chad over?” Judge Liz grouses. “I can’t handle any more of that snoring.”

Interesting. From the sheer volume, I would have guessed it was Jason.

Alec groans. “And it’s got some disadvantages.” He tilts his head toward the shelter, and I grin at him.

“Sad to have missed out on being in the orgy hut?” I ask.

“Not even a little.”

I’m not, either. I rub my arms, scratching at a bug bite, trying to keep my eyes off of Alec’s exposed—and nicely toned—chest. He’s hot, absolutely. And smart, and funny, and has these great, soulful eyes . . .

But that’s not what I’m here for. Alliances, sure. To win, definitely.

Getting with a guy? Especially a guy made infamous for his dishonesty, on a show like this? Who is probably just feeding me lines to create a tight alliance and win the money?

Not so much.

Then again, no one said anything had to be serious. And I respect how direct he was when I asked him how he feels about the lie he and Jenna told—honestly, I don’t know that I would have done differently, had I been in that position. Celebs having fake relationships for publicity’s sake is a long and time-honored tradition.

I get it, wanting the career so badly, feeling like you’d be willing to do damn near anything. Such as going on a Survivor-like reality show with other, equally desperate celebrities. Though I still have a hard time considering myself a “celebrity,” I’d say “desperate” fits pretty well. Years and years of dance and vocal training, of auditions and call-backs and rejections, of putting relationships—boyfriends and even some friends—so far on the peripheral of my life that they often just faded off completely . . . And what am I going to be known forever for? Shaking my ass in a slinky Halloween-party-grade stewardess outfit.

So, yeah. I definitely understand desperate.

But really, I have no way to know if Alec was telling the truth, even about that. We’re all aware of the cameras watching, and someone like Alec is probably used to that.

People start exiting the shelter, and I stand up, not super inclined to get any knowing looks about Alec’s and my sleeping arrangement from the likes of, well, any of them. We all eat a sad breakfast of coconut juice, raw coconut chunks, and mushrooms—and not a lot of any of it, since there are ten of us, and Judge Liz has made a compelling argument for rationing.

The sky is overcast today, which makes the heat not nearly as stifling as yesterday, though I wonder if we’re going to get rain soon. Which means Alec and I will want to make sure we add that addition to the shelter—even if it costs us a little privacy.

Not that we really need privacy.

Probably.

Just as I’m about to suggest to Alec that we go gather some more building supplies, one of the cameramen tells me the producer wants an aside with me. Alec raises his eyebrow and grins—clearly he knows as well as I do what they’re going to ask.

And they do.

“So do you have anything to say about Alec Andreas?”

I pause. I’ve seen so, so many of these interview things over a lifetime of watching shows like this—particularly Survivor, my mom’s absolute favorite. It’s another one of those surreal moments that now it’s me here, expected to talk about my strategy and, of course, the others.

I think about my mom watching this later, seeing me on a clone of her favorite show, and it both makes me proud and forms a crack in my heart, all at once.

Because I have no idea if she’ll even know who I am anymore by then.

I push that thought aside and smile at the camera. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say he’s a really good-looking guy.” Understatement. “And he’s easy to talk to, and seems to be pretty capable, at least as far as this group is concerned.” I give a light laugh. “I think he’s a good one to stick with—for now, at least.”

The cameraman gives me a thumbs up, then asks a few more questions piped in from the producers through his earpiece. About the Melissa/Ryan/Chad dynamic—“It’s hilarious to watch, but the truth is, those guys will do what she wants them to, so I’m not above using that to my advantage.” About Cece—“She’s a legend. It’s so great getting to meet her.” About my strategy—“Pretty much just to play smart, play hard. And win, obviously.”

None of these answers make me sound brilliant, I’m sure, but I give my best charming smile and try to sell it. When the interview is over, he pulls Alec aside, no doubt to ask about me—and though I’m sure he’s saying something similar to what I said, I really wish I could hear it.

As the morning wears on, there’s a bitchy fight between Fez and Jason about Jason eating more than his share of coconuts—“Dude, I’m the one getting all the coconuts! You want to climb some trees?”—but everyone seems to more or less get along. And be more productive with less prompting than yesterday. I think the break in the oppressive heat is helping us all.

Liz, Fez, and Chad go looking for a water source we could actually drink from, once we have fire. Su-Lin and Jason go to hunt for more coconuts, and Melissa, Ryan, and Cece help Alec and me work on expanding the shelter. Without Chad around to compete with for Melissa’s attentions, Ryan is slightly less obnoxious. Though he does hit on both me and Cece—which, given that it’s pretty well known that Cece is a lesbian and married, I think outrageous flirting is just a reflex for him.

And while Ryan is, admittedly, a really hot guy himself, I’m way more attracted to Alec—and not just because Ryan’s version of flirting seems to always involve bragging about his character’s exploits, running his hands obviously through his hair, and mugging for the camera.

Judging by the knowing look Alec gives me when Ryan tells me, voice dripping with innuendo, that I’m really good at working with “thick beams,” I think my preferences for who I’d rather be flirting with are pretty obvious.

Which isn’t a problem. It’s just flirting, after all. Part of how the game is played.

We’ve got the shelter addition about halfway up when Melissa decides to take a break to cool off and runs down to the water, with Ryan, of course, trailing after her. Cece mutters something about finding out what’s taking so long with the coconuts, and Alec and I are left sitting under the bare beams of the unthatched new part of the shelter. The light sharpens a bit as the clouds thin, and Alec shields his eyes. “So,” he says. “Do you often get complimented about your ability to work with thick beams?”

I laugh. “All the time. Clearly it’s one of my better qualities.”

“I don’t know,” Alec says. “Seems like you have a lot of those.”

He flashes me another of those dazzling smiles in return, and my pulse picks up.

Oh, boy. How much trouble am I in? That answer changes rapidly based on how much of Alec’s charm is sincere and how much is aimed at getting me to help him stay on the island and get closer to the money and not look like a total tool by getting voted off first.

There’s something I’m kind of dying to know, so I figure I might as well just ask. “Why did you and Jenna break up?”

Alec looks startled, like he didn’t expect this question. I know I’m not going to get the full answer. He won’t want to say anything to make himself look bad on TV, and even making her look bad would probably come back around to bite him. I find myself annoyed, not just that I’m having a hard time getting a feel for how honest he’s being—something I think I’m pretty good at in real life—but because I want to know the real answers, and with these cameras around, I might not ever be able to.

Yep. I’m in trouble. More all the time.

“You mean the first time,” Alec says. “The real time.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I mean, there must have been so much pressure not to, right? It would be easier to keep the band together if you didn’t have to pretend.”

“Yeah,” he says. “I thought that at the time. But it was becoming increasingly obvious that Jenna and I were making each other miserable. And I loved her, you know? I didn’t want her to be unhappy.”

“So it was her call,” I say.

“No,” Alec says. “I mean, it was mutual, but I started the conversation. I asked her if she was happy, and kind of called it all out into the open.” He smiles. “I’m good at that. Stating the obvious.”

Alec looks wistful enough that my chest hurts. The way he talks about it, I wonder if he’s not over her, which would make his whole situation much more painful.

And I don’t want to think about what that might mean for me. “Why’d you do that? If you loved her, and you wanted the band to stay together?”

“Because I didn’t love her like that, at least not anymore,” Alec says. “I was as miserable as she was. We just weren’t suited to each other. We made good bandmates and great friends, but as a couple, we kind of sucked.”

“You had all of America fooled,” I say, tracing my finger around in the mix of sand and dirt we’re sitting on.

Alec looks at me sadly. “Yeah, well. It wasn’t intentional. We fooled ourselves for a good long while.”

“And you didn’t think about sticking it out and making it work?”

Alec shrugs. I’m grilling him, but he doesn’t seem to mind. And while I know better than to trust it completely, all my instincts say he’s telling me the truth. At least most of it. “I guess I didn’t see the point. I wasn’t what she needed, and we weren’t happy together, and we weren’t married or anything. We loved the band, but we were making each other miserable. When we talked about it, we both felt so relieved. It seemed like it would be easier to break up and just be friends. And it was. Even still living together, the relief was immediate. Like when we didn’t have to pretend with each other or ask each other to meet needs that were never going to happen—it was easier to like each other, and easier to put on the public face.” He shrugs. “Ironic right? It was harder to lie about being happy with each other when we were actually together than it was to lie about being together when we weren’t.”

There’s this deep sadness in his voice as he talks, and I want to believe that it’s not all for the cameras, who are parked twenty feet away out on the sand. Everything he’s saying dovetails with the public story, and that’s part of why he’s here, right? It has to be. This is the guy who wrote that unfortunate single, what was it called? ‘Two Sides?’ And maybe he’s just a good actor—after all, he’s Alec Andreas, who pulled the wool over the eyes of the whole world for over a year, and no doubt he and Jenna have all sorts of signed NDAs dictating what he is and isn’t allowed to reveal about their relationship. But I want to believe him, and not just because his story tugs on my heart strings.

“Believe me,” Alec says. “I wish as much as anyone else that Jenna and I had turned out to be soul mates. It would have made things a lot easier. But we weren’t, and trying to make it happen wasn’t doing either of us any favors.”

There are so many things I still want to ask him, about how he feels about that now, about what needs he couldn’t fill for her, or her for him. About if he feels betrayed that Jenna found her supposed soul mate so quickly after.

But before I’m able to decide if it’s wise for either of us to get into that right now, we hear the motor of a boat in the distance.

This would be the news of the first challenge, and I find myself both irritated and relieved. I want to continue this conversation, but it’s probably not smart of me to do so, at least until I can get some better perspective. I have to win this game, and I can’t let Alec start spinning my head around or I’m going to be one of those stupid girls who gets played and voted off, the ones my mom and I mock and roll our eyes at.

I jump up and walk toward the boat, Alec at my side. I quicken my step to get just a little bit ahead of him. The competition is what I need to focus on. Game face, Jillian.

Time to bring it.

Five

Jillian

We join the others on the beach as a producer—a tall woman with thick, cat-eye glasses—steps off and makes her way across the sand.

“All right,” she says. “I have the cameramen calling in the rest of the contestants from in the jungle. It’s time for our first challenge, which will be held down the beach, around that bend.” She points to a spot where the beach curves around an outcropping of rocks. “Make sure your sneakers are on, and we’ll head out when everyone gets back.”

She stops to consult with one of the cameramen.

Alec drifts away to grab a drink of coconut juice before we head out, and Melissa sidles up next to me. “What kind of challenge do you think it’ll be?”

“I don’t know. On Survivor, they tend to have more physical challenges. Obstacle courses and stuff.” Even though it’s only day two, the thought of some big physical challenge makes me slightly miserable. Building a shelter isn’t exactly light work, and the little sips of coconut juice we’ve been getting don’t come close to the amount of fluid intake we need to keep doing stuff like this. Not to mention the lack of food.

I have to remind myself that I signed up for this. Willingly. Enthusiastically, even.

“I hope it’s walking,” she says. “I’m really good at that.”

I can’t help but look around to see if Alec is still close enough to hear this, but he’s over on the other side of the shelter, drinking his coconut juice and talking with Cece.

“I doubt it’ll just be walking,” I say.

Melissa laughs. “No, I don’t mean just walking. But, like, walking with balance. Like on a runway.”

I blink. “So you think the challenge will be walking a runway.”

It’s not the craziest idea, I suppose. One of the questions on the lengthy form we needed to fill out before the show was what song we would like to sing in the case of an American Idol-style singing competition, so clearly they aren’t going for all Survivor-specific challenges.

Though I doubt they’re going to start us off with that one, I’m really looking forward to getting to show off my musical chops—and not with some ridiculous commercial jingle.

She shrugs. “Runway walking is harder than it looks. I practiced walking with a backpack on for a week—like everywhere, even on dates!—just so I would be able to do it with those big feathery wings on for the fashion show.”

I have to hold in a laugh, imagining her wearing her practice backpack out to some fancy dinner with Blake Pless. “Well, then I hope it’s not walking a runway,” I say. “Because you’ll kick my ass.”

She beams at me. She’s not the smartest, but she seems legitimately sweet. And not the least bit inclined to view me as a threat—either with the guys vying for her, or in the game, which works in my favor.

I actually kind of like her, which makes me feel a bit bad about how much I can’t wait to relay this conversation to Alec.

Eventually, the others make their way out of the jungle, and the producer leads us on the walk to the first challenge. Alec falls into step next to me, and it’s nice how natural it feels, even if we aren’t saying anything. No one is, except Su-Lin, who is at the front of the pack, gabbing on to Fez and Jason about the challenges of editing sock puppet videos.

Whatever Alec’s intentions, it doesn’t hurt to have an ally here, at least for the moment.

As long as I remember that this is a game, for all of us.

As we get past the rocks—climbing over some of the smaller ones that jut out into the ocean—there’s a spot on the beach where there are two pedestals set up with a small dome-shaped thing on each of them. A button, it looks like, one you might slam down during a game show. In between the pedestals is a long table covered with a cloth that sticks up randomly—there’s definitely lots of stuff under that cloth. Food, maybe? My stomach growls at the thought.

Standing next to the table is a middle-aged woman wearing a pair of cargo pants and a leather vest over a tight white tank top, her blond hair tied back in a bun. I recognize her right away: Krissy Calhoun.

My mom is a huge fan of Krissy. I mean, Mom has always had a fascination with survival shows in general—which has led to my dad and I watching way more of these things than we ever would on our own—but she adored Mack and Krissy Calhoun. When Mack died, Mom even sent Krissy a sympathy card and donated a not-tiny amount to their wildlife fund.

When I first got picked for this, I still had doubts about whether I should do it. Whether being away from her and my dad for this long, at this time, was worth the sacrifice, even with the dubious chance it may help my career. But when I found out Krissy was going to be the host, I knew it was kismet.

Mom’s going to love seeing me on this show, standing next to Krissy. And she’ll remember that for a long time.

The thought of the big smile on her face brings a big smile to mine. Alec looks at me curiously, but I don’t try to hide it as much as before.

Krissy has a camera already trained on her as we approach, and she’s speaking into it, clearly setting up this segment. The camera turns, panning to our arrival, and another one further back is catching all of it at once.

“And here are our stars!” Krissy announces with a flourish. “Welcome to you all. Are you ready for your first challenge?” She barely waits for our answer, though Su-Lin claps and bounces excitedly (Ryan checking out her chest while she does so) and Jason lets out a loud whoop. “This challenge has some pretty great rewards—not the least of which is impunity for five of you, which means there will be five of you that are not in danger of going home at tomorrow’s Starvies Ceremony.”

I have to hold back a snort at the show’s choice of wording. Impunity. Not to mention the Starvies? Seriously?

Krissy reaches over and uncovers a large stick, topped with a goblet engraved with stars. “You’ll return to camp with this, the all-important impunity scepter.”

I look over at Alec, picturing him wandering around camp wielding the “impunity scepter,” like he’s the king of our Island of Misfit Celebrities, and I can’t help but giggle. He smiles back at me and shakes his head, like he knows exactly what I’m thinking.

“But there’s more. As a group reward, participation will earn you all . . .” She pauses dramatically. “A flint, so you can start a fire!”

Krissy holds up a rectangular metal object about the size of a pocket knife, and I can’t help but bounce up and down a little along with Su-Lin. The people on Survivor never get anything just for participation, but given that we’re “stars” who are out here for just over half as long as a taping of Survivor, they’re crunching the challenges down and giving us more for each one.

And it’s a bit difficult for them to give fire to some of us and not others, since we’re all living on the same beach.

“In addition,” Krissy says, giving us all a sympathetic look. “I know how it can be out in a place like this, without fire, with limited food. Even though it’s only been a day, I’m guessing you’re starting to get pretty hungry.”

She’s got that right.

“Well, the winning team of five will also get a meal. How does this look to you?” She pulls back the cloth from one side of the table, and there’s a plate with a thick, juicy hamburger and big golden fries on it.

My dry, dehydrated mouth starts to water at the sight.

“Is it organic?” Melissa asks, her eyes wide.

Krissy blinks. “Um, I don’t—probably?”

“Is it gluten-free?” Chad asks, his brow furrowing. “I’m supposed to be doing this keto thing—”

“Let’s get you all divided into teams,” Krissy says quickly. I’m guessing this is getting heavily edited later.

She makes a show of how our names are written on slips of paper, which she then draws at random. I end up on a team with Liz, Jason, Ryan, and Melissa. The other team is Alec, Su-Lin, Chad, Cece, and Fez. The groups are positioned to face each other, with one of the pedestals in front of each team.

“So as you’ve probably guessed,” Krissy says, “What we’re doing today is your basic quiz show. We’re going to see how well you’ve gotten to know your fellow stars over the past day. I’m going to ask each team a question about a member of the opposite team, and you’ll have fifteen seconds to answer correctly and gain a point for your team. Anyone on the team can answer the question. But here’s the twist.” She pauses for dramatic effect. “The person who answers correctly gets . . . their luxury item.”

Here she pulls back the cloth off the rest of the table, showing off a very random-looking assortment of items. There are two guitars, both in cases, which I’m guessing are Alec’s and Cece’s. There’s a soccer ball, a hardcover book with a glossy cover, a bright pink . . . ball of fabric, maybe? Under that is another book, a teddy bear, and a handful of other things. I see my item, a deck of Uno cards.

What can I say, I love Uno. And they specifically said we couldn’t bring anything actually beneficial for survival, so . . .

There’s some murmured excitement, and also some dismay (mostly from Melissa.)

“Does that mean that if we don’t get a question right, we don’t get our luxury item?” she asks.

“Correct,” Krissy says. “And if you answer incorrectly, your team does not get to try again on that question. Also, please note that you aren’t allowed to communicate as a team or work together in any way to get the answers.”

So they want us to compete against each other for our luxury items, even as we compete against the other team for all the rest. I personally don’t care a ton whether I get my cards, but I do care about that hamburger, and especially about staying on the show. Not that anyone’s Broadway career has been launched from a show like this, but if I’m going to be the first one—and give my mom something to really remember—I’ve got to at least get to the final three.

I need my team to win this.

Alec eyes me from across the way, and I give him my best “game on” face, which makes him grin.

“First question,” Krissy starts. She turns towards Alec’s team. “Ryan Lansing is a soap opera star on the show Passion Medical. What is the name of his character?”

Alec squints, like he thinks he might have heard it somewhere before, but Cece and Fez both dart forward. Cece hits the buzzer first. “Trevor Everlake,” she says proudly.

“Correct,” Krissy says, and Su-Lin cheers. Ryan winks at Cece from across the way, which Cece studiously ignores. “One point for your team, and Cece, why don’t you come claim your luxury item.”

Cece pumps her fist and goes to pick up the more batteredlooking of the two guitar cases.

“Next question,” Krissy says, turning towards us. “Fez Richards, celebrity chef, has created many incredible dishes. But which dish is praised by Oprah as ‘perfection on a plate?’”

I have no idea. I don’t watch cooking shows. Or cook, for that matter. I look over at my team, who appear equally stumped.

“Ten seconds,” Krissy says, and then Liz frowns and steps forward, hitting the buzzer.

“Blueberry pie,” Liz says crisply.

“Incorrect,” Krissy says, feigning sadness. “It was his signature mochaccino creme brûlée.”

Damn. Also, that sounds really good.

Alec gives me a raised-eyebrow look, kind of smug.

Also, kind of adorable. I give him a mock glare and shake my head.

“Back to you guys,” Krissy says to Alec’s team. “How many years has Liz Greer been on the air with her show, Judge Liz?”

Now that’s more like it. Something a little tough—

Su-Lin jumps forward and slams her hand down on the buzzer. “Twelve years!” she shouts.

Krissy grins at her. “Correct. Come get your luxury item.”

Dammit.

Su-Lin lets out a happy shriek, and even on our team, Jason claps on her behalf. Then she jogs over to pick up the neon pink fabric—which turns out to be a sock puppet, with big googly eyes and a head of long, feathery, baby-pink hair. She slips her hand into it.

“Well, hi there, y’all,” she says, in a Southern drawl, making the puppet’s mouth move. “Ruby Van Raspberry. Pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. Especially all you big hunks of gorgeous men over there.”

Jason and Fez laugh, and Cece looks amused. Alec looks a little horrified, and I can tell he’s realizing he’s going to have to be interacting with Su-Lin and her sock puppet persona from now on.

Now it’s me looking smug over at him. Even though we’re two points down.

“Looks like we’ve got another star joining us,” Krissy says with a smile, then turns back to us. “All right, guys. This one’s about Alec Andreas. Where was his first public singing performance?”

Alec gives me a challenging look, and my mind races. Crap. What do I know about the beginning of his career? Practically nothing. But first public performance wouldn’t have been at some big concert venue; bands always start out way smaller. A local club, or even a high school party . . . wait.

They didn’t say AJ’s first performance. They said Alec’s. And they specified singing performance.

Right, choir boy, I remember myself saying.

Ryan is starting forward, but I practically shove him out of the way, because whatever he guesses, it’s going to be wrong. I’ve got this.

I hit the buzzer. “At church,” I say, giving him a smirk. “Greek Orthodox church.”

“Correct,” Krissy says, and Melissa cheers behind me. Alec shakes his head, but he’s grinning.

I pick up my pack of Uno cards, and head back to the others. At least we’re on the board now.

“Melissa Weiss is a model,” Krissy says to Alec’s team. “But what company is she currently modeling for?”

This one seems like another softball question, but they all frown, looking at each other. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t have the chance to tell Alec about Melissa practicing with a backpack for her runway wings.

Finally, Fez steps forward and guesses wrong.

“Sorry,” Krissy says. “Valeria’s Angels is the correct answer.”

Alec and Chad both make hilariously identical shit how did I not know that faces.

“It’s still two to one,” Krissy says, looking back at us. “What was Su-Lin Liu’s first job?”

Jason steps forward, but surprisingly, Melissa darts past him and hits the buzzer. “She was a waitress at this place called Fong’s. A Fong’s waitress!”

“Correct,” Krissy says with a little laugh. “Though we would have accepted just ‘waitress.’”

Melissa squeals happily and runs to the table and picks up . . . the hardcover book. Which I would not have expected. She hugs it tightly to her chest and trots back over to us. Jason high-fives her, clearly not upset about being beaten.

I smile at her. “Nice.”

She shrugs, though she’s obviously proud to have scored for our team. “She told me my spirit dish was Cheesecake Chow Mein.”

Huh. Okay.

The next three questions—about Chad’s highest-grossing movie, the highest place Jason has climbed, and Cece’s first single—are all guessed wrong.

“Still tied at two-two,” Krissy says to Alec’s team, whose turn it is. “And this is the last question. Which means if you get this right, you win. If not, we’ll have a special tie-breaker round. This question is about Jillian Fall.”

I have a sinking sensation in my gut, afraid they might ask everyone’s favorite trivia question about me—about my ethnic origin, or as random people in the grocery store like to put it, “What are you?” I don’t love having to explain to strangers that my mom is white and my dad is black. And I also don’t love having to defend that yes, that means I’m black, too, after I get accused of not being so on account of having “good hair.”

I know people generally don’t mean to be offensive. But they do a really good job of it, anyway.

Krissy continues. “You all know her from a certain airline commercial—”

Of course they do, I think. But at least she doesn’t sound like she’s leaning toward pointing out that I’m a person who can’t classify their ethnicity by checking a single box.

“—but what was the first commercial she was in?”

This time it’s Alec jumping forward, hitting the buzzer. “Tornado Rush energy drink,” he says, looking straight at me.

I groan. I had to tell him about that stupid energy drink dance party commercial.

“That’s right,” Krissy says, but Alec’s already walking over to the table to grab his guitar case. The rest of the team jumps and laughs and hugs each other. Fez and Chad are both practically eye-banging the hamburger they’re about to eat.

Alec winks at me when he gets back to the others, and my pulse picks up, just a bit.

We lost, but like an idiot, I still find myself smiling.

Six

Alec

When my team and I return from the reward, most of the camp looks less than happy to see us. I can’t blame them. My stomach aches from stuffing it, and they’ve had nothing to eat or drink, though I’m happy to see they’ve got a pile of wood ready for fire-building. Once we get that going, we can stick the pot on top and get some water boiling.

We’ll all feel a lot better when there’s enough of that to go around.

Jillian bounds up to me and pulls me aside. “Okay,” she says. “I want to hear all about that meal. In the most sexual terms possible.”

I laugh. As much as I enjoy hearing her wanting anything sexual from me, even food descriptions, everyone knows describing a reward in every detail is the quickest way to become the most resented player on the island. Impunity or not, I’d like to avoid that. “I don’t know. I don’t want to tempt you like that. I can be pretty irresistible.”

She swats my arm. “I bet you can. Seriously, how was it?”

“About how you’d expect it to be,” I say.

She groans and rolls her eyes. “All right. Keep it to yourself. You earned it.”

“I don’t know,” I say. “You were carrying your weight for your team. Guessing that I started singing at church.”

Jillian grins at me. “Did you really do a lot singing at church?”

“Oh, yeah,” I say. “I was in the children’s choir.”

“I bet you got a lot of solos.”

“I did, actually. I think I was the favorite. My sisters were always jealous.”

“How many sisters do you have?” she asks.

Oh, god. So many. “I have six,” I say. “All older. And no brothers.”

“Ha,” Jillian says. “So you were the spoiled little princeling.”

“I was. And now all my sisters are married with kids, and it’s a complete zoo. I have twenty-one nieces and nephews.”

“Holy shit,” Jillian says. “I bet they all adore you.”

Jillian seems to have an inflated idea of how many people actually like me, but I’ll take it, both from the point of view of the camera, and from my own.

“What about you?” I ask. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“No, it’s just me and my parents. I mean, my dad has siblings, but they’re all still back in West Africa.”

“That’s where he’s from?”

“Yeah. He immigrated from Senegal for his work with an NGO. My mom was employed by the same company in DC, and he managed to convince her to go out with him, even though he barely spoke English, and she didn’t speak any French.”

“Have you been to Senegal?”

“Yeah,” she says. “A few times, but it’s been a while.”

“Do you do any work for your parents’ company?”

She shrugs. “Not really. I’m more on the musical theater track. But hopefully someday I can get famous enough to actually use those skills to help out, maybe draw more attention to their causes.”

“I could see it.”

Jillian elbows me. “Right. From everything you know about my skills based on that commercial.”

“Hey,” I say, “if you hadn’t been so compelling, there’s no way that would have gone viral.”

Jillian groans. “Fair enough.”

“So what’s the deal with you and Krissy?” I ask her. “Are you a fan or something?”

“My mom is,” Jillian says. She’s quiet for a minute, and she’s not meeting my eyes, like there’s more to that story, but she’s not sharing. “She’ll be so happy to see me with her.”

“You guys are close?” I ask.

“Yeah. And we’re both big fans of survival shows, which is really why I decided to do this.”

She doesn’t elaborate, and I decide not to push it. I look over at the fire, which Fez is working on while talking to Cece. The two of them seem pretty tight. Everyone seems to be gathering allies, which we have to be aware of when we start making noise about who we want to vote out. “Fill me in on what happened while I was gone?”

“Jason and I hauled wood,” she says. “And then Jason tried to catch one of those agoutis, you know, those little squirrel-like things?” I nod, remembering them on the list of animals we are allowed to eat, though the most I’ve seen of one so far is a half-second glimpse of a furry body darting behind a rock. Though it also could have been a rat. “Somehow, though,” she continues dryly, “Jason’s tactic of charging wildly and loudly into the underbrush didn’t actually work.” I laugh and she grins at me. “Anyway, everyone else took a nap, during which Melissa had a wardrobe malfunction that Ryan may or may not have intentionally caused.”

“Did she slap him?” I ask.

“No. She giggled and put her top back on, while Ryan ogled her and Jason pretended not to.” She raises an eyebrow at me. “Sorry you missed it?”

I shrug, and let my eyes wander down her body. “I’m good,” I say, and Jillian smiles like this is the right answer.

Yes. This is going very well. I’m only annoyed that we’re stuck on this island together so I can’t ask her out properly and see if she wants to sleep over. Though I’ll probably be waking up with her in the morning, which isn’t nothing.

“So who do you think we should vote for?” I ask. “Ryan? Seems like most people are annoyed with him.”

“I think we should keep him, actually,” Jillian says. “Melissa and I are starting to be friends, and as long as we keep her, it’s pretty easy to keep both Ryan and Chad under control.”

That’s a good point. “Okay. So that leaves the jungle twins over there—” I indicate to Jason, who is climbing another coconut tree, and Su-Lin, who is a few yards away digging a series of holes in the ground and gathering a pile of broken coconut shells. I don’t know what that’s about, but I’m guessing it’s a beach game of some sort. “And the brain trust.”

“Jason gets the coconuts,” Jillian says. “And I’m guessing he’s not going to vote for Su-Lin, though we could vote her out without him. I know you’re not a big fan of hers.”

I look over to where Su-Lin is now surveying her work—and discussing it with the pink sock on her left hand. “Is it that obvious?”

“Yes,” Jillian says. “But I’m not complaining. Your annoyed expression is kind of adorable.”

“Jenna never thought so,” I say. I was making a joke, but Jillian doesn’t laugh. She looks at me seriously, like she’s trying to figure something out.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing.” She squints out at the ocean. “I’m actually leaning toward Liz.”

It takes me a second to follow her back to our original discussion. That seems like a solid move. Cece and Fez have seemed closer to each other than they are to her. “Do you think Cece and Fez will see that as an attack on the older people, though?”

“I don’t know,” Jillian says. “We should talk to them and feel it out.”

“Why don’t I do that,” I say, “while you talk to Melissa and see if she’s willing to bring the guys on board with a Liz vote. And then if that all works out, we can talk to Jason and Su-Lin together. You won’t want to miss a single moment of her annoying me.”

“No, I will not.” She hesitates again, and I give her a look.

“Whatever it is, just say it,” I tell her. “I suck at subtext.” At least of the non-sexual variety.

“Why me?” she asks.

“What?”

“You could be having this conversation with anyone else on the island,” she says. “Why me?”

I think about that for a minute. Partly for the cameras—obviously I can’t tell her the full truth, but there are plenty of shades of it that aren’t lies. I don’t want to give too much away, and I also don’t want to say too little. “Because you don’t vote off your friends first,” I say finally. “This is a game, and sooner or later, everyone has to go. We’re all going to do our best to stay, so I’m not going to say I think it’s never the right thing to vote for your friends, but you don’t do that if you have other options.” I nudge her. “But hey, you could be positioning to get me off next week, so what do I know?”

She gives me a look, and I half expect her to tell me not to count on her getting me off, but she doesn’t.

“What about you?” I ask her. “Why me?”

She considers this. “I like the way you play the game. No one else seems to be thinking ahead like you are. Though be careful about being too much of a leader. You know what happens to those people.”

“I have impunity, which gives me several days to back off on the leader thing,” I say. “But yeah, I agree with you. I respect the way you think, and I’d like to stick together. But I think you’re wrong about the others. I think there are other people thinking ahead.”

“Cece,” Jillian says. “And Fez.”

“Exactly,” I tell her.

She nods, and even though she doesn’t say so, I’m pretty sure we agree.

We need to keep an eye on them.

Seven

Alec

We end up keeping a closer eye on them than I intended to, because not long after we get a fire going and water boiled (Chad and Fez managed to find a stream, finally), the skies open up and rain begins pouring down in sheets. We spend the night with all ten of us squashed together in the shelter, and desperately trying to patch the fronds that caved in from the rain.

The only benefit to this is that Jillian cuddles up close to me again in our little corner of the shelter. But I’d like to think that would have happened without the rainstorm, and probably would have involved a good deal less shivering from both of us.

At least less shivering from the cold.

Today, though, the sun is out again and my clothes are finally dry and I have a moment to talk to Cece and Fez without anyone else around. I saunter up to them, my hands in my pockets. Casual-looking. I hope.

Cece’s boiling more water over the fire, and Fez is scrubbing at his teeth with one of the roots we’ve been using as toothbrushes in the absence of anything better. They actually seem to work okay—my teeth don’t have that nasty film, and though I’m sure my breath has been better, there’s probably some nights I’ve come home from a bar where it’s been significantly worse.

“Hey,” I say. Casual.

Fez lifts his hand in greeting, but Cece just looks up at me and squints. Neither of them says anything, even though they’d been talking quite a bit to each other before I walked up. I actually had some good chatting time with both of them during the reward yesterday—Cece shared stories from the times she hosted the Country Music Awards, which had us all laughing—but apparently that camaraderie disappeared with the last of the burgers.

“You guys need any help?” I ask, then mentally kick myself, because it’s not like boiling water—or teeth-brushing—is a multi-person job. “I can start cooking up some more coconut.”

Fez narrows his eyes, like I’ve just insulted him. Or probably like I’m trying to hone in on his thing, cooking for the group. Gourmet pastry chef or not, I doubt he makes heated-up coconut chunks any better than the rest of us. Not that I’m going to say that to him.

“Where’s your other half?” Cece says, a knowing smile on her face.

I suppose I could pretend I don’t know who she’s referring to, but being a total idiot on camera probably isn’t great for likability. And besides, others starting to think of Jillian and me as a unit means my overall plan is going well—even if we’ll need to watch for people being threatened by our alliance.

I smile back and decide to just go for the direct approach and play to my strengths. “Talking to Melissa,” I say. “While I talk to you guys.”

Cece nods. “While you try to convince us to vote with you guys tonight.”

“Exactly.”

Fez looks a little less miffed about the coconut. “So who are you thinking?”

I look around; I’ve seen several episodes of Survivor where people are talking about who they’re voting off and don’t realize that person is standing three feet behind them. But Liz is sitting a good thirty feet away on the beach, plaiting together some more fronds to reinforce our roof, and glaring (or maybe staring? Probably glaring) at Chad and Ryan, who are shirtless and practicing Krav Maga.

Not far away—but out of earshot of the three of them and us—Melissa and Jillian are sunbathing on the beach and talking. My throat goes dry; they’re both topless, and though they’re lying face down on the sand, I can’t help but let my eyes wander along the lean line of Jillian’s bare back.

Cece clears her throat, and I blink, looking back at them. Fez chuckles.

“Liz,” I say quickly. “Ryan is also a good possibility, but Liz is our first choice.” Unless they ask, there’s no need to tell them about why we feel it could be good to keep Ryan around over Liz, even though Liz is actually doing work and Ryan is homoerotically rolling around in the sand with Chad.

Cece looks over to Jillian and Melissa and back. “You think you can control Ryan through Melissa, huh?”

I guess there really was no need to tell them. I was right, what I told Jillian—Cece is definitely one to watch.

“Yeah, well. Do you blame us?” I give my best disarming smile.

Cece scratches at some peeling skin on her arm. “Not at all.” But I can tell by her tone that she’s identified us as threats.

“But,” I continue, forcing myself to keep my eyes from wandering back over to Jillian, “we didn’t want you guys to feel like we’re ganging up on . . . well . . .”

“The elderly?” Cece raises an eyebrow, but her smile seems genuine.

Fez pretends to look offended. “I think we’re still a good ways from picking out burial plots.”

“Speak for yourself,” Cece says. “Felicity and I already have ours. Nice little spot on a rolling hill in Nashville. The very ones Dolly was eyeing.”

Fez laughs, then shakes his head. “Regardless of the age similarities, we’re not attached to Liz,” he says. “She’d stab any of us in the back as soon as look at us. Not to mention she thought my signature dish was some basic blueberry pie.” He looks legitimately offended now.

Cece studies me a bit, and then nods. “We’re in. Besides, my wife and her sister are downright crazy over that goofy Passion Medical show. I could score some points for keeping Ryan around a little longer—especially with her sister.” She chuckles. “It’ll be her Christmas gift. Another week of shirtless Ryan on TV as eye candy.”

“Whatever works,” I say. I talk with them a little longer, and then wander over to gather the palm fronds from Liz to reattach to the shelter. I don’t want to interrupt Jillian while she’s talking with Melissa—though I still can’t help but look over there every so often, imagining how warm her skin is under the sun—and I definitely don’t want to join Chad and Ryan.

Before long, Jillian pulls her top back up and laughs at something Melissa says, and then heads my way with a smile on her face that makes my heart beat faster.

“Melissa’s in,” she says, helping me tie on another frond. “She said—and I quote—‘I can make an alliance by having a dalliance.’” She rhymes the two words, and I laugh.

“Well, that means she’s actually read that word, which is more credit than I would have given her,” I say.

“Possibly in her luxury item book.” There’s a little teasing note in her voice.

“You know what it is?” We’ve both been dying to know what book Melissa would possibly bring to the island, but she’s been coy about it, keeping it wrapped up in a t-shirt that she apparently brought but has yet to wear.

There’s a not small part of me that hopes it ends up being something by Stephen Hawking.

“I do,” Jillian says, reaching across my hand for another frond, her sun-warmed skin just barely grazing my knuckles.

“And you’re going to torment me by keeping this from me?”

“Well, you did refuse my request to describe your meal yesterday.”

I find myself leaning in a little closer, and return her knowing look. “Because I didn’t want to be cruel, putting all these images in your head of hot, delicious things you couldn’t have.”

Her smile becomes even more devilish, and she tugs her lower lip between her teeth, and I think she’s about to say something like “You don’t think I could?” To which I’d pretty much have to answer, “Hell yes, I do.”

But instead she says, “An autobiography of Tori Spelling.”

It takes me a long second to remember that I actually cared about what book Melissa owned. And then I laugh, and Jillian grins.

“She says it’s like her bible.” She shrugs. “I gotta admit, it sounds more interesting than any religious text I’ve read.”

“No doubt it is,” I agree.

“So, Cece and Fez?” she asks.

“Also in. Looks like we make a really good team.”

She beams at me, and it feels pretty great to be the recipient of that smile. I’m starting to get more tangled up with her than I thought I would with whatever girl I decided to cozy up to out here, but I suppose that’s not a bad thing. The fewer things I have to pretend, the better.

We work a little longer, and once we have the roof re-thatched in triplicate, we decide to hunt down Jason and Su-Lin, who are ostensibly off looking for more food, but who the hell knows with those two. We don’t technically need their support in voting Liz out at this point, but it doesn’t hurt for everyone to feel like we have a special alliance with them.

Once we get a ways into the familiar—though now muddy—path through the trees, it’s not hard to find them, given that Jason manages to speak loud enough to be heard even in the sound-dampening jungle. We push our way through some thicker vegetation. As seems to be usual for them, Jason is dangling from a tree, and Su-Lin is sitting cross-legged on the ground beneath.

I regret this choice to find them the second the face of the hot pink sock puppet on her hand swivels toward me.

“Well, look who it is,” Su-Lin drawls in a Southern accent, the mouth of the sock puppet moving. “What are y’all up to way out here in the middle of nowhere?” The sock puppet raises a suggestive eyebrow.

“Hoping to talk to Jason and Su-Lin about some strategy,” I say, hoping she catches the emphasis. “Since we’ve got those Starvies tonight and are going to be voting someone out.”

“Well, if I didn’t know better, I’d think Alec here didn’t want to include me in this at all.” Ruby swivels to look at Su-Lin, who gives her a sympathetic look. Ruby turns back to me. “You know, darlin’, I’m pretty good at strategizin’. I managed to hook my Swedish pilates instructor Jurgen up with my Swedish eyebrow waxer Olaf, and it only took three days and a surprise romantic lunch at the IKEA cafeteria. Those two big ol’ blond boys sure do love them some tiny meatballs.”

Jillian snickers, and I blink and look at her. “Any chance we can vote Ruby off instead?”

Ruby makes a miffed noise, and Su-Lin glares, though it looks like she’s fighting a smile. Clearly she is loving how very much this schtick of hers annoys me.

“Are you wanting us to vote someone off with you guys?” Jason yells down from the trees. “Because I’m with the hobbit and the puppet! So whatever they say goes!”

Su-Lin and Ruby both manage to look smug.

“Yeah, okay,” Jillian says, “but let’s try to keep it down a bit. The others might be close enough to hear us.”

They aren’t, really, but with the way Jason yells . . .

“We might be able to be convinced to vote with you guys,” Su-Lin says slowly. “Despite your attitude toward Ruby. Sorry, Ruby, but this is a game,” she says when Ruby swivels her head towards her, and I roll my eyes. “But why don’t you tell us your plans first.”

“Because we were thinking of voting for Ryan!” Jason shouts down.

“Jason!” Su-Lin groans, though with a laugh.

“That boy there needs a volume dial,” Ruby says.

“Or maybe a mute button,” I mutter, and as Su-Lin grins, it occurs to me I just agreed with her puppet, and oh my god these people are going to be the end of my sanity.

Jillian squeezes my arm, which provides a nice distraction from my annoyance. “We’re actually thinking Liz. By getting rid of Liz, we keep the older group from forming a three-person alliance, and—”

“Okay,” Su-Lin says.

Jillian stops. “Okay?”

Su-Lin shrugs. “Sure. What do you think, Ruby?” I feel my blood pressure rise again—if I have to watch her get into a strategy fight with a puppet . . .

“I’m all in, darlin’,” Ruby replies. “Liz can get awful high-and-mighty. They don’t refer to her as the ‘Bitch on the Bench’ for nothin’, you know.”

Su-Lin nods and looks up into the trees. “What do you think, Jason?”

“Sounds good to me!” he shouts back down.

Su-Lin smiles. “Well, there you go.”

There we go.

It’s dark already by the time one of the producers—not Square Jaw, but a woman with a big mass of curly blond hair—informs us it’s time to go to the Starvies Ceremony. We’re instructed to pack up our personal belongings, so if we’re the one to get voted off, we don’t have to go back to camp. This, unfortunately for me, means I’m schlepping my guitar, but at least we’re not going through the muddy jungle. Instead, we head around the beach in the opposite direction from the outcropping where the trivia game was held.

It’s a long walk, made worse by the guitar case strap chafing on my shoulder.

“I should have brought Uno cards,” I say, giving Jillian a look.

She’s got her pack of cards tucked into the back pocket of her shorts. “Well, we can’t all be geniuses,” she says. She pauses a moment, her eyes dropping to the guitar. “But I’m happy you brought that. I’m looking forward to hearing you play.”

“Yeah, well, I’m looking forward to playing for you. Maybe get you to sing with me.”

She smiles. “Maybe.”

“And then kicking your ass in a game of Uno.”

She laughs, which is just a flat-out incredible sound. “You can try.”

I’m definitely planning on it. All of it.

It’s about a half-hour walk before we reach the place where the Starvies Ceremony will be held. We can see it well before we get there, though, due to the big fire burning in a dug-out fire pit, and a bunch of other lights set up to illuminate the whole area.

If the name wasn’t clue enough, the cheesiness of this Tribal Council knock-off is made even more obvious by the red carpet running along the sand toward the fire pit—a red carpet that they make us walk on one by one. When we reach the fire pit, there are ten director’s chairs set up in a semi-circle around the fire. Five are on the ground, and five are set up behind them on a raised platform. Our names are written on the back of the chairs. I’m in the front row, with Jillian next to me on the end and Fez on my other side. I set my guitar down in front of me.

Across the fire pit are the Starvies themselves—ten big-ass gaudy golden award statues, with big gold stars, and our names etched into the bases. Lined up on a row of glossy black pedestals, with the light from the fire flickering on the gold.

I think we’re supposed to be lusting after these stupid statues, but far more appealing is the money that will come with the statue. And for me, hopefully, a career boost and likability upgrade, even if I don’t win this contest.

I look over at Jillian, who’s settling herself into the director’s chair and crossing her long, lean legs. If getting into a relationship on this show is really the secret to my success, it’s turning out be way more pleasant than I’d imagined.

Krissy Calhoun steps out from behind the black curtain as soon as we’re all seated. She’s wearing a long black glittery evening gown, with her trademark leather vest over the top.

This show is ridiculous.

“Welcome to the Starvies!” Krissy smiles like the consummate awards show host. I have a flashback to the VMAs and Tina Fey. If I get shoved here, at least the fire pit would be preferable to Kanye’s crotch.

“You’ve all had a . . . unique first couple days, haven’t you?” Krissy says. There are some laughs, and a few mutters. “And it’s only just the beginning. For nine of you, at least.” Her expression gets serious. “One of you, unfortunately, will be leaving the island tonight.”

She sounds like this is a devastation, when really whoever is leaving gets food and a bed to sleep in tonight, which is a hell of a lot better than being here.

Then again, I’m not ready to be the one going home. There’s no jury on this show, no final vote at the end. The ultimate winner will be the person who wins the last challenge at the final three, so when we’re gone, camera time is over.

I don’t think I’ve done nearly enough flirting to change my image. I look over at Jillian.

I haven’t done nearly as much flirting as I want to do with her.

“But first,” she says, “How have these few days been for you? Chad, have you learned anything about yourself?”

I look over my shoulder behind me at Chad, who looks slightly confused. He runs a hand over his buzz-cut action-hero hair. “Um, yeah,” he says. “I’ve learned that, um, the women on this island are really tough, you know? And they deserve so much respect.” He pauses, clearly wishing he had his publicist feeding him words like Cyrano de Bergerac. Which would probably make this sound a lot better. “Like all women do,” he says. “I mean, I already knew that, but I’m learning it more.”

Krissy nods, making a valiant effort to take this seriously. “Good.” She looks at me, and smiles. “Alec, it seems like you’ve been spending a lot of time with Jillian.”

This one’s not hard to play. I glance over at Jillian, who has an eyebrow raised and her lips tugging up at the sides. “Look at her,” I say. “Can you blame me?”

Krissy laughs. “So nothing else you want to add? Jillian?”

Jillian grins. “Alec’s great to spend time with. We get along really well.”

It’s not any more revealing than what I said, really, but it does feel good to hear.

“I can see that,” Krissy says, and then moves on to ask similar questions of Melissa and Ryan. They’re wanting their narrative, and if I have anything to say about it, Jillian and I will be giving them a good one.

Finally, it’s time to vote. Krissy informs us that we’re to go one by one up to the “voting booth” and enter the name of the person we want to leave the island. Jillian’s the first one to go, and then I’m up next.

The voting booth is pretty much just that—a polling machine like you’d use to vote for the president, with a curtain around it. It’s electronic—there’s obviously a generator around here powering all the lights anyway—and there’s a camera positioned behind me to get a shot of my vote.

All of our names are listed, with a button next to them. Pretty simple. I push the button for Liz, and then head back to my seat.

When all the votes are done, Krissy has us pause while the “results are tallied.” Since it’s a computer, I’m pretty sure that happened instantly, but one of the producers has to put the loser’s name in an envelope and walk it over to her while wearing a tux.

“In this envelope is the name of the person going home tonight,” Krissy says unnecessarily. “If I read your name, please walk over here by me with your belongings, and exit through that path, where there will be a boat waiting.”

To take the loser back to Trinidad where they’ll be holed up in secrecy and five-star accommodations while the rest of this plays out, is what she doesn’t say.

She breaks the seal on the envelope and opens it, taking her sweet time. Behind me, I can hear some nervous foot-tapping from Melissa.

Krissy frowns at the name and looks up. “Judge Liz Greer,” she says solemnly. “Your star has fallen.”

Just as she says that, Liz’s golden Starvie statue falls through a trapdoor, disappearing from sight.

There are some gasps, and beside me Jillian makes a noise like a snort and cough mixed and then is covering her face, trying her best to hide her laughter. Not at Liz going—that’s not a surprise—but undoubtedly at how cheesy this all is. It’s hard to fight my own laughter at that, but I do my best.

It’s not going to make me seem very likable to gloat over sending someone home.

Liz marches over to stand by Krissy and judgmentally glares at us one last time across the fire, then leaves.

“The rest of you, good luck,” Krissy says. “And I’ll see you at the next challenge.”

We head back, and it takes about five minutes before Jillian says, in this serious voice, “Your star has fallen, Alec,” and we both crack up.

It has, and that’s why I’m here, but right now I’m not minding that so much.

Bobbi was right. This is easy. Finding someone to flirt with might have been the plan, but I’d have flirted with Jillian anyway.

Finally, things are starting to go my way.

Eight

Jillian

Running through the jungle—climbing over fallen trees and scrambling up uneven mossy berms—seems like something that would be strenuous at the best of times. But it’s like some American Ninja Warrior-level nightmare when everything’s still muddy and slick from the last rainstorm, and we’ve been doing this race challenge for the last several hours.

I’m pretty athletic—I ran track in high school, played volleyball, and have spent years and years in dance. But I haven’t had anything but coconut and mushrooms and the smallest bite of cooked crab (another find by Jason) in the last five days, and I’m ready to die.

Fortunately, I’m way too competitive to do so. So I keep pushing myself until Alec, gasping for breath just behind me, finally says, “We need to stop for a bit.” He hunches over his knees.

Thank. God.

“Yeah, okay,” I say. “If you need to.” But it’s obvious he’s not the only one by the way my body collapses onto this huge vine-covered fallen tree. Not far off there’s a rock formation that looks like a cave, vines dripping down over the entrance.

He smiles, clearly onto me, and slumps next to me. We both take long drags from our canteens, which are now close to empty. Thankfully, we’re on the last leg of this race. For this challenge, we were allowed to pick our own partners, given maps, and sent racing from different spots of the island to various checkpoints. The last team to get to each checkpoint is eliminated—and by this point in the race, most everyone has been. Now our only competitors are Su-Lin and Jason, and there’s no way they aren’t taking frequent breaks to, I don’t know, make a jungle bowling game or something.

The jungle noises seem especially loud when we sit to rest—the constant chittering of bugs, the intermittent squawking of birds somewhere in the distance. One lone bark from a howler monkey, which doesn’t startle us anymore. We’ve all become pretty used to the obnoxious choir at sunrise and sunset, as well as the intermittent roars throughout the day. Alec and I are so wiped out, we don’t talk for a few minutes as we sit here, which is rare for us. I feel like we’ve been pretty much talking nonstop since that first day—nonstop except for when we’re cuddled up in each other’s arms at night, and I’m lulled to sleep by the steady sound of his heart and the warmth of his skin.

It’s all so natural and comfortable and thrilling, all at once—which also makes it more than a little terrifying, more so with each day, each time I feel my knees get weak from that smile of his.

For all my playing it cool, keeping it light and breezy in my aside interviews—which continue to focus on Alec, because the producers aren’t stupid—it’s becoming more and more obvious to me with each day and each long, laughing conversation that the things I’m feeling for Alec are becoming less and less “light and breezy.”

Which isn’t smart, in a game like this. Liar or not, I don’t think he’s pretending to like me, but that doesn’t mean he wants anything beyond the physical, at least outside of the game. I know that, but there’s something about Alec, something about the way we connect, whether we’re telling each other funny stories from our childhood or talking game strategy or even, well, racing together through a muddy jungle.

I’m craving it—him—more and more, and not just in a “I want your body” kind of way (although clearly I do want that.) I’m also craving these conversations and these little moments. I want to tell him the real reason I’m here.

But I don’t want to be that girl—the one who confuses physical chemistry and game strategy for something real and lasting. The cameras are always, always watching, and it’s becoming way too easy to forget that.

I look over at him, both our chests heaving as we try to catch our breath from the last sprint. I don’t even want to know how crazy big my hair has gotten even in its multiple-banded ponytail—for all that it is normally rather straight, humidity like this tends to give it some serious oomph. Which can be Beyoncé-at-Coachella-level awesome with the right product, but I definitely don’t have that with me now. Even Alec’s dark hair is curling all over in the humidity, stuck to his face in places, and sweat drips down his forehead. He’s still gorgeous. Those blue eyes crinkle at the sides as he grins.

“You look like a pro football player,” he says.

I laugh at the absurdity of that statement. “What the hell?”

“You’ve got some mud right there,” he says, and brings his hand up to my face, his fingers wiping at the streak of mud under my eye. As soon as he touches my face, I can’t help but close my eyes. My slowing heartbeat starts kicking back up again. “I think I just made it worse,” he says after a moment.

Do his fingers actually linger on my cheek for a beat longer than necessary, or I am just being hopeful?

“Well, if the Broadway thing doesn’t happen, I suppose there’s always the NFL,” I say, hoping he attributes my breathlessness to the jungle running.

God, it’s not like we haven’t touched more than that, but something about him brushing my cheek so gently . . .

“You’d be by far the sexiest player ever.” He bumps his shoulder playfully against mine, and a little thrill goes through me. He went shirtless for this challenge, and even though his back is covered in bug bites—like mine, like everyone’s—his back muscles are tight and lean and I want to run my hands all over them.

Maybe not just my hands.

I’m about to make some comment about my ability to tackle, when I realize we haven’t seen a camera in a while. For this race, the cameramen haven’t been following us like usual—god knows it’s tough enough to run through the jungle, let alone with camera equipment—but we’ve encountered them at various places along the way, waiting for us to run through. I’ve also seen a couple cameras set up in trees. It’s been a reassurance that we’re on the right path to the next checkpoint.

I squint up into the trees, and don’t see anything. Other than movement that might be a snake.

I pretend I didn’t see that.

“Hey, take out the map again,” I say, and Alec pulls it out of the pocket of his mud-stained cargo shorts and spreads it out over our laps.

It’s made to look like a pirate map, which means it hasn’t been the easiest to follow, but we’ve done all right so far. Still . . .

“Huh,” Alec says. “That creek we crossed not that long ago, I don’t see it here.”

“Right.” I jerk my thumb to the cave. “I don’t see that on here either.”

Alec sighs. “So no big-ass cave, big-ass fallen tree,”—here he pats the thick trunk we’re sitting on—“Or sketchy creek on the map.”

“We’re totally lost, aren’t we?”

“Possibly. Dammit.” He rubs at his forehead, transferring some of the mud he wiped off my cheek onto his own face. I laugh a little.

“Now you’ve got some mud,” I say, when he looks up. I wipe it off his forehead like he did mine, gently, lightly.

I can’t help but wonder if it’s having anywhere near the same effect on him as it did on me. But his blue eyes do seem to focus pretty intensely on me for that moment, and my breathing is getting unsteady.

Focus, Jillian. You’re still in the middle of a race. One you want to win.

I look back at the map. “It doesn’t make sense,” I say, frustrated. “We took that fork right after the split tree, headed uphill—” I trace my finger along the route. “It should be right.”

Alec frowns. “We could re-trace our path, I suppose.” He doesn’t sound any more happy with that than I am, though. The last half-hour or so has been especially brutal, and if we go back to that fork only to find that we were on the right path . . .

I really might just lie down and die in the mud.

“Or,” he says, possibly in response to my expression at that thought, “we just keep on this way for a bit longer and see.”

“Which could get us even more lost.”

“It could. And then we get famous for being the idiots that have to be retrieved from some uncharted stretch of jungle by a team of Navy Seals.”

I laugh again. I find myself doing that a lot around Alec, even when I should be too miserable to do so. “It seems like that still might be up for both of us. I vote for that.” I stand, my muscles protesting the movement. “You know, go big.”

“Isn’t there a second part to that saying?” He stands up, and winces as well.

“Not for me. I don’t ever give myself that option. And I’m definitely not going home anytime soon.” I wink at him, and he grins.

We start jogging forward again, and the path takes us around the cave and up another hill—which, god, if I never have to climb a muddy hill again in my life, I will be happy. It’s not even particularly big, but my legs are screaming by the time we get to the top.

Now I’m the one hunched over, gripping my thighs. Alec grabs my shoulder, nearly knocking me over. “Look! It’s a big-ass sketchy-looking bridge! That is on the map!”

His description of the bridge is accurate—it’s a rope bridge with old-looking wooden planks, and looks sketchy as hell. And there’s a cameraman squatting at the bridge’s entrance.

We’re on the right path, at least.

We jog over to the bridge, which looks in worse condition the closer we get. Like some serious Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom shit, with the rope fraying in places and the planks wet and possibly rotted.

“I’m starting to wish I didn’t sign that indemnity waiver,” I mutter.

Alec stares. “No joke.”

I peer over the edge. It’s not some bottomless chasm—probably a twenty-five foot drop into the jungle below. Not enough to kill us, probably, but I could definitely see some broken limbs. But the cliff sides here are too steep to just climb down and go across on the ground, not without costing us a ton of time.

“Should we go over one at a time?” I ask, testing the first plank. It seems solid enough, but the bridge creaks and sways alarmingly. “Or together?”

Alec pauses, his face paler than normal. “I’m not sure what the gentlemanly thing to do here is. Or if I’m actually gentleman enough to do it.”

I purse my lips. I’m not about to let a stupid little rope bridge keep us from winning. The reward for this challenge is even better than the last one. Apparently, there’s a luxury yacht waiting just offshore for the winning team to use for the afternoon. Complete with showers (oh my god, how much I want a shower), massages, and an on-board meal. All of which sounds like a pretty amazing date, and one I definitely want to share with Alec—even if the shower component will undoubtedly, and unfortunately, be individual.

But it would be so nice to know I don’t smell like dried sweat and kelp when we cuddle together tonight.

Not only is that reward on the line, but “impunity” (I still can’t even think that without rolling my eyes) for the winning team. I don’t think either of us are on the chopping block, but you never know with these shows.

And I meant it. I’m not going home anytime soon, if I can help it. For lots of reasons.

“That’s it. I’m just going to go,” I say, and start walking out on the planks. I grit my teeth as the rope bridge creaks and sways some more.

Alec follows right behind. And by the time I’m about a third of the way across the bridge, he’s seriously right behind. Like pressed up against my backside, his hands right next to mine on the rope.

“Is this okay?” he asks quietly.

I’m having a bit of a difficult time breathing. “Yep,” I say. I turn to look at him and his face is so close to mine. “If you’re going to jostle me off, then you’re going down too, you know.”

He blinks, and raises an eyebrow, that mischievous smile spreading. “Really?”

I feel myself flush. For the first time in all our sexual banter, I hadn’t actually meant that innuendo, but I’m not about to admit that. I smirk. “I stand behind what I said.”

He chuckles, and stays close behind me as I start moving forward again, probably slower than I need to. But I’m feeling light-headed, and though it could be from the swaying of the rope bridge, or from starvation or exhaustion or any number of things, I’m fairly sure it’s from the feel of him up against me. The feel of his arms brushing mine, his breath stirring my hair, of the hardness I can feel when he steps close enough against my ass.

If I didn’t think it might cause us to fall off the bridge, I might just turn and grab him and kiss the hell out of him. Judging by all the signals I’ve been getting from him, I don’t think he’d mind terribly much (possible bridge death aside.) But his words from the other day rattle around in my brain like dice.

You don’t vote off your friends.

Friends.

Which is what we are. Absolutely. We haven’t even kissed. And while I didn’t think much of that word choice at the time, it’s been hard not to keep returning to it, testing all the edges in my mind.

He wants me physically, that much is clear. And that is definitely mutual. But is that where it stops for him? Is he hoping for a friends with benefits thing?

In my experience—and the experience of several of my friends—that concept works way better in theory than reality. Because inevitably, one of the two ends up wanting more and getting hurt.

And being as I already know I’m way past thinking of him as just a friend, it’s pretty clear which one of us that would be.

We continue across the bridge, which sways more at the middle. I can hear Alec’s breathing get faster, and I’m pretty sure that has less to do with how close we are than it does the thought of toppling to the ground far below. I don’t exactly love heights, but I think Alec is having a worse time of it than I am.

I put my hands on top of his, so we’re gripping the rope at either side together as we make our way across. I don’t know if it helps him, but I certainly don’t mind more excuses to touch him.

When we make it to the other side and step from the bridge onto the muddy patch of grass, we both let out a breath. Alec still looks a little pale, but he’s smiling. “Guess I didn’t end up jostling you off, after all,” he says.

Probably too quietly for the cameraman stationed about fifteen feet away from us on this end to pick up. Probably.

I can’t resist giving him a return knowing look, stepping up close to him again. “It was definitely a close call, though.”

“Yeah, it was.” God, the heat in those eyes. My body feels achy for reasons that have nothing to do with over-exertion.

I want more than to be his friend with benefits, and I’m scared maybe he doesn’t, or that this is all about the game for him, and I want to be smart about this. But this heat between us is so intense that I think maybe we didn’t need the flint, after all—we could have just bantered near a pile of tinder and damn near set the beach on fire.

I’m not sure what the smart thing is anymore, and wondering more and more how much I even care about being smart.

Winning, I remind myself. I care about winning. I care about making it to the end of this.

I care about being a memory my mom won’t lose anytime soon.

I reach in his pocket and pull out the map. Alec gives me a sly look as I do so, but doesn’t say anything. Together we study the map and confirm the next path.

And then we run.

The map isn’t exactly drawn to any kind of actual scale, so it’s a bit of a shock when we burst out of the treeline into searing-bright sunlight not ten minutes later. We both stumble into each other, blinking and squinting.

We’re back on the beach, though a quick scan around shows this isn’t our beach. Possibly we’ve traversed the entire island to the other side. But that doesn’t matter. What does is the multiple cameras, and the standard race “Finish Line” banner, and Krissy Calhoun grinning at us and narrating the end of the race to the camera in front of her.

And that yacht perched offshore, floating lazily in the sparkling water.

I don’t see Su-Lin or Jason around, so I don’t think they’ve already won. But they could come bursting from some other point in the treeline any minute now, so I take off running, with Alec right beside me. Pulling out in front of me, actually, like the sight of the finish line has given him a shot of Tornado Rush.

We run through the uneven sand, and I ignore the sharp pains in my legs and the burning in my lungs, and we cross the finish line.

There’s this beat where we both stare at each other and at Krissy—waiting, perhaps, to hear that Su-Lin and Jason are already partying it up on the yacht.

But then Krissy shouts, “Jillian and Alec are the winners!” and Alec lets out this whoop, and I scream happily and he scoops me up and spins me around and I’m all the happy-dizzy, and his lips are so close, it wouldn’t take much to reach them—

And then Krissy is right beside us. “Looks like you two get the afternoon on that gorgeous luxury yacht, not to mention impunity at tomorrow’s ceremony.”

Alec sets me down, which is probably for the best, even though I kind of wish he hadn’t. I force myself to look at Krissy.

“Not only that,” she says, smiling broadly at both of us. “But the rest of the stars will love you guys when you return bearing these as gifts.” She gestures to a small table next to her I didn’t notice in all the excitement, and peels back the cloth. There’s a set of metal hooks and thin string, along with a couple of burlap sacks as big as my head. “Some fishing equipment to help in the quest for protein, and two full bags of rice!”

I have no idea whether any of us is catching an actual fish with that sad little fishing gear, but the rice is definitely promising.

It’s hard to be super excited about a bag of rice, though, when there’s a shower and massage and fancy meal on a luxury yacht waiting for me—for us.

I think about Alec’s other words, from a couple days ago. Looks like we make a really good team.

“How do you feel about the win, you two?” Krissy asks.

“Pretty damn great,” Alec says, and grins at me.

Pretty damn great, for sure.

Nine

Alec

As Jillian and I board the skiff that’s going to take us to the yacht, I forget about how tired I am. We ran all over the damn island, and my legs are killing me, but the promise of a shower and a meal and the time alone with Jillian gives me the boost of energy I was wishing for at the end of the race. In the skiff, I sling my arm around her, and Jillian presses up against my side, her knees bouncing with excitement. The wind blows our hair back, and Jillian shivers against the cold breeze. I pull her closer, and she doesn’t resist. Her gorgeous smile beams up at me, and I nearly lean down and kiss her right there.

I’m pretty sure she wants me to. The tension between us during that race was almost enough for me to stop caring about winning and just make out with her in the trees. Almost. Not that I think Jillian would have let me—her drive to win is even stronger than mine, and it’s sexy as hell. But the cameras are always watching, and while I’m supposed to be getting together with her for their benefit, I’m not sure exactly what she wants. Jillian is an actress, and as desperate to improve her career situation as I am. But this thing with her feels real—too real, like she’s into me and not just because I’m Alec Andreas.

I’m not an idiot. I know we’re still playing a game. I know how much she has to gain by attaching herself to me, and while I wouldn’t fault her for using me for that—being as I came here to do exactly the same thing—I know it’s not that simple for me, not anymore.

It’s been a long time since I’ve liked someone enough to care what this could be beyond sex, to be willing to take it slow—since Jenna, actually, who turned me down for a full six months after she joined my band. But Jillian’s worth it. I want more than a transactional arrangement, and I’m willing to put in the time to see if we can get there.

Even the promise of the shower isn’t enough to shake the thought of food from my mind, and I’m hoping we’re going to get to eat first, but the producers have other ideas. We’re ushered back to separate bedrooms—sadly—and in mine I find a clean set of shorts and another button-up shirt that I’m sure the producers want me to leave open at all times. I’m feeling the hunger—that food reward the second day meant I fared better than some of the others, but now it’s been five days and I’ve had exactly one meal that wasn’t comprised of mushrooms and coconut, and I can feel the fatigue in every muscle. I want to eat everything in sight, including the soap that’s set out on the bed, along with shampoo and conditioner and body wash.

I gather them and head into the bathroom, and as soon as that hot water hits my body, I momentarily forget about food. The layer of grime coating my skin after living and sleeping in the sand for five days washes away, and I scrub my hair and skin and stand under the water with my eyes closed and imagine Jillian here with me.

My whole body reacts to the thought. God, I want her, and it’s not just a physical thing. I mean, there are definitely physical elements, but if I just wanted to have sex with her, lying entwined with her every night would be driving me up the wall. I love being with her, talking to her, spending time with her. We make a fantastic team, and the more time we spend together, the more I feel like I want to be around her. The longer it goes on, the more I hope that for her it’s not just about having someone to vote with and sleep next to. That she’s into me like I’m into her.

It makes it easier to do what I have to do for the cameras.After all, if I come out of all this with a relationship that lasts past the show, that has to be even more sympathetic, right? It’s a win/win situation, and I’m eager to get off the island and away from the cameras so I can have some quality time alone with Jillian for real.

Not so eager I’m willing to throw it, though. If I have anything to say about it, she and I are going to go all the way.

In more ways than one.

I get out of the shower and wrap up in the big fluffy towels, and then use some of the provided gel on my hair to tame the tangled mass it’s turned into after five days of wind and sand and humidity. I get dressed, realizing I should be enjoying this more, but I’m eager to rejoin Jillian, as much just to be with her again as for the meal I’m hoping is next.

One of the producers shows me out to the deck, where there’s a table, but no food yet. I sit down and watch the ocean and wait for Jillian, who was obviously not as eager as I was to leave the warmth of the bedroom.

When she appears, I see why. She’s wearing a wrap-around, sarong-style dress, and her hair is pinned back with a real flower. She’s wearing makeup, and while she’s always gorgeous, even covered with dried sweat and sea water, seeing her like this takes my breath away.

She smiles at me slyly, and I think she knows exactly what I’m thinking. I get up and pull out her chair for her, and then we sit there admiring each other.

“You clean up nice,” Jillian says.

“You look gorgeous,” I return.

Jillian bites her lip, possibly to contain her smile, and I grin back at her. I wonder if she would have let me join her in the shower if I’d asked her. And if the cameras would have left us alone in there.

A waiter comes out with a tray covered in a silver dome, and he sets it down in front of us and removes the lid.

Jillian and I both gape at the food, even more than we did at each other. There’s roasted chicken and vegetables, and a dozen large shrimp with grill lines crossing their pink bodies. We don’t even wait for plates. We each grab a shrimp first and devour it, both of us making noises the producers could probably overlay with footage of us sleeping at night and make the audience think we had really fantastic sex.

And this food might be every bit as good.

We don’t talk much while we devour our meal, though I’m careful since we’re eating off the same plate not to take more than my share. We practically lick the plate clean, and then the waiter brings us each a glass of wine, and I lean back in my chair with one hand on my now-aching stomach and sip it slowly.

“So,” Jillian says. “We’re both safe at the next vote. Who do you think we should deny the Starvie to?”

I take a deep breath. “I think it’s between Cece and Ryan,” I say. “Cece’s more dangerous, but Ryan might be easier to convince everyone to vote for. I heard him saying that his shorts are chaffing him, which I think might be a prelude to wandering around full Richard Hatch.”

Jillian giggles, probably an effect of the food and the wine. “I think those are both good possibilities. Should we ask Jason and Su-Lin first, and then whichever way they want to go, we can bring in the group we’re not voting for, and leave the fourth one out of the loop?”

I nod. “We might need to lie to them, which could hurt some feelings for future votes.”

“But we’re going to have to do that eventually.”

“Right. Melissa might be willing to turn against Ryan, but I wouldn’t want to risk bringing her in. She also might be the most likely to forgive us.”

“That’s true,” Jillian says. “Fez on the other hand . . .”

“Yeah. If we vote out Cece, he has to go next.”

“Assuming he doesn’t win impunity.” Jillian giggles again, and I laugh along with her. Some of the ways this show has ripped off Survivor are pretty obvious. I wonder how that’s going to play with the audience.

“I think Melissa would be pretty unhappy with us for interrupting her dalliance,” she says, pronouncing it da-lie-ance like Melissa did, and I smile.

“Do you think she’s sleeping with Ryan?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Jillian says. “She seems to prefer him to Chad, though that might be because Chad spends half his time doing ocean crunches.”

I laugh. Chad has decided that doing his daily exercise routine at the spot where the surf meets the sand adds extra difficulty, because the weight of the water varies on his abs and back. I think the only actual difficulty is the risk of drowning if he gets a cramp mid-crunch, but I also don’t think any of us would miss him.

“What about Jason and Su-Lin?” I ask. “Do you think they’re doing it in the jungle?”

“I find that more likely,” Jillian says. “Though, with as loud as that guy’s voice is, I think he’d have a pretty powerful . . . war cry?”

I almost spit out my mouthful of wine. “You’re right. They aren’t having sex. We definitely would have heard that from the beach. So is no one on the island having an actual dalliance?”

We both eye each other, and I finish the rest of my wine and set down my glass.

“Your family will be watching this,” Jillian says. “If you did, it would just give them more evidence of your fast and loose lifestyle.”

“Though I don’t think we’re getting coke and prostitutes out of any of these challenges,” I say. “So still not as fast and loose as they think.”

“Why did your band have a rule against doing drugs?” she asks.

Oh. I thought everyone knew about that. “Our first cellist was an addict,” I say. “He kept it secret for a while, but it was pretty hard to miss when he started stealing money from us.”

“Ouch.”

I shrug. “It sucked at the time, but that’s why we brought in Felix, and look how that worked out.”

“Not so great for you, right?”

“Yeah. But I wouldn’t have wanted Jenna to not meet Felix. He’s really good for her, and they’re happy.”

Jillian’s expression softens. “That’s nice that you don’t begrudge them that.”

“Nah,” I say, and it’s not just for the cameras. “I love them both, and they’ve been through enough. The truth is, if one of us had to take the fall for the lies we told, I’m glad it was me. Jenna probably would have left the industry entirely, and she’s too talented for that. I was really pissed at them at the time, but I didn’t get that they were actually in love, you know? To me, it looked like she was throwing away this incredible career for some guy she just met.”

Jillian looks like she wants to ask me something, but instead she sips slowly at her wine. I wonder if she’s worried about the effect it’ll have on her if she drinks it too fast, after so many days with nothing to eat.

I wonder if she worries about doing something with me she’ll regret.

“Anyway,” I say, “after that we didn’t want anything like that happening again. We instituted the mandatory drug testing just to be sure. Turned out to be a good thing, because Felix is an addict, too, though he’s clean, and we had the proof. And even after I was out of the band, I didn’t particularly want to add a drug addiction to the landslide that is my career.”

“I respect that,” Jillian says. “That you take your career so seriously. So many people have opportunities other people would kill for and throw it all away on crap like that.”

“True that.”

“So what makes it so important to you?” she asks. “Is it the fame? Or the music?”

I consider whether I should tell her the truth on camera, and decide my answer is sympathetic enough. “Both,” I say. “It’s the music, which I love, but it’s also the audience. The whole point of the music is to have people to share it with, people who love it.”

“I get that,” Jillian says. “There’s this feeling when you’re on stage in front of an audience, this energy that’s going back and forth.”

“It’s better than drugs.”

She grins. “Totally.”

I smile back at her. It means something, after the last year of virtually everyone misunderstanding me, that she understands why I’m in this, why I’m working so hard to get it back. It’s not about the money, though that’s nice, and I’m not going to let anyone take advantage. It’s about making something that other people love, and getting to share it with them.

It’s something I can’t get out of playing alone, just me and a guitar.

“When this is over,” I say, “I can contact some people I know in New York. My contacts aren’t the best for Broadway, but I’m sure I know someone who could be helpful to you.”

“Really?” Jillian sounds surprised that I offered. Or maybe it’s just that I still know people who would do me a favor.

“They’ll still listen to me,” I say. “It’s getting them to work with me that’s the problem.”

“Why?” Jillian asks. “I mean, I know your reputation took a hit, but you’re crazy talented.”

I try not to let on how much that means to me, coming from her. “Yeah, well,” I say. “My manager says I’m polling like a certain douchey male pop star, and I think everyone’s afraid to put any money behind me, because they think the audience hates me too much to buy.”

Jillian’s warm brown eyes crinkle. “There are a lot of douchey male pop stars. Which one?”

“Ha,” I say. “I’ll tell you someday, but not on camera.”

One of the producers—Square Jaw again, though he’s not yelling stage directions at us this time—comes out to summon us back for our massages. Jillian and I lie down on tables mere inches away from each other, and the masseuses cover us with drapes which they pull aside in pieces, carefully removing our clothes. With my shirt off, I look over at Jillian, admiring her bare back, thinking about what it would be like to run my hands over it, to give her a massage she’d sure as hell remember. Jillian catches me watching, but she doesn’t look uncomfortable, and she gives the upper half of my body a good look in return.

Her hand rests at the edge of the table and I think about reaching out and taking it. I want to be touching her, even though that’s something I’ve done quite a lot. But it’s painful now to stop. From this distance I can smell the scent of clean soap and flower-scented shampoo, and beneath it, the jasmine-and-honey scent that’s uniquely Jillian, even when she hasn’t bathed in days, and smells a bit like that, too.

I dangle my arm off the edge of the table, and then reach out and take her fingers in mine. Jillian smiles and closes her eyes, and I do the same, enjoying the feeling of hands on my muscles, working out the tension, taking away some of the ache, while my thumb traces the lines in Jillian’s palm. I can hear the camera people moving, no doubt getting a close-up of that.

And I don’t mind at all if they do.

Ten

Alec

When we get back to the beach, both Jillian and I are in something of a food-and-massage induced haze. We walk up the beach, no longer holding hands, not that it’s any secret to anyone that we’re something of a unit. A producer handed us the impunity scepter when we got back on the island, ostensibly wanting a shot of us carrying it back to camp and further earning the jealousy of the others. Jillian’s using it like a sort of makeshift walking stick, because with the blinding way the tacky gold paint is glinting in the bright sun, there’s no use trying to hide it. Cece and Fez are cracking open coconuts and barely give us a nod, while down the beach . . . oh, god, there’s Ryan, completely naked, waving at us enthusiastically from where he and Melissa are walking along the surf. Chad lounges in the shelter, looking judgmentally at Ryan, and I’m pretty sure the camera is catching me doing the same.

Su-Lin and Jason are nowhere to be seen, but I also don’t hear a war cry, which is probably good for Su-Lin—he would deafen her.

“Do you think it’s too soon to go find the jungle twins?” I ask.

“Hmm?” Jillian asks. “Sorry, I was still thinking about that massage.”

I laugh. “Really? That good?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I’ve actually never had one before. Have you?”

“A couple’s massage?” I ask. “Yeah, but always on tour. Tour is not sexy times. We were way too wiped out to do much besides fall asleep.”

“I meant a professional massage at all,” Jillian says. “I should have had one when I was on the ship,” she says. I’m about to mention that this is exactly what she just did, but she goes on. “I worked a couple cruises before I booked that commercial. Singing and dancing in their evening shows. If I’d known I would enjoy it so much, I would have gotten one when I had a chance.”

“Oh,” I say. “Yeah, no, I’ve had tons of those. And now I realize my comment about sexy times made it sound like I’m accustomed to harassing my masseuses, which I’m not.”

Jillian smiles. “No, I understood. I have had sexy massages, but those are different. And vary greatly in quality.”

“Yeah,” I say. I’m debating offering her that kind of massage here and now, but decide to keep that offer in my pocket for later. “Professional massages vary in quality, too, but it sounded like there was a story there.”

Jillian shrugs. “Once I got a massage from a guy who mostly used his knuckles. He kept digging them into my back so hard I thought he was going to break my ribs, and his knuckles kept cracking.”

“Ew,” I say. “Did you have sex with him?”

“Yeah,” Jillian says. “Mostly to get it over with.”

I wince. “Exactly how every guy wants you to feel about sex.”

Jillian is hardly listening. She’s rubbing her own neck and getting glassy eyed—and not, I’m guessing, because she’s thinking about knuckle-cracking guy.

“Do I need to give you a minute alone in the jungle?” I ask her. “Do I need to join you?”

She swats at me, and I dodge. I’m wondering if—hoping, really—she might take me up on that, when Melissa separates herself from Ryan and jogs up to us. Ryan doesn’t seem to mind, checking her out from behind as she runs.

Dude, the guy is really standing there full monty, and he doesn’t even seem embarrassed. Though I guess he clearly has nothing to be embarrassed about. And the camera’s going to blur it out, because we’re being aired on a family channel.

“Hey, Jillian!” Melissa says. “Want to go lie out?”

Jillian looks over at me. “Sure. You mind if Alec comes?”

“No, that would be awesome!” Melissa says, as if lying in the sun with me is one of her preferred ways to spend the afternoon, which, even though Melissa doesn’t seem to have any particular problem with me, it is not.

Really, I’m thinking this is some kind of code Jillian gave her for when she wants to talk strategy. Jillian sets the scepter back near the shelter—earning a very pointedly cold look from Cece and Fez, so I guess the producers are getting the jealousy reaction shots they wanted—and I follow the two girls down the beach while Melissa chatters about what all went on while we were gone. “Jason brought some more coconuts and Su-Lin made a bed for her sock out of one of the shells. And Chad and Cece got in a fight over how close the wood was being kept to the fire, and Chad called her a stupid bitch, and then Cece was all, ‘Good job with that respecting women thing’ and then Chad got all frustrated and did more push ups in the ocean—”

Well, I don’t regret missing any of that.

“But what I really wanted to talk to you about,” Melissa says, her tone dropping dramatically, “is that Fez was talking to me.”

“Really,” Jillian says.

“Yes,” Melissa says, as if this is actually the news. “And do you know what he wanted?”

“A dalliance?” I ask.

Jillian gives me a death look over her shoulder, but Melissa is completely serious. “No,” she says. “He doesn’t want a dalliance with me because he’s gay. I think he might want a dalliance with Chad, but Chad is straight.” She swats at a dragonfly that zooms close to her head.

“Fez is married,” Jillian says. “He says his interest in Chad is an eyes-only thing.”

Ha. I hadn’t heard that one.

“So they’re eye-banging?” Melissa sounds concerned about this. “Do you think he’s having an emotional affair?”

I think emotions are the least of it. Jillian and I share a look. “Probably not,” I say.

“I don’t know,” Melissa says, still completely serious. “The eyes are the windows of the soul.”

I wonder if she read that in her Tori Spelling autobiography.

“Okay,” Jillian says. “What did Fez actually say?”

“He says—” Melissa pauses for effect, “—that he wants us all to vote for you guys.”

“You can’t vote us out,” I say. “We have impunity.” I gesture back at the scepter we had to parade around in front of everyone.

“I mean next time,” Melissa says. “Fez wants Ryan and Chad and me to all vote for Jason this time.”

Jillian’s brow furrows. “But Jason gets the coconuts. Does Fez plan to climb any trees?”

“Chad says he could climb a tree,” Melissa says, “but I don’t think he’s actually tried.”

“If Fez is gunning for us,” I say, “then it would make the most sense to go for Fez this time. If you get Chad and Ryan to vote that way, plus the three of us, we already have the majority. And we can probably bring Jason and Su-Lin along, too.” That’ll send a message to Cece, and she’ll have to find another group to join.

“Sounds good to me,” Jillian says. “We weren’t going to go after Fez, but it sounds like he’s shown his true colors.”

The cameras move closer to capture the genuine horror on Melissa’s face. “You can’t say that,” she says in one of those loud stage whispers. “That’s racist.”

Jillian and I stare at her.

“Yeah, Jillian,” I say. “I can’t believe you.”

Jillian gives me a look that says I’ll pay for that later, but it’s worth it. “Oh, god,” she says in the driest of all dry tones. “I’m so sorry.”

Melissa nods sagely. “I just want to make sure you know that you can’t say things like that in this day and age.”

“And yet people still play that Cyndi Lauper song,” I add.

“I know, right?”

“So Melissa,” Jillian says, clearly happy to change the subject, “do you think you can lie to Fez and tell him you guys are all voting for Jason?”

“Sure,” Melissa says. “It’s like lying to someone who asks if their outfit makes them look fat. Sometimes you just have to be nice and tell them it doesn’t, and usually it’s true because it’s not the outfit.”

“Exactly,” I say. “Or like faking an orgasm.”

“Oh, I would never do that,” Melissa says.

“Really?” Jillian asks, with a little too much genuine surprise. I raise my eyebrow at her, and she shrugs.

“Never,” Melissa says. “Guys need to know if they aren’t performing at their best.”

“Good point,” Jillian says. Now she’s the one raising her eyebrow at me, a little smile playing at her lips. “You wouldn’t want that, Alec, would you?”

“Um, no,” I say. “No, I guess I wouldn’t.”

Jillian gives me that mischievous smile of hers, and I can feel my body heat up, thinking of some ways in which I’d like to show her my very best performance, and I imagine she’s having similar thoughts. We all turn around and stroll back toward the beach, even though no actual lying out has taken place. Which is a shame, because I sure wouldn’t mind if Jillian took her top off again.

That, however, is apparently not on the agenda. When we get back to the beach, Jillian offers to get some more water from the stream, which I help her do, and then we take a detour to the coconut trees to look for Jason and Su-Lin. We find them hanging out beneath the trees next to one of Su-Lin’s carefully-stacked coconut pyramids.

“Hey, guys!” Jason shouts. “LOOK AT THIS ENORMOUS COCONUT!” He holds up a coconut that is indeed enormous, but perhaps not deserving of such a loud introduction.

“Whoa,” I say. “Nice.”

Jillian and I set down the water jugs and head over to sit on a log next to them, even though the evil glint in Su-Lin’s eyes tells me what’s coming. She pulls her sock out of its . . . coconut bed, I’m thinking? . . . and smiles at us. “Well, hi there, Alec,” she says, in Ruby’s soft southern drawl.

I refuse to respond to a sock. “So we heard Fez is out for blood,” I say. “And he wants everyone to vote for you.”

I indicate to Jason, who responds with a loud “WHAAAAAAAAAAT.”

“Yeah,” Jillian says. “But we’re with you guys, and so is Melissa, so he won’t be able to get away with it. We were thinking about voting for Fez instead. What about you guys?”

“We were still thinking of voting for Ryan,” Jason says, and I appreciate how much he lowers his tone, though it’s not nearly as low as the rest of us.

Su-Lin raises an eyebrow at us, and her sock puppet does, too. As obnoxious as I find the thing, I have to admit she’s good with it. “Ryan is skee-zy,” the sock says.

“Has he been bothering you?” Jillian asks.

Because it’s Jillian and not me, Su-Lin responds in her normal voice. “Not too much. Mostly just creepy leering.”

“I could scare him for you,” Jason says. “People sometimes find me scary.”

I can’t imagine why people might on occasion be afraid of the towering giant with the big booming voice. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Jason says, shrugging. “Go figure. I can get Ryan to quit leering at you, and we can all vote for Fez. What do you think?”

I can tell Jason wants to get rid of the guy who’s trying to turn people against him, but he waits for Su-Lin’s response. He’s not lying when he says he’s with the hobbit, and will do whatever she says.

“Okay,” Su-Lin says. “But Ryan next, if we can. Did you see he’s running around naked now?”

“We did,” Jillian says.

“I might call you my woman,” Jason says. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“In the interest of scaring Ryan?” Su-Lin asks with her puppet. “Not at all, sugar.”

“All right,” Jason says. “One scared Ryan, coming right up.” Jason stands and starts charging toward the beach, and Jillian and I leave the water behind as we jog through the jungle after him. None of us are going to miss this.

Jason doesn’t slow when he hits the sand, just keeps running toward Ryan—who is now doing naked yoga next to a still-partially-clothed Chad. Ryan doesn’t see Jason until he’s almost upon him, and when he does he falls out of his warrior pose and nearly topples onto his bare ass on the sand.

Dude, I hope he sunscreened well up in there, because otherwise he’s going to be hurting in a few hours.

“Have you been skeeving on my woman?” Jason shouts.

“H-her?” Ryan asks, pointing in Su-Lin’s general direction. She happens to be standing next to Jillian and laughing her ass off, so really, he could mean either of them.

“I heard you were skeeving on my woman!” Jason shouts again. He moves closer, his arms out wide like a gorilla.

“N-no!” Ryan says. Chad, for all his muscle and bragging about various martial arts skills, has maneuvered himself behind Ryan, and is now slowly backing away.

“No, sir!” Jason says.

“No, sir!” Ryan replies.

“Good,” Jason says, and stalks back across the beach toward Su-Lin, who is now rolling on her back on the sand and clutching her sides from laughing so hard.

Jillian and I move away from them. “I don’t think they’re sleeping together,” she whispers to me. “That seemed more like a bro favor.”

“Agreed,” I say, watching Jason give Su-Lin a hand up off the sand. They both immediately drop hands and walk side by side without touching.

So maybe I am the only one on this island who’s actually looking to have a dalliance.

Later that night, Jillian and I turn in early and pick out our spot in the corner of the shelter. We sleep in the part that’s been added on, so it’s separated a bit from the others, if only by a few palm fronds. There’s more room for everyone in there now that we’re down to eight of us, so we’re not in danger of anyone joining us other than the cameras. I can hear one of the camera guys adjusting his tripod right outside, even though it’s too dark now to see him. Or her, I suppose.

Jillian lies against me, her smooth back up against my chest beneath my unbuttoned shirt. I wrap the shirt around us both for warmth, and she moves tighter against me, even as I run a hand around her waist. I lean forward an inch, and my nose touches the soft skin beneath her ear. I can hear her breathing, feel her heartbeat against my fingertips as they brush her lower ribs beneath her top. I want more, but not here. Not with the others mere yards away, sitting around the fire, listening.

“Is this okay?” I whisper.

“Mmmm,” Jillian says. “Yes, definitely.”

I smile and move my lips gently against her jaw, kissing her just under her ear. A shiver runs through her, so I do it again, and then lift my lips to her earlobe.

“It was John Mayer,” I whisper, and Jillian is still for a moment, no doubt taking a second to remember the context.

Then she starts to laugh. I hold her close against me and kiss her ear a few more times while she trembles and giggles.

And for that moment only, even I think it’s a little bit funny.

Eleven

Jillian

Alec and I sit out on the lowest part of the rock outcropping, side by side, taking our turn at fishing. Or, really, attempting to fish, because despite winning hooks and string at the challenge two days ago, no one in the entire group has managed to actually catch anything.

But it gives us time away from the others, and there’s way fewer bugs out here than in the jungle. I’ll take roasting in the sun any day over being chewed up by swarms of midges.

“Hey, look, I think—” Alec starts, as something flickers under the surface of the water, and his makeshift fishing rod twitches. And then nothing. “Shit.”

“Yep. Pretty accurate description of our fishing skills.”

“If I thought for a minute Fez would be any better at this than the rest of us, I’d regret voting him out last night,” Alec says.

Fez, of course, hadn’t been thrilled with the results of last night’s Starvies Ceremony, storming off in a huff and proclaiming that we should “enjoy our raw coconut.” Not that he was making us any five-star meals or anything, given what he had to work with. But even though there are others here I’d rather see go—Ryan and Chad, in particular—we couldn’t have him plotting against us.

Alec and I are going to win this. I know it.

And then with a flush, it occurs to me how, after only a week, I’ve started reflexively thinking about it as “us” winning. Even though that’s actually impossible.

I want to win. I need to win. But I really want him there with me at the final challenge.

“Okay, your turn,” I say, nudging him with my shoulder. We’re both sitting cross-legged—not wanting to dangle our feet in the water in case that scares away the fish—and our knees are touching. But I can’t seem to help always trying to find other little ways to touch him.

“Right.” He pauses, squints. “Favorite . . . birthday present.”

We’re playing this game we’ve been doing the last few days, where we ask each other our favorite things. First, of course, was movies, songs, foods, that kind of stuff. But it’s been fun coming up with more unique questions, and the one rule—other than we have to answer truthfully, no matter how embarrassing—is that you can’t ask a question you yourself aren’t willing to answer.

Even more than the sexy banter this game inevitably sparks—especially with the occasional spicier question, like “favorite place you’ve ever had sex” (Hi Mom and Dad! Glad you’re watching this!)—I just love getting to know more about him. Not like I don’t feel like I know him pretty damn well after seven days out here—more, in some ways, than several boyfriends I’ve had—but it never feels like enough.

I’m falling hard, that much is obvious. I don’t remember ever feeling this strongly about anyone before. And scared every time I get that little voice reminding me this is a game, and often, it’s the people that get played.

I force myself back to his question. Back to this far less risky game.

“When I was kid, my parents found this great dollhouse for me at a garage sale,” I say. “It came with furniture, but no dolls. So for my birthday, my parents decided to get me a family set of dolls.”

“Dolls, huh? Cute.” He smiles at me.

“Yeah, except for the fact that the family sets only came in all white or all black. They all were like that, Barbie families, dollhouse families, whatever. Not exactly representative of my family, you know? It always made me feel like I had to pick which parent I belonged to more.”

He groans. “Yeah, okay. That sucks.”

“So my parents decide for my birthday to give me both sets, the white one and the black, and told me I should make my own family however I wanted.” I smile at the memory. “So I picked the black dad like mine, and the white mom like mine, and the little black girl—because she looked way more like me than the blond, blue-eyed girl from the super Nordic family.” I laugh, and he grins at me.

“I could see how that would mean a lot to you,” he says, and even though I don’t think being Greek has posed many racial problems for him growing up, I feel like he gets it.

I feel like that a lot about Alec.

“It did. Not to mention, I still got to keep all the other dolls. So the next-door family had a black mom and a white dad, and two little blond white kids and black son. And in the house next to that were the two Barbie dolls that seemed very attached to each other—I didn’t have any Kens, but I don’t think they minded. So I had this whole super-progressive toy neighborhood.”

Alec laughs; it’s such a great sound, and always makes my heart feel lighter.

“That’s amazing,” he says. “I love it.”

Him saying that word at all, love—I feel a flutter in my chest I’m too afraid to examine closely.

“Okay, you’re up. Favorite birthday present.”

I have a moment where I can’t help but worry, with a twinge of stupid, irrational jealousy, that his answer will be some perfect, super-romantic gift that Jenna got him in the past.

But he doesn’t hesitate. “This gold designer watch from my Uncle Gene,” he says. “He’s a jeweler, and that’s his standard gift for all the boys in the family on their thirteenth birthday.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Really. That’s your favorite?” Alec doesn’t strike me as a gold watch kind of guy—especially not at thirteen.

“It is. Because one of my older sisters helped me sell it on eBay, and I used the money to buy my first guitar.” He shoots a look at the nearest camera, despite how we’re supposed to ignore them. “Sorry, Uncle Gene,” he says, and I laugh.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,” I say. “Okay, favorite . . .” I start and then trail off, squinting back over at the beach, where the others are little figures in bright swimsuits. Figures who just a few minutes ago had each been doing their own things—Su-Lin, Cece and Chad playing Su-Lin’s game of giant beach mancala with coconuts, Melissa sunbathing (or probably just sleeping on the beach), naked Ryan doing an aside interview, and Jason probably off climbing something.

But now . . .

“Um, are they all walking over here?” I put my hand up to shield my eyes from the sun’s glare. “Together?”

Alec frowns. “It would appear so.”

We glance at each other. Have they somehow all teamed up against us and are doing some weird power play here? By . . . a group march?

We pull our fishing gear out of the water and get to our feet.

“There’s a challenge!” Su-Lin squeals when they get within shouting distance to us. “Right now!”

A challenge? We just had the Starvies last night, and the last time we had a full day before the next challenge. But I guess they want to keep us on our toes.

The challenge is back near where the trivia one was, so once they reach us on the rock outcropping, we leave our fishing gear and start heading with them to the beach on the other side.

As we walk, the backs of Alec’s fingers brush against mine, and I remember him holding my hand while we had our massages—how incredible that felt, his fingers entwined with mine. Better than the massage itself, in some ways, which was really damn good.

I’m about to take his hand now—because screw it, everyone already knows there’s something going on with us—but suddenly Melissa pops in between us.

“Hey guys, I brought your shoes!” She hands us each our sneakers, still a bit mud-crusted from the race despite our best efforts to clean them in the ocean. She sounds more excited than she has been the last couple days—the hunger and exhaustion have been taking a toll on her.

“Thanks,” we both mutter.

Melissa doesn’t seem to notice our lack of enthusiasm. “I wonder if today’s challenge will be runway-walking-related. Or maybe posing? Like for a magazine? That could be—Oh.” Her burst of excitement fades when we round the corner and see what looks like a giant pool of green slime.

And Krissy standing there grinning at us all, next to a table of something covered in fabric again, something I sincerely hope are plates of reward food. “Welcome to today’s challenge!”

We walk closer. Yep. A giant pool of green slime, just like the goop they drop on people at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards. The sides of the pool go to just above my knees, which means we can get in and out without steps. In a circle around the outside of the pool are eight wicker baskets, each of which has one of our names written on it.

“In our lovely slime pond here, there are forty-eight of these,” Krissy announces, holding up what looks like a hockey puck with a gold star drawn on it. “You will all go into the pool and try to find them. When you find one, you need to run it over to your basket, and then go back for another. You can only bring one at a time.” She gives us a stern look on this. “No teams today. You’re all on your own on this one. Do you want to see what you’re playing for?”

I may have just had a great meal two days ago, but my stomach growls at even the thought of more food. She pulls back one side of the fabric to reveal a glass dome, underneath which is a huge ice cream sundae, dripping with chocolate sauce and whipped cream and sprinkles, and a cherry on top and oh my god I think I would shiv someone to get my hands on that.

Judging from the gasps and moans of everyone around me (Melissa actually whimpers), I’m not the only one. Su-Lin is bouncing happily, the little seashells she’s taken to tying in her hair clicking against each other.

“A full ice cream bar for the winner,” Krissy says, clearly enjoying our desperation.

I give Alec a challenging look. That’s mine, I mouth.

He grins and shakes his head. No way, he mouths back. He points at himself.

“More importantly, of course,” Krissy continues, “is that the winner will have impunity at tomorrow’s Starvies Ceremony. And there’s also a little gift for the rest of you that will be revealed at the end.”

Since the fishing hooks have been completely useless, I’m hoping the group gift is more rice. Or maybe a harpoon.

“Are you guys ready to get started?” Krissy asks. Several of us clap, but Su-Lin holds her hand up like she’s in school.

“Um, yes?” Krissy asks.

“I think Ryan should have to put pants on,” Su-Lin says. “I’m not super eager to grope around under that slime with him naked.”

We all look at Ryan. The last couple days I’ve gotten so used to seeing his junk just dangling in the breeze—or less dangling, as the case unfortunately often is—that I kind of forget about it. But she’s got a good point. There’s no way we’re not all diving down in that gunk, and I don’t exactly want to have to worry about grabbing that by accident.

“Agreed,” Cece chimes in quickly, and I nod, as does Alec and Chad and Jason. Melissa just shrugs.

“But my shorts are way back at the shelter,” Ryan says.

A couple of the producers confer furiously, probably weighing the merits of the drama of us having to slime-swim with a naked Ryan Lansing versus potential sexual harassment lawsuits.

“We’ll get his shorts,” one of the producers announces, snapping his fingers and sending one of the sound guys jogging down the beach.

Good call. The rest of us are happy with the pronouncement, but Ryan glares daggers at Su-Lin. At least until Jason steps in between them with his arms folded across his broad chest, and then Ryan looks balefully away.

It takes a while longer, but eventually Ryan has shorts on, and we’re positioned next to our baskets, ready to begin.

“And go!” Krissy shouts, and we’re off, dashing the roughly ten feet from our baskets to the pool, then stepping over the edge and into the cold slime, which is about at my knees. It doesn’t take long before we’re all frantically crawling around in it, splashing it on each other. The bottom of the pool is so slick it’s difficult to keep from face-planting in the stuff.

Su-Lin gets her first one almost immediately, and Cece not long after, both of them hurtling back out of the pool.

My hands catch someone’s foot—Chad’s, I think—and then I feel a round puck. I grab it, jump to my feet—and then Alec slips and crashes into me and I crash into Chad and we all fall back into the slime. I flail out and end up grabbing an ass that I desperately hope is Alec’s, but manage to get back to my feet again, and out of the pool. I run to my basket and drop my first puck in, trailing green slime like I’m the Creature from the Nickelodeon Lagoon.

And then I’m back in the pool.

The chaos continues as we dive down, slide around, trip over each other, find more pucks, and run back and forth from our baskets, all while Krissy is calling out the scores. “Su-Lin is in the lead with four, but Chad’s right behind—that’s it, Chad now has four! Cece’s got her fourth, and yep—Jason does too, both running for their baskets!”

Shit shit shit. I’ve got three, but I can’t find a fourth. There are supposed to be forty-eight of these things in here, right? Why can’t I—

Ryan emerges holding two pucks, but then seems to remember he can only bring one out and drops the other. Alec and I both see this at the same time and dash for it, and this time I’m the one that slips and careens into his legs. He falls on top of me, and we’re both covered in slime, but his body is right there on top of mine, and there’s this breath where we both pause and—

His eyes flick down and widen slightly, and I look down and oh my god, one of my boobs has popped out of my top, and Alec rolls off me and I try to adjust my top—even as I catch Ryan staring. I glare at him, my face burning in embarrassment, my body burning from Alec’s being on top of me like that.

And then Alec grabs the puck, gives me a devilish smile that makes my body flush even harder, and darts off—sweeping Ryan’s legs out from under him as he goes. Ryan plants face-first into the slime and comes up sputtering.

I find myself holding in a laugh as I dive back to find that fourth puck.

Which I do, and then am back in the pool, but just as my hand closes around the fifth puck, Krissy shouts out, “Su-Lin has six! Su-Lin is the winner, beating Chad by one second!”

Su-Lin shrieks and jumps up and down, spraying slime onto Krissy, while Chad hunches over, dripping chunks of slime onto the beach.

Krissy grins. “Su-Lin, you’ve won impunity for tomorrow night, and you get to make yourself whatever treat you want at our Starving with the Stars ice cream bar. But ice cream isn’t as much fun by yourself, is it?” Krissy pauses for our hopes to all rise again. Which they do, damn it. “Why don’t you pick a friend to join you, Su-Lin?”

Despite the rise in hopes, and all our pathetically pleading expressions, I don’t think any of us are particularly surprised when she cheerfully calls out, “Jason!” and he whoops and joins her over by the ice cream bar.

“For the rest of you . . .” Krissy trails off, her hand edging toward the still-covered items left on the table.

Please, god, let it be food.

She flicks back the fabric, and it’s not food. But I can’t say I’m unhappy to see it anyway.

Blankets and small pillows. They look to be about the quality you’d find on your average economy class airline, but we all cheer. Even if I’ve been pretty comfortable sleeping cuddled up next to Alec, I’ve got to admit, blankets will be so much nicer to cover ourselves with than itchy palm fronds.

I grin over at Alec, and he’s looking back at me, and I think again of his body on mine and yeah, okay, I flashed him with a slime-covered boob, but now all I can think about is how it would feel to have his hands stroke me there. And other places.

“All right,” Krissy says, cutting into the daydream that was making my heart race even faster. “I will see you all at the Starvies tomorrow. Better get cleaned up before then.” She laughs.

We start walking back to the beach, a goopy, gross, slime-covered bunch of has-been celebrities.

But Alec catches my eye and smiles, and I remember the way he looked at me on the ship, when I was wearing that dress and makeup and looking like a human being again—how beautiful the way he smiled at me made me feel.

How beautiful that smile of his always makes me feel, even when I look like this.

I smile back, even as my heart thuds in a vague panic. I’m falling hard. I know this. And it may not be smart.

But I never want it to end.

Twelve

Alec

When we get back from the slime challenge, we all scatter to wash off in the ocean. I head into the surf, going out far enough that I can rinse beneath my swim trunks without showing my bare ass off to the cameras back on shore. The slime is greasy and disgusting, but when it mixes with the water it turns into a slimy sort of soap, so by the time I get back to shore, I’m feeling cleaner than I did before. And I think I’ve mostly gotten it out of my hair.

I go looking for Jillian, because now that I’m no longer coated in slime, I want to talk to her. We’ve been dancing around this thing too long, much longer than I ever would have taken to make a move in the real world, and I’m ready. More than ready. This ache is growing into a pressing need, and while I’m still not sure if she’s looking for exactly the same things I am, I’m ready to take the risk and find out.

And while she hasn’t initiated anything, all the signals indicate that she’s more than ready, too.

I find her a ways down the beach, far enough that she’s alone. She’s standing out in the surf, readjusting her top, so I’m guessing she chose the same strategy I did to avoid flashing the camera. A wave goes out, and I move toward her, the sound of my feet quiet on the sand compared to the rush of the water. Jillian doesn’t hear me until I’ve almost reached her, and she looks over her shoulder, sees it’s me, and smiles.

That’s all the encouragement I need. I come up behind her, wrap her tight in my arms, and pull her against me. She leans back willingly, pressing herself into me, and from the way she rubs against me I know she can feel the way I want her. She twists in my arms, her hands slipping around my waist, and looks up at me.

I look down at her mouth for just a moment, and then I pull her in for a kiss.

A hot current races through my body, and the kiss deepens almost instantly. We’re clinging to each other, our mouths moving desperately, and I’m so eager to get closer I pick her up in my arms. Jillian’s legs wrap around my waist, and her arms tighten around my neck, and we kiss and kiss as wave after wave crashes against my knees.

When we finally surface for air, we’re both breathless. Jillian runs her hand along my unshaven jaw. “Is this . . .” She pauses, tugging her lower lip between her teeth. “Is this just a physical thing for you?”

My whole body feels weightless, like we’re suspended in the air. So I’m not the only one who’s been worried about that. “Hell, no,” I say, thinking of all the long hours talking and laughing, or just holding her. “I’m so into you.”

Jillian smiles, and then kisses me again, her fingers stroking the back of my neck. Her body is hot against mine and I don’t know that I’ve ever had a first kiss that felt this electric, this indescribable. My hands slide down to her ass, holding her against me, and she squeezes me between her thighs and all I want to do is strip off all our clothes and make love right there in the ocean.

But the cameras. They’ve followed us down the beach, of course, and I don’t have to turn around to know they’re getting all of this.

I know I’m supposed to be seen on camera with her. But I have been, a lot. And now I’m starting to feel like I’m exploiting her, when really all I want is to carry her off to our own private island and spend the next several days ravaging each other.

That’s off the table, at least until the show is over. I set Jillian back down in the surf, feeling a bit unsteady on my own legs, and take her hand. “Want to get some more privacy?” I ask her.

The idea of privacy is laughable on this island, but Jillian doesn’t laugh. She stares up into my eyes, and her gaze is so intense that I lean down and sweep her into another kiss.

“Yes,” she says when we break apart. “Please.”

I take her hand and we head up the beach and into the jungle. The cameras are always watching, but we manage to find an old hollowed-out tree where we can sit mostly obstructed from the outside. If the cameras are getting a clear shot, it’s from far away with a powerful zoom, but I’m pretty sure they’re mostly restricted to sound.

Jillian climbs into my lap and kisses me again, her hands working up and down my chest and setting my skin on fire. I reach up and loosen her top, and then ease it down toward her waist. Her back is to the opening in the tree, so the camera won’t be able to see her breasts as I uncover them, running my tongue over the smooth surface of her skin. Her head rolls back and she’s breathing as hard as I am, both of us touching as much as possible. She straddles me, rubbing against me in way that make me want to scream, but I restrict myself to a few frantic gasps before my mouth closes over hers again.

Her bare chest presses against mine, and it’s almost enough to make me lose control. The limited privacy we have here isn’t enough to go further—I’m not shy, but I’m also not a Ryan-style exhibitionist, and besides, what Jillian and I do together like this isn’t anyone’s business.

At least, it wouldn’t be if we hadn’t agreed to get to know each other under a damn microscope.

I break away, laying my head on her shoulder, and she does the same, breathing hard.

“Damn,” I whisper, and she murmurs her agreement.

“I’m really liking this,” she says.

“Me too,” I tell her. “It’s been a long time.”

“Since you made out with a girl?” Jillian asks. “Somehow I doubt that.”

Okay, that’s a good point. It hasn’t been more than a month since the last time I did that, though the last time I did just that is a lot further off. “Okay,” I say. “Maybe not that.”

“What then?” She’s teasing me, both with the question and with her the way she whispers it right in my ear, and it’s almost enough to make me forget what I was saying entirely.

“It’s been a long time since I liked anybody this much,” I say.

“Yeah,” Jillian says. “It’s been a long time for me, too.”

I’m thinking back, trying to figure out the last time I did feel this way. Maybe with Jenna, when things were at their best, but even then, I’m not sure. Something about being near Jillian is electric and satisfying in this new and incomparable way, even though we haven’t had the opportunity for any kind of real sexual catharsis.

“I want to tell you something,” Jillian says. “I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t want to play it for the cameras, but I want you to know.”

I pull back and look her in the eye. “Yeah?” I ask. I’m afraid of what she’s going to say. I can tell from her tone that it’s something serious, and I wonder if maybe she’s sick, or hurt in some way that doesn’t show.

“The career thing isn’t the only reason I’m here,” Jillian says. “It’s not even most of it. My mom is a really big fan of shows like these, and we’ve always watched them together.”

“Right. You said she was a fan of Krissy.”

“Yeah.” Jillian looks away, up at the tree. “She doesn’t remember me all the time anymore. She has early-onset dementia, and on her bad days, she doesn’t know my name. But she remembers the names of every person who’s ever won Survivor. I wanted to do this so that even when she can’t remember me as her daughter anymore, she’ll still remember me as someone on this show.”

My heart aches for her. “That’s awful,” I say. I can’t imagine how much it would hurt to watch my mother forget who I am, and I’m not nearly as close to my family as Jillian is to hers. “I’m so sorry.”

She shrugs. “I just—I didn’t want to play it for sympathy. And I know they’re recording this now, but really, it’s going to come out eventually. I’m not stupid. I know it’s a lot of why they cast me for this show. Because of the story. The producers are getting pushier on asking me questions about it during my asides.”

“God,” I say. “Your mom going through that . . . it must be so hard for you to deal with.”

“It’s hardest on my dad,” Jillian says. “She remembers him more, but occasionally she forgets him, too. The rest of the family thinks she should be in a facility, but my dad can’t do it. He’s going to take care of her until the end, because he loves her so much. He always has. And I try to stay close to help out. That’s why I stopped working the cruise ships, so I could be close to home.”

“But you decided to do this because you knew she would love it.”

“Right,” Jillian says. “I wanted to tell you before, but I don’t want to use her for sympathy. And I’m also afraid,” she bites her lip, “that people will judge me for leaving her for something like this.”

“Yeah, but you’re doing it for her,” I say. “It seems like using her for her own benefit is okay. Like parents signing their kids up for Make-A-Wish. They’re asking for sympathy to do something nice for their kid.”

Jillian smiles. “That’s a good way to look at it.”

I press my forehead against hers. “Thank you for telling me.” I have a pit in my stomach for not telling her the real reason I’m here, especially now that she’s been so open and honest with me, but there’s no way I can do that. Not when I know the cameras are still listening. Especially when I’m not sure how Jillian will take it.

“So,” she says, and pauses like she’s building up to something else. “Are you really over your ex?”

It takes me a second to understand the question. “Am I over Jenna?”

“Yeah.”

“Um, yeah,” I say. “We were both over it. That’s why we broke up.”

Jillian nods. “I believe you. I was just wondering because, well, you talk about her a lot. I mean, it’s clear she’s important to you, and that’s great. I just want to make sure . . .” She trails off, cringing a little.

I don’t hate that she’s worried about it. She wouldn’t be if this was just some temporary fling. “I love Jenna,” I say, “but it’s really not like that. A while ago I told her she was like a sister to me, but like a sister I used to sleep with, and the metaphor sort of devolved from there. I don’t think she appreciated that much, but it’s hard to explain.”

Jillian chuckles. “No, I think I get it. Like, you’re close like family, but you’re exes.”

“Yeah,” I say. “We broke up in the first place because we always made better friends than romantic partners. And she wanted someone who was going to be a real father to her son Ty, and I’m not really into the idea of having kids. I tried with him, but I was never natural at it. Not like Felix.”

That part still stings, even though I know things wouldn’t have worked out between me and Jenna regardless. I told myself it’s just hard to step into someone’s family like that, but Felix did it more or less overnight. Jenna insists it’s not that I’m not father material, just that Felix was somehow supernaturally Ty’s father before they ever even met. I’m not sure I buy that, but I get why she looks at it that way, because from all appearances, that’s what happened.

“We had different priorities,” I say. “She loves music, and she loved the band, but she always wanted something from me that I couldn’t give her. I never understood what it was until Felix did. She needed this understanding, this empathy, this willingness to just sit with her pain. She’s got a really rough past, and when we used to talk about it, I’d get so angry about the things that had happened to her. It wasn’t the right response, and it didn’t help. And she couldn’t give me what I needed, either.”

“What did you need?” Jillian asks.

She’s still sitting on my lap, and I’m tempted to tell her I need a couple hours alone with her, curled up in a bedroom with no cameras.

“I needed someone to tell me when I’m being an ass,” I say instead.

“Really? She didn’t do that?”

“It’s more than that,” I say. “I need someone who’s good at signalling me when I’ve gone too far, whereas Jenna and I would just bitch at each other all the time. We really got on each other’s nerves toward the end. And I needed someone who would be supportive of my career.”

“You guys were in a band together,” Jillian says.

“Yeah, and to be fair to her, in a lot of ways she was supportive. She sacrificed a lot, especially once we broke up and started lying about our relationship. But ultimately, I don’t think she ever wanted the career as much as I did. I think she wanted someone who would one day give it all up to settle down and have kids and a more normal life, and that wasn’t going to be me.”

Jillian nods, and I wonder if I’m talking her out of her interest in me. But if my relationship with Jenna taught me anything, it’s that these aren’t things that are going to change. Better for her to know now than to discover it later.

“What about you?” I ask. “Have you ever been in a serious relationship?”

“I’ve had a few boyfriends,” Jillian says. “But I think they were a little intimidated about how career-driven I am. I think they thought I would put my career before them, and to be fair, I probably would have—in many ways I think I did—because I was never into it enough not to.”

“I guess I’ve always thought it’s stupid to look at a relationship that way,” I say. “Which would you choose, your partner or your career. Normal people with healthy, functioning relationships can have both, you know? You can put a person first when they need to be first, and put your career first when opportunities come up, and still love each other and support each other. I don’t understand why it has to be one or the other.”

“Yes, definitely. Though this thing with my mom has shown me where my ultimate priorities are.”

“Sure. You’re putting your mom first because she needs it right now, but you aren’t going to put off Broadway forever. It’s an exceptional situation.”

“Right,” Jillian says. ‘And I think if you care enough about each other, you should be willing to fight for both the relationship and the careers you want, even if one or the other sometimes needs to take precedence.”

I smile. “Like, when you love someone, seeing them achieve their dreams should bring you joy. Not just for them, but for you, too. That’s why I’m not bitter about Felix and Jenna’s success. And it’s why they want me to succeed, too. Because we’re family, and we love each other.” What I don’t say is that this is one of the reasons I don’t go home to my actual family much. They see my success as this bad thing, as this thing that took me away, and I can’t help but feel that they don’t really love me. They love the person they wanted me to be, but it isn’t me.

Someday, I’ll tell her that. But those are more things I’m not willing to say on camera.

Jillian smiles at me, and at that moment, I’d give anything to keep seeing that, not just for the rest of the show, but forever and beyond. “I think that might not be how you felt when you went flying off the stage at the VMAs.”

True that. “Yeah, okay. But that night, when I decided to say that Jenna and I were married, I honestly thought I was doing the best thing for Jenna, to keep her from screwing up her life. She and Felix had broken up, and she was going to run away from everything that mattered to her, and I couldn’t stand it. And the truth is, it worked, even if not in the way I planned it. They got back together there on that stage, and she got what she needed, and what she wanted.” I sigh. “But my career was the collateral damage.”

“That’s definitely not how the media spun it.”

“No,” I say. “And Felix and Jenna did what they could. But people want to believe I’m the villain, even though the truth is I’m not a particularly good liar, especially when I’m not on a stage.”

“Well,” Jillian says, running her hands up my arms. “In the musicals the villains always get the best songs.”

I laugh. “That’s true. Unfortunately, in this case, it’s worse than if I’d never been anyone. Before, I had this unknown potential. Now people feel like all the questions about my future have been answered, and they don’t like the answers at all.”

“Oh, believe me,” she says. “I get that. No casting director can look at me and not see that damn dancing stewardess.”

“Do you get guys asking you to do that?” I ask. “Dress up like the dancing stewardess and strip for them?”

“Do they ask? Yes. Have I ever done it? No.”

I think the idea of her dressing up in that slinky uniform and dancing for me is incredibly sexy. And hilarious. “So you’re saying you never would.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “I’m not saying that. But I’d have to have the right offer.”

Noted. But it’s not a possibility right now, so I let it drop. “I’d take any offer at all,” I say. “I’ve thought about moving somewhere remote, somewhere far from the US music scene and trying to make a name there, then coming back in five years to see if the industry is ready to give me another chance.”

“Like where?” Jillian asks.

“Finland. Or Australia.”

“Ha,” she says. “Well, I hope you don’t plan to go away anytime soon.”

We look at each other, and I feel the heat building between us again. Jillian clears her throat. “I mean, I hope this show fixes things for you enough that you don’t have to.”

I nod. “I hope we make it to the end,” I say, and I feel the words resonate in ways I’m not sure I’m ready to examine too closely. “I want to help you win this thing for your mom if I can.”

The truth is, making it to the end and then throwing it to her would be crazy sympathetic. And I’m pretty sure she needs the win more than I do. I mean, the money would be nice, but I’ve still got royalties coming in.

Jillian’s voice is quiet, barely a whisper. I don’t know if she’s hiding from the cameras, or unsure about saying this to me. “I wouldn’t hate it if this thing between us continued after the show.”

Hearing her say that brings a grin to my face that I can’t and don’t want to hide. “Neither would I,” I say. I pause. “I don’t have anything keeping me in LA, you know.”

Her eyebrows draw together. “I guess I do have something keeping me in DC.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I get it. And I wouldn’t mind a change.”

Jillian wraps her arms tight around my neck, and we just hold each other. I should be freaked out that I basically just offered to move to DC for her, especially given how new this all is, but I’m not. LA hasn’t been doing me any favors lately, and I feel like being in these circumstances, we’re getting to know each other faster than we would have at home.

I certainly feel like I’ve known her longer than a week. I turn and speak in her ear. “If it comes down to it, and you have to sacrifice me to stay in the game, just do it. It won’t affect anything between us. I won’t take it personally.”

Jillian hesitates. “I feel like I should say the same thing to you, but—”

“No,” I tell her. “You need it more.”

She burrows her face into my neck. “Okay. But you better not be giving up.”

“I’m not,” I tell her. “And trust me, if you try to kick me out when you have any other viable options, I will definitely take that personally. I say we both ride this thing all the way to the end.”

“Mmm,” Jillian says, shifting so her body rubs against me just so. “Definitely.”

I groan. “Damn cameras.”

Her nails slide up the back of my neck.

I pull her close, and look her in the eyes, and I can see how much she wants me. “That’s one hundred percent of the problem, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” She sounds as regretful of that as I feel.

“So things the camera can’t see aren’t a problem,” I whisper, and she gives me a sly smile and nods. I kiss her again, holding her close.

That’s really good to know.

That night, when Jillian and I curl up in the shelter beneath one of the blankets from the challenge, I pull her tight against me, holding her from behind like I have before. This time, though, under the cover of dark, and with the others still sitting around the fire, and with the blanket soft and quiet around us compared to the rustling palm fronds, I draw my hand up her thigh, teasing the lower hem of her shorts with my fingers.

Jillian’s body tenses, but she eases back into me, rubbing against me with pleasure.

I take that for an invitation, and move my hand along her leg and up to her hip, and then slip my fingers a fraction of an inch under her waistband.

Jillian’s breath catches, and she doesn’t seem even a little inclined to stop me. I slide my hand fully down into her shorts, and she makes a little murmuring noise, and then buries her face in the pillow, probably to keep the dark-vision cameras from catching any telling expressions if they manage to find an angle where they can see her face.

I tease my fingers along the crease of her thigh, resting them there like I don’t intend to go any further. Jillian rubs against me more suggestively, and I want to slide her shorts off and take her right now from behind.

That’s too much. I’m not sure we could hide that from the cameras, or from the others. I lie as still as I can, moving only my fingers, running them over the edge of her lips, which are wet and inviting. Her knee leans carefully to the side, giving me better access.

And then I slide my fingers inside her, and she lets out the softest of moans, barely audible even to me. She shifts subtly against me as I work her up, enjoying the feeling of her muscles tensing all up and down my body.

I close my eyes, pressing my face into her hair, moving slowly but steadily, until she finds my free hand and clasps it tight in both of hers. I kiss the back of her neck, moving my tongue against her skin in time with my fingers, and her whole body clenches, shudders, and releases against me. I want to come with her, and the way she convulses around my wet fingers is almost enough, combined with the soft grinding of her ass on my crotch. She stretches against me, her body still unwinding, and then spins around in my arms and kisses me full force on the mouth.

My whole being hungers for her. Not that I expect anything back, but I sure don’t hate it when her hands start toying with the edge of my swim trunks, and then slowly, gently, exploring the outside. I can hear the others laughing by the fire, and we’re barely moving, her hands pressed and hidden between us, in a warm cavity formed by our bodies and the blanket. I pull it up over our shoulders, so our heads are barely protruding, and kiss the top of her forehead before burying my face in her hair.

And it’s a good thing I do, because then her hands are inside my swim trunks, warm and eager against my hardness, and it’s all I can do not to cry out. I bite my lip, my face contorting against her neck, breathing hard and heavy and as silently as I can. Her fingers are working me, softly but expertly, with just the right amount of pressure, and more than anything I want to call out her name.

Instead, my mouth finds her ear, and I whisper it desperately, running my tongue along her earlobe as her hands continue to work their magic. She draws me out, long and slow, until I feel like I can’t stand the building pressure anymore. I’m about to burst, and I whisper her name with more urgency.

She gets the message, speeding up the frequency, stroking me with clear intent. I squeeze my eyes closed and hold my breath, seeing stars against my eyelids and then a brilliant flash as I come in her hand, spilling into her waiting grasp.

I open my eyes just enough to find her mouth with mine, and then roll her over onto her back and kiss her deeply. Her hands slide around to my ass and pull me against her, and I gather her up in my arms and kiss her and kiss her. Let them get this part on camera. The rest of that was just for us, this secret, soft, sensual moment in the middle of all this chaos.

I hold her tight against me, whispering her name against her ear again as we relax together, and I can’t remember sex ever feeling so intimate, so important, or so real.

I’m falling for her, I realize. Hard and fast and wonderful and all at once.

I’m falling, I’m falling, and god help me, I never, ever want it to stop.

Thirteen

Jillian

I’m supposed to be focused on cooking up the last of the rice—keeping any tiny precious grain from getting burnt and stuck to the bottom of the pot—but all I can think about is last night. And Alec. And the way it felt to have his lips at the back of my neck, his voice whispering my name, his fingers exploring me, bringing me to the most intense of heights . . .

And then to be doing the same to him. To finally feel him in my hands, hard and desperate for me. To feel him shudder against me, and then the way he kissed me after—the way all his kisses feel—like I’m as necessary to him, as much a part of him as his own breath, as his own heartbeat.

Or maybe that’s just the way I felt about him.

The words I’d wanted to say then stick in my head, simple and breathless and more than a little terrifying.

I love you, Alec.

They felt so true in my mind last night, so real and right, with his hands on my body, making every inch of me light up, craving more and more. Now I try to examine those words a little more rationally, try to peel them away from the adrenaline rush of how much I want him.

I’ve never felt this strongly about any guy I’ve dated, that much I know. I’ve said those words before, to one of my boyfriends. He said them first, actually, and I said them back, because it felt like probably they should be true—we’d been together nearly a year at that point, and we got along really well, and the sex was great, and I definitely cared about him.

But later that night I’d turned those words over and over in my head, with a pit growing in my stomach, and it became clear that I was wrong. We broke up not long after, and in many ways, it was a relief. And though I missed the friendship for a while, I didn’t miss us.

Today, I turn those words over and over, thinking about Alec and me. Thinking about us playing our favorites game, about days of sitting on the beach, talking about everything and nothing. About how it feels to be near him, to hear him laugh. The press of his lips on mine. The thought of him moving to DC—crazy though I know it is, so soon, but that thought of having him be part of my normal, everyday life and being part of his, far removed from island challenges and game strategy . . . It feels amazing.

The words still feel real and right.

I think I’m in love with Alec Andreas.

Is there any chance he feels the same, or anything close? Sure, a guy who just wants to make out more might say “hell no” to the question of whether it’s just physical—but would he then have said that thing about how it’s been a long time since he’s liked anyone like this, when it’s clear I was happy to go further on that first answer alone? Would a guy just wanting to guarantee an alliance for a game—an alliance that’s been provably solid to this point—go so far as to say he’s willing to move across the country to be with me after this?

They could be outright lies, but they’d be totally unnecessary ones, if so. And the look on his face when he said them—

“You’re stirrin’ that, aren’t you?” a voice cuts through my thoughts. Cece, with an armful of firewood, her brow furrowed as she looks down at me. Alec and Jason are behind her, also carrying firewood.

“Yep,” I say, stirring it a little too rapidly to make up for the fact that I had gotten distracted and stopped.

“You need to keep stirrin’ or it’s gonna burn.”

“I know how to cook rice,” I snap back. Though really, I’m not sure I do. It looks like I’m making it too mushy.

Cece gives me a look. “Sure thing, hon,” she says, and marches over to the wood pile—which we’ve been keeping well away from the shelter and the fire to prevent any accidental burning down of our little beach home. Jason follows her.

Alec hangs back. “You need to keep stirrin’, hon,” he says quietly, in a spot-on imitation of Cece’s southern drawl.

I keep stirring with one hand and flip him off with the other, and he laughs, and I grin back at him.

God, how does even just joking around with him like that make me feel so good?

Alec and Jason work on stacking the woodpile so it doesn’t topple, and Cece comes back over and makes some passive-aggressive comment about how she’s happy to take over the cooking if I want to go lie out on the beach with Melissa some more.

I don’t particularly want to hang out with Melissa right now—she’s been increasingly whiny since failing to win the ice cream from the slime challenge, despite how she has repeatedly told me she doesn’t eat dairy because “cows have such a high BMI.”

I also don’t appreciate Cece implying that I lie around too much—I’ve hauled firewood and chopped coconuts and dug latrines every bit as much as she has, if not more. But really, I kind of just want to sit and do nothing but think.

I find myself looking over at Alec, at the lean muscles of his arms and back as he stacks the wood.

Okay, there’s a few other things I’d like to do more than that.

I let Cece have her way for now, and hand over the stirring stick. Then I wander over to Alec and Jason.

“Need any help?” I ask.

“Nah, we’re good!” Jason yells back, even though I’m barely two feet away. “Just finished! Unless you want to come get more coconuts with me?”

As hungry as I am, I could stand to never see another coconut as long as I live.

“I think I’ll stay here,” I say.

“Yeah, me too,” Alec says, when Jason looks about to yell the same question at him.

“No problem,” Jason says with a shrug, then scans the beach. “Su-Lin!” he yells over to where she—and Ruby—have just finished up an aside interview. “You want to forage?”

“Sure!” Su-Lin says, a big grin on her face. In addition to the little seashells she’s taken to tying in her hair when she’s got nothing else to do, I notice she’s put in a long palm leaf, dangling down like a feather. A few more days of boredom, and she’s going to have more island crap on her head than hair.

The two—well, three, counting Ruby—jog off, and Alec looks perfectly happy to see them go.

“Hey,” he says, stepping up closer to me. “Got relieved of rice duty?”

“Apparently Cece has designated herself the new Fez. No one is allowed to cook but her.” I inch closer myself, run my fingers up his forearm.

“You seem really broken up about this.” His fingers tease at my waist, at the strip of bare skin between my top and shorts. A shiver runs through me.

“Very much so,” I say, tugging my lip between my teeth.

His humidity-curling hair falls over his eyes as he dips his head closer. “Like maybe you need to get away somewhere, maybe—”

“You guuuuuuys,” whines a voice from behind me, and we both grimace.

Melissa.

“Is it me, or it so super cold today?” She has her arms wrapped around herself. “It was sooo cold last night.”

Alec and I look at each other, both of us fighting smiles. Cold wasn’t what I was feeling last night, that’s for sure, and I don’t think he was either.

“I mean, it’s overcast,” I start, “but I wouldn’t say it’s—”

“I think it’s because I have, like, so little body fat, you know?” She rubs her hands over her admittedly very thin arms. “And I haven’t eaten hardly anything in days, and now I have even less body fat.”

“That’s probably true.” I refrain from pointing out that she’s also in the world’s smallest string bikini, and has spent the whole morning lying out on the damp sand by the shore, neither of which have done her core body temperature any favors.

“This is just the worst,” she says, her blue eyes wide. “I’m so hungry. I know I’m a model and I don’t look like I eat, but I do eat. Most days, even. Like, I’ve starved myself before, but that was my choice, and then I had, like, new clothes to wear for the shoot, so it was worth it, but this bikini isn’t even cute anymore because I’ve worn it every day, and—”

“Hey, where are your boy toys?” Alec cuts in, looking around. “I bet one of them would be happy to help keep you warm.”

Melissa makes a face. “I’m not talking to Ryan anymore, ever. He said that Tori Spelling isn’t a very good actress.” She says this like Ryan confessed to murdering kittens, or having a complete collection of Michael Bolton albums.

“Wow,” is all I can say.

She makes a dismissive gesture. “I was done with that dalliance anyway. And Chad, too. It’s just, I’m soooo bored with them. You know, sometimes you just want guys to stop talking about how hot you are.”

Alec gives me a side smile. “Jillian, I’m guessing you identify with this problem.”

Before I can respond, Melissa grabs my hand with both of hers—yikes, her hands are cold. Maybe the poor girl is being starved into hypothermia.

“Right?” she says. “You get it! Like, it’s nice to hear, but sometimes you just want them to, like, say something of substance. You know?”

We both blink at her. Finally, Alec says, “Like what?”

Melissa drops my hand—thankfully—and puts her hands on her hips, her brow furrowed deeply as she thinks.

And thinks.

“Don’t try too hard,” Alec says, and I have to pretend to cough to hide the laugh that nearly bubbles out of me. I elbow him in the side.

“No, do,” I say. “I want to know.” Part of me feels bad for encouraging this—Melissa really is sweet, even if the last couple days she’s been driving me crazy.

But I’m dying to know what conversations of substance she wants to have with the likes of Ryan Lansing and Chad Montgomery.

“Homeless people!” she blurts out. “Like that kind of thing. Substance.”

My mouth drops open a little. “Um, okay. When you were dating Blake Pless, did you guys talk about homeless people?”

Melissa looks confused. “No. Why would Blake Pless talk about homeless people?”

This is a reasonable question, I suppose. Alec’s face is turning red from holding in his laughter. I’m not sure I’m covering it much better.

“I . . . don’t know,” I manage. “Does he not have, um . . . substance?”

“We only went on, like, two dates,” Melissa says. “We didn’t even sleep together.”

I can practically hear the producers freaking out in the cameramen’s earpieces at this juicy reveal—and willing us to follow up on it.

And because I’m just as curious as the rest of America undoubtedly will be, I do.

“Seriously?” I ask.

“He kissed me, but didn’t seem all that into it,” she says. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s gay but not out yet? Or, like, still sad about his divorce? Even after a year? Sometimes even guys don’t want sex, if they’re super sad. Or feeling bloated after a big meal. I mean, he did have dairy at dinner.”

I have no words. My mind is trying to wrap itself around this image of possibly-closeted, super sad, dairy-bloated megastar Blake Pless and failing. Alec has this priceless look of incredulity on his face that I dearly hope the cameras are zooming in on.

“Anyway,” Melissa continues. “I don’t mean I want guys to talk about homeless people, like gossip. Not like, ‘Did you see that guy at the pier, his beard was gross and he smelled so bad.’ But, like, maybe talk about ways we can help them not to be gross and not to smell bad.”

“Right,” I say. “You know, Alec here was just telling me all his thoughts on the subject.” I squeeze his arm. “He’s a real man of substance.”

Alec gives me a look.

“Go ahead, Alec,” I say. “Tell her all about it.”

“I am pro helping the homeless,” he says, shooting me one of those you’re going to pay looks we’re so fond of giving each other. “Two thumbs up.”

Melissa doesn’t seem to notice; she’s started toying with the end of her long blond ponytail. “You guys, I think I smell bad,” she says. “And my hair, it’s so greasy. I thought it would be in fun beach waves the whole time, but it’s not. And all my products are at home, so now I just have to sit here in a not-cute bikini with gross, greasy hair and be cold all the time.”

She starts shaking again, and just looks so downright miserable I can’t resist putting my arm around her thin shoulders. She huddles into me.

“Do you think they might give us some dry shampoo at our next reward challenge?” she asks, like a little orphan Oliver asking for more gruel. “Maybe some volumizing powder, or—”

“You know,” Alec says, in that voice that says his patience is fraying. “I heard Cece knows how to deal with greasy hair. Maybe you should ask her.”

Melissa looks between us. “Oh! You guys want to go make out, don’t you? You should have just said that.”

“Yes,” Alec says. “Clearly we should have just said that.”

Melissa pulls herself out from under my arm and frowns over at Cece, who is stirring away at the rice. “Do you really think Cece would know how to help? She’s so old, I don’t think she remembers what it was like to be young and hot.” She pauses. “But she does have rice. And that’s organic, right?”

Without waiting for an answer, Melissa heads over to Cece. Who does not look pleased to see her—and that’s before Melissa ends up blurting out something about how old and no longer hot Cece is.

“Well, I think we know who Cece is going to want to vote out tonight,” Alec says, echoing my own thoughts. “Not that I’d be sad.”

I wouldn’t, either. I’ve grown fond of Melissa, but I think her company is best enjoyed in small, non-desert island-related doses.

Like pretty much every one else on this island except Alec, actually. Him I definitely want to keep around—honestly, he’s the main reason I’m not going utterly crazy here with all these people.

“I don’t think she’d be sad, either,” I say. “It feels like it would be a mercy vote. Putting her out of her misery.”

“Right. And if she’s not controlling Ryan or Chad anymore . . .” He shrugs.

“I don’t think she is,” I say, thinking back over the last couple days. She may be bored with them, but I get the feeling it’s pretty mutual. “And as much as I don’t care for either of them, they have been doing some work, at least.”

Alec nods. “But they haven’t yet seemed to be much of a threat in the challenges,” he says. “So Melissa, then.”

I see the way Cece looks ready to strangle the poor girl.

“I think that’s best at this point.” I look back at Alec, and smile, remembering that adorably stunned WTF look on his face when she said that thing about Blake Pless. “Which is sad, because I would love to see her interact with you some more.”

Now Alec has a whole new WTF look on his face. “Um, I know this isn’t what you said, but I heard ‘Alec, I want to watch you make out with Melissa.’”

I laugh, then scoot closer to him, putting my hands on his waist, feeling those toned, lean muscles at his sides. “Oh, is that what you think I want?”

He smiles, and his hands are back on my waist, drawing me in against him. “I’ve been enjoying my interactions with you,” he says, and his blue eyes get that mischievous gleam to them. “You seemed to be enjoying those interactions, as well.”

God, have I. My body is heating up just thinking about it. Not to mention being so close to him, with his hands on me and mine on him—

“Yeah, I’m definitely wanting to keep those interactions to myself,” I say, and though I’m saying it teasingly, I know I mean it, and not just for the duration of the game.

Those words are in my head again, the ones I wanted to say last night.

I love you, Alec.

Is it really possible? We’ve only known each other a week. We kissed for the first time just yesterday. I still don’t know for sure this isn’t all part of some elaborate play for the game, or just a way for him to more pleasurably pass the time while he’s stuck on an island full of annoying celebrities.

Fear squeezes my heart. I may feel those words, but there’s no way I’m ready to say them to him, not yet.

I force a light laugh. “I do think it’s interesting that I say the word ‘interaction,’ and that’s the first thing that comes to your mind.”

His forehead presses against mine, his dark hair hanging down to brush my cheeks. “The things we’ve been doing kind of make that the first thing on my mind.”

“Yeah, I may have those things on my mind a lot, too,” I say, that ache building. Wanting him, definitely. Wanting more and more of the way I feel with him, of this connection we have. “We do have some time before Cece finishes that rice, and it needs to cool off . . .”

Alec tugs his lower lip between his teeth. “Yeah. We have time. Maybe to get to that tree we found yesterday…”

I grin. “Favorite tree on the island?”

“Hell, yes. Favorite tree. On the planet.”

Mine too. I grab his hand and practically haul him towards the jungle. That tree doesn’t give us enough privacy to do what I really want to be doing, but god, even just making out with him is incredible.

Just being with him at all.

As we hustle ourselves away from the prying eyes of the other contestants—if not completely away from those of the camera, unfortunately—we laugh, and tease each other with small touches and heat-filled glances.

I’d always thought there was no way I’d be like my parents, to fall for someone so fast and so hard. I remember my dad telling me about meeting my mom, how it was like he knew, just knew, that she was someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

“We couldn’t even speak the same language yet,” he’d said, because he spoke French and only a few words of English and Mom spoke only English. “But it was like we were having this conversation already that I never wanted to end.”

I never really got that before. It felt impossibly romantic, and maybe, I thought, I’m just too practical for that.

But as Alec wraps me in his arms, and I feel the heat of his lips on mine, of our tongues brushing and our breath mingling, I think that maybe this—the physical stuff, yes, but also the jokes and the long talks and the way he looks at me—this is all part of this conversation we’re having, him and me.

I never want it to end.

Fourteen

Alec

Jillian and I console ourselves for having voted out Melissa at the Starvies by holing up in our hollow tree—again—and making out like there’s no tomorrow. I’m a little dizzy from the constant pressure of being wound up this tight. Jillian’s legs are wrapped around me, and my swim trunks have turned into a tent between us, and I’m kissing her neck and the tops of her breasts while her hands work their way down my chest and slip into my pants. Her back is to the opening in the tree, so while I’m sure we’re being filmed, I’m also sure they can’t see what’s happening between us.

“Oh, god,” I say, knocking my head back against the inside of the bark. “Screw the cameras and let’s do this already.”

Jillian smiles, and from the hungry way she looks at me, I’m pretty sure she’s going as crazy as I am. “They would have to cut it, right?” she says.

YES. “They’d have to. It’s a network show.”

Jillian bites her lip, like she’s considering this, and my body screams for her to say yes, but I don’t say anything. I don’t want to push her into anything she’ll regret later.

And then there’s an actual scream, from somewhere back in the direction of camp. A woman’s scream that sounds like she’s being murdered.

Jillian withdraws her hands and scoots back slightly off my lap. “Who was that?”

“Su-Lin or Cece?” I say. “Or maybe Ryan screams like a girl.”

The scream comes again, longer and more choked this time, and all jokes aside, I’m starting to wonder if one of our companions is actually getting murdered. Jillian and I climb out of the tree and hurry in the direction of camp.

We break the tree line to find Cece, Chad, and Jason all looking confused and moving toward the path that Su-Lin and Jason have been using to head toward the coconut trees. Jillian and I are closer, so we turn and run ahead of them, following what is now sounding like miserable, wounded moans.

Su-Lin stands under the coconut trees, holding her puppet in one hand and staring at the other. I’m expecting to see blood or a missing finger, but her hand looks perfectly normal as we approach.

“Su-Lin,” I say, “are you—”

“It was you, wasn’t it?” she screeches, brandishing her right hand at me. I feel a spritz of something moist hit my face, and stop moving, staring at her. “You did this! You’ve always hated Ruby!”

And that’s when I realize her hand is coated in some sort of milky, viscous liquid. In her other hand, clutched tight, is a pink sock whose hair is looking a little frizzier than normal, and oh my god—

I know what she just splattered me in the face with, and I want to die right there on the spot.

“It wasn’t me!” I say. “I would never, not your—”

“Who was it then?” she wails. I’ve hardly seen her without a smile on her face, and now her whole frame is contorted in pain.

Because someone, oh god, someone—

The rest of the group joins us, including Ryan, who was probably down by the surf. Su-Lin turns toward them, and in a voice louder than I’ve ever heard from her tiny frame, she shouts, “WHO FUCKED MY PUPPET!?”

There’s a collective disgusted groan from the group, and I take several steps back into the jungle. My eyes are burning, and I don’t know if it’s from the semen or just my horror at having my face splattered with jizz from one of the other three guys left on this island. Jillian is looking at me with more pity than I think I’ve seen from anyone, including my six sisters when they all Skyped me together after seeing the VMAs, and I blink rapidly in hopes it will make me disappear.

“It was you!” Su-Lin shouts, and I turn toward her in alarm, but it’s not me she’s accusing this time, it’s Ryan. Chad, Jason, and Cece all take a large step away from Ryan as his eyes widen and he holds up both hands.

“N-no!” he says. “It wasn’t me.”

But from the looks on the faces of everyone else, they agree with her.

“You’re so disgusting, creeping on us all the time!” Su-Lin shouts. “And, and, naked!”

Ryan isn’t naked at this moment. He put on his swim trunks before we went to the Starvies and hasn’t taken them back off. Ryan turns to accuse Chad, who starts arguing that it wasn’t him, either, and I’m barely listening to them because I’ve raised a hand to my face to wipe my eyes, and caught in my eyebrow is a distinct glob of something wet and slimy.

Oh. My. God. I take off through the jungle, shouldering past Ryan who is still defending himself. Jillian calls my name but I don’t turn around, and in fact start running faster, tearing through the jungle in the dark until I get to the ocean. I “burst forth” through the waves, and I’m damn sure that even in the dark the nightvision cameras are capturing every moment of this. I dive down under the water and scrub my face and try to open my eyes even though the salt makes them feel like they’re on fire. I hold my breath as a wave washes over me, thinking about what happened to Su-Lin’s sock, which, as much as I hate the thing, is beyond abhorrent and disgusting, and the fact that the camera caught her accusing me and spritzing me, and the look on my face at the moment she did.

There it is. The moment that’s destined to be the most used meme and animated gif from the whole season.

I’m going to be famous for being spritzed in the face with Ryan Lansing’s sock jizz for the rest of my life.

I can’t stay out in the ocean forever. The night is chilly, and the breeze coming in off the water is quickly becoming wind. I’ve scrubbed my face so hard the salt water is starting to sting my raw skin in addition to my eyes. I finally stumble in out of the surf, just to the edge where the sand is still wet as the tide goes out, and collapse. I stare up at the sky, vaguely aware of the sound of the others returning to camp, of Ryan’s loud proclamations of innocence and Su-Lin’s quiet sobs and of Jason threatening Ryan’s life—more meaningfully this time, and less comically—and of Chad telling them both to knock it off and shut up.

After a bit, Jillian appears in the edge of my vision, standing over me with her hair ringed by the stars. Thousands of them. Far, far more than you can see in LA, or even Ann Arbor.

“I’m just going to lie here and die,” I say. “The footage of that is going to be on national television, and no woman is ever going to touch me again.”

Jillian presses her lips together, and I think for a second she’s working up the courage to tell me I’m right, there’s no way she could find me attractive again after what she saw.

Instead, she snickers. “It’s not funny,” she says. “God, what that creep did to Su-Lin’s puppet isn’t funny at all. It’s sick. But the look on your face when she attacked you with that stuff—” She dissolves into giggles and I close my eyes.

“First I’m known for the Kanye crotch gif and now this.”

Jillian sits down beside me, clearly trying to muffle her laughter, and I can’t help but join her. A little.

“I’m just going to lie here until the tide takes me,” I say. “God knows no one else will.”

Jillian laughs, and puts a hand on my arm, and even under the circumstances, it’s amazing how good she can make me feel, just with a touch.

“I did wash myself excessively,” I say.

Jillian nods. “I can tell. Your face is puffy.”

I give her a wry smile. “Now you’re really going to have to sleep with me because no words are going to convince me that I’m still attractive to you.”

She laughs, which is the appropriate response, and I’m glad she didn’t take that as a serious demand. She starts humming, and it takes me a few bars to realize what it is. Extreme’s “More Than Words,” which we were just agreeing a couple days ago is a classic example of how you can take emotional manipulation and set it to a charming melody and the whole world will mistake it for a love song.

I swat at her. “You are the worst.”

Jillian lies down in the sand next to me, her body stretching out beside me. “I am,” she says. “And I really need to get back to Su-Lin, because I don’t think any of the rest of them are helping her much. But I wanted to make sure you hadn’t actually gouged your eyes out.”

“I tried. You don’t know how hard that is without a sharp implement.”

She leans over and kisses me softly on the mouth. “At least you haven’t lost your acerbic wit.”

“Never,” I say. “I’ll take that to the grave. I’ll be the most sarcastic ghost that’s ever been. Tell Su-Lin I’ll haunt Ryan Lansing and steal all his socks.”

“I’ll tell her,” Jillian says. “But I’d like to keep you around for a while, with your body. I still have a few uses for it.”

I smile, and we look at each other. The wind is getting colder, but being near her like this makes me feel warm and happy, like she’s this bright spot on this nightmare island and I just want to stay curled up next to her for the rest of my life.

Jillian kisses me again, and then she gets up to pad back up the beach to Su-Lin.

And I lie there and stare up at the stars and think about how lucky I am to have found her.

Fifteen

Jillian

Today is finally the American Idol-style challenge. I wasn’t the only one expecting it, based on the complete lack of surprise from everyone when the challenge was announced—with the exception of Jason, whose raw enthusiasm makes him seem surprised about everything. Not everyone was equally eager about it, though, and more than a couple jealous glances were thrown at me, Alec, and Cece. Which, yeah, maybe it’s not exactly fair. But as far as I’m concerned, after running through the the jungle and crawling through slime, it’s a nice change-up for the challenges, and more than that, I’m just flat-out excited to get to perform.

Or at least I thought I would be. But now, I’m standing in the jungle apart from the others where it’s possible only the howler monkeys can hear me, and I’m belting out “Defying Gravity” from Wicked—which, yeah, is super overdone and I’d never audition with it, but in a popular competition setting is always a crowd-pleaser and I can kill it and I am killing it . . .

And something isn’t feeling quite right.

I wish I could get Alec’s opinion, but we’ve been told to split up to practice—no teaming up on numbers or coaching each other. I’m pretty sure that’s actually aimed at me and Alec, since I doubt Cece’s going to help anyone out, and I’m not sure the other three would do each other any good.

I pace around a bit, take a drink from my canteen and try again. The acoustics in the jungle aren’t great, and it’s a little weird being accompanied by the sudden squawk of birds and the constant white-noise drone of insects, but I don’t think that’s the problem.

On the questionnaire, we were allowed to put down three song choices, possibly to give us other options if the rights weren’t available on our first pick. The producers cleared all three of mine. I hadn’t given much thought to it before now, because clearly I’m doing “Defying Gravity.”

Except maybe that’s the part that’s not right.

I try out a few bars of my next choice, “Better” from the Legally Blonde musical, another one I can belt the hell out of, and as a bonus it shows off my comedic skills. People may not be familiar with the song itself, but everyone knows the movie, and let’s be honest—there’s no way I’m ever getting cast in the lead role of the Legally Blonde musical, so this is a great opportunity to perform it to a wide audience.

But I quickly sense that’s not right either, and I sigh, because I know what my heart’s telling me to do, and I’m pretty sure it’ll cost me the win in this competition.

I’m going to sing my third choice, one I put down more in honor of my parents than thinking I’d really compete with it—“Can’t Help Falling in Love,” an old Elvis Presley song. They danced to it at their wedding, and again in the living room on every anniversary thereafter.

I remember watching them through the rails in the banister, my big, broad-shouldered dad with the world’s softest heart, dancing slowly, twirling around and around with my mom, a small woman with a kind of mousy, easily overlooked prettiness and an infectious laugh. The way they’d look in each other’s eyes while Elvis crooned. How they’d catch me watching them, and play it again, dancing with me, my dad pretending to be Elvis and my mom laughing and laughing.

It’s a great song, but it’s not going to show off my range or skills to their best advantage. It’s not going to win against Alec Andreas or Cece Martinez. I’m not particularly concerned about impunity this time—Ryan’s a lock to go, since no one but him seems to be convinced of his innocence in puppet-gate—but a huge part of the reason I’m on this show is for my career. And one way to boost my chances to get on Broadway is to show people I have the skills to belong there.

It’s not the smart choice, I think. And I keep thinking that as I walk all the way back to the beach, where I nab a producer and tell her I’m changing my song choice and which arrangement I need for it.

It’s not the smart choice, but it’s like this gift I can give them, whether or not I actually manage to win this show. I have years ahead to fight for my career, but I don’t know how long my mom will be aware—or even alive—for me to do something like this for them.

And there’s this part of me that wants to do this with Alec here, watching. Like after how good it felt to share with him all about my mom’s condition and what being on this show really means to me and will mean to her—this part of me wants to share this with him, too.

I want to share all of myself with him.

And maybe that’s not the smart choice, either. But like this song, it feels right.

The producer talks into her earpiece, and then gives me the okay on the song change. I look around our camp, hoping to spot Alec. We may not be able to practice together, but they didn’t forbid talking in general. But he’s not out on the beach, having gone off into the jungle like I did.

Out by the waterline, Chad appears to be belting out some song that involves a lot of posing and dramatic hand-motions, but the sound of the waves drowns out the actual sound of him singing, which is probably a good thing. Su-Lin is sitting on the rocks further down the beach, her whole body slumped. She’s holding a coconut, onto which she’s attached Ruby’s eyes and frizzy pink hair, after burning the sock itself in a tragic ceremony late last night. With the coconut Ruby, she’s giving off the vibe of Tom Hanks with Wilson in Castaway, only sadder. Cece’s sitting by the fire, strumming her guitar but not singing anything. She catches me looking at her and nods, giving me a smile but still watching me carefully, like she’s assessing my threat level.

I wish I felt more confident I was going to give her the competition I’m capable of.

I head back to the spot I’d found to practice in the jungle, trying to ignore the loud croaking of some bullfrog and the persistent mosquitos and the sweat dripping down the small of my back.

And I sing.

I sing this song for the day when this is aired and we’re all watching it together. My mom in the armchair she rarely leaves now. My dad at her side, like he swears he always will be, no matter if she remembers who he is or not. No matter that when she first got the diagnosis, she told him that when it gets bad enough, he should put her in a facility.

Maybe that day she’ll remember about the times they danced in the living room. Maybe she’ll remember that I joined them, and she’ll look over at me, and it will be one more time she’ll remember me.

When I picture this, all of us together, I can’t help but see Alec there, too, sitting in our living room watching this with us. Squeezing my hand. Laughing with us all over dinner after. My parents will really like him—my mom especially will love his caustic sense of humor, and my dad, well . . . my dad will love seeing the way he makes me smile.

I sing, because maybe this is one way I can tell him how I feel about him before I’m ready to come out and say it.

Will he get that, like he seems to get so much else about me?

Will it freak him out, knowing I’m feeling this much, this soon?

Will it—

I stop singing, hearing the loud crack of a branch. It’s not my cameraman; he’s crouched over to the side of me and hasn’t moved in long minutes. I turn around, and see Cece, followed by her own cameraman, emerge from the vegetation.

“You got quite the set of pipes,” she says, sounding actually impressed. She could be full of shit and is clearly spying to see what she’s up against, but I feel a flush of pride anyway. Cece Martinez is impressed with my singing.

“Thanks,” I say. “I’d normally ask for some feedback, given all your experience, but I think that’s off-limits today.”

Cece makes a dismissive gesture. “You seem to know what you’re doing. You’ll be fine on that stage. Some of the others, not so much.” She settles herself down on a jutting rock, like she’s not planning on going anywhere anytime soon, and I wonder if she’s really here to talk strategy.

“Yeah? You don’t think Jason or Su-Lin or Ryan have some hidden musical genius?” I don’t bother including Chad. I may not have been able to hear him singing into the crashing waves, but we’ve all heard him try to musically score his own fight moves when practicing his Krav Maga or whatever.

Cece snorts. “I don’t think genius is a term that should be thrown around for any of us, hon. Look what we’re doing, after all. But do I think they have any hidden musical talent?” She pauses. “No. I really, truly do not. But it doesn’t matter, I suppose, who wins this one.”

She gives me a look, and I don’t see the point in denying anything. “Because Ryan’s getting voted out regardless, you mean,” I say. “Unless he wins.” Alec and I had barely had to talk about that—it was clear that after last night, Su-Lin and Jason were voting for Ryan no matter what, and neither of us have any inclination to save him.

“Which he won’t,” she says. “That boy’s pretty, but he’s no musician. So unless there’s a full panel of judges who all want to sleep with him, there’s no way. Which my sister-in-law might have been sad about, but I don’t think even she’d forgive him for that nasty puppet business.” Cece wrinkles her nose.

“Yeah, okay,” I say. I don’t disagree with anything she’s saying, but I’m not sure why she’s saying it. There’s an angle here, clearly. Cece’s not exactly a small-talk kind of person. “What is it you’re really worried about, Cece?”

It comes out a little sharper than I mean, but I just want to practice right now. Even though this song isn’t the smartest choice for the competition or my career, I’m still going to do as much with it as I can. And I don’t have time to trade digs on Ryan Lansing while she builds up to why she’s really out here talking with me.

“You, if I’m being honest,” she says. “And I don’t mean today’s little two-bit talent show.”

I don’t say anything, just fold my arms across my chest and wait.

She brushes a strand of sweaty hair off her cheek. “We’re all here playing a game, and I’m all for that, but I don’t like seeing people get played.”

I try to ignore the little flip in my gut. “So this is really about me and Alec, then.” I can almost feel the cameras on either side zooming in.

“Look, hon,” she says, in this tone I think is meant to be sympathetic but comes off as condescending. “I like you. I’ve liked you from the beginning. You remind me of me when I was younger. You’re driven, and talented, and you’re out to win, and I don’t just mean on this show.”

If this wasn’t all lead-up to some attempt to throw me off my game, I might be flattered, having Cece Martinez say things like that about me.

“And,” she continues after a beat in which it’s clear I’m not going to dissolve into a teary puddle of gratitude for her praise, “I understand something of the challenges you’re going to have in this industry. The country scene wasn’t exactly an easy path for me in the beginning, and that was before they knew about my fondness for the ladies.”

I don’t appreciate her saying that with being biracial I’m “going to” have challenges in the industry, as if I haven’t already had plenty of them. I’ve been told by casting directors I’m not “black enough” for black roles, and “just not the right look” for the scores of white roles. And while my particular ethnic blend is apparently ambiguous enough for me to audition for characters of completely different racial backgrounds—with my hair all curly, I booked the role of “hot Latina chick in her early 20’s” for that first Tornado Rush commercial—for the most part, I don’t fit neatly enough into any label in an industry that thrives on labels. Agents and casting directors haven’t been shy about letting me know.

Still.

“I’m not sure how this has anything to do with Alec and me,” I say, although I’m afraid I do see what she’s getting at, all too well.

“Because that boy is playing you like that guitar of his, and I think it’s plain wrong,” she says. “You’re a smart girl, and I think on some level you know he is, and you want to ignore that little voice telling you the truth because damn it, he’s so pretty and he makes you feel so good.” She chuckles bitterly. “Trust me, hon, I’ve been there. Not on a game show, but . . .”

“It kind of seems like the one trying to play me right now is you,” I say, the hot spark of anger mingling with a queasiness in my gut. I know she’s working this angle for the game, that she’s trying to drive a wedge between Alec and me to break up our alliance, but her words are hitting all the right buttons anyway.

How many times have I wondered if this was all just part of the game to him?

How many times have I pushed that fear aside and let myself fall deeper?

“I’m not going to say I don’t see a benefit to you cluing in on that boy’s game,” she says. “And sure, I know making alliances is a smart way to play the game, and sometimes you gotta string someone along a bit to make sure they vote with you. But that boy’s gone well past stringing you along a bit, Jillian. He’s straight-up using you, and it isn’t right.”

“Your concern is noted,” I say, trying to keep my voice as flat as possible, trying not to let her see that she’s waking fears from the place in the back of my mind where they’d finally started to settle. Settle, or maybe just get shoved out of the way.

Because I’m in love with him and it’s too scary to face them.

“I know you don’t want to believe me,” Cece says, and her usual smug know-it-all tone becomes softer. She stands up and steps closer to me. “And maybe you won’t, not yet. But I want you to think about it, hon. Think about who he really is. He’s Alec Andreas. He was Alec Andreas before this, and he’s still that same person here, too.”

She squeezes my arm, and I just barely manage to keep myself from jerking free of her grasp. God, what I really want is to smack her, but we’re still playing a game for all the world to see, and I don’t exactly want to go from “Sexy Stewardess” to “Bitch who Punched Country Legend Cece Martinez” in the public eye.

And the truth is, I wouldn’t really be mad at her if her words hadn’t formed an icy fist in my gut.

She gives me one last sympathetic smile, and a “Good luck at the challenge,” and walks away, crunching back through the jungle, her goal achieved.

Alec was right from the beginning, she’s the one to watch. And I think she’s playing this game even harder than we were giving her credit for.

But I can’t keep from thinking: that doesn’t mean she’s wrong about Alec.

I know the cameras are catching my reaction, seeing how my hands are balled into fists. I try to breathe evenly, try to think.

What was that shit about him being Alec Andreas? That he’s known for telling lies, probably. But the way she said it made me think there was more on her mind. And really, while I had obviously heard about Alec before this, there’s probably plenty in the news I’m not aware of. Does he have a reputation as a player since the whole AJ break-up?

And if so, does that matter? It doesn’t necessarily mean he’s playing me.

I pace around in the clearing, needing to work out the restless energy, the gnawing nerves.

He’s career-focused, I know that much, but so am I. And I don’t see that dating me would help his career—I’m not the one with connections, and only dubious fame. If anything, I’m the one who’s dating up, as far as that goes.

And if it’s just for the alliance in the game, or even sex, why would he take it so far? Why offer to move out to DC after this?

Did he really offer to move out, or was that all implied? Deniable?

Shit. I hate thinking like this.

I’m not insecure, generally, and Alec hasn’t done anything to make me think stuff like this of him. It’s just this situation, this stupid game. And now Cece.

I take another drink of water and decide to try singing again. But instead of that warmth that filled me before when I thought of him in the audience, now I’m all nerves and doubt.

I’m used to nerves before performing, but I’ll be damned if I let Cece get in my head and make a wreck of me. I’ll be damned if I let her mess this thing up.

And I don’t just mean the challenge today.

Sixteen

Alec

After the challenge is announced, I spend most of the day practicing my song, which is a single I’ve been working on for a while. It’s called “After You,” and the lyrics play on both the phrase you use to urge someone to go first, and the idea of living in this space after a person has left your life and not quite knowing what to do with yourself. It’s about my career, not Jenna specifically, and I retooled the lyrics to make that clear after “Two Sides” got so terribly misinterpreted, but Bobbi still didn’t want me to release it right away. She was probably right.

Here, though, I have a different opportunity to debut it, and I’m going to take it.

When we all reconvene at the end of the day, the crew has built a large stage with the jungle as a backdrop for us to perform against. There’s a row of seven chairs for the audience, and a judges’ table with four seats that are currently empty. We’re all brought in and asked to sit in the chairs. Ryan takes the one on the end and Su-Lin immediately sprints to the chair on the far side. She’s been weepy and silent since the puppet incident, and we’ve all been trying to act as a buffer between her and Ryan, who still proclaims his innocence. Jason forgoes buffer entirely and has formed himself into a human shield, often positioning himself physically between Ryan and Su-Lin, which he does right now by sitting beside her, his hulking frame hunched over in the chair.

I sit down beside Jillian and elbow her. “You ready for this?”

She nods, but she doesn’t give me the usual banter about how she’s going to beat me.

“Everything okay?” I ask.

Jillian nods again, but she doesn’t otherwise respond, and I’m pretty sure that means it isn’t. I wonder if someone talked to her while we were all supposed to be practicing, or if she expected me to and is mad I didn’t.

“You’re going to rock this,” I tell her, and reach for her hand.

She squeezes my hand back. “You, too,” she says. But she doesn’t meet my eyes.

Krissy announces the judges, and I decide not to pry further right now, but clearly we’re going to have to talk about this later. The judges come in, and I size them up while Krissy introduces them for the camera. Only one of them is known for being a musician, and it’s Donny Osmond. This will probably be good for Jillian, since he’s likely to favor musical theater-type songs, though we haven’t talked since the challenge was announced and I have no idea what she has planned. Next is Ellen Degeneres, who is famous for being nice to everyone and might give extra points for comedy over actual musical talent. As might actor Will Arnett, who sits next to her looking kind of stunned to be here. Or maybe that’s just his face.

Last is Tyra Banks, who might have given Melissa extra points for her walking if Melissa had made it this far, but I have no idea how she’ll judge music. I’m starting to get nervous, because I thought I had this one in the bag, but Cece has been pleasing crowds for almost as long as I’ve been alive, and a lot of these judges might not give a damn that I wrote my own song and am confident it could be a hit if I ever manage to release it.

I don’t need the impunity this time, but I’m not just here to make sure I stick around another week. This is a performance that’s going to be televised whether the network executives particularly like me or not. It’s a chance to remind everyone I’m a kick-ass musician, and even if they aren’t particularly fond of me, they like my music, and they want to hear more.

It’ll be even more sympathetic if I win, and it will remind the world that Alec Andreas can do something right on occasion.

Impunity aside, I need this win.

Krissy gets up on the stage and gives a speech about how she can’t wait to see what we’ve prepared, and then announces that our names have been drawn in random order. Jason is called up first, which is probably fortunate, because he can’t sing a note. He wisely chose “Lime in the Coconut” which doesn’t actually require singing, but he still manages to be both off-beat and off-key. Ellen calls him adorable, and says she really appreciates his spunk, which Tyra agrees he definitely has in spades. Will Arnett says he’ll give him that, but his singing is terrible, which is true, and Donny Osmond is forced to reluctantly agree, though he does say that what Jason lacks in tone he makes up for in volume, which I’m sure will get a laugh from the audience.

Jason grins through the whole thing and thanks them loudly and enthusiastically, so apparently he doesn’t have much ego wrapped up in his (lack of) ability to sing, which is probably good.

Chad follows with a number he apparently scripted himself to promote his next movie. He stands on the stage, crouching and looking out over the horizon with one hand shading his eyes. “Far across the sea,” he sings, “in the movie that they call VV—”

Jillian and I groan in unison and I grin over at her, more than a little relieved when she grins back. Whoever had the idea to call the fifth and latest in Chad’s string of V movies by the initials VV was probably a marketing genius, and on the teaser posters, they even managed to make the pair of Vs look unmistakably like tits.

“—the women stand behind meeeeeee—” Chad sings, and not even Ellen can find something nice to say, though she does feebly suggest that Chad has “gusto,” which I suppose is one word for it.

I think his performance might lower the bar a bit for Ryan, who has decided it’s appropriate to sing “There is Nothing Like a Dame,” from South Pacific, which he tries to make charming but comes off as smarmy. Su-Lin and Jason glare daggers at him through the whole thing, which he notices a few times and falters. Will Arnett is quick to ask why he’s so scared of the big blond guy, and Ryan stutters something about “his woman,” which will either get another laugh or condemn him to forever be known as a raging sexist, depending on how the editors arrange the footage of Jason yelling at him from days ago.

I’ve known since this challenge was announced that Cece and Jillian are my biggest competition. Cece is next, and she sings an upbeat rendition of Dolly Parton’s “Why’d You Come In Here Lookin’ Like That,” complete with a choreographed dance that all four of the judges rave over. She gives me a snide look as she comes down off the stage. She clearly sees me as her biggest competition for this one, and I have to admit, she’s definitely raising the bar. Not that it was particularly high to begin with.

Next up is Su-Lin, and she sings what I’m pretty sure is supposed to be a peppy rendition of “Uptown Funk,” and while she’s not a professional singer, her voice is actually decent. But she can’t seem to muster even a hint of a smile, and she doesn’t move around at all, just stands there with her shoulders hunched and her eyes tearing up while she sings the whole damn song. It’s so sad that Will Arnett refuses to even critique it, and Donny Osmond describes it as “tragic” and turns around to ask Krissy what exactly they’re doing to the stars on this island. That will probably also get a laugh, if only to cut the tension. Ellen and Tyra both ask her if she wants a hug, which Su-Lin tearfully accepts. She comes down off the stage and gets hugs all around except from Will, who looks like he has no idea what to make of her.

Hell, even I get up and give her a hug when she returns to the group, and Jillian does the same before Su-Lin settles under the shelter of Jason’s arm and looks like she wants to disappear.

After that Jillian’s up, and she climbs up onto the stage, takes the mic, and smiles in our general direction, but not at anyone specific.

And then she starts to sing. The music they’ve cued to her is a haunting, slow rendition of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” and Jillian’s voice is equally haunting and beautiful. I don’t know why she picked this song—it makes her significantly less likely to win—but I can only guess from the way she sings it that it means something to her.

I try not to read too much into it, especially given that she’s not looking at me while she sings. It’s just a song, one she picked before she met me, and she’s an actress and clearly knows how to work a crowd. But her voice cuts me to the core, and it’s me she’s working most of all. As she repeats the refrain, I want to let myself believe she’s singing it for me, that someone as beautiful and incredible as her could possibly be falling in love with me. Not just Alec Andreas, pop star.

But me.

The last time she sings those words, she does look at me, finally, and it’s like my whole body lights up. I smile at her, and she smiles back, and then she looks away and grins, like she knows what I’m thinking, and she doesn’t mind. I know the cameras are catching my inability to wipe that smile off my face as the song comes to an end, but I can’t help it. The night could end right there, and I’d feel like I won.

The judges are really complimentary of Jillian’s song, but it’s clear none of them are as wowed by her as I am, which is predictable, even if it makes me judge them. And then Krissy calls my name. It’s my turn.

I get up, and I get a good look at my audience, and then I start to play. I know it’s a bit of a risk to play a song that talks so specifically about my past, but it’s raw and honest and vulnerable, all things I wasn’t quite ready to be when I released “Two Sides.” Not to mention, it has a killer melodic hook in the chorus I’m particularly proud of. I perform my heart out, and I’m pretty sure I nail it, but since the VMAs, I’m always scared when I perform that somehow it’s going to backfire.

At least for my audience tonight, it doesn’t. All four judges rave over how great my song is, and Ellen even alludes to it being a nice tribute to my broken career, and says it shows promise and that she looks forward to seeing what I do in the future.

I’m grinning so hard when they announce me the winner, and Jillian jumps into my arms and hugs me and I spin her around, knowing the camera is soaking all this up. I feel like I’m on top of the world. At this moment, I don’t even care when Krissy announces that I’ve also won the group a reward of toothpaste and toothbrushes and shampoo and—most pointedly—condoms.

This is working. I’m doing this. I’m doing what I came here to do, and so much more.

It’s getting late when we get back to camp, and the fire has gone out, so I head off with Jillian to find some kindling and dried plant matter to get it going again. The monkeys have finished their evening racket, but now there’s some birds calling to each other in occasionally piercing tones.

God, I miss normal city sounds.

“Hey,” I say, after the last bird shriek stops ringing in my ears. “Your song was amazing.”

Jillian doesn’t meet my eyes. “I don’t think the judges thought so.”

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t the biggest crowd pleaser, but it was my favorite, by a mile.”

“I bet,” Jillian says with a small smile. “It was my parents’ song.”

“Ah,” I say. “Of course. Well, you killed it. Your mom is going to love it.”

We’re out in the dark, far away from the others, fumbling around in the dirt for small-sized sticks, and I can’t quite make out the expression on her face, but I think for a moment that she looks worried.

“Do you think she won’t?” I ask.

Jillian picks up a small twig that turns out to be attached to a long branch. The ground crinkles all the way over by me, and I rifle around in the space around the branch and come up with a handful of dryish moss.

“It’s not that.” Jillian snaps some of the smaller twigs off the dead branch. We have plenty of large wood, so we don’t need to haul over the whole thing. Not tonight.

We probably have enough, but something’s been off since before the competition, and I’m getting increasingly worried it’s something I did.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

Jillian shrugs, and she still won’t look at me. “Fine,” she says. “Cece was just bugging me earlier.”

“Yeah? About what?”

Her next sentence is mostly mumbled. “About how she thinks you’re using me.”

My heart stops, and I almost drop my moss.

It’s okay, I tell myself. Cece’s not clairvoyant. She’s starting to worry about how tight Jillian and I are, and she’s looking to stir up trouble. It’s not Cece I need to worry about.

“Okay,” I say. “You want to talk about it?”

Jillian shrugs again.

“It’s bothering you,” I say.

“No, it’s fine,” Jillian says. “I’m just mad at Cece, that’s all.”

“It’s clearly not fine. It’s okay if you’re worried. It’s stressful, all this playing out during a game, and on camera. I’m not mad if she hit a nerve.”

Jillian sighs.

“We need that fire material tonight!” Cece calls from the camp.

I want to smack her.

“What did she say?” I ask.

“She said you’re clearly playing me so I’ll vote with you,” Jillian says.

Yeah, that’s original. And thankfully not something I’ll have trouble denying. “Well, I’m not. We’re voting together because it’s smart, but I’m sticking with you because I like you. You’re like my tennis partner. Just because we’re more likely to win together doesn’t mean I’m using you.”

“Yeah, I know.” Jillian pauses. “She also said something about you being Alec Andreas, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

I squeeze the moss a little too tight, and bits of it crumble and filter down on my shoes. “What do you think that meant?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that you’re a player? That you’re using me to help your career? Like I would be so helpful with that. You’re way more famous than I am.”

This isn’t the moment to tell her that far more people have seen that commercial than have been to any of my concerts. “Do you think that’s true?” I ask.

“No,” Jillian says. “But it worried me, and I feel bad about it.”

I set down the moss and take a step over to rub my hands up and down her arms. “It’s okay. Like I said, this whole thing is nerve-wracking. I’ve had thoughts about you using me just to get further in the game. I’d be surprised if you didn’t have those same thoughts, but that doesn’t make it true, for either of us.” I ignore the unsettled twinge in my gut.

Because no matter what my original intentions were for this game, it’s not true. Not with Jillian.

“Right?” Jillian says.

“Right. But it’s probably time we get rid of Cece.”

“I don’t think Su-Lin and Jason are going to go for booting her before Chad,” Jillian says. “They’ve taken to calling him Ryan 2.0, after he said what Ryan did wasn’t that bad, and that it was, and I quote, ‘just a sock.’”

I cringe. “Yeah, they probably won’t want to vote for Cece unless she says something in front of them. Maybe I should call her on it.”

“Would you two stop swappin’ spit and get me that wood?” Cece shouts.

“Maybe you should,” Jillian says quietly.

“Yeah, okay.” I pick up the moss again and we head back to our fire pit with the things Cece needs to get the fire started. I hold back a remark about how Cece could have gotten the kindling herself if she wanted it so badly, and instead hand her the moss and smile at her. “Didn’t know you were so desperate for wood, Cece.”

She gives me a withering look and starts striking the flint to start the fire. I sit down on one of the logs we’ve hauled over and pick up my guitar, strumming it absently. Jillian settles in right next to me, and I’m tempted to start a song and convince her to sing with me and leave the confrontation with Cece for tomorrow.

But if I act like I’m hiding from the things Cece said, everyone is going to think that they’re true. I need to deny it in front of everyone, so the audience can see that I mean this with Jillian. I do mean it, so it isn’t a lie, but it would be just my luck to leave here dating this amazing girl and have rumors plaguing us for years that I was only dating her for the money.

Su-Lin is sitting across the fire from us, watching as Cece stokes it. The rising flames reflect in her eyes, but I swear I haven’t seen her smile since the sock incident. It’s so sad, I almost wish she was bouncing around annoying me again.

“Hey, Su-Lin,” I say. “How are you doing?”

Su-Lin shrugs and doesn’t answer. I’m trying to think of a way to segue concern for her—which is also as real as it is sympathetic—into chewing out Cece for saying I’m using Jillian, when Cece does me the favor of starting it.

“I didn’t realize you cared, Alec,” Cece says. “I thought you enjoyed using people like puppets.”

I give her a cold stare. “Cece,” I say, “do you have a problem with me?”

Cece shrugs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Chad and Jason come back from hauling water to boil just as Cece’s got the fire going. Jason sits next to Su-Lin, and Chad grabs some wood from the pile for Cece and then sits on the ground at the end of their log.

I certainly do have an audience for this. “If you have something to say to me,” I say to Cece, “just come out and say it.”

“Okay,” Cece says. “Why don’t we talk about how no one wants to work with you because you’re a liar who uses people.”

My fingers tighten on the strings, and I set down the guitar. “We could. But everybody knows what happened there. Jenna and I broke up, and we didn’t want to break up the band, and we made the call not to tell people. We were actors playing parts, and we didn’t have any idea how badly people would get hurt by that. If we had, we wouldn’t have done it.” I’m proud of myself for that one. It’s true, but it’s the reasonable, sympathetic side of true, and finding that sweet spot isn’t always a strength of mine.

Cece smiles like this plays right into her point. “Right. And the only likable thing about you was Jenna, so you came here to find a new Jenna, didn’t you?”

I blink at her. How could she know that? Did she somehow get some leak . . . from who? From Bobbi? Bobbi wouldn’t breathe a word of it to anyone, and I didn’t say anything to anyone else, not a soul—

Cece’s smile widens, and Jillian scoots away from me, as I realize far too late that Cece didn’t know. She was guessing. And the look on my face all but confirmed it.

“That’s not—” I start, but Cece talks right over me.

“I thought it was going to be Su-Lin at first,” Cece says. “But I guess she wasn’t good enough for you. Or maybe it’s that Jillian’s a singer. Her name even starts with a J!” Cece looks particularly proud of this connection. “You’ve got the other half of AJ again. Well done, Alec. You couldn’t have played it better.”

“Shut up,” I snap at her. My hands are shaking, and I look over at Jillian and she’s staring at me with wide-eyed disbelief.

I’m handling this wrong. I should be calmly and rationally telling her she’s way off base, that I’m into Jillian for Jillian, which god damn it I am, and—

“It’s true,” Jillian says slowly. “You came here to find somebody to make you look good again. Someone to use. And you picked me.”

“That’s not—” I start, but even I can hear how guilty I sound. Damn it, I’m a shitty liar and I always have been, and I don’t know how anyone who’s ever met me thinks I could be this smooth con man the whole world thinks I am.

“I cared about you.” Jillian’s voice drips with hurt. I reach for her hand but she pulls it away. I feel ice pooling in my veins.

“I care about you, too,” I tell her.

“Right,” she says. “Of course you’re going to say that.”

I stare at her. I want to tell her how much I care about her, how I’m falling in love with her, or maybe I’ve already fallen, maybe I’m in love with her and I’ve barely known her for more than a week and that’s fast, even by Felix and Jenna’s standards.

But I remember what she said just a few minutes ago, about not seeing how she could help my career. She’d thought about me using her, but she hadn’t put all the pieces together until Cece drew her a picture. I want to tell her the truth, but I can see in her eyes that she won’t hear it. She’s staring at me like I murdered a kitten, like I fucked the puppet, so to speak, and she now knows exactly who I am. A puppet fucker.

I shake my head at her, my heart sinking lower and lower. “You’re not going to believe anything I say. You’re going to believe Cece over me just because everybody thinks I’m a liar. But that’s not—”

“Don’t,” Jillian snaps. “Don’t even tell me that it started that way but then you developed real feelings. Don’t even.” She stands up and storms off, and Su-Lin, who seems to have been startled out of her funk by this, goes after her.

I don’t know how not to tell her that I developed real feelings, because it’s the goddamned truth.

Cece is beaming at me, gloating.

“Thanks for that,” I snap at her.

Cece shrugs and feigns innocence. “I’m just trying to keep her from getting hurt.”

I look to Jason and Chad, hoping one of them is going to point out that this is obviously not what she was doing, but Jason is examining his fingernails and somehow managing to be quiet, and Chad looks like he wishes he had some popcorn.

“You’re the one who hurt her,” I say in a low voice. “It’s not true. I’m not using her.”

“Sure, hon,” Cece says. “Keep saying that for the cameras.”

I glare at her. I need to go after Jillian. I need to explain, but Su-Lin is with her, and I want to give her a minute to breathe before I try to explain. I stare out into the darkness after her.

And I wish I was an excellent liar, because if I was, I would have handled that better.

Seventeen

Jillian

My brisk walk from the campsite turns into a jog and then a run, or at least as much of a run as I can manage in the uneven sand in the dark, and I don’t know where I’m going, but I need to get away, I need to be alone, and I need to do it now.

I can hear cameramen running behind me, trying to keep up, and god, I must be weak after days with so little food because they’re not far behind, even lugging cameras, and there’s nowhere to run, because I’m on a fucking island on fucking TV.

There is no alone or away here. Not from the cameras. Not from Cece’s words, or that look on Alec’s face, confirming every last one of them.

This hits me like a punch in the gut, just like it did back at the campfire. I jerk to a stop, bent over, gasping for breath. The tide laps over my toes and pulls away.

I sink down onto the damp sand, my legs quivering as I draw them up to my chest.

The only likable thing about you was Jenna, so you came here to find a new Jenna, Cece says over and over in my mind.

And his eyes widening, that look of oh shit, she figured it out. Stunned. Guilty.

Alec may be a damn good liar when he’s prepared for it, but he’s shit when put on the spot. When he gets caught. I should have known that from the VMAs. I should have thought of this, all those times I told myself I wasn’t of any use for his career.

He doesn’t need connections or fame. He’s Alec Andreas. He’s America’s boyfriend, and so he needs a girl on his arm. Someone pretty and stupid enough not to notice he’s playing her.

Not like Jenna, who at least was in on the joke, up until the end.

I hug my arms around my legs, leaning my head on my knees, struggling to breathe around the heartache. The cameras have reached me, I can see their lights and hear the shuffling as the cameramen crouch in the sand to get their shots.

I am that girl. The idiot girl who got played. The stupid, stupid girl who believed maybe this guy wasn’t the liar and the user everyone thought he was. Who let herself believe what he was telling her was real, that they had something real.

God, I would have watched this on TV and rolled my eyes. Now I want to throw up. If I had anything of actual substance in my stomach, I might.

You came here to find a new Jenna.

It makes sense as a strategy. Alec didn’t need to care about the game, just being on long enough for what he really cared about—to change his image, to be adored by the public again. That desire, at least, I can respect—aren’t we all here for similar reasons? And I don’t know much about him before the VMA incident, but I do know he was adored as part of a couple. The ultimate boyfriend.

All he had to find was some gullible girl to fall for him, to let him become that again. Not just a girl to hang on his arm, go on a few public dates with—that he could have had back in LA. No, the best story would be a cute romance, unfolding on-screen with all of America watching. Someone who could sing would definitely be a plus.

Did he have a checklist and I ticked off enough boxes? Or was I merely the best option he had to work with?

The best story, of course, the one that really would have made his career rebound, wouldn’t end with the show. It would go on, at least until he was well settled back in the public eye and didn’t need it anymore.

I suppose he really did mean it when he offered to move to DC with me, after all. It just wasn’t for the reasons I thought.

My eyes are burning, and I’m fighting to hold back the tears, to not break down in front of the whole world.

A hand touches my shoulder, and I startle. It’s Su-Lin, looking like she’s about to cry—not a huge difference from the rest of the day, except right now I’m pretty sure it’s on my behalf. She doesn’t say anything at first, just sits down in the wet sand next to me and puts an arm around my shoulders.

That does it; I can’t hold back anymore. A sob erupts from me.

“I’m such an idiot,” I say. “I should have seen this coming. I shouldn’t have thought he really—” The words choke me.

She squeezes my arm. “You’re not an idiot, Jillian. This all sucks, but you’re not an idiot.”

“Cece told me, earlier today,” I say, the anger burning through me again, although now it’s not directed at Cece. “She told me he was using me. And yeah, she was doing that to mess with me, but she was right. You saw his face.”

Su-Lin doesn’t say anything, but she lays her head against my shoulder. One of the shells she’s got tied into her hair pokes into my arm, but I don’t care. It feels good to have someone here for me right now.

Is she doing this just for the game, or for her career? Pretending to care, because it’s sympathetic? Because she’ll get more screen time?

Shit. I hate this. I hate the paranoia.

I hate even more that it’s not always paranoia.

I think of the way Alec held me when he told me that it’s been a long time since he liked anyone like this. I think of the feel of his lips on mine, of the long days and late nights talking and laughing—of this connection I was so sure we had. Was any of it real for him?

My chest hurts and hurts, this sharp, physical pain that makes it hard to breathe.

I’ve been hurt by guys before—the guy I spent my junior year of high school daydreaming about totally rejected me when I finally got up the nerve to ask him out; one of my boyfriends cheated on me for weeks before I found out; another broke up with me over Facebook Messenger, as if sending a good old-fashioned text wasn’t quite shitty enough.

None of them hurt me like this, and I know why—because I didn’t care enough to let them. I wasn’t in love with any of them.

I am with Alec, and there’s no switch I can just turn off and make that not so anymore.

“God, I just—” I start, wiping away the hot tears rolling down my cheeks. “I was so excited for him to meet my parents. To be with him after the show, to just be us, you know? Without the—” I gesture back at the cameras, but for all I know, she thinks I mean the giant-ass mosquitos and early morning howler monkey alarm clock.

I feel Su-Lin nod against my shoulder, so maybe she gets it.

“And the worst part is, I think he would have done it,” I say. “Gone home with me, been part of my life. All for his fucking image.” I grab fistfuls of damp sand as I say this, squeezing tightly like I can make the beach my stress ball.

Su-Lin sighs. “Do you think . . . I mean, do you really not believe there’s any chance it became real for him? Like maybe he started out using you—which I’m not defending, by the way—” she adds hastily, when I narrow my eyes, “But, like . . . he really fell for you along the way?”

My aching heart stutters with this little beat of hope that I hate and am not in a mood to encourage.

I care about you, he’d said, and like all the other things, he sounded like he meant it.

“Do I really think I’m the star of some Hallmark channel rom-com?” I ask. “No. I doubt it.” The sand drops in wet clumps from my hands. “And I don’t know how I’d be able to trust him, even if he says he did.” That’s why I don’t want to hear it, I realize. Because I’ll never really know what’s for the image and what’s for me.

He’s Alec Andreas, Cece said, and now I get it.

Probably she meant the lies he and Jenna told the public, but those I don’t actually find all that abhorrent. Not fantastic, certainly, but celebrities’ public lives are often carefully cultivated facades—they just took that to a greater extreme than many. But when Jenna wanted out, he blindsided her with a proposal and then when that didn’t seem to be enough, stepped it up to announce their marriage on the VMAs.

He’s described it to me as almost this noble sacrifice—that it was all to protect her career, her interests. But from the outside, it just looked like he was protecting his own ass. Selfishly trying to keep her toeing the line as long as possible.

Maybe the more obvious explanation was the true one, after all. Or at least part of it, certainly.

Was that all a lie, too, or is that what he really believes? And if he can’t admit, even to himself, his own interest in what he did to this girl he claims to still love like family, then can he ever really see how awful it was, using her like that? Doing that to this girl who trusted him?

Or does he just feel bad he got caught?

He was Alec Andreas before this, and he’s still that same person here, too.

My mind is spinning, questions upon questions that I can’t answer and I’m not sure I even want to, because they all hurt and I’ve got this sick roiling in my gut that I know what they all come down to.

He’s Alec Andreas. He cares way more about his image and his career than he ever will about me.

I’ve started crying again, and Su-Lin has taken to stroking my hair like I’m a dog, but it honestly feels kind of nice. Soothing, I’d say, if I wasn’t still a tight ball of anger and pain. The tide washes up around us and then draws back again, leaving little puddles in the pockets of sand.

We sit there for some time, much like we did last night, only then it was me holding Su-Lin while she cried. And I decide that whatever her motives, I’m glad she’s here.

“I’m on a celebrity knock-off of Survivor,” I say, when I can speak again around the sniffles. “And I actually thought I’d found this real thing with him, you know? How stupid is that? God, I—” Then I wince, remembering who I’m talking to. “I mean, not that it’s impossible to get into a real relationship here. You and Jason seem . . .” I trail off, because I have no idea what they seem.

Su-Lin makes a dismissive snorting sound. “Jason’s super awesome. But we’re just friends, so no worries.” The way she says it doesn’t seem like she’s sad about that fact, and I hope for his sake that he feels the same way. “But yeah, this is kind of a weird situation for starting a romance, huh?”

Or a perfect one, if you know how to work people, I can’t help but think.

I can feel a crying headache start between my eyes, and I pinch the bridge of my nose. “And now I’m going to have to deal with the embarrassment of this all being on TV.” As if getting your heart broken isn’t bad enough on its own.

Su-Lin nods. “Yeah, that sucks. But at least you didn’t perform the world’s most depressing version of ‘Uptown Funk’ in front of Donny Osmond.”

A small laugh escapes me at this, and I feel a little better about that when I see her smiling—the first smile I’ve seen from Su-Lin since puppet-gate.

“That’s true,” I say, “Though I think maybe I’d prefer that.”

We sit there in silence for a while longer, and I think about my parents again. I think about the conversation they were having from the very beginning, the one that began without even a shared language, the one that continued through so many years of life and love and marriage.

I thought Alec and I were starting a conversation like that, but I was wrong.

We weren’t talking about the same things at all.

Eighteen

Alec

I give Jillian a while to cool down before I go after her, not because I don’t want to talk to her, but because I’m scared she won’t want to hear it. Jillian is smart enough to know that anything I say on camera is suspect, and if she thinks this is all some kind of performance for my former and future fans, she might not let me speak.

But there’s this ache in my chest that grows stronger and stronger with each passing minute. I take a walk down the beach in the opposite direction before going to find her, to give her time to be ready to hear what I need to say. I can’t believe that in less than a minute, Cece has ruined everything Jillian and I have built over the last nine days. I feel more deeply about her than I’ve ever felt about anyone.

And that’s why I’m going to need to tell her the whole truth, no matter what the consequences will be for my career.

The smarter thing would probably be to lie to her. I could tell her Cece was just blowing hot air and that I was stunned but none of it was true. I could swear up and down that I didn’t come here with any intention of finding a girl to be the new Jenna, and since I haven’t ever told anyone that was my intention, she’d never have to know. I’m pretty sure Bobbi would take that particular piece of career advice to her grave, if necessary.

But Jillian deserves better than that. I want to be with her, and if we’re together as long as I want to be, if I lie to her now I could be lying to her my whole life.

She deserves to hear the truth, from me. I would have told her about it anyway, once we were off camera, but I hadn’t thought there was going to be an immediate need.

Shit, what is that going to do for my career? If I admit I came here planning to tell the same lie, it’ll sound like I learned nothing from the debacle with AJ, like I was just looking to have another fake girlfriend to parade around as the pinnacle of true love. But it’s not like that, not really. I told Bobbi I would find someone it wasn’t hard to flirt with, someone I liked anyway. And who wouldn’t flirt a little extra with someone they liked, cozy up to them a little more, if it would turn their career around? People do shit like that all the time.

And I know from experience that convincing a pretty girl to forgive me for it doesn’t mean the public will follow suit.

But I also realize I don’t care. I’m going to tell Jillian the whole truth, because I need to, and if my career suffers for it, well.

It’s not like things could get much worse.

When I finally make my way up the beach toward Jillian, I find her sitting in the sand with Su-Lin. Su-Lin sees me coming and nudges Jillian, and then gets up and stalks away in the dark. The moon is bright tonight, so I get a perfect view of the dirty look she gives me.

Jillian doesn’t even look up. Even in the dark, I can tell her eyes are puffy from crying, and my chest aches. God, I’ve hurt her, which I never intended to do. I spent all that time worrying about whether or not this was as real for her as it was for me, but I didn’t stop to think about what I was doing to her if it was.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey,” she returns. She sounds less than happy to see me, and I can’t blame her.

“So, have you already made up your mind about me?” I ask. “Do I even get to say anything?”

She arches an eyebrow at me. “Tell me it’s not true. That you didn’t come here looking for some stupid girl to make you look good.”

I suck my lips inward, and Jillian nods. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“If you want to listen,” I say. “I’ll tell you the truth.”

Jillian looks up at me, and for a minute, she doesn’t say anything. I’m taking a risk here, asking if she wants to hear, instead of just telling her. I’m giving her permission to say no, but the truth is, she gets to choose whether she’s going to listen to me, and I’d rather give her the space to decide that she actually wants to hear it.

So I wait her out.

“Fine,” she says finally. She glances once at the cameras, one of which has followed me up and down the beach, no doubt getting a good shot of me brooding about what I’m going to say. Maybe they’ll paint me as tortured instead of shallow. I should be happy about that.

But nothing about this conversation makes me happy.

“You know,” I say, “Jenna and I told the same lie for the same amount of time. But everyone forgives her. And why? Because she and Felix are so damn cute. That’s why.”

“And that’s what you wanted,” Jillian says.

“No. But when my manager told me about this job offer, she said that I’d better do it, and find someone to flirt with to remind people how charming I can be.”

“Just flirt with random girls,” Jillian says flatly. “No one specific.”

“I knew I had to pick someone specific. That’s how alliances work.”

She looks at me sharply, and I wince. This telling the truth thing was harder than I’d thought it would be. “But yeah,” I continue, “she wanted me to find someone I could pair up with, to remind people how much they like me when I’m in a relationship. America’s boyfriend and all that.”

“And that’s what I was to you,” Jillian says. She turns her head, and I can see the glint of tear streaks on her cheeks. All I want to do is kneel next to her and put my arms around her and kiss her and tell her I didn’t mean to hurt her, that everything I said to her was real.

“No,” I say. “That’s not all you were.”

She glares at me. “And you would have carried this on past the game, all to help your career.”

I hold up my hands. “I would have carried this on past the game because I want to be with you.”

Jillian rolls her eyes, and I sigh. I can’t say anything that doesn’t get caught on camera. I can’t escape that all this is going to be on television for everyone to see.

“I told you the truth,” I say, hating the note of desperation that’s crept into my voice. But I am desperate not to lose this incredible thing we had, that we were building, that already meant more to me than I ever imagined it could. “I told the truth, even though it’s going to look bad for me. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“You got caught,” Jillian says. “Telling the truth makes you look more sympathetic than if you lied.”

That might be true. Honestly, I’m not sure what people are going to find sympathetic anymore. “Tell me that you didn’t think for a minute that being with me might help your career.”

She shakes her head. “Of course I did. But it’s different. I would never have gotten into a relationship with you for that purpose.”

My eyes widen. “We were in a relationship?” I say. My heart breaks apart, knowing she was already thinking of it that way, and now I’ve lost that.

Jillian’s mouth falls open, and she looks away, and I realize how she’s taking it and I wish I could take the words back.

“I mean, I’m happy about that,” I say quickly. “I want to be in a relationship with you.”

“Yeah, well, clearly we weren’t.” She buries her face in her hands, and this time I do kneel in the sand next to her. It’s wet, though the tide has washed out and no longer reaches us.

“Jillian,” I say. “I meant everything I ever said to you. And yeah, maybe I came here looking for someone to help my image, but what I found was so much better than that. I never thought I’d find this with anyone, let alone some girl I met on a reality show. The idea never occurred to me, so I didn’t think anyone would get hurt.”

“Really,” Jillian says, still not meeting my eyes. “You didn’t think that if you mess with someone’s feelings, on TV or not, that they might get hurt.”

I shake my head. This is coming out wrong. “I guess I don’t see the difference between this and that time I picked up Jenna when she was singing karaoke. I thought, hey, there’s this cute girl who might be able to help out my career, and then I found out she was awesome, both as a person and as a band member.”

“But did you get into a relationship with her intending to use her?” Jillian demands. “To get her to have feelings for you just to keep her in your band?”

“No,” I say, my chest tight. Is that really what I’ve done here? “That’s not—No.”

“Well, I don’t want to be something you do for your image,” Jillian says through gritted teeth. “We talked about how it’s possible to prioritize both being in a relationship and having a career, but being a support is different than being a tool.”

“You weren’t a tool,” I say.

She gives me a look, and I know why she won’t believe me.

It’s because I’ve done this before.

“Look,” I say. “I didn’t use Jenna. She was in on that, and we both made the decision to stay together for the sake of the band.”

“Good for Jenna,” she snaps. “I didn’t get a say in this. And I never would have used you like that.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. But this is already getting away from me, I can feel it all slipping through my fingers, and I can barely breathe. She’s past listening now.

“Also,” Jillian says, “you make it sound like you were being so benevolent when you told the world you guys were married, but she didn’t seem like she was in on all that shit you did to her at the end.”

“Yeah, no,” I say. “She wasn’t. Not after she met Felix.”

Jillian looks me right in the face, and there’s anger in her eyes. “So you admit it wasn’t all for her sake. That you were trying to keep your career together, and that was more important to you than whether or not she got hurt.”

I shake my head. “No. That isn’t true.”

Jillian rolls her eyes. “If you can’t even feel bad for treating someone you say you care about like that, then I don’t see—”

“It wasn’t for my career,” I say. I’m raising my voice, and I know I shouldn’t be, but I’m not going to let her tell me why I did the things I did. I know everyone thinks I’m a selfish bastard who only cared about keeping the band together because I thought it would ruin me, but I don’t care.

At this moment, I only care what Jillian thinks. “It wasn’t about saving my career,” I say. “If it had been, I would have let Jenna tank hers, and made sure that I was the one who came out of it looking good.”

“Really,” Jillian says. She clearly doesn’t believe me. “Then what was it about?”

I hesitate. “It was about her.”

She shakes her head, and I rock back on my heels, biting my lip.

“It was,” I say. “I loved Jenna. Not as a girlfriend, but as a person. I cared about her, and from my perspective, she was making another mistake, like all those guys she’d been with before me. I was the first guy she’d been with who treated her decently, and it’s not like I thought Felix was going to hurt her, but she’d barely met him and she was throwing away her career for him. She was throwing away everything I gave her, when I convinced her to join the band. It was a big deal, what we accomplished together. Jenna wanted to sing for a living. She wanted to be a songwriter, but she couldn’t afford to take the risk on it, because she had a kid. And then we had all this success, and she was able to support them both, and help her parents move out to California, and we had it all, you know? And that was more important for her than it was for me, because she had so much more resting on her shoulders than I did.”

I take a shaky breath. Jillian is listening again, so I better keep talking while I have the chance. “That was the story, you know? I was this guy who rescued the single mom. It wasn’t about the public image. It was about how I thought about us. It was fine by me when she didn’t want to be with me anymore. I felt the same. But now she didn’t want any of what we’d built together. She was going to throw it all away. And I believed that would ruin her life, and I was going to stop her. I was going to make her make the right decision. And now I get that that wasn’t right, that Felix is the best thing that ever happened to her, and I should have let it happen. But I’m not going to let you sit here and tell me it was all about me, because it wasn’t. Sure, I wanted to keep the career. But I could have gone about it differently. What I cared about most was stopping her.”

Even as I say that, the words taste sour in my mouth. “And that was wrong,” I say. “Because it wasn’t my right to try to control her like that.”

God, I owe Jenna an apology. I mean, I’ve apologized to her before, but not for that specifically. For believing I was better than she was, that she needed me to save her.

“Maybe I wanted to think she needed me to save her,” I say. “Because it made me feel better about myself.”

Jillian blinks at me. “I’m not sure that’s better.”

My eyes burn, and I blink it back. “That’s what people don’t like about me,” I say. “It’s not the lie I told. Jenna told those, too. It’s the reputation I have for using people. And the truth might be slightly different, but it’s not any better.”

Jillian hugs her knees tighter to her chest, her toes digging deep into the sand. “Sorry, Alec. I’m a person, not some mirror you can use for your own self-discovery.”

I close my eyes. That stings like a slap, because it’s so true. I want a gold star for reaching this understanding, but it’s not like it changes what I’ve done to her. “I’m sorry,” I say, my voice as bleak and empty as I feel right now.

Jillian doesn’t respond.

“So that’s it, then,” I say. “This is over? Is our alliance over, too?”

She winces, like it hurts that I care about that. And I don’t, I just need to know if she’s going to campaign to have me gone. I want to prepare for it, to plan how I’m going to respond.

“I don’t care about the game right now,” she says. “I don’t know.”

She turns away from me, and I can tell she wants me to go.

“Okay,” I tell her. “Let me know.”

She nods, and I wait another beat of silence before I get up and trudge down the beach. I curl up in our spot in the shelter, but for the first time, Jillian doesn’t join me. When she finally comes to bed, she sets up in the far end of the shelter, on the other side of Jason and Su-Lin. I end up with a blanket all to myself, but it’s cold under there without her. I miss the smell of her hair—even greasy as all of ours is—and the sensation of her skin against mine. I miss the soft sounds she made when I touched her, and the way her body fit in my arms.

There’s this hollowness now. Like she carved out a Jillian-sized space in my heart and with her gone, there’s nothing to fill it. Maybe nothing ever will.

I love her, I realize. I’m completely and totally in love with her, and I want her to know. I should have told her out on the beach.

But now she may never want to hear it from me.

Nineteen

Jillian

The next couple days go by with a torturous slowness. Ryan is voted out at the Starvies, to the surprise of absolutely no one, even him, and the only one who seems sad about it is Chad, who now has no one willing to movie-fight with him on the beach. The days are hot and humid and miserable. Su-Lin and Jason and I play Uno in the shade of the shelter, but none of us really care about the game—Jason doesn’t even yell the winning “Uno!” with his usual deafening levels of excitement. I go out to try to fish by myself, and of course catch nothing, and I end up sitting alone on that rock outcropping and wishing I could erase the memory of Alec there with me, his knee resting against mine.

But I can’t, and not the least because he’s still here on this island. Sitting against a tree, strumming his guitar. Hauling coconuts back from the jungle with Jason. Getting pulled out for aside interviews about as constantly as I am, the producers desperate to wring every sound bite they can from our drama.

He avoids me, and I avoid him, and the hurt just gnaws at me more and more every day.

If the days are bad, the nights are the worst. We sleep at opposite ends of the shelter, and even though there are six of us packed in here, I’ve never in my life felt lonelier.

Empty, I think. The days and the nights feel empty now. Like when we were together, I could push aside all the misery of the lack of food, and the bugs, and the constant companionship of has-been celebrities lacking their hair products and their organic keto cruelty-free oxygen infusions or whatever. Because the days then were filled with this excitement, this rush of being with Alec that was heady and weirdly comfortable all at once. The nights were filled with the feeling of his body pressed against mine, his soft breath against my neck—and those last nights, with our hands exploring each other . . .

Now I feel empty, and the only thing left is anger and raw hurt, and I hate it.

I wish I could go home, get away from all of this, but my pride is too strong to allow that. And besides, I don’t think this is the kind of hurt I can run away from.

I dig through the group reward basket and find the treasured, shared tube of toothpaste—Colgate, which has never been my favorite, but after nearly two weeks of brushing my teeth with roots, it’s pure heaven on a toothbrush. Almost too much so—as hungry as we all are, I don’t think there’s a single one of us who hasn’t imagined eating the toothpase like spray-can cheese.

The way Cece guards the commodities in this basket, I damn well know it’s crossed her mind.

I glare at the condoms in the basket. Super subtle of the producers, and pretty effing bad timing, too. If Su-Lin and Jason are really just friends, and with Alec and I, well, like this, they’re just going to sit there.

I try not to think of whether Alec and I would have used them. I try not to think of how close we were both getting to not caring whether the cameras caught us or not—or I was, I suppose. I think it’s pretty obvious he wasn’t faking wanting to sleep with me, but that doesn’t mean he was as into it as I was.

And it definitely doesn’t mean he couldn’t have had some plan for how to use it to his best advantage.

I find my gaze drifting over to where he’s sitting about fifteen feet back from the shelter near the tree line, eating the meager breakfast of coconut and the last bite of a small lizard Cece and Jason managed to trap a few hours ago. He catches me looking at him, and I feel myself flush all over. But neither of us looks away immediately.

He’s got dark circles under his eyes, and I want to believe it’s because he’s been getting as little sleep as I have, without his arms to curl up in. I want to believe it’s because he misses me the way I miss him. That he misses our—

Nope. Not relationship. I flush again, and this time with bitter shame. As if it wasn’t bad enough I’m that stupid girl who got played on camera, now I’m also that clingy girl who thought she was in a relationship when she wasn’t.

Now I look away, because all I can see in his expression is pity, something I’ve seen way too much over the last couple days, and I can’t handle it anymore. God, it’s not like I thought we were engaged or even that I was officially his girlfriend, but we had something, and he was talking about moving out to DC to be with me, and if that isn’t a relationship, I—

I’m gritting my teeth so hard I’m about to rip the bristles out of the toothbrush.

What I don’t get—one of many things I don’t get—is why, if he needed a girlfriend for his image, the idea of us being in a relationship took him by surprise. It seems like he’d be eager to label it as soon as possible, get that locked down. Was that some kind of strategic move somehow? Was he faking surprise to make me look needy and desperate?

No. I can’t let myself keep going down this rabbit hole. I can’t keep trying to piece together his true plans, what was real and what wasn’t, because deep down I am desperate for some of it to have been real for him.

And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to know, not for sure, and I’m so pissed at him for it. And pissed at myself for getting in this situation in the first place.

I force myself to finish brushing my teeth, trying to turn my attention to anything else. Jason and Chad are tossing a coconut back and forth along the beach like it’s a football—neither of them seeming like they’re having all that much fun, but it’s something to do. Su-Lin is sitting in the shelter, tying a couple of blue feathers into her hair. Cece has just come back from the jungle—probably taking a bathroom break—and is settling herself back in her usual place by the ever-burning campfire. She’s reaching for her guitar just as Chad comes barreling towards her to catch the coconut that Jason threw wide.

She doesn’t reach it in time, and Chad, looking backwards over his shoulder as he runs, kicks the instrument. I wince as it makes a sad little discordant twang and flips over into the sand.

“Hey!” Cece shrieks, grabbing for it. “My guitar! You—you—”

Chad barely misses catching the coconut, which thunks into the sand. “Sorry, dude,” he says, wiping sweat from his forehead. “If it’s broken, I’ll buy you a new one.”

“This guitar was given to me by Garth Brooks after my first Country Music Award win!” Cece glares daggers at him, then turns the guitar over and over to inspect for damage. “You can’t just buy a new one, no matter how many dumbass V movies you make.”

The cameras all start moving to surround them, focusing in on the drama.

“You’re calling my movies dumbass, Cece?” Chad growls. “Is it dumbass for a man to seek revenge on the cartel that killed the elderly grandmother who raised him? Is it dumbass for him to lead a group of sexy lady assassins who follow him in V formation to get revenge?”

Cece gapes at him. “Yes, hon,” she says, slowly. “It is.”

Chad’s face goes scarlet, and he clenches his fists. “Yeah? Well maybe it’s dumbass to leave your Gary Booth guitar sitting around in the sand if you care about it so much.”

“It’s Garth Brooks, you—” Cece clenches her jaw so tight to stop herself that I can practically hear her teeth crack. “Why don’t you go do something actually useful for once?”

“Useful? I hauled buckets of water down from that stream this morning! What do you do, especially now that there’s no rice to be stirred?”

Cece launches into a litany of the menial tasks she performs around the camp, but suddenly it occurs to me that all the cameras are focused on them, which is rare.

I look back at Alec, who is watching this all with that look of annoyance I used to find so adorable.

That, damn it, I still do find adorable, and that pisses me off, too.

My heart pounds, as I realize how I can save some face. Not with the public—it’s too late for that. But with Alec. To not feel like every time he looks at me he’s seeing this pathetic girl who’s still desperately in love with the guy who duped her.

Even if it’s the truth.

I don’t let myself think through the ramifications of this; I’m done with thinking—days of nothing but thinking and hurting—and I just need to do something.

So while Chad yells back at Cece about how ridiculous it is that she’s counting “daily palm frond inventory” as a useful survival task, and Jason is trying to get them both to stop, I walk over to Alec—quickly, but not so much so it catches the eyes of any of the cameramen.

Alec’s eyes widen in surprise when he sees me approach. “Hey,” he says. But nothing else.

Of course, nothing else. Did you think he’s going to beg for you to forgive him? Keep fighting for this because it meant so damn much to him?

Could it change anything even if he did?

I don’t want to examine the answer of that last question, especially, because either way it feels like it leads to just more hurt.

I force a smile, channelling all my acting skills into this moment. “Hey,” I say quietly, leaning close. Is it just my imagination, or does his breath catch when I put my hand on his arm?

Focus, Jillian.

“I just wanted to let you know that we’re totally good,” I say. Breezy. Confident. Like someone who didn’t just get their heart shredded.

Alec blinks. “We—what?”

“This turned out awesome,” I say. “I’d thought hooking up with you would get me more attention, get my name out there, you know? But this is even better than I’d hoped—the sad, jilted girlfriend thing is going to play out really well for sympathy.”

Alec’s mouth drops open a little, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Seriously,” I continue. “Sorry it didn’t work as well for you, but I couldn’t resist jumping on this opportunity. So really, thanks. I just wanted to let you know we’re good. I mean,” I say with a little chuckle, “I’m not going to act like it, obviously. But we’re totally cool. I just didn’t want you to feel too bad, you know?”

He’s definitely not looking at me with pity now. He’s looking stunned, and . . . hurt?

My chest feels too tight. I can’t keep this up much longer, and it looks like the Cece/Chad brawl is coming to an end, with Chad throwing his hands up and storming off.

I squeeze Alec’s arm, just wanting to touch him one last time and hating myself for it, and give him another small smile and walk away, just as the cameramen are looking around to see if we’re doing anything interesting to shoot.

My pulse beats in my ears. Did he buy it? Was he actually hurt?

Was that really why I did this, to see if he would be?

I thought it would feel better to do something, to do anything. But I look back at Alec and see him staring at the sand in front of his feet like he hopes it’ll give him the answer to something, and I don’t feel better, not even a little bit.

About an hour later, after the cameramen have pulled us all out for asides about the fight and Cece is somewhat mollified when her guitar turns out to still play just fine, one of the producers shows up to lead us on a trek to our next challenge.

On the walk over, I try to avoid stealing glances at Alec.

I try. I don’t succeed.

He’s in front of me, walking a few feet away from Jason, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his cargo shorts.

He doesn’t look back at me at all, which is to be expected. But that emptiness in my chest feels even more ragged at the edges.

Surprise, surprise. Deciding impulsively to act like I’m rejecting him didn’t actually make me not feel rejected. And hurting him—if I even did—didn’t make my pain any less.

It just made me feel like a bitch.

So, Jilly, I can practically hear my mom say in my head, because I’d heard it so many times growing up. Lashing out didn’t really make things better, did it? Her tone would always be sympathetic—maybe because she can have a bit of a temper sometimes, too. Then she’d squeeze my shoulder. So what are you going to do now?

Get through this, I think. Not embarrass myself any more. But that’s not enough.

And as we come up on the stage from the American Idol challenge—still intact, and with Krissy and several cameramen standing there, along with the requisite covered rewards table—I know what I’m going to do.

I’m going to win.

This challenge, the next one—as many as humanly possible. But most importantly, the game.

I’m going to win, for my mom to have a memory of me that she’ll likely keep longer than the rest, for the boost in notoriety, and yeah, for the money, which will be a huge help both for my family and getting me started in New York when the time is right.

No more making the emotional choice instead of the smart one.

No more letting myself get distracted by my feelings for Alec.

Still, I have to fight the part of me that wants to look back at Alec as we file up in front of the stage, by where the empty judges’ chairs sit. I’m going to have to repeat that last one like a mantra, I think.

“Welcome back,” Krissy says, a big smile on her face. “Today’s challenge . . . will actually be tomorrow.”

She waits for a reaction of surprise, but I think we’re all too tired and starving and emotionally overwrought to give her anything good, so she continues on. “And once again, it’s going to be on this very stage, in front of some special celebrity judges. But this time you’re not going to sing for your reward.”

Another pause, and the six of us just stare silently.

Krissy’s smile falters only the tiniest bit, before she renews it full force. “This time you’re going to dance!”

This does actually give me a flutter of excitement, the first positive emotion I’ve felt in days. I’ve had years of dance classes. I’m willing to bet I have way more experience than any of the others.

I can win this.

“For this challenge, you won’t be going it alone, though,” Krissy says.

Uh-oh.

“You’re going to be paired up in couples, and we have a special celebrity guest who will spend an hour personally working with each couple to make sure you get all the right moves. Say hello to Dancing with the Stars’ Derek Hough!”

Cece lights up when Derek’s name is announced. I would normally react with more excitement, but I’m stuck on the “pairing up” part, my mind in a panic of oh my god, the producers are going to make sure Alec and I are paired up, because of course they are and how am I going to dance with Alec and not be distracted by my feelings for him? It takes me a beat before I can process that I’m actually getting a dance lesson from Derek Hough. He’s one of the best contemporary dancers out there.

He strides out, grinning widely and waving to us (and the cameras.) He’s wearing this cream-colored linen suit over a white shirt, and he’s so clean and styled and put-together that he makes the rest of us in our twelve-day-old clothes and greasy hair and bug-bitten skin look like we were dragged out of the nearest meth den.

It’s not just us, either—by this point, the cameramen and producers who at least are getting meals and a cot to sleep on and showers (I imagine) are looking a bit ragged, and even Krissy is starting to show some wear.

Derek doesn’t seem to notice or care. “Hey guys! I’m looking forward to teaching you some dance moves and seeing what you can do.”

“First, though,” Krissy says, “I think we should let them know what they are competing for—in addition to the all-important impunity scepter. Derek, will you do the honors?”

“Of course,” he says. “How does a helicopter tour of the nearby islands for the two lucky winners sound?”

We smile and clap, and Jason musters a fist pump, but all of our eyes are riveted on the table.

“Followed by,” Derek continues, lifting the fabric on the table, “A full Italian meal, complete with an open bar!”

This gets the reaction they were hoping for. We all cheer with gusto.

There’s a plate of the most amazing, mouthwatering tower of spaghetti and meatballs I’ve ever seen, next to a bottle of wine and a side plate of garlic bread. My knees go weak, and I can tell I’m not the only one—even Alec, who’s had three reward meals over the last twelve days, more than any of the rest of us—looks like he’s ready to leap onto the stage and shove past Derek and Krissy to get to that food.

I start to smile, my immediate instinct to start up our usual taunting of that’s mine, until the hurt hits me all over again. I look away just as his eyes meet mine.

Krissy announces that for the pairs, it’s going to be ladies’ choice. I think for a minute that Cece is going to object to the heteronormative male/female dance partners, but she looks at both Su-Lin and I and seems to decide the fight to dance with either of us isn’t worth it.

Too bad for her, because I’m going to kick this contest’s ass.

Krissy has Su-Lin, Cece, and me draw numbers from a box. Cece wins first pick and I win second, meaning Su-Lin gets stuck with whoever’s left.

Cece looks between Chad and Alec, who are the two obvious choices. Chad probably has some dance training, or at least can do choreographed fight moves. And Alec’s a pop star—no guarantee he has dancing skill, but it’s a safe bet.

Jason, on the other hand, may have freakishly good upper body strength, but climbing rocks (and palm trees) doesn’t exactly require the same skill set as ballroom dance.

Despite the morning’s fight, she ends up picking Chad, probably because Alec is giving her a look that says he’d rather dance with Coconut Ruby than Cece.

Then it’s my turn. I know what I should do. The smart choice. Which I know, despite the likely differences in skill, is actually Jason. I’ll be able to focus on the dance, on the competition.

But there’s this moment of longing that tugs at me, to dance with Alec. To feel his arms around me and our bodies moving in tandem. My heart aches and aches.

I can’t read the expression in those blue eyes of his as he watches me, and I sure as hell hope he can’t read mine.

“Jason,” I say. Alec looks away, and I feel it like a door slamming in my face, which is stupid, since I’m the one who made the choice—

No, he made the choice to use me, I remind myself. He made that choice.

I think that maybe I’m going to need to apologize to Su-Lin for taking Jason, but she seems to get it and gives me a small smile and a thumbs up.

Krissy announces that Derek will start with Jason and me. The others are escorted back far enough away where they can watch but can’t hear what Derek says to us. After each pair gets their hour with Derek, we’ll have the rest of today to practice for tomorrow’s competition.

Derek introduces himself and shakes our hands, and makes a joke to me about how “we aren’t going to be doing the can-can, even though I know you’re really good at it,” which is super surreal because Derek Hough knows who I am, even if of course it’s because of that stupid commercial.

He tells us we’re going to start out with a simple waltz, just to see where we’re at, and I’m startled when Jason puts his hands on me in exactly the right waltz position. I’m even more startled when Derek counts us off and we waltz like we’ve been doing it for years.

“You can dance?” I ask. No point in hiding my incredulity; Jason’s already grinning at my shock.

“I took ballroom back in high school,” he says. “Thought it would be a good way to meet girls. And it was.”

“Nice!” Derek says, stopping us. “You guys look great together. I think we need to give you something sexy. How do you feel about the tango?”

Jason shrugs again. “Sounds fun.”

“It does,” I say.

Because it does sound fun. And Jason and I are going to win this thing, I know it.

I’m even more sure as Derek starts working with us, and we take to the dance well, picking up the steps easily and even starting to add our own flourishes.

I just need to stop wishing it was Alec I was dancing with instead.

Twenty

Alec

I’m trying not to emote broodily all over the island, but I know I’m failing. In an effort to avoid Jillian and her—possibly fake—stares of anger and indifference, I spend a lot of time hauling water, or sitting on a rock and staring out at the ocean. At least one camera stays riveted to me at all times, as if they don’t have enough shots of me looking forlornly out to sea to fill a dozen episodes.

We’re all good, Jillian said. She was just using me. If she was telling the truth about that, she’s a bigger player than I’ll ever be.

I’m not sure if it’s true, or just another way to get back at me for hurting her, but either way, it stings like hell. Because whatever my intentions were when I got here, I wasn’t using her. My mind keeps playing over all the things I imagined—moving to DC with her and meeting her parents, having a home again, a center I haven’t had since Jenna and I broke up. Being partners as we chase after success, like me and Jenna, only so, so much better, because Jillian and I fit in a way Jenna and I never did. Because I love Jillian in a way I’ve never loved anyone.

Not that it matters now.

Footsteps approach me across the rocks, and my heartbeat picks up, hoping despite everything that it’s Jillian. I turn to see Chad stepping carefully toward me across the stones, which are so pitted by the water and the wind that it’s easy to lose your footing.

“What do you want?” I ask him.

He waves and smiles, and I think he’s trying to look friendly, which must mean he’s up to something.

“Enjoying the view?” Chad asks.

Ugh. I’m miserable enough without adding small talk to my list of grievances. “You’re looking for friends now that Ryan’s gone.”

Chad hesitates. “Yeah. And I thought, since you and Jillian—”

“Jillian and I are still voting together,” I say. I suppose I’m not completely sure that’s true, but since we’re all good, I’m pretty sure the alliance is still intact.

For the moment, at least.

“Oh.” Chad looks crestfallen, and I’m guessing talking to me was his big strategic move. I don’t want to deal with him, but I also don’t want him going off and striking a deal with someone else. Jason and Su-Lin hate him and want him out next, I know, but there’s Cece, or even Jillian, who might be looking to vote me off to play sympathy for the audience.

“But,” I say, “if you want to vote with us to keep yourself around longer, we can consider it.”

Chad smiles. “Yeah?”

“Are you willing to vote for Cece?”

“Sure,” Chad says. “That’s who I was going to suggest. I figure you’re still pissed at her for breaking you guys up. Plus, she’s kind of a bitch.”

Strategically dangerous, is the way I would put it, but in Chad’s book, it probably amounts to the same thing. “Yeah, okay. Cece at the next vote, then.” I’d like to go that way anyway, but if we stick with Jason and Su-Lin and vote Chad out, it’s not like it’ll hurt for his vote to go Cece’s way.

“Thanks,” Chad says. “I’m going to go work out. You want to come?”

Do I want to do fake action-hero moves on the beach with Chad Montgomery? I look back out at the ocean. “No, thanks,” I say.

“Suit yourself,” Chad says, and he climbs down the rocks and wanders back toward camp.

Not long later, Su-Lin comes wandering down the beach from the same direction. I groan, though she’s probably not close enough to hear. It’s not that I mind her company lately, but we have to practice for the dance competition, the one where I was last picked, because Jillian would rather dance with Jason than with me.

And I ended up with Su-Lin, who, if our instruction session with Derek Hough was any indication, has no rhythm to speak of.

“Hey, Alec,” Su-Lin says. “Jason and Jillian have been gone for hours. Should we even try to beat them?”

It’s a legitimate question. I don’t know if Jillian knew in advance that Jason can actually dance, but the two of them looked weirdly good while Derek taught them their tango.

Good enough to make me want to punch Jason in the face, in fact, and while I know that’s irrational, the knot in my stomach returns just thinking about it.

“Yeah,” I say, half because my pride won’t let me give up entirely, and half because if I come in dead last in a dancing challenge to the rest of them, that’ll be one more strike on my image that means I’ll never work again. My career may be six feet under by now, but I know I’ll kick myself later if I intentionally make it seven. I get up off the rocks and trudge across the sand to meet her. Su-Lin’s hair is by now filled with so many shells and feathers and things that she’s starting to look like she grew up in the jungle raised by lemurs.

I hold back that jibe. She’s been through enough.

“All right,” Su-Lin says, holding up her hands. “Shall we?”

We do. Derek, upon seeing that we can’t dance together for anything, assigned us a basic cha cha, and spent the entire hour trying to get us to do the step in tandem. It was only at the end when I suggested Su-Lin stand on my feet like she’s seven years old that we were finally able to do it right.

“All right,” Su-Lin says. “One, two—”

We immediately run into each other as we both step in opposite directions. I glare at her. “I’m leading. Remember?”

“Right,” she says, and for the next round I have to basically drag her through the dance.

“I’m leading,” I say, “but you’re not a puppet. You have to move with me.”

“Right,” Su-Lin says, still chanting “one-two-cha-cha-cha,” with her erratic movements.

I glance over and find coconut Ruby ensconced in the sand, watching us with wild eyes through her shock of crazy hair.

I bite my tongue, literally, which I regret when Su-Lin and I collide again.

“Damn it,” I say. “Let me lead.”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Su-Lin says. “And maybe you aren’t very good at it, because I can’t figure out how to follow.”

“At least I’m not counting incessantly. Are you going to be able to stop that when we’re performing?”

“Probably!” Su-Lin says, with more conviction than the sentiment is due.

“Fine. Let’s try it again. Follow my lead, and no counting.”

We try the step again, and Su-Lin does not count aloud. She does, however, mouth the numbers unmistakably.

“Stop mouthing!” I say. “And quit bobbing your head. You look like a mute chicken.”

“Fine!” Su-Lin shouts, shoving me away, rather ineffectually. “Dance by yourself, then!”

“I would probably look better if I did!” I don’t have any ballroom experience, but I do have rhythm and I can dance.

Su-Lin glares at me, and her eyes well up with tears. “Well, then . . . fine!” she shouts, and wheels around to stalk away.

Shit. “Su-Lin, wait.”

She turns around, her arms crossed tight over her chest.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I’ve had a rough few days, but I know you have, too.” Normally, apologizing like this to Su-Lin would feel fake, but this time I am sorry.

It’s not her fault my life is falling apart on national TV.

“Thanks,” she says, though she doesn’t uncross her arms. She keeps staring at me, but she doesn’t come back to practice, or run off in the direction of camp. “I’m sorry about you and Jillian.”

“I am, too,” I say. “But I think you and I are the only ones.”

Su-Lin looks skeptical. “I think Jillian would object to that.”

“Maybe.” I look up the beach toward the camera that’s catching all of this, including what a jerk I was to her. My career is going to have dug a tunnel to China by the time we’re done here. “She said she’s fine with it, though. She said she was just using me to help her career.”

Su-Lin laughs. “And you believed it?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. She’s a smart girl, and that would be a smart move.”

Su-Lin shakes her head. “I hate to say this, but she’s just trying to save face. It sucks to have been in a relationship with someone and then find out it might all have been fake.”

I wince at the word relationship, and Su-Lin looks at me curiously. “It was a relationship,” I say. “But when Jillian called it that when we were breaking up, it took me by surprise. I hadn’t realized she thought about it that seriously, but when I asked if we were in a relationship—”

“Ouch,” Su-Lin says. “Yeah. I can see why she’d lie to try to recover her dignity after that.”

I groan. “I was happy she thought that. I wanted to be in a relationship with her!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Su-Lin says. “She was mortified because she fell in love with you and you didn’t even think it was serious enough to be a relationship.”

My heart starts pounding, and I hate that the camera is catching exactly how desperately I want to hear that Jillian loves me. Just not from Su-Lin.

“You think so?” I ask.

“Um, yeah. It was so obvious. You guys were being all . . . you guys. Everyone knows.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I say. My chest aches, as I realize Jillian didn’t actually use the word “love.” Su-Lin is just guessing. Though even if Jillian had said that, it could have all been part of an act.

“It means you guys clearly wanted to bone, but there was obviously a lot more going on. And then she was so hurt, because she was seeing this whole future with you.”

I glance out at the water again, wishing I had any kind of poker face. Everyone is going to know exactly how much I care about her, or else think I deserve an Oscar for this performance.

I’m not sure which would be worse.

“I felt that way, too,” I say, quietly. “We talked about it. I just didn’t know that meant we were in a relationship. I didn’t know she was ready for that.”

“You probably weren’t in one, then,” Su-Lin says. “That’s why she’s embarrassed. Both people have to think you are, or the relationship doesn’t exist.”

“I would have jumped at the chance if I knew that was an option.” The day is overcast and gray, yet still obnoxiously humid and hot. Sweat is beading on my forehead, and I wipe it away. “Maybe I should talk to her.”

“You probably should,” Su-Lin says. “I think she’s just worried that she doesn’t know what your intentions are. She can’t be sure how it’s going to go when you aren’t on camera anymore.”

I groan. I remember when Jenna broke up with Felix because he was an addict and she couldn’t be sure he was going to stay clean.

Damn it, I’m Felix now. And nobody wants to be Felix in that situation.

Su-Lin is looking at me like she’s every bit as miserable as I am, and she has a lot fewer ways to deal with her situation.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you,” I say again. “And I’m sorry about your puppet.”

She scuffs the toe of her sneaker against the rock. “I know it’s stupid to be so upset about it.”

“No, it isn’t. That was really violating. Like, emotional assault, maybe?”

Su-Lin looks surprised, but then she nods. “Yeah, that’s how it feels.”

“I know I didn’t have the most helpful reaction,” I say. “But I felt terrible that happened to you.”

One corner of Su-Lin’s mouth quirks up. “I didn’t have the best reaction to you, either. And it’s understandable that you had to go scrub your eyes out.”

I groan. “I really did.”

“For what it’s worth,” Su-Lin says, “I believe you about Jillian. I don’t think you were just using her.”

“Yeah, well,” I say, nodding toward the camera. “A lot of people are going to think you’re gullible for that.”

She shrugs. “A lot of people already think that about me.”

I take a deep breath. I can’t believe I’m about to ask Su-Lin this, of all people, but at the moment, she’s the closest thing I have to a person I can trust. “Tell me the truth,” I say. “Do you think I deserve this?”

She scrunches her face. “Jillian being mad at you?”

“Not just that,” I say. “I know I’ve done a lot of things wrong, and I get why people don’t trust me. But I’ve lost my career, and I’ve lost Jillian, and no one is ever going to believe a word I say again, so my chances of ever working as a performer or having a real relationship again are pretty much shot. Do you think what I did—do you think I deserve this?”

Su-Lin considers this. “No. But people don’t always get what they deserve, Alec. And a lot of things happen to people that are far worse than they deserve.”

I nod. She’s right, and believing otherwise is either entitlement or self-flagellation. Maybe both. “Thanks,” I say.

“Anytime. But I don’t think I want to practice anymore. We’re just going to have to look like idiots in the competition.”

I don’t love the sound of that, but I’m not sure we’re going to get any better. “All right,” I tell her. And I follow her as she picks up Ruby and heads back to camp.

When Jillian gets back, I’m going to try to get her to talk to me. I don’t have a lot of hope it’ll make things better, but I suppose it would be hard to make them worse.

Twenty-one

Alec

It remains murky and overcast for the rest of the afternoon, with only the occasional smattering of raindrops for relief. The sky is dimming when Jason and Jillian finally return. I hear the laughter before they come out of the jungle—not just his, but hers as well.

She’s hanging on his arm when they break the tree line, and my resolve almost cracks. If she was playing me, if we really are all good, I wonder if she’s decided to move on to Jason, who would make a better boyfriend than I would, if her eardrums can survive it. The thought of them dancing the tango in the jungle all day, bodies rubbing together—

I can’t help but think about what would have happened if it had been her and me, and my whole body tenses as I wonder if they got far enough away to muffle Jason’s war cry.

“Hey,” I say to her as they approach. Jillian looks up at me and her smile fades.

“Hey,” she says back tersely.

“Can we talk?”

She drops her hand from Jason’s arm and he gives her a look before running off toward Su-Lin.

Jillian shrugs. “Yeah, okay.”

I incline my head down the beach, and she marches ahead of me until we get to the shallow section of water where I kissed her that first time. I pick a clear spot and sit down in the sand, high enough that the waves aren’t going to reach us, even though the tide is washing in. There’s a camera parked on each side of us, no doubt to get this conversation from different angles.

The cameras are always rolling, and so there’s very little chance she’s going to believe a word I say. But if Su-Lin was right, if Jillian was just trying to save face—

“So?” Jillian asks.

“There’s no easy way to say this,” I say. “But I just need you to know that I wasn’t playing you. Whatever my intentions were when I got here, I meant everything I ever said to you, everything I did. And it hurts like hell that maybe you didn’t, and I miss you—god, I miss you so much, Jillian.”

Jillian looks out at the ocean, and I can’t quite read her expression. There’s pain there, I’m pretty sure.

Is that an act? My heart aches at the thought it might still be.

“Sorry for lying about using you,” Jillian says. “I guess you figured that out.”

“I didn’t, actually,” I say. “I believed you, but then I talked to Su-Lin about it, and she said she thought you were lying. And you were?”

“Yeah,” Jillian says. “I just wanted to salvage some of my pride. It was a bitchy thing to do.”

“It hurt,” I tell her. “Worse than I’ve ever been hurt.”

Jillian looks down at the sand, her shoulders hunching like they’re bearing an enormous weight. And while she doesn’t seem angry anymore, I can’t help but feel like I’m making this worse.

“Did you think it would hurt me?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I think I hoped it would, because that would mean you cared.”

“Well, it did,” I tell her. “And I do.”

Jillian nods, grinding a small pinch of sand between her fingers. “I wish I could know for sure that was true. But there are still cameras, Alec. I’m not sure how I’ll ever be able to know you’re not saying it for the cameras.”

I want to ask her if we can try again when we get home, if I can still come out to DC and we can start over.

But I think I understand what she means.

“I’ll always have cameras on me,” I say. “That’s the way my life is. The press is always watching.”

Jillian presses her lips together and nods. “I would never know if all you really care about is your image. You could carry this on for years, and I’d never be able to tell.”

“Even if this ends my career,” I say. “You’d always suspect I was staging a comeback.”

Jillian closes her eyes, and I can see tears leaking out beneath her lashes. Tears are burning behind my eyes, too. All I want to do is reach out and take her hand, hold her against me and tell her how sorry I am, how much I love her, how I’ll do anything to make it up to her.

“And the worst part is,” Jillian says, meeting my eyes, hers shining with tears, “that I’m in love with you. And even if someday you said that back to me, I couldn’t believe you. I’d never be able to know whether or not it’s an angle.”

My heart climbs up into my throat. I can taste the words, and I know how deeply true they are.

But she’s as much as telling me not to say them. Maybe because on some level, she knows how I feel. She knows what I want to say.

And she doesn’t want to have to hear it when she knows she can’t trust it.

“God, I’m sorry, Jillian.” I wrap my arms around my knees, wishing I could hold her. “I should never have come here looking to use anyone like that. I just—I didn’t think I would meet anyone who wanted anything real.” I close my eyes. “I thought I’d find someone who wanted to date Alec Andreas, you know? Someone who wanted a pop star on their arm, who found me attractive enough and wanted the things my attention could do for their career. It never occurred to me I might meet someone who actually cared about me. Who could look past the fame and be all the things I didn’t even know I was looking for. And yeah, I knew I might break some hearts, but I’ve never felt all that bad about hurting people who look at me and only see the fame, you know?”

I look over at her, and tears are running down her cheeks, and I wish I could wipe them away. But somehow I know, absolutely, that if I reach over and touch her, she’s going to get up and walk away, and I need to finish what I have to say first. “I’ve lost everything,” I say, “but losing you hurts the worst. I suppose you’ll still get something out of this. I hope all the attention you get from this boosts your career, and that your mom loves the show, and that everything turns out exactly how you want it.”

Jillian shakes her head. “If you really think I could be better off after this, then you don’t get it. I get to spend the rest of my life knowing I fell in love, and never knowing for sure if I made the right choice in ending it.”

I feel like I’ve been gutted, and even though I know that there isn’t, I want there to be some way I can make this better, that I can make it up to her. “Tell me what I can do,” I say.

Jillian sits up straighter. “You can drop it. What’s past is past, and from now on, it’s just about the game. If you’re still willing to, we can keep the alliance. It doesn’t make sense to stop voting together at this point.”

My heart aches so bad I wonder if it’s going to stop beating entirely, but it doesn’t. “Okay. I’ll stick with you, and I’ll help you win.”

Jillian looks at me sharply. “Stop it. Don’t let me win. What is that, another angle? Are you trying to get sympathy?”

Of course it would look that way, but I don’t care. “You can vote me out if you want,” I say. “I’m going to do everything I can to get the two of us further in the game, but I’m not going to try to beat you.” It’s not sympathy. Not from the audience. I just know if I win at Jillian’s expense, when her reasons for needing it are so much deeper and kinder than mine, and I’ve already shot my chance at redemption anyway—

I’m not going to do that. I can’t, and I won’t.

Jillian sighs. “Let’s just stick to the plan. We’ll talk after the dance.”

“Are you thinking Chad next? Because he came to me looking to make an alliance and said he’s willing to vote Cece. It might be good to get her out.”

Jillian considers that. “We’d risk losing Su-Lin and Jason. And Cece could easily ally with them and turn on the two of us. It’s better if we keep them thinking we’re all together. Plus, if Chad is starting to get wily and cut deals—”

“Okay,” I say. “Probably Chad, then.”

Jillian nods. “We’ll talk after the competition.”

And then she gets up and strides back toward camp like she can’t get away from me fast enough. One of the cameras follows her back to camp, and the other stays.

To get more shots of me staring forlornly at the ocean, apparently. Which feels like the only thing I’m going to do ever again.

Twenty-two

Jillian

Welcome to our Starving with the Stars dance-off!” Krissy announces from stage with the gusto of someone speaking to a full studio audience and not just the six of us and the usual retinue of cameramen. Derek Hough stands next to her and gives us a wave.

We respond with an assortment of waves and half-hearted clapping. It’s sort of ridiculously early in the morning for a challenge—we got dragged out of bed and over here shortly after the sun came up. I’d wanted to wash up in the ocean first, but they barely gave us time to have a drink and eat our few bites of coconut.

“Should we meet our celebrity judges?” she asks. She doesn’t wait for our response. “Come on out, guys!”

She introduces them each as they walk from behind the makeshift proscenium, but I recognize all four of them immediately. And like with the American Idol challenge, there’s basically one celebrity who has legitimate dance-judging credentials—in this case, it’s Julianne Hough, Derek’s sister—and three more from other celebrity walks of life, probably to show that this contest won’t be totally about sheer dance skills. They’ll be interested in stage presence and personality and all that stuff.

Not that I’m worried. Jason and I have got this locked down.

The other three judges are Mindy Kaling, the actress and comedian, Alex Trebek of Jeopardy, and Lance Bass from N’ Sync (who I suppose has at least some dance credentials, though I doubt those are very recent.) They wave and smile and we wave back and cheer. Jason, randomly, seems especially stoked when Alex Trebek walks out. Julianne gives her brother a hug, and Krissy as well, and then they all take their seats in front of the stage.

I let out a breath, feeling the build of restless pre-show energy. After seeing the others practice with Derek yesterday, I’m confident Jason and I are the best team, but I’m still about to perform, and that always gives me a little spike of nerves—nerves which go away as soon as the rush of performing takes over.

With a twinge, I remember Alec and me talking, in what feels at this point like another life but was really mere days ago, about the feeling of being on stage, that addictive energy that passes back and forth between the performer and the audience.

I glance over at Alec, who definitely doesn’t look like a guy about to feel that rush. He looks miserable, his shoulders slumped and his eyes shadowed. Next to him, Su-Lin looks about as defeated. From what I saw of Derek’s lesson to Alec and Su-Lin yesterday, they don’t have a chance in hell of winning and barely one of cobbling together something that could be described as dancing.

Maybe this should make the competitive part of me happy, but it doesn’t. I think of the look on his face yesterday when I admitted I was in love with him, like hope and heartbreak rolled into one. Could that have been an act, or was it too spontaneous a reaction for that?

Could that have been real?

Like I told him then, I don’t think I’d ever be able to fully believe it if he said it back. But that stupid, desperate part of me can’t help but wish he wanted to anyway. Not for some angle, no matter what I’d think. But just because it’s true.

I try to shake myself away from that line of thought; it doesn’t do any good. What’s true for me isn’t necessarily true for him, I’ve learned that much. And even if he’s telling the truth, even if he’s hurting over losing me like I am over losing him, relationships need trust to actually work.

I can’t really be with him, give him my whole heart and all of me, if I can’t fully trust him. I can’t.

“First up is Jason Winslow and Jillian Fall,” Krissy announces, and that does actually shake me free, at least enough to paste a smile on my face as Jason and I walk up onto the stage. I try to carry myself like I’m actually at a dance competition, like I’m wearing some sultry tango costume and not the same nasty shorts and top I’ve lived in for two weeks now and dancing with a guy wearing nothing but swim trunks.

We get into position and the music cues up, and I do manage to lose myself in the dance. We practiced a ton yesterday, and while we’re not professional-ballroom-partner-level good, I can feel us nailing the poses, the rhythm, the sweeping sultriness of the dance. Jason’s got a surprisingly good sense of the theatrical, and when we end on the last, dramatic pose—my right leg up on his shoulder, and our foreheads pressed together—I think we’ve convinced the judges we’ve got actual heat between us.

Even if we don’t. Even if all I want is Alec’s face this close to mine, his hands on my skin.

“Oh. My. God,” Mindy gushes, fanning herself, when we stand to face the judges for the critiques. “That was hot. Jason, is it? Any chance you want to dance with an Indian girl who definitely can’t do that thing with her leg?”

Jason laughs. “Anytime, Mindy.”

“Hot is right,” Julianne says. “And technically speaking, everything was right on. Fabulous job, you guys.”

Alex Trebek and Lance Bass emphatically agree, and we bow and head off the stage.

I’m feeling pretty good until I see Alec, his jaw set like he’s pissed, his blue eyes hard. He blinks and looks away when he catches me watching him.

Is he jealous?

Because of me and Jason?

Or because he wants to have the winning performance, to help his career?

Krissy calls up Cece and Chad next, and they end up doing a swing dance to “Sing Sing Sing.” They’ve definitely been practicing a lot since yesterday, but Cece’s not really physically up to the energy level the dance requires, and Chad moves through it with his brow furrowed so deeply I can’t tell if he’s trying to remember all the moves or contemplating deep existential questions.

Though it’s Chad, so obviously the former.

They finish, and the judges clap.

Lance is the first one to speak this time. “That was pretty good,” he says. “But maybe could have used some more . . . enthusiasm?”

“I liked it,” Alex Trebek says. “Though I’ve always been partial to Benny Goodman.”

“The steps were on,” Julianne says. “But I agree with Lance, we could have used more pep.”

“Chad, you looked so mad,” Mindy says. “Don’t get me wrong, also kind of hot . . . but did Cece kill your grandma? Are you about to hire assassins and go all V on her?”

They hold their smiles until they walk off the stage, but now it’s Cece who looks like she’s the one who’s about to hire a group of sexy lady assassins to kill Chad.

“And last up is Su-Lin Liu and Alec Andreas, dancing the cha-cha,” Krissy says.

Alec doesn’t look at me as they take the stage.

The song begins, and almost immediately they’re off step. Su-Lin moves forward when she should be moving back, and her head is bobbing weirdly to the beat. I’m pretty sure she’s mouthing the rhythm, her brow furrowed almost as much as Chad’s. She looks like she might cry again, and I feel so bad for her, especially after how her “Uptown Funk” performance went.

Alec, who I can tell from the fluidity of his movements can actually dance, if not lead super great, squeezes his eyes shut in frustration. Then he stops completely—Su-Lin stuttering to stop beside him—and nods, like he’s decided something.

“One, two, cha-cha-cha,” he says loudly, starting up again. Su-Lin’s eyes widen, and then a smile spreads across her face, especially as he starts bobbing his head like she was, like some spastic chicken.

“One, two, cha-cha-cha,” they say together, over and over through the rest of the song, practically yelling it. It’s ridiculous, and they still suck at dancing together, but Su-Lin looks happy, like she’s actually having fun for the first time since her puppet was violated, and even Alec has a small smile on his face.

It’s adorable, and I find that I’m smiling, too.

They finish the dance and bow dramatically. The judges are laughing, but it’s a good-hearted kind of laughter, not the awkward kind that would likely have followed that performance, had Alec not decided to include himself and Su-Lin in on the joke.

Was it because he felt bad for Su-Lin, who was clearly the weak link in this dance?

Or was it because he knew it would make him more sympathetic? Or maybe it could be both, and one doesn’t necessarily cancel out the other.

It’s not the same thing, I tell myself. Using someone, manipulating their feelings for the sake of your image is not the same as doing something nice for someone that will also benefit your image.

“What is,” Alex Trebek starts in Jeopardy question format, pausing for dramatic effect, “the most charmingly terrible cha-cha I’ve ever seen.”

Julianne laughs. “Yes. Charming and terrible. That about sums it up. But good effort!”

“I’m pretty sure I’ve danced like this at a wedding reception once, after about six glasses of champagne,” Mindy says, turning to Lance. “Probably to one of your N’Sync songs.”

Lance grins. “I liked the weird head movements,” he says, bobbing his head in mimic of them. “And Su-Lin, your desert island hair game is on point!”

Su-Lin beams, toying with her mess of feathers and shells and knotted black hair.

They bow again and walk off the stage, and the judges deliberate.

It doesn’t take long.

Krissy and Derek take the stage again. “And the winners for today’s dance-off are . . .” Krissy starts, then looks over to Derek.

“Jillian and Jason!” Derek announces.

I was expecting it, but a flush of excitement floods through me anyway. Jason grins and high-fives me, which I happily return, and then Su-Lin throws her arms around me in a hug, and I laugh and hug her back. Alec’s watching me, and I wish I could hug him, too.

I wish I could jump into his arms and have him spin me around like when we won the Amazing Race challenge, or when he won the American Idol one.

I could, I know. Maybe he even wishes I would. But I’m afraid if I do I won’t be able to let go.

I give him a small smile instead, which he returns, though his eyes still look sad. I have a feeling mine do, too.

Krissy beckons Jason and me up on stage with her, and hands us the impunity scepter, which is crazy unwieldy, but sure feels nice to have. Then she reminds us of the reward to follow, the helicopter tour of the islands, and—as if we could forget—the fancy Italian dinner that will undoubtedly be the best Italian dinner I’ve ever had, even if it consists of over-cooked pasta and straight-from-the-jar Ragu.

For the group reward, there are a couple more bags of rice—and god, do we all need it.

“You guys ready for your reward date?” Krissy asks.

I am. I just hope I can keep from spending the entire time thinking about my last one.

Despite our real excitement being for the food, the helicopter ride over the islands turns out to be pretty amazing. I’ve never ridden in a helicopter before. I’m not afraid of heights, but I’ve never really seen the appeal.

I do now. It feels incredible to be up this high, with the steady thrum of the helicopter blade churning above us like a massive heartbeat, to see our island and others in the small chain of deserted islands spread out below us—the emerald green of the jungle, the tans and golds of the sand, the sparkling of sunlight on the water. Everything looks so much more saturated with color from up here, somehow.

And all the misery of the last few days feels a little more distant.

Jason does a bunch of mock-pilot commentary into our headsets—“And, folks, up here we’ve got a . . . good god, is that a camp for abandoned celebrities?”—and even manages to talk me into ironically singing a few lines of that stupid commercial jingle, which he sings along, way off key.

We laugh, and it feels so good to do that again. I’ve thought a lot about how much I miss my parents over the last few days, but it makes me realize how much I miss my friends back in DC, too. How much I wish I had them to talk to about all that’s happened, to sort through this with. To drink away my feelings with and watch Jamie try to go all Coyote Ugly on the bar and Martina snort tequila through her nose laughing when no one pays any attention to him.

More people I would love to have introduced Alec to.

More of my life I’d hoped he would share.

The helicopter eventually sets us down on a new stretch of beach, where there’s a table set up like we’re at a nice restaurant, people dressed like waitstaff ready to serve us. There’s a bar of sorts on the beach as well, and when we sit down, they bring us our drink choices—wine for me, beer for Jason—and plates of spaghetti and meatballs and thick slices of buttery garlic bread.

We don’t talk for a long time, because we’re way too busy stuffing our faces. And yes, it is definitely the best Italian meal I’ve ever had, and I love Italian food.

It’s not the best meal in general I’ve ever had, though. That distinction goes to a plate of chicken and vegetables and shrimp eaten on the deck of a yacht, with a gorgeous guy I was falling in love with looking at me like I was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

When we’ve eaten enough that our stomachs are hurting—but, as Jason says, “it’s a gooooood hurt, man”—we talk for a while and sip at our drinks. For all that Jason is one of only a handful of people I’ve been stuck on this island with, I haven’t gotten to know him well. He’s loud but not overly talkative, and while I’ve spent most of my time with Alec, he’s been really tight with Su-Lin.

We talk about his family and mine (though I don’t share about my mom’s condition, just that she’s been sick). He tells me about his show, and some of the coolest places he’s climbed, and I share some crazy stories from working on cruise ships that get him laughing. He’s not as loud when he actually settles into a conversation, either—but he’s so upbeat and generally happy. Probably a huge part of why he and Su-Lin get along so well.

I swirl the wine around in my glass. “Sorry I kept you from being able to dance with Su-Lin.”

He snorts. “I’m not. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the hobbit is awesome, but I definitely liked winning. And not doing whatever the hell dance that was.”

The way he says it convinces me he and Su-Lin are on the same page about the friends thing. Which is probably good, even if I think they’re cute together. Better than one of them being way more into it than the other. I don’t wish that kind of hurt on either of them.

Jason’s grin slips. “Sorry about how it all went down with Alec, though.”

My chest squeezes, and I take a drink. “Thanks. Me too.”

“You guys seemed really into each other.”

“We did seem that way, huh?” My voice is bitter. Since I’ve announced on camera—and to Alec—that I’m in love with him, there’s not really any point in denying it now. “I really was,” I say, softer. “He says he was, but I don’t know how I can know for sure.”

I worry for a minute that Jason will tell me I’m being too sensitive, or that I should give him another chance. But instead he nods, peeling at the label on his beer. “Yeah, that makes sense. Gotta have trust, right? And this is a really shitty situation for that kind of thing.”

“It most definitely is,” I agree.

“Do you think he’s still caught up on that ex of his? That Jenna chick?”

This question takes me by surprise—of all the things I’ve been worrying about, that hasn’t really crossed my mind, at least not for a while.

“No,” I say after a moment. “I think he loves her, but it’s like family now, not romantic. I think he feels really bad about what he did to her, though.”

I remember him telling me about the real reason he did what he did to her at the end—and while it wasn’t what I expected him to admit to, it felt raw and real all the same. It didn’t change what had happened between him and me, but I believed it. I’m not sure what the difference is between believing him there and believing him about his feelings for me.

Maybe it’s easier to believe him when I’m not putting myself back at risk to get even more hurt.

“Huh,” he says, but it’s not a question or doubt, just a statement. “Well, the whole thing really sucks.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Twenty-three

Alec

I try to avoid thinking about Jillian and Jason on their reward date by keeping myself busy, but gathering firewood and uselessly attempting to fish don’t exactly require a lot of thought, and all any of it does is remind me of times when she and I did these things together. And the damn producers and all the asides they want don’t help. Their questions are increasingly angled to get me to say whether I’m in love with her, but I’m not about to tell the cameramen and all of America before I’ve told her—and I don’t know when or even if I should do that.

She’s made it pretty clear she doesn’t want to hear it.

I give up trying to be productive and decide to nap in the shelter. But even that doesn’t take.

Behind my eyelids, I keep seeing Jillian dancing all sexy with Jason, and thinking of them sitting close at a table, eating and talking. Her smiling at him like she used to smile at me.

It’s not like I really think they’re into each other; I know the dance was just a performance.

But I’m jealous all the same.

I wanted to be the one dancing with her, touching her. I wanted to be the one she celebrated the big win with.

I’m the one she’s in love with. I know that now, which should be the best thing of all, which should give me hope that things are salvageable. But as much as I’d desperately longed to hear that, right now it only makes what I lost seem so much worse.

I rub my forehead and sit up. And nearly jump out of my skin when I see Chad Montgomery’s face barely a foot from mine.

“What the hell—” I start.

“Sorry, man,” he says, keeping his voice low. He looks back over his shoulder to where Su-Lin is sitting near the campfire by Cece, chatting animatedly. “I just wanted to see if we were still, you know, on with the deal.”

God, he makes it sound like I’m cutting him in on a brick of cocaine.

“Yeah, sure,” I say, even though it’s a total lie. I don’t feel any particular loyalty to Chad, for one, and also, with as edgy as he seems to be getting about the whole thing, if I start hedging on it now, I’m a little worried he’ll try out some of that Krav Maga shit on me for real.

Just because the man looks ridiculous practicing solo fighting moves on the beach doesn’t mean he isn’t a seriously ripped guy who could probably kick my ass.

“Awesome,” he says with a grin, and slaps my shoulder hard enough to confirm my belief on the probable ass-kicking.

He ducks out of the shelter and jogs back over to the others at the campfire. I squint at the lowering sun; god, how long is that reward date supposed to take, anyway?

Su-Lin gives me a little wave, and then turns back to annoying Cece with the finger puppets she’s made out of several of the condoms. I know her improved mood—especially when it involves puppetry of any kind—is bound to start annoying the hell out of me again soon, but I’m honestly happy to see it.

I definitely hadn’t planned on that little stunt up on stage, but at a certain point, it had become such a train wreck that I realized I couldn’t look like any more of an idiot up there, so I might as well embrace it. And though we didn’t win, it somehow did manage to make us part of the joke rather than the butt of it. And it clearly helped Su-Lin start to feel better.

It’s nice to have done something right, at least.

The sound of a speedboat from the distance gets all our attention—even Cece pauses in her constant stirring of the rice. The boat gets to shore, and Jillian and Jason step off, carrying the impunity scepter, looking happy and well-fed and like they’ve just gotten back from this amazing date, and the jealousy stings all over again.

“Tell us all about it!” Su-Lin says as soon as they get close to our shelter.

I can hear Jillian’s teasing voice in my mind, back after that first reward meal I’d won.

Tell me all about it. In the most sexual terms possible.

No, thank you. I really don’t want to hear about this meal that way.

Jason waves the scepter around a little dangerously as he launches into a really loud description of the helicopter ride and the huge plates of spaghetti and the fact that they let him have as many beers as he wanted—which I’m thinking accounts for the increased volume (even for Jason) and the red tinge to his cheeks.

Jillian nods along and smiles, looking at Su-Lin, and Jason, and the sand—pretty much anyone and anything but me. She adds a few comments to Jason’s description, but otherwise doesn’t say much.

Later, those of us who aren’t full from a huge spaghetti dinner and open bar eat our handful of rice for dinner. Cece pulls out her guitar and sings some songs, and Jason asks Su-Lin to cha-cha with him, and she laughs and does, even though she’s not any better at dancing with him than she was with me.

It’s a decent attempt to lighten the heavy mood that hovers like fog over our camp, and I manage to crack a smile, but my gaze keeps cutting back to Jillian, sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, only feet from me and yet miles away. She eventually gets up and takes the rice pot over to rinse out in the ocean.

Chad keeps trying to make very deliberate and pointed eye contact with me, which is unsettling as hell, and makes me glad I’m not actually on with the deal. And reminds me I need to make sure I know what deal I am still in on.

I walk away from the others to where Jillian is crouched by the water’s edge with the rice pot. She looks up at me.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey. They’ll probably be dragging us over to the Starvies soon. I just wanted to make sure we’re still good for voting Chad out tonight.”

“That’s what I’m planning to do. And Jason says he and Su-Lin still are.”

I nod. “Okay, then. Me too.”

She goes back to scrubbing out the pot, and I shift in the sand. I want to ask her about . . . well, anything. If they had her favorite wine—merlot—at the open bar. If she’s deaf from Jason shouting at her on a helicopter. How much she’s missing her family, her friends.

I just want to talk to her, joke and laugh like we used to.

The moment of awkward silence stretches on too long.

“Was there anything else?” she asks quietly. But she doesn’t look up, just rinses the pot in the waves.

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “No. That was it.”

And then I walk back to the others, a cameraman trailing after me like always.

About an hour later, they summon us to the Starvies, and we make our now-familiar march across the beach, and then along that strip of red carpet, settling into the director’s chairs in front of the roaring fire.

There are only six of us left now, and they’ve arranged the chairs to have three in front and three a step up behind. I’m in the front row with Su-Lin next to me and Jason on her other side. Chad, Cece, and Jillian are in the back row, with Jillian right behind me. I’m a little relieved that I won’t have to fight looking over at her constantly to see her reaction to everything, but it’s not long before I find myself wishing I could.

Especially when Krissy sweeps out wearing yet another dramatic awards-show outfit—this one a bright red, sequined bustier with flowy calf-length silk pants. And, of course, her leather vest.

It’s supposed to be elegant, but the combined look is one bejewelled eye-patch short of drag-queen pirate, and I know Jillian is thinking the same thing.

“Welcome back to the Starvies,” Krissy says, with her big camera-ready smile. She sweeps her hand over towards the black pedestals that hold our tacky gold Starvie awards. “Only six of you left now,” she says unnecessarily. “It’s been quite the journey, hasn’t it?”

Su-Lin nods, and Jason grins, but none of us say anything.

Krissy’s tone becomes more somber. “Su-Lin, why don’t you tell us about the mood at camp. Has it improved at all lately?”

Su-Lin’s eyes flick over to me and Jillian, and she chews her lip for a second. “I think there’s still some tension,” she says slowly. “But everyone’s been working hard and I think things are overall good. Especially now that Ryan’s gone.” That last bit with some residual bitterness.

“Right,” Krissy says, and her sympathetic gaze comes to land on me. I brace myself for whatever the hell vague question she’s going to ask that is clearly all about me and Jillian. But her eyes flick behind me to Jillian instead.

“Jillian,” Krissy says. “A lot has been said at previous Starvies ceremonies about alliances, and as the number of contestants gets smaller, those alliances become more important than ever, don’t they?”

“That’s true,” Jillian says, her tone cautious. She knows she’s being baited.

I can’t help but think her excitement at being in the presence of Krissy Calhoun has diminished considerably in the last week, and I don’t blame her.

“That makes trust crucial,” Krissy says. “Do you feel like you can really trust any of your fellow contestants?”

I’m fully aware I’m glaring at Krissy, and I’m sure the cameras are trained right on me for that. Seriously? I know this is a reality show, but do they have to be so fucking obvious?

Jillian pauses before answering, and I fight to keep from squirming in my seat. To keep from turning around to look at her.

“Yes,” she says, “I think I can.”

I hate the way my heart skips a beat with hope, because there’s no way she means that like I want her to, and she’s just answering a vague and loaded question with a vague and loaded answer—

“But in the end,” Jillian continues. “It’s all a game, and ultimately we’re all out for ourselves, and I can’t let myself forget that.”

My heart sinks all over again, at how determined she sounds.

She won’t forget that, and she’s never going to believe me.

Krissy asks a few more questions of the group, one to Cece about work ethic around camp, and another one to Chad about alliances that he answers with the confidence of a guy who thinks he’s actually in one.

Finally, she tells us it’s time to vote, reminding us that Jillian and Jason have impunity. We file one by one into the voting booth. Chad gives me a wink as he walks back out.

When we’re all done, we wait for the producer in the tux—Square Jaw, this time—to walk out and hand Krissy the envelope. She breaks the seal and reads the name, pausing as usual for dramatic effect.

“Chad Montgomery,” Krissy intones. “Your star has fallen.”

The trapdoor in the pedestal releases and Chad’s Starvie statue falls through with a muffled thunk.

“Wait, what?” Chad says. “No way.”

Krissy blinks. No one has yet contradicted her on the results. “I’m afraid so,” she says.

“What the hell?” Chad yells, and I make the mistake of looking back at him to see him glaring at me. He stands up so suddenly his director’s chair falls over. “What the hell, Alec? You said—”

“Please exit this way, Chad,” Krissy says, her eyes cutting nervously over to the producers standing nearby. Square Jaw takes a step closer, though he looks a bit terrified of having to play bouncer to Chad Montgomery.

Fortunately, he doesn’t have to. After a muttered, “You all can go to hell,” Chad stalks over to the path on the other side of the fire where he’ll be herded off. Before walking out of the circle, though, he turns back, his face red and oddly triumphant.

“And just so you know,” he sneers. “It was me that fucked that stupid puppet! She was so fucking annoying, just like—”

But he doesn’t get to finish, because Su-Lin stands up and lets out this inhuman growl of rage, and Chad’s eyes widen with sudden fear, because oh my god, Su-Lin crouches and then starts to launch herself across the fire pit at him—

She’s grabbed by Jason just as her feet have left the ground, held back from what would certainly have been her fiery death—there’s no way she was clearing that pit, tiny as she is.

“Whoa, hobbit,” Jason says, holding on to her even as she struggles against his grip. “Get out of here,” he says to Chad.

And it’s good someone has the presence of mind to say that, because Krissy and Square Jaw look equally stunned, and then Square Jaw grabs Chad by the elbow—or tries, because Chad shakes his grip off—and escorts him out.

“Well,” Krissy says after a moment. “That was . . . dramatic.”

I look back at Jillian and she looks at me, her eyes wide.

I’ve got to admit, it’s nice that for once the drama isn’t us.

Twenty-four

Alec

As glad as we all are that Chad went home, the mood when we get back to camp is dour. Cece, who usually stokes the fire one more time before going to bed, collapses in the shelter, which thankfully is starting to leave us all with plenty of breathing room. Su-Lin grumbles to herself and paces up and down the beach, with Jason trotting after her, probably to make sure she doesn’t decide to fling herself into the waves and drown.

That leaves Jillian and me by the fire, each huddled up on opposite sides, boiling water for tomorrow.

“You can go to bed if you want,” I tell Jillian, and she does, though after she’s gone, I wish she’d stayed.

I pick up my guitar, which I’ve played a hell of a lot less than I thought I would, especially in the last week or so. I strum an absent chord. Usually the music would bring me clarity, or at least calm me, but all the songs I can think of now are about love or break-ups, and I can’t stomach any of it. I wonder if I ever will.

At last my fingers settle on a chord progression from the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine,” because at least those lyrics are incomprehensible.

“Shut up, Alec,” Cece says, when I’m no more than halfway through the song. I stop playing mid-measure, set down the guitar, and stare into the coals long into the night, after everyone else is asleep.

Things don’t get much better in the morning. All that next day, Su-Lin and Jason retreat to their inner-jungle habitat where they collect coconuts and generally ignore the rest of us. Cece abandons her usual post by the fire and joins them.

The implications are not lost on me.

“She’s working on them to get rid of us,” I say to Jillian, who has taken Cece’s spot by the fire, watching the rice.

“Yeah, probably,” Jillian says. She doesn’t look up at me, but at least since our conversation the other day before the dance challenge, she’s stopped glaring.

“We need to get rid of her next.”

Jillian looks back into the jungle to be sure no one is listening, and she shakes her head. “I don’t think so,” she says. “Think about it. We haven’t had one of those Survivor-style physical challenges since the slime one, and there’s no way there isn’t going to be another, probably something tougher. It might be coming up soon, or it might be the last one, the challenge that determines the winner. Either way, we don’t want to be up against Jason.”

Jillian has a point, but I don’t want to move against Jason in favor of Cece. “Cece’s so manipulative,” I say. “We can get Jason and Su-Lin to stick with us and vote her out, I think. But if we tell Cece we’re turning on them, she’s just going to turn it around and convince them to vote for you or me.”

It would be ideal if we could both get impunity this time, but I imagine as we get closer to the end, there are going to be fewer and fewer impunities that protect more than one of us.

“Maybe,” Jillian says. “But we can both kick her ass in a physical challenge. If this next one isn’t it, we should get rid of Jason, and we can deal with Cece and Su-Lin after that. We can probably convince either of them to come with us and vote out the other.”

“Or they’ll vote together against us,” I say. “And make it a tie.”

If the game is tied, then we all have to draw straws to see who goes home, and it could be any of us, not just the ones who were voted for.

That’s not the way anyone wants to go home.

“Maybe,” Jillian says. “But if we don’t want Jason to win it all, we need to get rid of him as soon as possible.”

“And you’ve already decided,” I say. “There’s not going to be any discussion.” There’s more of an edge to my voice than I want, but I can’t help it. Jillian’s already decided a lot of things for me, and while this is the least of them, it’s the one that’s easiest to confront.

She gives me a long-suffering look. “I think it’s the right move, but nothing’s official until after the challenge, whatever that is.”

Nothing’s official. Meaning she might still turn on me, if I’m not careful.

“And if we still don’t agree after the challenge?”

Jillian shrugs, like it’s not even worth discussing it with me. I try to shrug it off like she does, but it eats at me.

I want her attention, I realize. It’s not so much that I have to be right, as that I want her to have to engage with the conversation, to fight it out until I, eventually, graciously let her have her way.

The fact that she won’t is a slap in the face.

“Fine,” I say, and I retrieve the water pot and head off for the stream.

If she can just write me off like that, maybe she doesn’t care the way she says she does, after all.

News of the challenge doesn’t arrive until halfway through the next day. We’re summoned to a challenge that promises food to eat, and I couldn’t be more grateful. Despite Jason’s increasingly Wile E. Coyote-like attempts at trapping an agouti, we’ve still had no real protein in way too long. The incessantly bland coconut and rice is starting to wear on me, and I’m having fantasies about hamburgers and peanut butter and big juicy steaks that are more vivid and desperate than even my juvenile sexual fantasies.

The five of us trek through the jungle along the indicated path, and when we arrive, we find Krissy standing in front of four tables, each with plates covered in shiny silver domes.

Shit. The challenge isn’t going to have a food reward. The challenge is the food, which means it isn’t going to be hamburgers or steak, that’s for sure. I should have seen this coming. Fear Factor-style challenges are common on Survivor, and they aren’t going to let a bunch of celebrities off a deserted island without filming us trying to choke down all sorts of disgusting things.

We all line up in front of Krissy, and she smiles like she’s thrilled to see us, which is probably easier to feel when you’ve been sleeping in an actual bed and eating actual food.

“Well!” she says. “Welcome to our banquet challenge. Are you all excited to dig in?”

All four of the others seem to have surmised the same thing I did, because the responses are less than enthusiastic, but that doesn’t discourage Krissy a bit. “If you’ll each take a place at this first table, I’ll show you what’s on the menu!”

We do so, each of us standing in front of one of five plates. The second table, I notice, has four plates, and the next two have three and two, respectively.

Elimination rounds, no doubt.

The rules are about as I expected. We all lift the domes off our plates when Krissy says go, and the last person to finish eating whatever is on the plate is out, while everyone else proceeds to the next table. I have a brief glimmer of hope that maybe this is going to turn out to be some kind of pie eating contest where we all enjoy the food but want to puke by the end—

But we all lift our plates for the first round, and there, in the dead center, is a rather large pile of whole crickets.

“Bon appetite!” Krissy says as four of us stare at them. On the end, out of the corner of my eye, I notice Jason has already started shoving the things in his mouth.

Oh, well. I wanted protein. I reach down and scoop them all up and start shoveling them in.

The crickets are surprisingly crisp and salty, so I imagine I’m eating some kind of health-food crisp and not whole insects the likes of which I used to catch in my backyard in Michigan. Without water they’re a bit difficult to swallow, but I manage, and by the time Krissy has cleared my empty mouth, only Su-Lin and Cece are still chewing.

Su-Lin opens her mouth first, and then bounces up and down on her toes like she’s proud to still be in the game.

Jillian gives me a pointed look. She’s right. Cece is easier to beat in challenges than Jason, who finished his crickets long enough ago that he now looks bored.

“All right!” Krissy says, with the good cheer of someone who did not just down a handful of insects. “Su-Lin, Alec, Jillian, and Jason are moving on!”

The four of us walk around the table and up to the next one, each taking our place in front of a plate. Cece sits down on a log off to the side, looking not terribly disappointed to be out. At least she doesn’t have to suffer through this with the rest of us. If you’re not going to win this challenge, going out first is the best place to be.

And I envy her when we all lift the covers off the next set of plates and discover fetal baby chicks, all curled up in egg shape. The beaks and legs and eyes are coated in a yolk-like substance, but it looks no less like a baby bird that we’re expected to eat whole.

“Ugh,” Jillian says, but then she picks it up in time with Jason and starts shoving it into her mouth.

Su-Lin and I look down the table at each other, and then we both pick the things up between our fingers and start taking bites. Immediately my throat closes. The texture of yolk mixed with flexible-yet-tough feel of meat gristle makes me want to spit the thing right back out. I try to focus on the chewing of the people around me and not on the horrible conglomeration of baby bird body parts in my mouth. Jason already has his halfway down—the taste, I’ll admit, isn’t as bad as it could be—and Jillian is making good headway on hers, though she keeps bending over and holding her mouth, trying not to retch.

Get it down, I tell myself, and chew and swallow. Jason finishes before me, and then Jillian and I both open our mouths together and get cleared. We all look at Su-Lin, who has spit out her first bite and stepped back from the table, folding her arms.

“Congratulations, everybody,” she says and trots over to join Cece on the log, looking not much sadder about it than Cece did.

I can’t blame any of them, especially when we all proceed to the next table and reveal a large, boiled scorpion. The thing is as big as my hand and looks like a rubber toy instead of a real bug.

“Come on,” I say. “Do these things even grow this big?”

“Apparently,” Jason says, with his mouth already full.

I lift the thing, letting it dangle in the air in front of me, trying to psyche myself up to put the thing in my mouth. I can see the camera across the way getting a shot of my face as I stare the thing down.

And then I lift its tail to my mouth and start to chew.

I’m too proud not to make a valiant effort, but the thing is too tough—and weirdly tasteless—and Jillian and Jason have both gotten a head start. I spit out the last mouthful after Jillian gets cleared as the second person going on to the final round, and join Cece and Su-Lin on the log.

“Bet you wish you’d gotten out first,” Cece says.

I shrug. “At least I got some protein.”

Jason and Jillian both step up to the final table and lift the covers off their plates.

And there, writhing, is the largest grub I’ve ever seen. It’s at least as long as my thumb, and twice as big around. It pulses and wiggles, and its head and gaping maw is the circumference of a quarter.

Jillian hesitates for a split second before she shoves the thing into her mouth whole. Jason already has his in and is looking up at the sky as he rapidly chews.

“Go, Jillian!” I call, and then Su-Lin cheers for Jason, and Cece starts cheering on Jason as well, which confirms what I thought about the move she’s trying to make.

If Jillian wins this, I’m going to be the target, and we’ll have to convince Jason and Su-Lin to go for Cece instead of me. If Jason wins, then we can all vote for Cece, which would probably still be the best move regardless and—

Jillian bends over, her shoulders rising and falling like she’s about to puke her guts out.

And then she straightens up and opens her mouth.

“Jillian is the winner!” Krissy announces.

Jason groans good-naturedly and actually swallows his last mouthful of grub, and then gives Jillian an enormous hug. Jillian accepts a hug from Su-Lin as well, who bounces over to her.

“Not going in for a celebratory hug?” Cece asks me.

She means it as a jab, but I see an opportunity. “No,” I tell her in a low voice, while Jason and Su-Lin are absorbed in congratulating Jillian. “But if you want a chance at winning the next challenges, you’ll vote Jason with us tomorrow.”

Cece looks surprised, probably that I’m bringing this up now, but if I give her a chance to go back to camp and cuddle up to the jungle twins again, her lateral move may start to set.

“He and Jillian are the best competitors,” I say. “But you can’t vote for Jillian, and we’re happy to bring you along to the final three.”

Cece gives me a suspicious look, which is fair, because I’ve won as many competitions as Jillian and more than Jason. Not to mention that her part in breaking up Jillian and me hasn’t exactly led to me buddying up to her. But then she nods. “Makes sense, you two wanting the old lady to compete with at the end.” She doesn’t seem offended, though. “I’m going to tell them I’m voting for you, though.”

“Fair enough,” I tell her. “We’ll tell them we’re voting for you.”

She gives me a curt nod, and then the others rejoin us. From their wide smiles, I take it none of them noticed our quick pow wow, but on our way back to the beach, I step up to Jillian and motion for her to let the others get ahead.

“Cece’s good to vote Jason,” I say.

Jillian looks surprised. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s all set. We’ll tell Jason and Su-Lin we’re voting Cece, and Cece will tell them she’s voting for me.”

“And you trust her?”

That’s a good question. “I trust her to do what’s in her best interest. And if she’s also expecting a physical challenge at the end, she’d probably rather take her chances against us than Jason.”

Jillian nods. “I think that’ll work. What changed your mind?”

“Nothing. But I told you I’d stick with you, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

Jillian’s eyebrows rise, but she doesn’t say anything.

And since that’s the most positive interaction we’ve had in days, I decide to quit while I’m ahead.

Twenty-five

Jillian

I trudge back from the fishing rock, once again having caught nothing. I don’t even know why I keep trying; I don’t know why any of us do, except as an excuse to get away from the others—which probably explains why Alec and I are the ones who try the most. To avoid each other. Still.

I sigh, weary at the familiar but still-sharp pain of that thought.

I know at this point I’m as much to blame for the avoiding as he is. Probably even more. I could try to be casual. Friendly. I’m an actress, after all. If I fake that things are better between us, maybe they will be—at least for long enough to get through the rest of this show.

But the idea of faking anything I feel with Alec hurts worse than avoiding. And after all, I tried that once already, with my bitchy lie about using him. That might have been an extreme way to go, but it sure as hell didn’t make either of us feel any better.

Just a few more days, I tell myself. A few more days of being trapped on an island with the guy I can’t stop being in love with, but who I also can’t trust enough to let myself be with.

Focus on the goal. You’re almost there.

As I approach the others near the fire, I can see the impunity scepter resting against the side of the shelter. It’s ridiculous and gaudy and I still have no idea why it’s a scepter, because that doesn’t actually seem to fit with either the island or celebrity theme. But seeing it brings a nice moment of satisfaction.

I may have nearly killed myself stuffing my face with the grossest food imaginable—god, I can still feel that huge, writhing maggot-thing squirming in my throat if I think about it too hard—but I won. Again.

I may not be able to get over Alec, or go a day without feeling like I want to just curl up into a ball and sob forever. I may not be able to catch one damn fish, but I can win this thing.

That’s what I’m here for.

I brace myself, like I always have to when approaching Alec again. He’s just gotten back from the jungle, with a load of firewood in his arms, setting them down on top of the diminished stack. He sees me coming towards them and looks away.

Su-Lin looks up from where she’s sitting cross-legged by the fire, Coconut Ruby sitting in the sand next to her. She’s been somewhat subdued since Jason went home but seems not to hold any of us personally accountable for it. Jason hadn’t either, for that matter. He just groaned like he was disappointed and gave both Su-Lin and me big hugs—even though if he can add to three, he had to know I was one of the ones who voted for him—and told us all to take care. It was almost enough to make me wish we’d gone with Alec’s plan.

But like people always say on these shows, I’m not here to make friends. And I’m not, any more than I’m here to find a boyfriend. It’s not smart to get attached to these people.

In the end, we’re all here to use each other.

Su-Lin looks at the fishing gear in my hands and gives me a sad, sympathetic smile. “Still nothing, huh? Even with the snail bait?”

“Nope.” I drop the useless gear at the edge of the shelter. “Something got the bait, but not the hook.”

“I told you it would be a waste,” Cece says, poking her head out from behind the shelter like she was lying in wait to smugly remind us of that. “We should have just eaten the snail.” I hear the crackle of palm branches, so I know she’s tying more on in case it storms again and not just waiting in ambush, but still.

“Yeah, that whole one-fourth of one snail would have gone a long way,” I say.

“Farther than one-fourth of no fish,” she says back, in this sing-song cheeriness that makes me want to strangle her. She’s been extra smug since the Starvies, and though I still think voting off the greater physical threat was the best call ultimately, she’s making me really regret not getting rid of her.

Alec glares over at her like he’s thinking the same thing. I wonder if he really wants to be glaring at me instead.

Su-Lin chews on her lip, looking between us all uncomfortably. She lifts up her left hand, which has one of her condom puppets on her index finger. “It’s the storm coming in, bad for fishing, brah,” she says in a spot-on surfer-dude voice, which means that one’s Connor Condom.

His twin sister, Connie, is on her other hand and pops up as well. “Snails are, like, totes gross?” Connie says. “I would, like, die before I eat one?” She’s the high-pitched Valley girl that always ends statements on a question.

Because there’s not much here to make detailed puppet faces, they both have eyes of dried mud and look vaguely like that scream figure from the Edvard Munsch painting, so the voices are the only way to tell them apart.

I smile at Su-Lin to show I appreciate her support, but really, I’m getting about as sick of the Condom Twins as I am of everything else here. Alec’s eyes are rolled up to the darkening skies, like he’s hoping to get struck down by lightning.

“You know, we could use some more water,” Cece says. “I’ve been thinking all morning it’s going to rain, and we could just fill up the pot with that, but if it doesn’t actually start soon, we’re gonna be awfully thirsty. Anyone want to go to the creek?”

“I will,” Alec and I both say at the exact same time.

We look at each other. My heart skips a beat, just being caught in that intense blue gaze.

“It’s okay, you can—” I start, just as he shakes his head.

“No, whatever, if you want—”

“Maybe you both could go,” Connor Condom jumps in. “Like, maybe we could get twice as much water that way, brah.”

We both glare at Su-Lin now, who looks innocently back at us. “I mean, he has a good point,” she says with a shrug. “You could fill up the pot and the canteens.”

I hate that she’s right. And really, I should be able to handle getting water with Alec.

I also hate how much I want to.

“Sure,” I say. “It’s fine with me.”

Alec’s face is stone. “Yeah, me too.”

Alec grabs the cooking pot, and I grab the canteens, slinging their straps over my shoulder, and we head out toward the treeline, falling into step side-by-side naturally, just like we used to when we would team up to do camp errands.

Except it’s nothing at all like it used to be.

We walk and say nothing, not even talking about strategy—the last safe topic. The tension between us is thicker than the humidity on this godforsaken island. It’s a wall between us that’s only getting higher as time goes on. I ache to tear it down, to have even a moment of just being us again, but at this point I’m not even sure how, or if it’s possible.

The smarter part of me knows what a bad idea that would be, anyway. Because it wouldn’t last. It can’t.

It takes about thirty minutes—I think, not having any means to time it—to get to the creek, the cameraman crunching through the foliage behind us the whole way. This isn’t the first creek we were using as a water source, which is about the same distance away, but this one’s a slightly easier trek, with fewer obstacles to climb over while holding a pot of water on the way back. We discovered this one while doing the Amazing Race challenge, though we came at it from the other side of the island.

I really don’t want to think about that challenge, but I can’t help it. I remember the feel of Alec’s thumb on my face, wiping away that streak of mud. His body pressed up behind mine on the bridge.

I flush with heat. And then notice that he’s crouched at the edge of the creek filling up the pot, which means I should be doing the same and not staring at the muscles of his back, or the way his shorts—looser now than back then—slide further down his hips.

Shit. I should have just let him get the water by himself.

I start unscrewing the first canteen lid and suddenly a loud crack sounds, like the world is splitting apart. I jump, and Alec jumps, and the pot falls over and he swears and grabs at it before it drops in the stream.

And then the rain starts.

It’s not normal rain, though, not even like what we would call “pouring rain” in DC. It’s like God decided to empty a giant bucket on the island, water sheeting down from the sky, cold and hard and drenching.

“Alec!” I shout, barely able to hear myself over the roar of water falling all around us. I reach for him at the same time he must be reaching for me, because he grabs my arm. “We need to get somewhere,” I say, looking wildly around. These flash storms don’t usually last long, but they’re vicious, and I don’t want us getting hit by a falling palm tree.

I don’t see anywhere to hole up, though. I don’t see much of anything through the deluge, other than a flash of the cameraman as he struggles to cover the camera with his body as much as possible while getting out the camera’s poncho-like rain-cover thing he probably should have had on it already, just in case.

Alec looks around, too, and then tugs my arm. “This way!” he yells, pulling me towards a berm to our right. I follow him and we scramble up it, a task made extra difficult in the rain as it churns the ground to mud beneath us. He’s got the pot under one arm, which makes it even harder for him, and as he slides down, I grab his upper arm and help hoist him forward.

We make it over and mostly slide down the other side on our asses. I’m still holding his arm as we stand up, as much for myself as for him—probably more. “Where are we—” I start, but Alec jerks his chin forward.

“Big-ass cave, remember?”

I do now. The cave we didn’t see on the map, but around which was the sketchy-ass bridge.

I know exactly where we’re headed, and it’s not far. It doesn’t mean it’s an easy trek, though—we’re slipping in the mud and tripping over roots and rocks we can’t see. Alec jams the pot between several big rocks where it hopefully won’t wash away but so he can have both his hands free to catch himself—and maybe me, too. We’ve both nearly face-planted half a dozen times and it’s only been our grip on each other keeping us upright.

Finally, we reach the cave, the vines over the entrance twisting and waving in the downpour. We pull back the vines and peek in, and I pray we aren’t about to be pounced on by some jungle leopard whose home we’re invading, but all I see in the faint light from the outside is the furry back-end of one of those squirrel-like agoutis as it darts away from us.

I suppose if the agouti felt safe in here, we probably are.

Alec steps inside, and I follow. It’s not until we’re not being pummeled by rain anymore that I realize we’re gripping each other’s hands. With my other hand, I’m holding onto his arm like he’s a life-raft to keep me from getting pulled under.

He seems to become aware of this at the same time, and we look at each other.

I’m not sure if my heart was already slamming against my ribs so hard before, but it sure is now.

I drop my grip, and he lets go of his at the same time, and now we’re back to not touching. Which is definitely safer, if not better.

I tear my eyes away from the way his sopping shirt clings to his chest and look around the cave. There’s not much to see, really. It’s tall enough we can both stand comfortably in it, though narrow enough that standing side-by-side we’re each only a few inches from the walls. Less like a typical, rounded cave and more like a slim gash in the rock. It doesn’t look like it goes very deep, maybe just a few feet back.

“The cave was a good call,” I say, letting out a shaking breath. I wrap my arms around myself. Now that I’m not out in the deluge, I can feel the cold of it even more. Goosebumps are raised all over my body. “I’m glad you remembered this.”

“Me too,” he says. But nothing more. That silence between us, that tension, fills the rest of the space in the cave.

“I hope the cameraman’s okay,” I say, and now I feel myself start to shiver in earnest. I peer through the vines, but don’t see him. Not that I can see much of anything through the sheet of rain. Another loud crack splits the air, and I jump again.

“I’m sure he is,” Alec says after a beat. “Miserable, but okay.” His voice is shaky with the cold, too, and I turn around to see him peeling off his soaking wet, muddy shirt. My throat goes dry, and I look away again.

“Sorry to strip down,” he says, though he doesn’t sound it. He sounds kind of pissy about it. “But I’m effing cold.”

“Whatever you need to do,” I say in a matching tone. Another wave of shivers wracks me.

Shit. He’s not the only one who’s effing cold. And if he can strip down, so can I. A little, at least.

I take off the canteens slung around my shoulder. Then I peel off my soaked, muddied shorts and leave them in a pile on the ground, so now I’m just in my bikini bottoms and my bandeau top. I’m not sure it helps any. My teeth start to chatter.

“Hey,” he says, and I turn around, half-expecting him to have stripped out of his soaking shorts, too, but he hasn’t gone that far. “You’re freezing, aren’t you?”

I want to deny it, to say I’m fine, but he’s actually looking concerned, and something about that brings a lump to my throat. “Yeah, well . . .” I trail off, my body shaking some more.

He holds out his arm. “Interest of survival?” he says, in an echo of that first night on the beach. There’s a hint of a wry smile on his face, but no amusement in his eyes. Just that hard brittleness I’m used to seeing there now.

I wonder if it’s really sadness.

I wonder if it’s the same kind I feel, the kind that has settled bone-deep and feels like it’ll never shake free.

And I can’t help myself. I’m cold and I’m sad and the thought of getting to cuddle up against him, just once more, is too much for me to resist, no matter how terrible an idea it is. I nod. “Interest of survival,” I say, though I manage to keep my voice curt.

Like I’m still shoring up that wall between us, even as I inch closer to him. Even as his arm wraps around me, and I press against his side, and the feel of his skin against mine like that takes my breath away. I close my eyes, because I can feel tears building up behind them.

We stand there, huddled together, shivering together. His hand rubs up and down my arm, briskly, trying to warm me, and I burrow in closer, and find myself starting to do the same on his back. Rubbing. Feeling his muscles under my palm.

My heart is pounding harder, and though his skin was as wet as mine when we first touched, he’s warming against me, and I’m warming against him. His touch is reminding me of all the other times we’ve touched, his fingers on my arm reminding me of all the other places his fingers have been, and I know I should stop now. I should stop now and step away and let myself freeze, because this is dangerous, this is just going to lead to pain, but god, I want him, I want this and—

I make the mistake of looking up at him. He’s looking down at me, his dark hair plastered to his head, his blue eyes deep and intense. His lips are parted, his breath as shallow as mine.

He wants me, too, just as much. That, I know, is real.

Right now, it’s enough.

I tip up on my toes and pull him down to me, and he doesn’t resist. At all.

And then his lips are on mine, and we’re pressed up against each other, and the building fire roars through me. We kiss and kiss, desperately, hungrily, our hands roaming, our fingers digging into each other’s skin, as we both try to pull each other closer, closer.

He tugs my top off, and I break free from the kiss just enough to raise my arms so he can lift it over my head, and then we’re back together, our tongues tasting each other, his fingers running across my hardened nipple, sending shivers of a different kind through me.

I want him, I love him, I need him—and even though I know, damn it I know, that I’ll only ever be sure that one of those is true for him, I can’t stop myself.

The hurt is too much, and I need it to stop, even if just for a few stolen minutes.

I pull at his shorts, which slide down him easily, and I feel the length of him in my hand, hard and warm, and he groans against my lips, and his fingers dig under the sides of my bikini bottoms, sliding them down my legs. And then his fingers dip between, and if I can feel his desire for me right here in my hands, I know he can feel mine for him.

I’m the one moaning now, and I kick my bottoms off and as he grabs me by the ass and lifts me up, I wrap my legs tight around his waist, feeling him hard against me as I ache and ache for him.

God, how I’ve ached and ached for him.

We’re still frantically kissing, and my hands are in his hair, and his free hand is tangled in mine, and then with a few steps, we’re up against the cave wall. I can feel damp, cold moss at my back and hard stone beneath, but it’s smooth and we’ve got plenty of heat between us—an inferno—to keep me warm, and all I care about is filling this emptiness that’s been there since that day.

He pulls back just enough that I can see the intensity in his eyes, the need, and I answer with my own.

Then he shifts his hips and slips inside me. I gasp, burning and burning and needing and needing, and he lets out a choked sound of his own. And then with me up against the cave wall, we’re thrusting together, as desperately as we were kissing. It’s not gentle, none of this is gentle—not the way my nails are digging into his back as I groan, or the way our lips move hard against each other even as our hips do—but I notice in between waves and waves of cresting fire, more intense than any sex I’ve had in my life, that he’s got his arm between my ass and the wall, that he’s absorbing the impact for me.

I love you, I want to say, like I wanted to say back in the shelter that night. But this time there’s pain around the words, and longing that hurts and hurts. I love you so much, and I can’t stop.

Why can’t you love me like that?

Why can’t you be someone I can trust? Why can’t I be someone who could trust this?

Just for this moment, I let myself believe he does. That he is. That I am.

Just for a moment, I let us tear down the wall.

And then the fire between us explodes in light, sweeping through my whole body, and I cry out, shuddering against him just a second before he does the same.

Our frantic movements still. I can feel his heart pounding in his chest, feel it racing like mine. We’re frozen like that, my legs and arms wrapped around him, him holding me against his body.

We stare at each other.

And then the hurt floods back in. Because nothing has changed.

The cameras aren’t here right now, but they’ll be back. And he’ll still be Alec Andreas, and I’ll still be me, who can’t trust that anything he says or does isn’t just for his image.

I drop my legs down, so I’m standing, shakily. I drop my arms down from around him and he does the same.

He takes a step back, and I wrap my arms around my chest, and I can feel my eyes burning, and damn it, I am not going to cry with him looking right at me like that.

It turns out I don’t have to; he looks away. The rain has stopped at some point during all that, just dripping down from leaves. He starts putting on his shorts, and I reach for mine, and god, the pain is beating through me now, worse than before.

I thought that would fill the emptiness, even if just for a few minutes, and it did, but now that emptiness is even worse than before.

We dress in silence and leave the cave. The cameraman is scrambling through the wet foliage towards us, and I hear him let out a relieved breath. “Thank god, you guys are okay,” he says—one of the few times any of them have spoken to us other than during an aside.

We gather the pot, now filled with rain, and head back, still not talking. And all I can think, as I fight to keep myself from dissolving into sobs, is that I am most definitely not okay.

Twenty-six

Alec

The night after the rainstorm, I lie curled up in the shelter trying to sleep, trying to ignore the tightness in my chest that makes it difficult to breathe, trying to banish the memories of what it felt like to hold Jillian in my arms against that cold cave wall. I needed her, wanted to feel her need me back, if only for a moment. And that moment felt like everything I wanted it to be and more. I’ve never had sex like that in my life, so full of purpose and desire and intensity—

And then it was over, and she let me go, brushed me off like it hadn’t been a goddamn miracle.

I have no frame of reference for how much this hurts, but I remember the gutted, dead-eyed look on Felix’s face that night before we performed at the VMAs, like he was a zombie in Felix’s body, just shuffling through. It worked out all right for him, but Felix is kind and gentle and patient, all things no one would accuse me of.

I can’t help but think that maybe, like with me and Jenna, there’s some version of Felix out there for Jillian. Someone who will be able to succeed for her like I failed. Someone who will close the wounds and hold her through the memories and make everything all right again.

Meanwhile, I’m the guy who just had wonderous, unfortunately-unprotected sex with the girl I’m madly in love with, and all I can think is that the part of me that was most drastically unprotected was my heart, and I don’t think they make a condom for that.

I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing for my cell phone, my car, a cab, goddamned Uber, so I could go crash on someone’s couch and talk all this out, get it out of my head and figure out what the hell I should do. Jenna would listen, or even Bobbi, who got me into this mess. Hell, I’d call my mother or my sisters.

Really, though, it’s Jenna I want to talk to. I always acted like I was the one of us who had it all together, but clearly when it comes to relationships, she’s had much more success than I can ever hope for. I can’t help but think maybe she would know what to do.

But I can’t ask her, or anyone who might be helpful or at the very least not accompanied by their own personal cameramen. I’m trapped on this godforsaken island, from which there is no escape. And so I fall asleep, cold and shivering and aching to have the woman I love in my arms.

In the morning, a large yacht appears off our shore. It’s accompanied by a little skiff, on the bow of which stands Krissy Calhoun. My body aches from yesterday, though I don’t know if it’s from the awkward position against the cave wall or because my heart is bleeding out. Jillian slinks out of the shelter looking about the same, and worse, she won’t meet my eyes.

“Everyone ready for a challenge?” Krissy asks, even though, clearly, the four of us are barely ready to boil rice, let alone compete with each other. Even Su-Lin appears to have lost her steam, mustering only one bounce onto the balls of her feet before settling back into the sand.

Krissy’s smile slips only for a moment. “We’re doing something different today. All four of you are going to take a ride to that yacht out there—” she gestures toward it dramatically, and my stomach is hoping we’re being given some sort of reprieve meal, since we’re all getting frighteningly thin after nearly three weeks of just rice and coconuts.

“For a baking challenge!” she finishes.

Oh, god. Of course they would want a challenge in the tradition of Cupcake Wars or The Great British Bake-Off. I wonder if they realize we’re all going to be tempted to eat the ingredients raw instead of cooking.

I’m not sure what kind of reaction she expected, but we all just stare at her blankly. I realize Jason has been carrying the enthusiasm for us all for a long time, and now that he’s gone and Su-Lin is starting to look like she’s been through a famine, we’re all feeling it.

“And for the winner—” Krissy continues, undeterred, “—impunity, of course, and a phone call home!”

We all look at each other, and my heart climbs back into my throat, where I’m afraid it’s going to become permanently lodged. I raise my hand.

“Yes, Alec?” Krissy says.

“Can we call whoever we want?” I ask.

Krissy hesitates. I’m supposed to want to call my family, but the person I need to talk to is Jenna. “Yes,” she says. “If you win, you can call whoever you want.”

“And will it be recorded?” I ask.

Krissy smiles. “Nope. Phone calls home are one-hundred-percent private.”

Thank god. The three women are gathering now, refreshed, no doubt, by the idea that they might be able to call their loved ones.

I’m sorry to take that away from them, but I have to win this one.

We’re all herded onto the skiff and driven out to the yacht. While we’re on our way, I notice Jillian slide up to Krissy and whisper something in her ear. Krissy shoots me a surprised look and then nods and indicates to the yacht.

I try to catch Jillian’s eye, but she turns her back on me, studying the ocean. I’m trying to decide when would be the best time to ask her what that’s all about, but when we get to the yacht, Krissy talks to one of the medical people whose job it is to look us over and make sure none of us is on death’s door. One of them goes below deck and comes back with a pill and a small glass of water for Jillian.

My cheeks burn. Oh. Of course they would have emergency contraception available out here. They don’t want to be responsible for denying anyone medical care, and while we technically had condoms on the beach—assuming they haven’t all been turned into puppets—we didn’t have one in that cave.

Jillian still won’t look at me, but Cece is, with that smug, knowing look on her face.

And now I’m the one who’s looking away.

“All right!” Krissy says, somehow summoning enthusiasm as she leads us onto the deck at the bow of the ship. “Here are your supplies. You’ll each have an hour and a half to concoct a delicious dessert. Everything you need is on the tables, and there are ovens through the kitchen right through here.” She motions through a set of doors to where there is, in fact, a kitchen with four pastry ovens.

“Should we meet our judges?”

I sincerely hope they’re going to voice-over some of our previous cheers of excitement, because I don’t think a single one of us has any left. The judges come out anyway. There are three this time, all of whom I recognize. The first is comedian James Corden, whose work I love, and the second is Baby Spice, whose real name, Krissy reminds us, is Emma Bunton.

The last, I’m shocked to realize I know, is Candace Nelson of Cupcake Wars. Jenna used to watch religiously, and I suppose I might have absorbed something.

I hope it’s enough.

“Wow,” James Corden says. “Are you sure we’re going to make these people cook for us? They look like we should be feeding them through an IV.”

Emma Bunton laughs uncomfortably, and Candace Nelson adds, “I hope we’re at least having them wash their hands first.”

I don’t know that this was in the plans, but Krissy motions to one of the producers and out they come with jugs of water and clean towels. After I clean my hands, I get my face as well, and notice Cece is working on her pits and Su-Lin is wiping down the back of her neck. Jillian hesitates, but soon all four of us are taking an impromptu sponge bath with our towels and jugs of water, while Krissy smiles awkwardly and the judges look on with varying levels of disgust.

When the producers finally make us hand over our towels, they’ve all turned a dark brown.

“Hey,” I say in their direction. “At least it’s not ending up in the cupcakes.”

Only James Corden looks amused.

“All right!” Krissy says. “Let’s get baking!” She and the producers unveil our baking tables, which are so stacked with ingredients and equipment that there’s hardly any surface left to bake. I step up to my table, taking quick stock of the inventory, ignore the grumbling of my stomach, and immediately begin tossing stuff I don’t intend to use under the table. There are about forty types of flour up here, and all the savory ones can go. In fact, I decide immediately against baking anything that’s going to require a precise amount of baking powder to rise. Trying to make a cake from scratch would be ridiculous under these circumstances.

But I’ve seen Jenna make enough pies that I’m pretty sure I can remember the basics, and Krissy only said that we had to make a dessert.

I find a glass pie plate and toss all the other pans under the table. All three of the girls glance over at me—Su-Lin with a strawberry hanging out of her mouth—but I’m not going to waste time paying attention to what they’re doing. An hour and a half isn’t a long time if I want my crust to have a chance to cool before I put in the filling.

I sort through the flours until I find the pastry flour and drop all the other packages under the table with the pans, so they’re out of my way. I flour the table surface—which seems thankfully clean—and then sort through the packages of oils and butters until I find the shortening.

The rest of those stay on the table, as I can’t even think about what I might want to put in my filling until I’ve got this crust in the oven. I dig out shortening with my hands and find a couple of knives to use to cut in the butter, in a criss-cross motion, the way I’ve seen Jenna do. The shortening is at least relatively cold, which will help with the consistency of the crust.

As I’m kneading the flour-and-shortening crumbs together with a bit of water to form a solid dough, I remember the million times I sat at the counter with Jenna while she did this. I’m about to grab the rolling pin, when I remember that she always refrigerates her dough.

Shit.

“Is there a refrigerator available?” I ask Krissy, who manages to look less surprised than Jillian and Su-Lin, both of whom stare at me with their mouths open.

“Yes,” Krissy says. “In the room with the ovens.”

Okay. This is going to be tight, but I can do it. I race in and toss my dough in the fridge, pre-heat my oven to three-seventy-five—a total guess—and then come back out, set the rolling pin and pie pan aside, and start surveying my filling options.

Jenna made pies with both cold and hot filling, but I’m not confident enough in my abilities to throw filling ingredients into the pie before baking. The good news is that means I’ll only need a bottom crust, so if I don’t have enough crust for both the top and bottom, that’s no problem. I take the time to look through the various cream options—I’ve got plenty of sugar, so that’s good, but I can’t make a pie out of just that. There’s also a lot of fruit—god, that fruit looks so good; focus, Alec—and a food processor. Though I’m pretty sure berry filling is usually cooked before it goes into the pie.

I find some cream cheese and raspberries and decide to make a go of that. I’ve got it all in the mixer with a bunch of sugar and a squirt of vanilla, and blended up into a bright pink paste when my timer tells me the dough should be almost ready.

And the challenge almost one-third over.

I go get the dough a bit early, roll it out and put it in the pan, and then throw it in the oven.

I set my timer for five minutes. I’m guessing I can’t burn even a pie crust in five minutes, and I’ll need to check it regularly until it’s done.

One glance at the others tells me I have no idea how I’m doing. Jillian is stirring something in a big bowl, and Cece is pouring some batter into a pan. Su-Lin appears to be making some all-fruit concoction with diced up pineapple, strawberries, and whipped cream. It looks like a total mess from here, but might be brilliant, I don’t know.

Enough. Before I check my pie crust, I take a taste of my pie filling. My stomach growls eagerly, but I force myself to concentrate on what I’m actually tasting, not just how much I want to shove it all in my mouth.

The consistency is fine—I used powdered sugar rather than granulated, to keep it from getting grainy—but it tastes like . . . frosting.

I’ve made a big bowl of raspberry frosting, which might be fine for putting on top of a pie, but is going to be way too rich for filling.

I pour about a third of it into a bowl and toss it in the fridge, like I meant to do that, taking a look at my pie on the way back.

The crust is not even a little bit baked, much less burnt, so I set my timer for ten more minutes and turn my attention to the total lack of actual pie filling.

I still have a lot of fruit, so I pour some pineapple and blueberries into the mixer bowl, along with more raspberries, more cream cheese, and—as now I remember I’ve seen Jenna do—an entire carton of sour cream. I blend it all together with, I hope, the confidence of a person who has any idea if this will turn into something edible.

By the time I go back for my pie crust—still not done—the filling is looking good but not tasting fantastic. I throw in a little more lemon juice and then start adding sugar a tiny bit at a time. When my pie crust is done, that goes into the refrigerator, too—I don’t know if chilling a crust in a refrigerator is going to reduce the quality, but I have thirty minutes left, and I can’t pour a cream filling into a hot crust unless I want to make pie soup.

I give myself a timer for twenty-five more minutes, which should bring me within five minutes of the end of the challenge and get my filling to where it’s tasty enough but not so sweet that it’ll be overpowering. I may be misjudging, I realize, having had hardly any sugar over the last three weeks. Maybe to the tongue of someone who’s been actually eating food it’ll taste bland and underwhelming, but I don’t want to chance it by adding more sugar. I throw the filling in the fridge with the pie crust and the frosting, and return to my table, staring at the mess I’ve made.

Then I allow myself another glance at the others. Su-Lin has filled a large, decorative mixing bowl with layers and layers of fruit and whipped cream and who knows what else. She’s busy decorating the outside with a bright pattern of cherries and pineapple chunks. It’s better looking than anything the rest of us have created, though both Jillian and Cece are standing in the doorway to the kitchen, watching their ovens nervously.

Jillian meets my eyes, just for a moment, before she looks away. I turn my focus back to my table, searching for something to use as a decorative element in the last few minutes I’ll have once I retrieve my ingredients, and settle on a bunch of raspberries with a cherry on top.

And then, in those last few minutes while my ingredients chill, the overpowering hunger hits me. I’ve wanted to eat the fruit as I’ve handled it, been ready to eat the cream cheese by the block, but none of it compares to the insatiable need to shove the remaining raspberries in my mouth and down them.

If we don’t get to at least try these desserts, I think I might actually die.

I turn around, trying to ignore the smell of the food and whatever’s baking in the oven, and lean over the deck of the ship. The hunger is almost enough to make me give up on the challenge, retrieve my ingredients, and eat the entire bowls of filling and frosting with a spoon.

But no, what I need is this win. I need any hope I can get to fix what I’ve done.

I wait another few minutes, until my timer is just about to go off, and then run over to grab my ingredients, pushing past Cece, who is pulling a cupcake pan from the oven.

When I return to my table, I pour in the filling, smooth it out with a spatula, and then try to smooth on the frosting the same way. They begin to mix together, so before that gets bad I grab a frosting bag and fill it with the sugar-raspberry mix and drizzle it in lines across the top of the pie, finishing it off with a cluster of raspberries at the center just before Krissy calls time.

I collapse back against the rail of the ship and throw the cherry into my mouth, sucking on it while the others bring their creations to the judges’ table. Su-Lin’s tower of fruit and whipped cream is starting to lean, and Jillian has made a cake that cracked in half on its way out of the pan. Cece’s cupcakes are in one piece, at least, but they’re barely dusted with a bit of powdered sugar and topped with a cherry squished awkwardly into the top.

If mine isn’t a total train wreck to eat, I should stand a good chance.

The judges start with Su-Lin’s, which Emma Bunton gives four stars for brightness and James Corden grants grand prize for height, but when they taste it, they all agree that it’s basically a fruit pyramid covered in whipped cream.

“There’s some brown sugar at the bottom,” Su-Lin says.

Candace doesn’t look impressed.

Jillian and Cece get a few “mmm”s and Emma proclaims them both “sweet,” though I’m not sure if that’s praise or a factual statement. Jillian’s looks pretty dry, though at least it did rise, but Cece’s turn out to be unfinished in the middle and are about a third of the height of regular cupcakes, so I’m guessing she had the baking powder problems I was set on avoiding.

Then they come to mine. It spills a bit coming out of the pan, and isn’t as thick and set as I’d like it to be, but I didn’t get a chance to chill it after the filling went in, and I probably missed a few ingredients that would have given it a better shape. Emma and James both smile as they taste it, and actually go back for a second bite, which is more than they did for the others.

“The dough could have used some salt,” Candace says, and I nod, remembering the way Jenna used to pinch it between her fingers. “But otherwise, that’s quite good, considering what he had to work with.” She turns to the others. “Are you prepared to declare a winner?”

James Corden takes another big bite of pie, and Emma Bunton nods.

“Alec is the winner!” Krissy declares unnecessarily. I smile, and Su-Lin gives me a pat on the back, if not a celebratory hug. Jillian hands me the scepter, and Krissy announces we can all have as much of our desserts as we want. Whipped cream and fruit or not, we all destroy Su-Lin’s pyramid and Jillian’s very-dry cake-like substance (“I don’t bake,” she says with a shrug.) and carefully divide what’s left of my pie into fourths.

It may be the sugar deprivation, but it actually is good.

And right now, the phone call to Jenna feels like a lifeline.

Twenty-seven

Alec

I’m shown to a small room on the yacht where I can recline on a day bed and call Jenna on what I assume must be a satellite phone, if it has reception all the way out here. Everyone else will be returning to the beach on the skiff without me, but the boat will be back for me when my hour is up.

I note the time on the clock by the bed and then stretch out on the clean comforter, my sore muscles sinking into the mattress. I allow myself about five seconds enjoying the sensation of lying on an actual bed before dialing.

I know Jenna’s number by heart. We used to have a family cell phone plan, after all.

Felix is the one who answers. “Hello?”

“Hey,” I say. “It’s Alec. Is Jenna there?”

“Alec!” Felix says. “Did you get kicked off the island already?” There’s slight background droning sound that might be the connection from the yacht.

“No. I won a challenge and my reward is a one-hour phone call. But it’s really important that I talk to Jenna. Is she—”

“Yeah, she’s here,” Felix says. “So how’s it going?”

“It’s been better,” I say. “Are you really not going to give her the phone?”

“We’re in the car,” Felix says, which is probably the actual explanation of that background sound. “And she’s driving. But I’ll put you on speaker.”

“Alec?” I hear Jenna say. “You won a challenge and then you called me?”

“Yes,” I say. “Because I need your help.”

There’s a pause. “I don’t know what I can do for you from here.”

“What kind of challenge did you win, anyway?” Felix asks. “Was it one of the ones where you have to eat maggots?”

“No,” I tell them. “I lost that one. Can we focus?”

“On what?” Jenna asks.

“On the fact that I’m in love with this girl and I messed it all up and I need your help.” I stretch out on the bed. It feels so good to be able to say that without cameras watching, though despite Krissy’s assurances, I can’t actually guarantee this phone call isn’t being recorded.

I’m willing to risk it.

This pronouncement finally gets both Jenna and Felix to shut up.

“You’re in love?” Jenna asks, like it’s unthinkable, like I didn’t once think I was in love with her.

“Yeah. I met this girl here, and her name is Jillian—”

“Is she famous?” Felix asks.

God, I’d all but forgotten about that. She stopped being a celebrity to me so long ago. “Yeah, she’s the girl from that airline commercial. The cabaret stewardess?”

“The sexy stewardess?” Jenna sounds impressed.

“Yes. But she’s a person and her name is Jillian, and could we please focus for a minute?”

“You’re in love with her,” Jenna repeats, like this is the part of this story that’s hard to believe.

“I am. She’s amazing, and I’m completely in love with her, and things were going great, but then someone else on the island told her that I came here intending to find a girl to hook up with to clean up my image, because I’m more sympathetic with a girlfriend—”

“Oh my god,” she says, “please tell me that was not your plan.”

I’m quiet for a moment, and Felix jumps in. “That was totally his plan.”

“Okay, okay.” I rub at my forehead. “I see now that it was a bad plan. I get that. But someone confronted me on it in front of Jillian and took me by surprise, and I basically admitted it. And then Jillian decided she can never trust me and that even though she’s in love with me, she’ll never be able to believe I’m not just stringing her along for my image, even back home, because the press is always watching—”

“And because you’ve done that before,” Jenna says with a small sigh.

“Right,” I say. “Because I’ve done that before. Except that you were in on it. I didn’t start dating you for my image.”

“She wasn’t in on it at the end,” Felix says.

Thanks, Felix. Very helpful. “I know,” I say. “But I was just doing what I thought was best for her.”

They’re both silent, and I jam my head back into the pillow. “Which I understand was douchey!” I say. “And I’m sorry. God, Jenna, I’m sorry. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jenna says. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just . . . thinking about your situation.”

“It sucks,” I say. “And I know I treated you guys like you were nuts when this happened to you, but I was in love with her within like a week of meeting her, and now that we’re broken up, I feel like I’m dying. Help.”

“But hey,” Felix says. “The sexy stewardess is in love with you back. Nice. Well done.” I can practically envision them high-fiving each other right there on the LA freeway.

“It is not well done,” I all but shout at them. “I screwed it all up! Help me fix it!”

“I’m thinking!” Jenna yells back. “You’ve had three weeks to screw this up, I need more than thirty seconds to figure out what you should do.”

I suppose that’s reasonable. I fling the comforter back and curl up against the soft sheets. “Go ahead,” I say. “Take your time.”

“I can’t believe you fell in love that fast,” Felix says. He chuckles. “It feels crazy, doesn’t it?”

That’s an understatement. “I probably would have fought it a lot harder if I hadn’t seen it happen to you guys first.”

“Okay,” Jenna says. “Here’s an idea. She doesn’t trust you because she thinks you’re all about your image, right?”

“Which,” Felix says, “to be fair—”

“I’m not really, though,” I say. “I swear, what I did to you guys, I did because I thought you were throwing away something really good, something you would regret losing. And I’d never been in love like this, and I didn’t know—”

Oh, god. I owe them an apology. A better one than I’ve given them before.

“Look, Jen,” I say. “You and I weren’t good for each other, and a lot of that was because of me. I believed that whole narrative we were telling the press, that I was your savior or something, that I was rescuing you and giving you this great life. And that’s stupid, because I’m no better than you, and if anything, it’s the opposite. But when you tried to quit the band—it was like you were rejecting everything I’d done for you, and that hit my pride. I’m sorry I treated you like you were helpless. You’re an adult and you’re capable of making your own decisions, even when I don’t understand them. And I’m sorry I ever thought of you that way, I really am.”

They’re both quiet for a minute.

“Wow,” Felix says finally.

“Thank you, Alec,” Jenna says, her voice soft. “Seriously . . . That means so much to me.”

There are tears in my eyes. I hadn’t realized how much I needed to own up to that. “You guys are the best,” I say. “Really. Thanks.”

“The clock is ticking, though, right?” Jenna asks, now in that brisk tone she would use when getting Ty ready for school. “Let’s focus on this problem of yours. If she thinks all you care about is your image—and if you’ve done some things to encourage her to think that—”

“—which you have,” Felix adds.

“—then what you need to do is convince her you don’t care about your image.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” I say.

“Follow me here,” Jenna says, sounding not a little bit annoyed that I’m snarking on her when she’s trying to help.

“Sorry,” I say. “I’m listening.”

“So what you need to do is be unlikable.”

“Um, Jenna?” I say. “I think I’ve accomplished that pretty thoroughly already, and it hasn’t worked yet.”

“I mean, like, intentionally unlikable.”

Oh. I see what she’s saying now. If I go back to camp and—I don’t know—tear down the shelter for no reason or something, then I could intentionally sabotage my image and convince Jillian I really don’t care about it.

“You’re telling me to be a dick to get a girl back,” I say.

“No. I’m telling you to act like a dick to get a girl back.”

“Could that work?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Jenna says. “But it’s an idea.”

It is that. “I’ve probably already lost both her and my career. I don’t have much else to lose.”

“If you could only salvage one of those two,” Felix says, “which is more important?”

I feel the truth so deeply, I don’t even have to think about it. “Her,” I say. “Definitely her.”

There’s more silence on the other end.

“You could save your shock for when we’re off the phone,” I tell them.

“No,” Jenna says. “I’m not sure that we can.”

“You’ll be happy to know,” I tell her, “that it was a baking challenge I won. They gave us a bunch of ingredients and had us go to town and I made a kick-ass raspberry cream pie.”

“You can make a raspberry cream pie?” Felix asks.

“Apparently I learned a lot from sitting around the kitchen watching Jenna cook.”

Jenna squeals. “I taught you to bake through osmosis?”

“Apparently,” I say. “So thank you. Though it took me a bit to figure out how to make filling and not frosting.”

“Oh, yeah,” Jenna says. “That would be a problem.”

“So now that we’ve solved all your problems,” Felix says, “tell us more about this girl.”

And since there’s nothing I’d love to talk about more in the world than Jillian, I settle back on the bed, and I do.

When the boat drops me off on the beach, no one comes out to greet me. I can see Jillian, Cece, and Su-Lin all gathered around the fire, probably cooking rice and trying not to die of boredom.

I grip the impunity scepter in my hands. It shouldn’t be difficult to be rude to everyone back at camp. I’m accused of being a jerk often enough that it’s apparently a big part of my natural personality. But for some reason, doing so intentionally makes me nervous. Probably because, as I’ve said, I’m not actually all that great a liar in real life.

Still, this idea is the best one I have, so I’ve got to at least give it a shot. I have to be obvious enough about it that Jillian might catch on to what I’m doing, but not so obvious that it’s clear to the viewers when the series airs, because then it might look like I’m trying to get her back for my image.

This is why I don’t lie, as a general rule. Pretending to be with Jenna was simple. The lie had been our reality for a year and a half, so a few more years without changing the story had seemed easy enough.

I walk up to the campfire, still composing what I’m going to say. “Feels good to have this again,” I say, hefting the scepter. “Who would have thought a bunch of girls couldn’t win a baking challenge, huh?”

This earns me withering looks from all three of them.

So far, so good.

“Didn’t you work at a restaurant?” I ask Su-Lin, whose glare deepens.

“I was a waitress.” She deliberately turns away from me, rummaging through a small pile of shells just behind her, possibly looking for something else to tie in her hair.

I don’t like targeting Su-Lin specifically, especially after all she’s been through, but that sure does seem like an asshole thing to do.

“Good thing for that, because from what I’ve tasted of your cooking . . . hey, look at me when I’m talking to you,” I demand obnoxiously, extending the scepter to try to poke the back of her arm with the weird cup-shaped decoration at the top.

But she turns too soon, and without my meaning to, that very same decoration is now cupping her right boob.

Oh, shit.

Her eyes flare wide, and I cringe inwardly, but do my best not to let this show on my face. If I become known as Alec Andreas, boob-cupper, that will definitely not be great for my image.

But that’s the point, right?

Su-Lin swats at the scepter. “Alec!” she shouts. “What the hell are you doing?”

I dodge with the scepter as she brushes it aside. Fighting to hide another cringe at what I’m doing, I aim it toward her left breast instead.

“Damn it, Alec!” she shrieks, grabbing the scepter and shoving it away. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

This is the question on everyone’s mind. I can tell by the way Cece and Jillian are staring at me.

“What?” I say.

“Are you high?” Jillian asks. “Did you find drugs on the yacht?”

“Maybe,” I say. Because doing drugs on this island would be a quick route to career suicide, though I can tell none of them believe me.

I need to say something meaner, and I can’t bring myself to do it to Su-Lin, who I’ve just harrassed with a scepter.

“Cece,” I say, searching for the first insult that comes to mind. “Your swimsuit looks . . . bad.”

Jillian is now staring at me like she’s worried I might have hit my head or be suffering some sort of starvation-induced insanity. I press my lips together, wanting to kick myself for sucking so badly at being a jerk, something I apparently excel at only accidentally.

Cece, on the other hand, seems to believe that I mean it. Her eyes narrow. “It looks bad, does it?”

Nothing to do now but double down. “Yes!” I yell at her. “Bad!”

“Oh my god,” Jillian says, shaking her head. “I don’t know what you’re smoking, but I’m going fishing.” She turns to the other two girls. “Good luck dealing with him.” And she stalks away down the beach with the line and hook in her hands.

I slump onto a log by the fire, Cece still glaring at me. “I suppose you think your swim trunks look so fantastic after hanging off your hips for three weeks,” she says.

I lift the scepter and contemplate using it to tip over the pot of rice, but Su-Lin grabs the scepter from me and stalks off into the woods with it, muttering something about coconuts and a loss of scepter privileges. Normally, I wouldn’t be happy at her for touching the scepter when it belonged to me, but this time I get it. I close my eyes and massage my temples.

I’m going to have to up my game if I’m going to make this strategy work.

I’m lying down in the shelter half an hour later when Jillian starts squealing from the beach. I sit up, not sure if she’s excited or hurt, when she comes running up the sand, a huge fish swinging from the line in her hands.

“I caught one!” she shouts. “I finally caught a fish!”

My brain stutters for a second, staring at the fish, its pale orange scales slick and shiny. Cece is smiling, but she hasn’t gotten up from her stump by the fire, and Su-Lin hasn’t come back out of the woods with the scepter yet and is probably plotting places to hide it from me until we have to go to the next challenge.

My mouth waters; even after all that dessert on the boat, I want to eat that fish. It’s the first one any of us have caught, and I’m impressed that Jillian finally managed to do it.

But she’s more important to me than even food is right now, so I haul myself up out of the shelter, pull on my tennis shoes as quickly as I can, and run down the beach to meet her.

“You caught that?” I ask, as if that isn’t fully obvious.

She grins at me, like the elation of catching a fish after all those hours of trying is enough to make her forget how much she hates me, if only for a second. My heart wrenches to see that smile again.

It’s not going to last long.

“Yeah!” she says. “I used some of the rice to catch one of those tiny minnows with my hands, and then I put it on the end of the hook, and bam, fish!” She holds it up, and I reach out and grab the fish with both hands. It’s slimy and writhing and its muscles are stronger than I thought they would be, having never caught a fish in my life.

“That’s amazing,” I say. “Let me help you.”

And I take the fish from her, extracting the hook from its mouth.

I’m not much of a praying person, much to my mother’s dismay, but at that moment, I ask for forgiveness—from this fish, from Jillian, from whatever providence allowed her to finally catch one after all this time.

And then I throw the fish on the ground, and stomp heavily right on its head, killing the poor thing dead.

And then I keep stomping.

“What the—” Jillian says, and then she’s left speechless as I jump on that fish, grinding it under the soles of my shoes.

“Alec!” Cece yells.

But I keep going, twisting on my toes like I’m doing some sort of crazy nineteen-fifties dance step, grinding that fish into the sand until the skin is gone and the meat is all turned into a sandy pulp.

When I’m sure that no trace of that fish is going to be edible—and hardly recognizable except for the bones—I step back. Jillian is staring at me, her mouth wide open, and I’m honestly surprised she didn’t physically attack me during the full minute it took me to reduce that fish to a pulp.

“Oh my god,” she says, staring down at the fish for a moment. If anyone wanted to do something without the cameras seeing, this would be a good moment, because right now they’re all glued to her and me.

Jillian looks up at me, mouth still gaping.

And then her eyes catch on the camera to my left, and her face sets into a stone-like mask.

“All right, Alec,” she says. “You’ve made your point.”

Then she stalks back down the beach again, leaving Cece staring at me like I might be having some kind of dangerous criminal meltdown.

I’m afraid that’s not far from the truth.

Twenty-eight

Jillian

There are too many thoughts racing around in my head as I stalk down the beach, but I need to get away from the others to sort through them. But the main thought, the one that buzzes in my head like a neon sign, eclipses all the others.

Alec is trying to look like a total asshole. Going out of his way—bizarrely out of his way—to do so.

It’s the only explanation for the way he’s been acting ever since he got back from the yacht. I’d suggested he was on drugs, because I actually thought he might be for a moment there when he was going after Su-Lin’s chest with the scepter. But there was something so deliberate about his random craziness, and it wasn’t until he went all Lord of the Effing Dance on my fish—my fish!—that it came together for me.

He’s being a jerk on purpose.

And I think he’s doing it to prove to me he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks about him. That he doesn’t care about his image.

It could be because he already feels like he lost his career, and any hope of redemption for his image, so he figures he might as well put on a spectacular celebrity meltdown—certainly good for attention, if not necessarily the positive kind. All press is good press, that kind of thing.

But I don’t think so. I know Alec doesn’t believe that all press is good press, given what happened to him after the VMAs.

I think he’s doing it for me.

My heart pounds and I pause on the shoreline, feeling the water lap against my toes. I look up to the sky, turning purple with dusk.

What would it mean if he was? Would it mean he really does care more about me than about how America sees him?

Would it mean it was real for him?

I can hear his words again from last week, just before that dance competition.

I’ve lost everything, but losing you hurts the worst.

Would it mean he loves me?

I’m having a hard time breathing around that thought, hope fighting with a desperate need to squash said hope, to protect myself from more hurt.

I squeeze my eyes shut. I need to talk to him, even with the cameras still on us. I need to find out if I’m right about what that all was back there.

I head back towards the shelter, but thankfully he’s not sitting with Cece by the fire. He’s standing out by the ocean like I was, tracing small patterns in the damp sand with his toe.

He looks over at me as I approach, surprised at first and then wary. I don’t blame him, and not only because I’ve been so cold and avoidant lately. But also because he destroyed my fish, and there was a second there, before I figured out what he was doing, that I thought I might murder him.

He doesn’t say anything, just looks out over the ocean.

“I know what you were doing back there,” I say.

His toe traces a circle in the sand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re trying to make people think you’re a jerk. To be the opposite of sympathetic.”

His gaze drops. “You really think I need to try for that?” I expect bitterness from his tone, but really, he just sounds kind of empty. Resigned.

“I think you definitely were trying. It came off a little more insane, but like I said, you made your point.”

“And what point is that?” His voice is flat, and he’s still not looking at me.

My heart squeezes. I’m not sure if I can trust myself to state what I think like it’s fact, so I take the still-direct-but-more-cowardly approach of just asking. “Was it for me? To try to get me to trust you? To show me you don’t care about your image?”

Finally, his eyes cut over to me, but he doesn’t say anything.

I feel pierced by those blue eyes, and my throat goes dry.

He still doesn’t speak, and my cheeks flush. Maybe I’m just reaching here, maybe it really had nothing to do with me at all, and I just desperately wish that it did, and that—

“Would it change anything?” he asks suddenly, like the words are being forced out. “If it was, that is.” He squints out over the ocean.

My heart skips a beat, or maybe five. It’s not an admission, but with as little as I’ve felt able to trust him lately, would I believe him if he said outright that it was?

And there’s the crux of it. I thought I knew Alec in this way that I’d never known anyone before, in a way that maybe no one else knew him. And then things changed, and I thought I’d been so wrong, that it had all been an act, that I’d been duped.

And now . . .

“I don’t know,” I say, letting out a little breath. Because I don’t.

I want him, and I want us again, and I want to believe I was right that first week. That maybe we were having that conversation, after all, the one my dad had with my mom. The conversation that started at an office building in DC with broken English and still goes on, even if she’s the one now who often has trouble being understood.

I want to believe in that possible future for us again.

But even as I feel myself grasping at this theory that he’s trying to prove he wants me back more than he wants to be loved by America, I feel the doubts creeping in.

This, too, could be part of the plan. Get Jillian back, even if it means groping Su-Lin with a scepter or stomping a fish into sandy pulp. It’ll all be worth it, because I did it for “love,” and people will eat that shit up.

They would, too.

He nods and sucks his lips inward. Looking back out to the ocean again. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry I hurt you. I’m so sorry for everything. If you never believe anything else I tell you, I hope you can believe that.” He swallows and is back to meeting my eyes. His are shining with tears, and it guts me.

He’s hurting. I know it.

And maybe it’s not in the same way I am, or maybe it is, I don’t know. But there’s pain there, and maybe he’s to blame, but I’m pretty sure I am, too.

“I believe you are,” I say. “I do. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry, too.”

He squints at me. “For what?”

I shrug. Now I’m the one scuffing my toe in the sand. “I never wanted to hurt you, either. I just—I don’t know if—” I shake my head, not able to finish that sentence.

There’s another long silence that stretches out, and it’s too much. I need to get away, to think.

But I want to step closer and put my arms around him. I want to press my lips to his.

I want to tell him I still love him.

I want him to say it back.

Would I believe it? Could I?

My eyes can’t help but flick to the cameras. Always there. Always watching. I’d never thought I’d have a problem dating someone in the limelight, because god knows I wanted the limelight myself.

I wouldn’t have a problem with it if I could know for certain the limelight wasn’t why that person was dating me.

Again, I hear Alec’s words from the other night. It never occurred to me that I might meet someone who actually cared about me.

I hug my arms around myself.

“Anyway, thanks. For the apology,” I say awkwardly. “But if you ever want that scepter back, and not in a way that involves getting clubbed to death with it while you sleep, you might want to apologize to Su-Lin.”

He lets out a small breath, the barest hint of a chuckle. “Yeah. Good call.”

We meet eyes again, and I think maybe his gaze is as agonized as mine. And there’s a moment like he’s waiting, hoping I might say something more. But I don’t, I can’t, and he shoves his hands in his pockets and clears his throat and heads back to the shelter, leaving me standing by the water’s edge with only the silent cameraman for company.

The next day is our second-to-last here on the island. One more Starvies tonight and then one more challenge tomorrow, and it’s done.

There are about a million things that should make me happy about this—food, showers, beds, clothes that aren’t caked in three weeks’ worth of grime. But as much as I wanted to be off this goddamn island and away from the constant pain of seeing Alec, it’s occurring to me that the pain might be even worse when I never see him, except in magazines or on TV.

With the exception of that desperate encounter in the cave, we’ve been so distant with each other, it’s hard to imagine him being even farther away. But he will be. Miles and miles and miles farther.

He doesn’t have to be. It’s startling how clearly I can almost hear my mom in my head. My mom as she was, as on the good days she still is. Kind and sensible and also a little curt when she thinks someone’s being an idiot. You want to be with him, and he’s willing to be a total jerk on television for you. All you have to do is believe him.

Easy for her to say.

I whack a coconut with a machete. We’re down to our last four coconuts, and now that Jason’s gone, they aren’t exactly easy to come by. It’s a good thing we’re down to the end of this thing or we really would all starve to death. And god knows if I catch another fish, I’m not letting Alec anywhere near it.

“Ugh, coconut,” Su-Lin says, plopping down on the sand beside me. “When I get home, I’m never eating coconut again. Ever.”

“You and me both,” I say, whacking it again. These things take several hits to crack.

“It’s okay if you vote me out tonight,” she says, and I stop mid-swing and look at her in surprise. I suppose that was the plan, to keep Cece until the end in case of a physical challenge. Not that I’ve talked with Alec to make sure we’re still good on that.

Honestly, since Alec’s little display yesterday, I’ve barely thought about the game at all.

Su-Lin smiles. She’s got Coconut Ruby balanced on one knee as she sits cross-legged—which means, I guess, that we actually have five coconuts left, but I’m not about to take a machete to Ruby.

“I mean it,” she says. “I figure that’s the plan, and it’s seriously cool. It’s the smarter choice, and honestly, I only came on the show because it seemed like a fun thing to do.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Fun, huh?”

She twists a lock of her hair in her hand, clicking the little shells against each other. “Yeah, well, it has been. And there’s been lots of times it hasn’t. But I got what I wanted out of it. I don’t really need the money, and winning doesn’t mean that much to me, not like to you or Cece.”

I have a passing curiosity as to what Su-Lin knows about Cece’s drive to win, but instead I ask, “And Alec?”

He did apologize to both her and Cece last night, and both seemed willing to chalk his episode to temporary island insanity—which is good. After seeing how she almost leapt across a roaring fire to tackle Chad, I don’t put it past Su-Lin to enact violence with the impunity scepter.

She gives me a sly smile. “The only thing that seems to mean much to Alec anymore is you.”

Her words send a thrill through me, and my eyes instinctively flit back to the jungle. Alec went to get water about an hour ago and should be back soon.

I whack at the coconut again. “Do you think that’s really true? Do you think I should trust him?”

Su-Lin leans back against the shelter. She seems to be seriously considering my question, which I appreciate. I think sometimes it’s too easy to dismiss Su-Lin as the wacky puppet girl, but there’s definite depth there. “Yeah, I think it’s really true. I think he’s crazy about you. But can you trust him?”

I don’t miss where she placed the emphasis. Can I trust him?

It’s a choice I need to make, not him.

Can I? Or would I just be opening myself up to being hurt again?

“Yesterday’s weirdness aside, I think Alec’s a good guy,” Su-Lin says. “And I know you looooove him.”

I glare at her, but can’t help but laugh a little.

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” I say. “On both counts.”

“I hope someday that some guy looks at me the way Alec looks at you,” she says wistfully. “Like you’re the whole world to him.”

That thrill becomes a full-body flush of warmth.

She frowns. “Provided I want to look back at him the same way, of course,” she adds. “Because having that be one-sided would be . . . awkward and sad.”

I smile back at her. “I have no doubt you’ll find that. And he’s going to be awesome and quirky and tell amazing puppet jokes.”

Su-Lin grins and holds up Coconut Ruby. “Oh, Lord,” she says in Ruby’s southern drawl. “That does sound like Su-Lin’s dream man. But darlin’, don’t forget that yours is right here.” Coconut Ruby gives a pointed look behind me.

I look back over my shoulder and see Alec emerge from the tree line with filled canteens slung over his shoulders. My heart pounds erratically.

Having spent the last couple weeks trying to and failing at every moment, I don’t think I’m at any risk of forgetting that.

Later that evening, as the shrieks of the howler monkeys die down for the night, we all make our way to the Starvies, and we go ahead with the plan to vote Su-Lin out—something I feel much better about now that I know Su-Lin is totally okay with it. And she still seems that way once Krissy announces the result. Su-Lin gives us—all three of us—big hugs and a wide grin, practically skipping her way out.

“And now we’re down to the final three,” Krissy intones dramatically. “Just a reminder, this is the final Starvies ceremony. The winner of tomorrow’s challenge will be the winner of Starving with the Stars. Best of luck to all of you.”

The three of us trudge back to our final night on the beach, to our final night sleeping in the shelter. We’re all exhausted, and we don’t speak much, all lost in our own thoughts.

I should be thinking about the game. I can’t afford to lose focus now, so close to the end.

But I can’t stop looking over at Alec, thinking of Su-Lin’s words: Like you’re the whole world to him.

I’d thought that the simplest explanation was probably the true one—that he was using me, that I was the perfect mark for rebuilding his image. But maybe the simplest explanation is that he’s telling the truth, that even if he started out hoping to flirt his way to audience sympathy, he wants to be with me for me and not for his career.

The shelter seems huge now, with only three of us. Cece crawls under some blankets at the far end, and Alec takes his spot on the other end, where we used to cuddle up together. I want to curl up against him now, sleep one more night in the warmth of his arms.

I settle in the middle of the shelter, pulling the blanket tight around myself.

Can I trust him?

Is it worth the risk? Is it worth the risk to not?

I blink back tears, and I think again of my parents. Of my dad, who will spend years and years of his life caring for my mom as she slips increasingly further away from him. Of how painful it already is for him, how much more painful it will be.

There’s no certainty in life, I can almost hear him say. You just love the best you can.

I’m a few feet away from Alec, but it feels like miles, and I find myself reaching my hand out, resting it in the open space between us.

Wishing his was there, too.

But it’s not, and the shelter is cold and my heart aches.

I hear my mom again, those memories of the past. So what are you going to do now, Jilly?

I’m going to win this game. I’m going to win the money and make this memory for her. That’s all I can let myself focus on now. Maybe after that, when I’m not half-deranged with exhaustion and starvation, maybe then I can figure the rest out.

Hopefully it won’t be too late.

I drift off to sleep with my hand still reaching for him.

Twenty-nine

Alec

When we arrive at the final challenge, I’m not at all surprised to discover that Jillian was right. It’s a huge Survivor-style obstacle course that Krissy walks us through while the three of us stand side-by-side at the start.

“You’ll start in the sand pit, where you’ll each need to dig up three bags of puzzle pieces, which form the rungs of a ladder,” Krissy says. “Then you’ll assemble your ladder and use it to climb up to the top of the platform. From there, you’ll climb across the rope bridge and take the zip line down to the bottom.”

And that’s just the beginning. After that, we have to cross a balance beam, going back to the beginning of the beam if we fall off, and then dive into a pit of sludge not unlike the slime challenge, where we need to find a key that unlocks a gate. Once we get through our individual gate, we have to move through a tunnel filled with a web of ropes made to slow us down, cross a second balance beam, and then sprint the final fifty yards to the finish line.

“You’re not competing for impunity this time,” Krissy says. “This time, the winner of this challenge will be awarded their Starvie, and will become the official winner of Starving with the Stars. You guys ready?”

This time we all three whoop and cheer. The fact that this is the end would be exciting enough, even if the grand prize wasn’t on the line.

As I look at the course, though, my heart sinks. We’re all going to be in separate sand pits, on separate beams and zip lines, diving in separate pools of slime. I know Jillian can probably win this thing hands down, but I won’t be able to help her get there.

Even so, I’m damn well not going to beat her. She needs this for her mom, and I want her to have that. Even if she decides never to give me another chance.

We all line up on our respective mats, ready to dive into the sand pits. Both Cece and Jillian look focused, and I know I should be, too, but I can’t help but look over at Jillian and smile at her.

She’s got this. I know she does.

My heart hurts when I realize that this may be one of the last times I get to see her.

“Go!” Krissy shouts, and we all three dive into the sand pits. I’m in the middle track, with Cece on my left and Jillian on my right, and I bail my sand out in Cece’s direction, hoping to piss her off and slow her down.

She flings sand back at me, and I think it works, because Jillian digs up her first rung before either of us, and I realize if I don’t want to come in way behind both Cece and Jillian, I need to start digging for real.

Jillian still finishes digging before the two of us and starts sliding the puzzle-piece rungs into the slats of the ladder up to the zip line platform.

I finish next, with Cece right behind me, and we both fight to find the right rungs that fit in the right places while Jillian climbs her ladder and flies down the zipline ahead of us.

I smile, still fighting with my ladder. I want Jillian to win.

But I am damn well going to beat Cece. I finish my ladder first and climb to the top, then grab the handle of the zip line and go flying down to the bottom at the foot of the balance beam. The beam is only a foot or so off the ground, but it’s narrow—less than half the width of my foot, and I wobble as I step on. Jillian’s already finished with her beam and is flailing around in the slime ahead of me, and I don’t realize how close Cece is on my tail until she strides across the beam like this is the easiest thing in the world and dives into her pit of slime.

I’m so distracted I falter and have to go back and start again. By the time I reach the slime pits, both Jillian and Cece have a huge head start on me—

And Jillian is pulling herself out of her pool and headed for the gate that will lead to the web-tunnel.

I dive down, squeezing my eyes closed and putting my head under and spreading my body out along the bottom of the slime. There, under my elbow, I feel something uneven, and scramble for it, gripping the key in my fingers. I surface and haul my body out of the slime, which drips off me as I head toward the gate.

Jillian has dropped her key, but she picks it up, still fumbling with the lock as I unlock mine. I slip into the ropes, trying to slide my body through the gaps between them. The slime lets me slide through without getting rope burns, but it also makes my grip on the rope with both my hands and my shoes more slippery, and I almost tumble down to the bottom of the tunnel several times. I steal a glance over at Jillian, who is parting the ropes in front of her with her arms and shoving her body through with her legs. We reach the end of the tunnel at the same time, and I pretend to have difficulty getting my foot out to give her a head start on the final balance beam. I allow myself one glance back at Cece, who is struggling at the start of her rope tunnel.

We’ve got this.

I take a step out of my tunnel.

And stare in horror as Jillian’s foot gets caught in a rope at the edge, and she falls to her knees in the dirt. I hesitate, waiting for her to get up and get started on the balance beam ahead of me. She drags her ankle beneath her.

But it gives when she tries to stand on it, and she falls back to the ground.

Shit. I dive to my knees beside her, wrapping one of her slime-slick arms around my neck.

“Come on,” I say. “I’ll help you stand.”

Jillian wrenches her arm away, shoving at me. “What the hell are you doing?” she asks.

“Helping you,” I say.

She spends more effort shoving me off of her than she does standing, and we both fall back on our asses in the dirt. She goes to stand again, wincing on her ankle. It rolls a bit while she walks, and she’s not going to make it across the balance beam like that.

Damn it. “Let me carry you,” I say. “Just across the beam.” I move to put my arm around her again and she shoves me away with both hands.

“Why?” she shouts at me.

And I feel all the things I have to say bubbling up inside me. Cece has made it out of the rope tunnel, and is heading for the balance beam, but Jillian’s not paying her any attention.

So neither do I.

“Because I’m in love with you!” I shout at her. “Because I love you so much it hurts, and god, Jillian, you’re all I want. I don’t care about my image, and I don’t care about my career. I’ll quit. I’ll never perform again. I’ll find some job out of the limelight and give up on the whole thing, but please, believe me.”

Cece spares one shocked glance back at us before she scampers across the balance beam and bolts toward the finish line. Jillian must have seen, but her focus is zeroed on me. She’s hesitating, like something in her is warring between falling into my arms and telling me to go to hell.

I lower my voice. “Please,” I say. “Please, Jill. Give me another chance.”

Those warm brown eyes of hers study me carefully. “I can’t be your new Jenna,” she says. “I can’t do that.”

I hold my hands out to the sides. “It didn’t work with Jenna. I don’t want that, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks. I just want you.”

Jillian’s lips part, and my whole body tenses, still not sure what she’s going to do.

And then she takes one step toward me with her good foot, wraps her arms around my neck, and kisses me. I pull her into my arms, kissing her desperately back. And while the race must be over and Cece must have won and probably Krissy wants to get on with the show, no one interrupts us, so we stand there kissing with our arms around each other, and I just want to freeze right here in this moment and never let go.

Except.

Why is she kissing me? God, does she really believe me? I didn’t say anything different this time, except stuff that she told me she didn’t want to hear.

I break away and look down at her. “Is this for real? Are you sure?”

Jillian smiles. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

“But why?” I ask. “Why believe me this time?” Great. Now I’m trying to talk her out of it. “I mean, it’s true, but it’s been true all along, and you said you’d never be able to—”

“I was wrong. I was afraid to believe you, because of how bad it would hurt if it wasn’t true. But after everything—I’m sorry I doubted you. I’m sorry I prioritized protecting myself over trusting in us.”

I shake my head. “I gave you plenty of reason.” I pull her close, and bury my face in her hair, even streaked with slime as it is. My whole body is flushed with the heat of her in my arms again. “But I’m so glad you changed your mind,” I whisper into her ear.

Which she has, hasn’t she? She’s really here, and so am I, and we’re doing this. I’m grinning like an idiot, and I lean down and kiss her again. Cece has definitely won by now, but all the cameras I can see are focused on me and Jillian. We may have lost the challenge and the game, but we’ve also completely stolen her thunder. “So are you saying you’ll never sing with me?” I ask in her ear. “Because performing or not, you have the kind of voice that makes me want to write all the songs for you.”

“Mmm,” she says. “I like that. Someday I’ll even get you on Broadway with me.”

“Not likely, if I give up my career.”

Jillian takes my face in her hands. “Don’t,” she says. “I don’t want you to quit.”

I have to, or I’ll be risking my relationship with her every day. “I don’t want you to worry our whole lives that I’m only with you because I need someone for my image. And besides, who knows if I’ll even have the option, after this.” I don’t think that thing I did with Jillian’s only fish is going to play well with the public, and heaven knows they never cared whether or not Jenna forgave me, so I don’t imagine it will matter whether or not Jillian does.

“I don’t think I will,” Jillian says. “And you might come out of all this looking a lot better than you think.”

“Still. It’s not worth the risk.”

Jillian pulls back and looks up at me. “I don’t want you to give up. You’re brilliant and talented and I want you to succeed. I meant what we said before—it’s possible to put both your career and your relationship first.”

She winces at the word relationship, and I smile. “I know that we’re in a relationship,” I say. “I’m clear on that now.”

Jillian smiles. “I don’t want to be someone you use to get your career on track. But I really do want to be supportive.”

I smile. I’m still not sure the public is going to agree with her, but knowing I’ve got her by my side, it doesn’t seem so bad to wait and see how it goes.

“And I want to be supportive of you. And I’ll be in the front row cheering for you when you’re on Broadway. But I still don’t think they’re going to let you pull in your husband as an understudy, no matter who—” I blink, my mind adjusting to what I just said. Husband. Damn it, of all the presumptuous things I could have said . . .

Jillian smiles uncertainly, so I know she didn’t miss it.

“Shit,” I say, burying my face in her shoulder. “Now I know how you felt when you said that thing about the relationship. I didn’t mean—I just meant—I was thinking it might take a while for you to get that famous, right? Not that I don’t think you can do it, and maybe—”

“It’s okay.” Jillian cuts me off like she just wants me to shut up. “It’s okay if you’re not . . . there yet.”

I pull back and look at her again. “If I’m not?” I say. Her tone implied . . . “Is it okay if I am?”

She stutters a bit, like she’s as flustered as I am, and her cheeks flush slightly.

Damn.

Is she okay if I’m already thinking along those lines?

“I don’t know,” she says finally. “Are you?”

She’s looking at me like she’s waiting to know something important, and I don’t want to get this one wrong. I mean, I know I’m in love with her, and I never want to be away from her, and we’re planning to be supportive of each other’s careers, and more than anything, I want this to work out in the long term. Always and forever.

But if I say that now, on national television—damn, I’ve known her the exact amount of time Jenna and Felix knew each other before they got engaged, and that seemed crazy at the time.

Though it worked out all right for them.

“Am I reading this situation right?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Jillian hedges, tugging her lip between her teeth. “How are you reading it?”

I’m aware of the cameras all around us. Hyper-aware of them, in fact. And on one hand I don’t want to mess this up, and I’m ready for our relationship to be a hell of a lot more private than it has been.

But on the other hand, I don’t want to miss the opportunity to ask her to marry me on camera, not because of my image, but because that sounds like the kind of ridiculously romantic thing she’d remember for the rest of her life.

Her mother might remember it, too, if Jillian’s right about her memory for these shows.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that I want the romantic story. I want to do this huge thing in front of everyone, not because I’m trying to force her into anything, or because I think it’ll be good for publicity, but because I’m in love with her in this crazy, forever way that’s wonderful and terrifying and life-changing and I want the whole world to know it.

And it’s that thought that finally pushes me past my hesitation and doubt.

I want to give this to Jillian. I want to give this to both of us.

“Will you marry me?” I ask her. Unlike the last time I proposed on stage, I keep my voice low. Even though I know the whole world is listening, the question isn’t for them. It’s only for her.

Her eyes widen. “Yes!” she says, and then looks even more stunned. “Oh my god, did you just propose?”

I laugh, happier right now than I can ever remember being, even at the height of my career success, the rush of this moment with her even better than the energy of a roaring crowd. “I did. And you said yes. On national TV.”

Jillian starts and then looks over my shoulder. “Oh, shit, I forgot about the cameras!”

“That’s why I was asking you if this was okay! I thought you knew what I meant. How could you forget?”

Jillian puts a hand on her forehead. “I don’t know! But we just got engaged! You’re my fiancé.” She laughs with this happy incredulity that I totally and completely understand.

I smile. “Yeah, I am. And the show’s over now, I think.” I look over at Krissy, who is smiling at us, as is Cece, who’s standing beside her, holding her golden Starvie. “So we need to get out of here and celebrate.”

“Yes, please,” Jillian says. And I scoop her up into my arms and kiss her again, and then carry her and her hurt ankle over to the medical team to have it evaluated while the cameras all gather to shoot some footage of Cece the winner. They’re going to have a hell of a time cutting that together in a way that isn’t anti-climactic.

While Jillian’s getting her ankle bandaged, one of the producers motions to me.

“One more aside?” he asks.

I roll my eyes, but I nod and walk over to him.

They want to finally get me on camera saying I’m in love with Jillian, and for once, I’m happy to oblige.

Thirty

Alec

When we finally get to the hotel in Trinidad and eschew our separate rooms for one shared one, we barely make it in the door before we’re tearing off each other’s filthy clothes. I’m in desperate need of several full meals and an hour-long shower and a night of sleep in an actual bed, but all of that feels secondary to my desperate need for Jillian, like she’s more important than all of those things combined.

And, to be fair, I’ve lived without those things for three weeks now, but the part of that time I had to be without her was excruciating.

I never want that to happen again.

When we’ve finished ravaging each other, we call out for room service and a new comforter, as the one on our bed is now covered in sand and the top layers of dirt from our skin, and then lock ourselves in the bathroom and stand under the searing hot water together and make love again against the shower wall. The sex we had in the cave was intense, and this is no less so, but while that felt desperate, this is more raw, more open.

We tumble out of the shower and devour the room service, and then burrow down into the bed and make love again between the clean sheets. Afterward, we lie in each other’s arms, and I feel something so unfamiliar that it takes me a moment to identify it.

I’m not just happy. I’m completely, one hundred percent satisfied.

“God, I love you so much,” I tell her, my whole body relaxed against hers.

“Mmm,” Jillian says. “This is what you tell me.”

“Because it’s true,” I say, though I know she’s just teasing me. “I knew it way back, but then you said you wouldn’t believe me if I said it, and I didn’t want to open myself up like that and be dismissed.” I shake my head. “Plus, I thought maybe you didn’t want me to say it. Like it might make things worse.”

Jillian lies back on the pillow, considering this. “I think it was the opposite, actually. I think I wanted you to say it, and I’d convinced myself I didn’t so it wouldn’t hurt so bad if you didn’t say it.”

I sigh. “So I made the wrong call. Again.”

Jillian’s lips graze my shoulder. “Yeah, well, it’s not like I made it so easy on you.” She’s quiet for a second. “When did you know?”

“Mmmm,” I say, remembering the time I kissed her in the shelter, after the things we’d done to each other and that crazy sensation of falling into something warm and wonderful and real. “That night in the shelter. The first day we kissed. I knew then that I was falling in love with you.”

Jillian giggles and runs her hand over my abdomen, and I know she’s remembering that as viscerally as I am. “That’s what did it for you?”

“That’s what made me realize it was different.” I elbow her. “What about you? When did you know?”

She purses her lips together. “Pretty much that same moment.”

“Ha! So I’m not the only one.” I shake my head. “I should have told you then how I felt.”

“I would have said it back. But if you had, I probably still would have decided it was all part of the act.”

I kiss her temple and hold her close. I’m not sure if I should apologize again or just let all that be behind us now.

I’ve done enough bad stuff in my life, and apologized so little, that I realize I don’t know when to stop.

“You say you knew it was different,” Jillian says quietly. “How did you know?”

“Because I’d never had sex that felt that incredible in my life,” I say. “And not just because you’re good with your hands.”

“Mmm.” She smiles. “That’s not exactly what I mean.”

I roll onto my side, pulling her close against me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, how do you know this is different from when you thought you were in love with Jenna? How do you know this time it will work, when that didn’t?”

I think about that. There are a lot of thoughts swimming around in my head, and I’m not entirely sure how they fit together.

“It’s because you and I work, on a level that she and I never did,” I say. “Maybe there are some people who spend a long time trying to make a relationship work before it does, but then again, maybe there aren’t. Maybe it either works or it doesn’t, and you spend a long time trying to fit someplace where you don’t, and then when you find the place where you do fit, suddenly none of that matters.”

“This certainly feels like that place,” Jillian says.

God, it does. “You and me, we fit. We work. Jenna and I never fit together like that, but she does with Felix. And I know they’ve been through stuff, and I know they have to work at their relationship, but they don’t have to work to belong together in the first place. They just do. And I didn’t have any idea what that felt like until I met you.”

Jillian leans in and kisses my neck, just below my jaw, and I rest my chin on top of her head. “Neither did I,” she says. “I know exactly what you mean.”

“When Jenna and I broke up, it didn’t hurt even a fraction of how it hurt losing you. With her and me, the part that always worked was the friendship, and we were attracted to each other, but that was it, and it’s not enough. But you and me—” I kiss the top of her head. “We’re all the things. It’s completely different, and so much more. So it’s not so much a matter of how do I know, as how do I put words to this thing I never imagined, much less can understand.”

“Going on that show is the best thing I ever did.” Jillian nuzzles against me. “And I don’t even know yet if my mom’s going to like it.”

I smile. “I have a feeling she’s going to be a fan.”

“I think she’s probably going to be a fan of you. The way I acted? Maybe not so much.”

“Hey,” I say. “You were hurt. I think you’re going to play very well with the audience. Broadway is going to be beating down the door.”

Jillian laughs. “Sure. Right.”

“Okay, maybe we’ll be beating down their door. But we’ll get you there. Someday.” I can see it, her on that stage, dazzling audiences night after night with that voice of hers—with the sheer brilliance of who she is.

“And we’ll get you back in the music industry,” Jillian says with that same certainty, like she’s envisioning something similar for me.

“I would love that,” I say. Because god knows, I still do want that. But. “Really, though, if you ever feel like you’re not sure that you’re more important, I’ll quit. I’d probably stay in music because that’s what I know, but I could take a producer role, or work in recording. Something out of the spotlight, where you don’t have to worry about me doing things just for my image.”

“Thank you.” Jillian kisses me gently again, this time on the lips. “But I really think I’m going to be okay now. I just needed to know that you mean it.”

“I do,” I tell her, and she beams up at me.

“I know.”

I run my hand lazily up her back and close my eyes. There’s something so perfect about this moment, this haven between everything that brought us together and everything that’s going to come after.

As if she’s having the same thoughts, Jillian rolls to face me and wraps an arm around my waist. “So what now?” she asks.

“Sleep,” I say. “More food.”

“Okay. And what then?”

I take a deep breath. “Then I have a flight back to LA, and you have one to DC. And when I land, I’m going to pack up my apartment and get a flight out east to be with you. If you’re still up for that.”

“I would love that,” Jillian says. “I wish I could offer to move to LA, but—”

“But we discussed this before,” I say. “And I don’t have any reason to stay in LA. So I’ll move out to DC for now, and we’ll see what happens after that. You’ll want to move to New York eventually, right? And I can work from there just fine.”

Jillian nods. “I know I need to move there, but I keep putting it off.”

“Makes sense,” I say. “This is the last time you’re going to have with your mom. And that’s more important right now. And then later, we’ll move to New York and make a go of it.” Speaking of which. “I had this thought while they were bandaging you up. Our relationship has moved so fast, I think that without any outside factors, I would probably be inclined to live together for a couple of years before we get married—”

“Yeah. That’s understandable.”

“—but,” I say, “if you let me finish—”

“Sorry.”

I pause. “But if we do that, your mom might not be there, right? And if she is, she won’t remember it.”

Jillian hesitates. “I would love for my mom to be there for it, like really there. But the truth is, there’s no way to guarantee that anyway. She still has good days—really good, sometimes, where she’s almost herself—but there’s no way to predict them.”

“What I’m saying is,” I tell her, “I don’t want you to miss out on having the memory of your mom being at our wedding. I want to be with you forever, and just because I wouldn’t be in a huge rush for the ceremony itself under normal circumstances doesn’t mean you should miss out on getting to have that. Because I would be happy to marry you sooner.” I smile, imagining standing in front of each other, Jillian in a white dress. “Thrilled, actually. And a lot sooner, if you wanted that, too.”

“Yeah?” she says. “That’s something you would want?”

I nod. “I would. I’m sure the network would let us get married on the reunion show if we wanted. Or we could do something small and private. Or something big, if you wanted. But smaller might be more flexible.”

“Do you think, if we decided to go small, that instead of picking a specific day, we could plan to get married over the space of several days? So that if it’s a bad day, we could wait until the next day, or the day after that?”

“I think we could find a venue that could accommodate that. Maybe rent out a space at a hotel for a few days in a row, and then play it by ear?”

Jillian nods, considering. “I think, in an ideal world, that’s what I’d want. But only if you’re really ready.”

I roll her over, lying on top of her, and cup her face in my hands. “I’m really ready,” I say. “And I want to give you the perfect wedding, exactly the way you want it.”

“I think I just want to have my parents there,” Jillian says. “And maybe a few friends. That’s what’s most important.” She smiles. “What about you? You want your family to be there?”

I groan. “Not if we want it to be small and private.”

“Really?” Jillian says. “What if we just invited your parents?”

“Ha,” I say. “It’s not possible. Because as soon as my mom knows, my sisters know, and as soon as my sisters know, half of Ann Arbor knows. And we’ll be descended on by my parents and my sisters and my aunts and my uncles and my cousins and our neighbors . . .” I shrug. “And the only way I could prevent that from happening would be to offend them all by telling them each individually in no uncertain terms that they are not wanted. And not that I’m best friends with these people, but I’d rather not be a complete asshole to their faces.”

“God,” Jillian groans. “Your parents are going to hate me.”

“They won’t. If we want a small wedding, we’ll just tell them about it afterward.”

“I mean in general,” she says. “Because I’m not some orthodox Greek girl.”

“Nah,” I say. “My parents gave up on that a long time ago. They think I’ve spent the last several years driving fast cars and doing hard drugs and sleeping with prostitutes. I’m pretty sure they thought that of me when I was living with Jenna.” Jillian laughs, and I join her. “So you’re the woman who’s making an honest man out of me. They might not throw us the literal parade they would spring for if you were Greek, but they’re going to be very happy.”

“Good to know the bar is so low,” Jillian says, and I kiss her.

“Stop worrying,” I say against her mouth. “I didn’t ask their opinion of anything else in my life.”

“Yeah,” Jillian says, pulling back. “But I want to meet them.”

Oh, god. Introducing Jillian to my family, as my fiancée. Or . . . “You should marry me first,” I say.

“So I can’t change my mind when I meet them?”

“Definitely so you can’t change your mind when you meet them.”

She punches me in the arm, and I laugh. “No, really. They’re crazy. And there is a lot of them. But some of them are pretty cool. I have a couple of sisters you’ll probably get along with.”

Jillian narrows her eyes. “You have six sisters. And you think I’ll get along with a couple of them.”

“Right. You caught the implication there, did you?”

Jillian rolls over onto her stomach and puts a pillow over her head, but she’s giggling.

“Besides,” I say. “What will your parents think about me?”

“They’ll be fine,” Jillian says, removing the pillow. “My dad can be protective, but he’s not exactly a scary guy.”

I’m not so sure about that. Because now I’m thinking about Jillian going home and telling her parents about me and her dad Googling me and thinking I’m John Mayer. “Maybe you don’t have to tell him who I am until after he meets me.”

“He’s going to know you’re a celebrity,” Jillian says. “He’s going to expect me to tell him who you are.”

Good point. Now I want to put a pillow over my head.

“You don’t have to stay with my family in DC, though,” Jillian says. “I live at home to spend more time with my mom, but we can get our own place.”

I think about that. I guess I had assumed we would get an apartment out there. “Is that going to be okay with you? Do you need to live at home? Because I can stay with your family if you need me to, or get an apartment for myself.” I don’t love either of these options, but I also don’t want Jillian to have to choose between me and her mom, when she doesn’t know how much longer she’ll be able to really have a relationship with her.

“No,” Jillian says. “I think I want our own place. But someplace close. Within a ten-minute drive or so.”

“That sounds great,” I say. “And—” I’m not sure if I should say this last part, but I think it’s true. “—it might be good for you to have someplace to go that’s not in the house, as your mom goes downhill.”

Jillian presses her lips together and nods. “I don’t like the idea of leaving my dad alone with that. But you’re right. Sometimes I’m going to need to get away.”

“Do you think your dad would be open to getting help taking care of her?” I ask. “Does he have someone come in and help him, or would he be willing to move somewhere with a staff? Somewhere they can both live?”

Jillian tilts her head as she considers this. “I think his instinct is to try to take care of her himself as long as possible. And my parents have insurance, but they aren’t super well-off. I think help would be really good for him, though. He definitely wouldn’t put her in a home by herself, but if it was somewhere they could live together, but with a staff when he needs it—”

“We could help them out with that,” I say. “If your dad would accept it.”

Jillian looks up at me, and I can tell she’s warring with the impulse to tell me I don’t have to do that. Someday she’s going to be fabulously successful, I’m sure, but right now, I’m the one with the money that would make this possible.

But she seems to swallow all of these objections, and nods. “He might take some convincing, but I think that could be a really good thing, when things get worse.”

I press my nose into her cheek. “Good. Because I want to help out as much as we can.” It’s strange, how disconnected I’ve felt from my family over the years, and yet how much I want to be involved in Jillian’s. It doesn’t even sound so terrible to go visit my family together.

She’s a good influence on me, in more ways than one.

That reminds me, though. “Do you want to have children?” I ask.

She looks at me sideways. “I always assumed that I would,” she says, “but I remember you saying you don’t want to, and I thought about it, even back then, if that was something I could live with.”

My breath catches. “And is it?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I mean, it’s not like I’ve ever had a particularly strong desire to be a mom. I think it was just an assumption. You get older and the biological clock starts ticking and you want to make babies. It’s not a deal breaker.”

I nod, but I still feel uneasy. “It’s not a deal breaker for me, either,” I say carefully. “It’s not something I think I’m going to start wanting, but if it was something you really needed—” I shake my head. I don’t want to say that I’m terrified she’ll leave me over something like that, but having lost her before . . .

“That’s good to know,” Jillian says. “But really, I don’t think that’s something I need to be happy.”

That shouldn’t feel like as big a relief as it does. “I love you,” I say. “I want the rest of our lives to be just like this.”

“Except with fabulous careers,” Jillian says.

I smile. I can’t be sure how the show is going to make me look once it’s cut together. But it doesn’t matter to me as much now, either way. I want my career back. I want to make music, and play for sold-out audiences, and be successful like Jenna and I were, and maybe even beyond.

But however things end up, as long as I’m with Jillian, I know I’m going to be okay.

Thirty-one

Jillian

It’s five months after the show wrapped, and we’re back to sitting in director’s chairs in front of a big campfire, with Krissy Calhoun asking us questions while wearing a shimmery, golden sheath dress—and her leather vest, of course. The whole set-up is done to look exactly like the Starvies ceremony, even down to the fake palm trees and the sand underfoot. But we’re not back on the island, thank god. This is a sound stage in LA, and there’s a large audience cheering for us and holding up signs that say things like “Team Ruby Van Raspberry” and “Climb Me, Jason!”

It’s the live reunion show, and the whole country has watched all our drama play out week after week. Judging by the reactions of the crowd here—and, okay, the internet chatter Alec and I couldn’t help but follow—our relationship was definitely the dramatic highlight of the show. Love us or hate us, no one could stop talking about us.

And by the end, I think we got way more on the “love us” side. Not that it matters, Alec still doesn’t hesitate to remind me.

But it does, and I’m thrilled that Bobbi’s starting to get calls from producers interested in working with him again. I want him to be adored by the fans, and to play to packed arenas. I never didn’t want that for him. I just needed to know that our relationship—and, yes, it’s definitely a relationship now, I tease him frequently—is separate from all that. That it’s real and as amazing and crucial to him as it is to me.

And of that, I no longer have any doubt. I squeeze his hand in mine, and he looks over at me and smiles.

Next to us and behind us are the other celebrities we competed against, now looking all fresh and clean and well-dressed and no longer like the skeletal, homeless junkie versions of themselves—Judge Liz, Fez, Melissa, Ryan, Jason, Su-Lin, and Cece. Chad Montgomery, however, didn’t show up, which was probably wise given how much booing erupts from the crowd every time his name is mentioned. He did, however, issue a vague and pathetic apology.

“I regret any bad behavior I engaged in while on the island, and am sorry for any hurt feelings such behavior may have caused,” Krissy reads from a screen where his “apology” is displayed. “I respect all women, even sock women.”

Judging from her disgusted expression, she doesn’t find it any more sincere than the jeering crowd.

Krissy shakes her head. “Su-Lin, I think it’s fair to say that Chad’s ‘behavior’ turned the game into a very negative experience for you. How are you feeling about the game as a whole now?”

Su-Lin straightens in her director’s chair. “The game was amazing,” she says, beaming. Her long black hair hangs over her shoulders, no longer tied up with random island detritus, and she’s adorable in a bright polka-dot dress. “There were parts that were definitely awful, like Chad being a total sicko jerk”—lots of cheers from the audience at this characterization—“and I’ve already apologized to Ryan personally for accusing him of what it turned out Chad did, but I’ll say it again. Ryan, I’m sorry.”

Ryan graciously accepts, and the audience claps, but I think everyone more or less agrees that his smarmy behavior, while not to the level of Chad’s, doesn’t totally free him from judgment. Especially when, upon watching the show, it was apparent that he and Chad spent much of their male-bonding time making intricate ratings systems for various parts of our bodies.

Su-Lin continues. “But like I told Jillian at the end, I got what I wanted out of the show, and more. I had a lot of fun, and I made some great friends. So it was incredible. And Ruby agrees.”

Here she pulls out a bright pink sock puppet with frizzy pink hair—Ruby Van Raspberry, back as a sock where she belongs.

The crowd goes nuts, and Ruby basks in their applause.

“Oh, now, you are wonderful, just wonderful,” she says, in that long drawl. “It was indeed a trial, but us Sockwives are strong. I gotta say, though, next time I do a beach vacation, it’s going to be on luxury resort with non-stop margarita service and all my Sockwife friends. Doesn’t that sound like fun to y’all?”

The crowd cheers, probably hoping for a YouTube special of this very event, and I cut a look over to Alec, like, yeah, Alec, doesn’t that sound like fun? Because he may have begun to appreciate Su-Lin as a friend, but I’m pretty sure a beach vacation with her and a dozen of her sock puppets would be a special kind of hell for Alec—and thoroughly hilarious for me to witness.

He gives me that you are the worst look, with that smile he can’t totally hide, and I grin back at him.

Krissy goes on, asking questions of everyone, commenting on the more notable parts of the game. She gets Judge Liz’s feelings on being voted out first—“I was disappointed, but also relieved. I couldn’t stand most of these people,” Liz says unapologetically—and Melissa’s obsession with Tori Spelling. “Oh my god,” Melissa says, “I got to meet her a few weeks ago in person, and it was, like, the best day ever. In, like, my whole life.” She pauses, her brow furrowing. “Except maybe the day I got retweeted by Khloe Kardashian.”

Krissy also gets Fez’s surprise at watching the show and finding out Alec could actually bake, a huge surprise to everyone—even me at the time, though he’d once told me the only thing he missed from living with his ex was the constant stream of fresh-baked desserts. “I mean, I didn’t get to taste the pie myself,” Fez says, “but I was impressed at his inventiveness. I’d be happy to have him on my show sometime.”

There’s a loud squeal from the audience, and Alec and I both grin to see that—of course—it’s from cooking show fangirl Jenna, who’s now embarrassed and covering up her face, while Felix and their son Ty both laugh.

Next to them are my parents, my dad laughing and my mom looking a little confused. It’s not a great day for her, and I don’t think she knows exactly why she’s here, but she’s clearly excited to be on the set of her latest favorite show.

And while it’s sad that right now she may not know me as anyone other than a player on that show, it’s so nice to see them all together like that—my family and Alec’s, mine and his and ours.

“Speaking of Alec . . .” Krissy says, trailing off with a wry smile as the audience erupts into cheers and fangirl screams. “You and Jillian had quite the dramatic—dare I say it?—relationship.”

Alec lets out a good-natured groan, and the audience laughs.

“From lots of intense chemistry to an epic fight to a shocking surprise engagement in the middle of a challenge, you left us all on the edge of our seats,” Krissy says. “I’m guessing by how cozy you two look now that you’re still together?” She looks pointedly at our joined hands.

“We are,” Alec says. “I moved out to DC right after we got back from filming the show, and Jillian and I found an apartment near her family, and we’ve just been enjoying being out of the spotlight for a little while and getting to focus on us.” He looks over at me and smiles. “The last few months have been the best of my life.”

The audience awwwws and claps. And yeah, maybe lots of them are wondering if he’s just saying that for the cameras, but I’m not. Because I know how incredible the last few months have been, for both of us. We’ve had to keep things low-key, especially when the show started airing and the press started sniffing around us more, which meant most nights we stayed in.

But a night spent staying in with Alec beats pretty much anything else in the world, as far as I’m concerned.

“And Jillian, the struggles of your mom’s illness and your reasons for being on the show, well, that really tugged at a lot of heartstrings,” Krissy says.

She doesn’t mention the not-insignificant amount of internet flack I’ve caught for everything from exploiting my mom’s condition to abandoning her for fame, but overall, people have been really supportive.

“Did you feel that you accomplished your goals for being on the show?” Krissy asks.

I laugh. “I did better than that!” I hold up my joined hands with Alec—mine with the engagement ring he bought me a week or so after we got back—and the crowd cheers again. “But, yeah, in regards to my mom, I’m so glad I did this. She loves the show. She’s here in the studio audience right now.”

The cameras pan to her, and my dad waves and grins. Mom looks confused again but delighted as the audience cheers.

“We—my parents and Alec and I—we’d all sit around in the living room and watch the show every week as it aired, and she loved it, whether it was a good memory day or a bad one for her. It’s been a great experience for all of us.”

Krissy smiles. “That’s fantastic. Now I’ve been told by the producers that you two have some news to share with us?” Her eyebrows raise.

There’s a pause where I can feel the audience waiting, wondering.

Alec looks at me, then shakes his head. “I’m not going to say it. Last time I did, I got shoved off a stage.”

There are a few gasps from the audience, as they clue in to our big announcement.

An announcement I am more than happy to make.

“Alec and I got married two weeks ago,” I say, and the crowd goes nuts again. And then continues to go nuts as Alec pulls his silver wedding band out of his pocket and puts it on, and then we kiss. A little PDA for the audience, but also for us—because damn, this amazing man is my husband, and I can’t get enough of that. Or of him.

Melissa squeals happily from behind me, reaching to squeeze me on the shoulder, and Su-Lin jumps out her chair to give us both hugs. Even Cece looks really happy for us, and claps Alec on the back.

“Wow,” Krissy says. “Congratulations!”

She moves on to talking with Cece about what it was like to win the show, and her strategy, but all I can do is think of that little private ceremony we had two weeks ago. Just us in our apartment with a minister and those closest to us—my parents, of course, and Felix and Jenna and Ty, along with my friends Jamie and Martina. Jamie had decorated the apartment with flowers, and Martina and Jenna helped me with my hair and makeup. And while it may have seemed weird to have my groom’s ex acting as bridesmaid, it didn’t to me. Jenna and I get along really well; she and Felix are every bit as awesome as Alec says. And the girl can bake a pretty amazing wedding pie.

It was a small wedding, not incredibly fancy—I wore a white silk cocktail dress, and there wasn’t so much an aisle to walk down as a hallway, and Ty was very happily both ring-bearer and flower-boy—but it was absolutely perfect. Because it was us, surrounded by love and pledging our lives to each other. Pledging to keep that conversation going forever, through whatever life throws at us.

Pledging to face it together. With my best friend, the man I love with all my heart. My husband.

And Mom got to see it all, with tears shining in her eyes, on a day she could understand what was happening and really share in our happiness. I don’t know how long she’ll have that memory, but I’ll keep it for her, always.

Krissy wraps up the show, and presents Cece with the giant novelty check for a million dollars, and Cece holds up that and her Starvies statue. A handsome older woman who must be Cece’s wife runs up on stage and they hug and kiss and weep, and the audience claps and cheers, and Alec and I clap and cheer with them.

We may have lost that final challenge, the money, and the show, but neither of us mind a bit.

Because the truth is, we totally and completely won.

Acknowledgments

There are so many people we’d like to thank for helping make this book a reality. First, our families, especially our incredibly supportive husbands Glen and Drew, and our amazing kids. Thanks also to our writing group, Accidental Erotica, for all the feedback, and to Heather and Anh for braving the beta read.

Special thanks to Stephanie, whose insight was invaluable to Jillian’s character. Thanks to Michelle of Melissa Williams Design for the fabulous cover, and to our agent extraordinaire, Hannah Ekren, for her love and enthusiasm for these books. Thanks to Amy Carlin for being a proofreading goddess, and thanks to everyone who read and gave us notes throughout the many drafts of this project—your feedback was so greatly appreciated.

And a very special thanks to you, our readers. We hope you love these characters as much as we do.

Janci Patterson got her start writing contemporary and science fiction young adult novels, and couldn’t be happier to now be writing adult romance. She has an MA in creative writing, and lives in Utah with her husband and two adorable kids. When she’s not writing she can be found surrounded by dolls, games, and her border collie. She has written collaborative novels with several partners, and is honored to be working on this series with Megan.

Megan Walker lives in Utah with her husband, two kids, and two dogs–all of whom are incredibly supportive of the time she spends writing about romance and crazy Hollywood hijinks. She loves making Barbie dioramas and reading trashy gossip magazines (and, okay, lots of other books and magazines, as well.) She’s so excited to be collaborating on this series with Janci. Megan has also written several published fantasy and science-fiction stories under the name Megan Grey.

Find Megan and Janci at www.extraseriesbooks.com

Other Books in the Extra Series

The Extra

The Girlfriend Stage

Everything We Are

The Jenna Rollins Real Love Tour

Starving with the Stars

My Faire Lady

You are the Story

How Not to Date a Rock Star

Beauty and the Bassist

Su-Lin’s Super-Awesome Casual Dating Plan

Ex on the Beach

Chasing Prince Charming

Turn the page to read the beginning of My Faire Lady, a direct sequel to The Extra.

One

Gabby

The first day of a new job has always been super stressful to me. I suppose this is probably one of those eternal truths that applies to everyone, but I think I’ve broken the bell curve with how many first days of a new job I’ve had to endure—and how many of those turned out to coincide with the last day of a new job.

I may have a bit of a complex about it.

But the past three years have been different. I have a career I love. I have a boyfriend I love even more. I have a punch card at the closest sub sandwich place that is only one punch away from a free sandwich. (Okay, that last one doesn’t apply as much, but I’m happy about it.)

So a new job—a side gig to bring in a little extra income for rising rent and twice-a-week Fong’s delivery—shouldn’t be a problem. I can handle this.

If I can just find which person running around dressed like they came from the set of Game of Thrones is my boss.

“Excuse me,” I say to a heavyset woman in a bright red corset and full black skirt, who is carrying an armful of what looks like leather . . . harnesses? For horses? For the Renaissance faire nightclub after-party? Who knows.

She blinks at me, looking harried. Everyone hustling around looks a bit harried, which I guess makes sense. It’s opening day of the Glendale Renaissance Faire, and only an hour before the gates officially open to ticketed customers.

“Do you know where I can find Maggie Hanson? I’m supposed to check in with her, but I never heard where, and—”

“I’m sorry, love,” the woman says, shaking her head. “I’m a first-year vendor. I don’t know where she’d be.”

I sigh. “Okay, thanks for—”

But the woman has already bustled off, the buckles in the stack of harness things—that she’s selling, apparently?—clinking as she scurries.

I look around. I’m in an open area just inside the entrance, which is made to look like a castle wall with turrets on either side. There’s a building to my right with festival t-shirts and oversized beer tankards for sale. In front of that is a small booth marked “Information,” which seems the logical place to start, but no one is there. To my left is a big building that connects to the entrance wall, and also looks like it’s supposed to be part of a castle. I see the top of what looks like another turret jutting up in the distance on the other side of the faire. Is there more than one castle here? This place is huge and sprawling, and it’s hard to tell.

For all that I grew up not terribly far from here, and this faire has been in existence quite likely my whole life, I’ve never actually been to a Renaissance faire. My parents were not Faire People. Or Disneyland People, for that matter. They were (and are, even in depleted financial circumstances) Brunch at the Country Club People.

It meant my siblings and I grew up in a huge house and had no lack of private tutors—or my siblings didn’t, since they were the ones my parents felt most inclined to encourage in their pursuits—but clearly we missed out on a few things.

A louder clinking noise, more like a metallic thunk, catches my attention. I turn to see a knight in shining armor—literally, because the sunlight is gleaming from his breastplate—striding confidently (if not quickly) by.

“Excuse me,” I say. Maybe the metal helmet isn’t great for hearing, because he keeps walking. “Hey! Knight guy!”

If I didn’t already guess the moment it left my mouth that this is not the proper way to address a knight, the expression on his face would be confirmation enough.

“Yes, my lady?” His tone is polite, but in a long-suffering kind of way.

I’m a bit charmed by being called “my lady.” And yeah, maybe by being called “my lady” by a handsome knight who looks like Channing Tatum playing Sir Lancelot.

I may have a gorgeous boyfriend I’m crazy in love with, but I’m still a woman, for god’s sake.

“I’m looking for Maggie Hanson,” I say. “I’m starting today as the faire nurse, and I need to—”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you,” he says, his blue eyes cold. “I haven’t seen her. Good day.”

And then he bows, like this ridiculous courtly bow, and thunks off again without another word. So much for chivalry. I can’t help but think the real Channing Tatum would have been a lot more helpful.

“I know where she is,” a woman’s voice says from behind me, and I turn to see a girl about my age, with orange-red hair pinned up on her head in elaborate winding braids. She has a spray of freckles across her face and is wearing a black corset over a blousy white top and muted brown skirt. I know that once the faire opens to customers, I won’t be the only person wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but right now I definitely feel underdressed.

“Really?” I say. “Thank you so much.”

“Don’t mind Sir Stick-Up-His-Ass,” she says. “He’s like that with everyone, like we’re all back in high school and he’s the knights’ star quarterback. Bunch of meathead jocks, the lot of them.” But she looks a little fond as she watches him walk away.

“Um, okay.”

“I’m Delia.” She offers her hand and a warm smile, which I return. “So you’re the nurse this year? I thought Sheena was doing it again.”

Sheena is a nurse who works with me at the hospital, and the reason I even knew about this job to begin with. “She was, but had to go back to Calgary for a couple weeks for a family emergency,” I say. What I don’t say is that judging by a website she left open on the office computer, I think the “family emergency” is about expanding her Etsy-based business of making felt hats for hamsters to a string of Canadian pet-product trade shows. “But she knew I could use a little extra cash, so she referred me to Maggie.”

Delia’s eyes widen in mock surprise. “You mean you’re actually making real-life money here?”

I laugh. I am, which is part of what makes the job worth doing. “As opposed to what, Monopoly money?”

“Not far off. The pay’s pretty pathetic for most jobs here, but if you want to work the Ren faire circuit, you’ve got to pay your dues.” She gestures at herself. “Second-year local Beer Wench today, possible full-fledged traveling troupe member ten years from now.”

I’m not sure if she’s being sarcastic with that timeline or not, so I just smile and act like I get it. I follow Delia as she walks towards a large pavilion with two throne-looking chairs that a woman is draping with velvety fabric, while a man in a long tunic is messing with some floral garlands. Off to the side, a tall, thin woman in a regal-looking blue and gold gown is surveying the scene and frowning.

“That’s Mama Mags,” Delia says, pointing at the frowning woman.

“Mama Mags?”

“She keeps things running, and keeps everyone in line.” Delia smiles. “As well as she can, I suppose. Anyway, she’s a bit of a hard-ass, but she’s actually pretty sweet once you get to know her. She’ll get you set up at the first aid station.”

“Thank you,” I say with real feeling. I’m not sure how much longer I could have wandered around feeling like some invisible time traveler before I gave up and went home.

Okay, maybe I’m even more stressed about this first day than I let myself believe.

“No problem!” Delia says. “And when you need a break from skinned knees and archery wounds, come over to the Prancing Pig Pub and I’ll get you a well-deserved tankard.” She grins and walks off.

Did she say archery wounds?

I shake my head and then draw in a breath, readying myself to meet my employer. Reminding myself again that I am not the girl I was three years ago. I have skills now, and they need them here. And they sure as hell don’t have time to find someone else in the next half-hour.

I take out my cell phone and look at the message Will sent. You got this, Gabby. Love you. Followed by a heart and a top hat emoji.

I smile again. He’s right. I’ve got this.

“Ms. Hansen?” I say, as I approach the woman Delia pointed out. I don’t call her “Mama Mags”—that feels like something one has to earn the right to call someone.

The woman in the regal gown turns toward me, still frowning. She’s an older woman, maybe mid-fifties, with a stance equally as regal as her gown, her gray-streaked dark hair pulled back into a tight bun. The front of her full skirt is this gorgeous stitched-gold pattern that catches the sunlight.

Now I feel really underdressed. And maybe like I’m about to have my knuckles slapped with a ruler.

“Yes?” she says, a little imperiously.

“I’m Gabby Mays, the nurse. We talked on the phone the other day?” That last part becomes a question, because now I’m wondering if it’s against the rules to mention modern technology. Should I have said something about speaking via carrier pigeon?

“Yes, of course,” she says, and shakes my hand briskly. It definitely sounds like the same woman—terse and efficient. “Follow me.” Then, like a true courtly lady, she practically glides across the patchy grass and dirt paths, and I follow behind, feeling far less graceful.

We go back toward the entrance and I find a small shack tucked away next to the side of the “castle”—which I see now has a sign that says “King’s Feast Hall.” The small shack, though, has a much smaller sign that reads “Infirmary.”

She pushes open the door and flicks on a light switch (which, good, I was hoping I wouldn’t be required to treat patients by candlelight.) The room is small, probably about the size of one of our typical rooms at the hospital. There’s a wooden cabinet and small table against one wall, two stools in the corner, and a narrow cot with a thin mattress against the other.

And that’s pretty much it.

Maggie strides over to the opposite wall and pushes back some curtains to let in light and breeze through an open window, which is nice, though the sunlight only serves to emphasize the dust motes in the air. I cough.

Maggie narrows her dark eyes like she suspects I’m judging her infirmary. Which I am, but trying not to show it.

Then she reaches into the gorgeously embroidered pouch hanging from her belt and pulls out a disappointingly modern-looking key ring. It’s the kind used by every school janitor in the history of ever, including, apparently, those of the medieval variety. She finds a key and removes it, handing it to me. “This is for the medicine cabinet. As you can imagine, there’s not much in the way of actual medicine in there, for liability reasons. But you’ll find Neosporin, bandages, some Tylenol . . . basic things.”

I nod. I figured as much. I’m pretty much the school nurse of the Ren faire. Which doesn’t sound like it’ll be much help if Delia was being serious about the archery wounds thing. But probably she wasn’t. Probably.

“I’m guessing the bulk of what I’ll be doing is treating scrapes, giving water to people who’ve gotten dehydrated, that kind of thing?” I ask. I notice there’s a flat of water bottles under the cot.

Maggie nods. “Correct. Occasionally people pass out from the heat, and if the workers can’t lift them—if they are some of our, say, larger patrons—we’ll come get you.”

I blink. “And I’m supposed to lift them?”

“You’re supposed to keep them alive until the ambulance comes,” she says dryly.

Of course. I suppress a cringe.

“You will not refer to yourself to the patrons as a nurse,” Maggie continues, straightening out the blanket on the cot, brushing it smooth like it’s one of those fancy department store bed displays and not a leftover army cot that probably came from the set of M.A.S.H. “Your title is Healer Wench.”

I’m glad she’s facing away from me so she doesn’t see the way my nose instinctively wrinkles. Healer Wench? I mean, apparently wench is a term embraced by women here—Delia didn’t seem to mind being a “Beer Wench”—but I don’t love all the work I’ve put into nursing reduced to something that sounds like I brew up potions made with pigs’ feet and energy crystals.

Though I suppose I’m at a Renaissance faire, so maybe that’s the point.

“Do I need to speak in a snooty British accent or anything?” I ask. “You know, for when I tell them I’m going to apply leeches and check their humors?” I’m mostly joking about this—mostly—but Maggie does not seem amused.

“Never tell them you’re applying leeches,” she says, sternly enough that I can only assume this has happened before to disastrous results. “For liability reasons, you must be absolutely accurate in reference to any treatment you’re providing.” She pauses. “And no need for an accent. Though you should call the patrons ‘my lord’ and ‘my lady,’ the children ‘young sir’ or ‘young miss,’ that sort of thing. Can you handle that?”

My palms feel sweaty. I would absolutely think I could handle that, but the way she’s eyeing me is bringing back flashes of every former employer who fired me for something equally small and stupid. “Yes, of course. Definitely.” I swallow, knowing I should just leave it there, but I can’t help myself. “I mean, if I forget once and call someone, you know, ‘ma’am’ instead, is that a fireable offense?”

Maggie stares at me for a long, long, deeply uncomfortable moment. “You will get fired if someone is hurt and you’re off having sex with a knight. You won’t be doing that, will you?”

She says this with such accusation that I have the feeling this is something they’ve dealt with more often than malpractice suits for medieval leech treatments.

“No!” I say quickly. “I have a boyfriend! A really cute boyfriend!”

I’m not sure why I add this last part. I mean, it’s true, and I’m proud of it, but—

She still just stares at me, her eyes narrowed.

“He’s real,” I say, feeling myself flush. “Here, let me show you a picture.” I take out my phone, but Maggie shakes her head.

“No need for pictorial evidence,” she says. “I believe you.”

I may be imagining it, but I think I detect a hint of a smile before her expression becomes flat and dour again. “Do you have any other questions?” she asks.

I look around the infirmary and chew my lip. I have about a hundred, most of which are some version of “why am I doing this” or “should I just leave now and save myself more humiliation?”

But that was Gabby of years ago. Gabby of now can totally handle the first day of a job—after all, she killed it at her first day at the hospital (okay, maybe “killed it” isn’t the best expression to use for one’s first official day as a nurse—everyone under my care did manage to survive.)

Nurse Gabby can totally handle whatever minor issues a two-week gig at a Renaissance faire will throw at her.

I clear my throat. “No, I think that covers it.”

Maggie nods, clearly approving of not needing to deal with me further. “Wonderful. Now you just need to pick up your costume.”

“My costume?” I have a moment of hope that maybe Healer Wenches get to wear something gorgeous and fancy like her gown. Although I wonder how hot that must get, all those layers in the southern California summer, with practically no ventilation in here, and—

“Correct. You will wear a corset and skirt, which you can acquire at the costume rental shop. They have some set aside for employees in the back.”

A corset? I suppose I should have guessed; I haven’t seen any woman here wearing anything that didn’t look like it was squeezing her ribcage shut in an attempt to smother her with her own boobs. No one except Mama Mags, that is.

For two weeks?

I try to hide my dismay. “Will do,” I say.

Maggie doesn’t say anything else, just sweeps back out of the infirmary. I look around at the cheap cot and the cabinet full of things about as helpful to actual medical issues as Tic Tacs. A group of belly dancers walks by the door outside, their gold-chain apparel jingling, and a guy in peasant clothes follows after, leading a horse that drops a steaming load right outside my door.

Two weeks, I tell myself with a sigh. A little extra cash, which we need. I can do this.

Then I step over the pile of horse crap and go to pick up my corset.

Two

Gabby

When I get home from the ren faire—still wearing my corset—I’m glad to have the night off. I’m still working shifts at the hospital on top of the ones at the faire, but at least I’m off from school for the summer. I’m almost finished with my RN, after which I will have to pick up even more shifts to pay back my monstrous student loans.

It’s still worth it. I may be working long hours, but I love my job, and I’m good at it. And I’ve yet to lose this job over a rogue microwave fire (which I now know is not the real reason Will fired me all those years ago at the bookstore. But still.) I’m also making enough that Will has plenty of time to work on his next novel, only picking up side work consulting on scripts when he absolutely has to.

Uncomfortable medieval-wear aside, my life is pretty great. I mean, yeah, we’ve been having sex less often lately. Like, significantly less often. And maybe that’s starting to worry me a bit. But, really, that’s a thing that happens to couples, right? Life is busy and stressful and tiring, and wild bouts of passion take a backseat to spending the rare date night falling asleep at ten PM while watching House Hunters: International.

But I’m definitely excited to show my wonderful, sexy boyfriend how amazing my boobs look in this outfit. Maybe this ridiculous garb is just the kickstart we need to remember how much we can’t keep our hands off each other.

When I open the door, he’s sitting in the living room in a t-shirt and flannel pajama pants, scowling at his laptop.

“What did it do to you?” I ask.

“Hmm?” Will says absently. The glazed-over look he gets when he works is pretty adorable. As is the way his blond hair curls in this mussed bed-head way. “Oh. I went to critique group today, and they complained that they can’t tell how my character is feeling in this scene. But it says right there. ‘He felt unsure.’”

I’m about as comfortable making suggestions of how to fix Will’s book as I am wearing a corset. “Maybe you should add more words to get your point across.”

Will raises an eyebrow at his laptop. “‘I am confused,’ he said unsurely.”

“Maybe he’s hesitant,” I add.

He finally cracks a smile, which forms that dimple in his left cheek that I love so much. “‘I hesitate to tell you how unsure I am,’ he said confusedly.”

“There,” I tell him. “I’m sure that will fix it.”

“I should actually make that change and resubmit it. I’m sure that would be the best use of my critique partners’ time.”

“Could be good for a laugh.”

Will finally looks up at me, and his raised eyebrow rises yet higher. “Hey. Nice . . . costume?”

I put a hand to my chest in mock offense. Mostly, though, I’m just trying to draw his eye there, and it seems to work. “You mean you don’t like my new look?”

“I’d like to get you out of it,” he says with a smile, and my heart flutters eagerly. I’m also hoping it’s easier to get out of this corset than into it—I have a feeling I’m going to need the girl at the costume shop to tie me in every morning before work, like she did today.

I tug at the ends of the laces invitingly, but he’s already looking back at his computer and not making any move to help me. Which is disappointing, though I try not to show it.

Corset still on (in case he decides at any moment he needs to free me from it and ravish me), I sit down on our other couch, the one that is missing all of its cushions. It’s not the most comfortable piece of furniture and wasn’t all that attractive even before it became reduced to a thinly-covered bed of metal springs, but it’s endearing in its own way.

“They’re really making you work in that?” Will asks. “That seems a little demeaning.”

“Oh, it gets better,” I tell him. “My official title is Healer Wench.”

“Dear god. Are you sure you want to do this job?”

I shrug. “It pays decently, and all I have to do is apply a few bandages and tell people to drink more water. Plus, we can use the money.”

Will looks over at the counter, where the mail has piled up. “We got a notice from the landlord. It’s time to renew our lease, and the rent is going up again.”

Great. We’ve been having a hard time making it as is. “Do you think we should look for a new place?” I ask. “It might be that or cut back on our Fong’s delivery, and you know which I prefer.”

“I don’t disagree with you,” Will says. He loves Fong’s almost as much as I do, and I like to think it’s not just because that’s where we had our first real make-out session (much to the chagrin of our waiter.) “But I doubt there’s anything better available now than last time we looked.”

“There was that one place a few blocks from here. It cost less and wasn’t terrible.”

Will looks at me skeptically. “You mean the place that was definitely a meth palace?”

“Yeah, that one,” I say. “The prostitute out front seemed very nice. Maybe I could be friends with her. Convince her to take night classes.”

“I’m pretty sure she works nights,” Will says, but at least he’s smiling again now.

“I don’t know. She seemed like she was working days when she quoted you her rates.”

Will groans. “Yes. I remember. And that’s precisely why I don’t think we should move there.”

I shrug. “We can stay. I can always pick up a few extra shifts.”

“You’re working too much as it is. Especially since you’ve been sick.”

“I was barely sick,” I say, even though that sinus infection I had a few weeks ago hurt like an army of ants had crawled up my nose and were working on colonizing my brain. “And the antibiotics worked great. I’m fine now.”

Will looks unconvinced. “You should be able to get sick without worrying about being evicted. Really, I should get a job.”

I press my lips together. This is the reason I hate it when we have this conversation. Will needs space to work on his writing. I don’t want him to get a job. “Do you think?” I say. “Because we’ll be okay. We can reduce our Fong’s delivery to one night a week. And I’m sure there are other places we can cut back.”

Will looks dubious. “You know I appreciate you giving me time to write. But with my novel not selling—”

“Yet,” I say. “Your novel hasn’t sold yet. But you’re working on another one.”

“Slowly.”

“Yeah, well. It takes time.”

I hate the defeat in his eyes. I know he’s discouraged. We were both so excited when he signed on with a good agent in New York, but it turns out that even good agents sometimes don’t sell the first book in the first year. Or the second.

“It’ll be okay,” I say. “I don’t want you to give up on your dream.”

Will frowns. “I know. But I hate making you work so much just so I can not sell books. And meanwhile, we have rent we can’t really afford and a couch with no cushions—”

“Hey.” I throw my arm around the back of Cushionless Couch like she might be offended. That takes more coordination than I have, given that the back is so high without any cushions. So my arm ends up awkwardly sticking in the air like I’m giving some sort of cheer. “Cushionless Couch has character.”

“Like Bertrude the coffee maker?”

“Don’t say bad things about Bertrude. She might hear you and start farting old coffee grounds again.” I pause. “I did mean to get new cushions for this couch. And never babysit our neighbor’s terrier again.” I left that demon dog alone for ten minutes while I took a shower, and when I came back, the room looked like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man had exploded.

“Where would you even get new cushions?” Will asks. “Buy a couch at Goodwill and leave the couch part behind?”

“Maybe,” I say, stretching out and trying not to wince as one of the springs digs into my hip. “But there’s something comforting about lying beneath the high walls on three sides of a cushionless couch. Like a coffin, but one you could easily roll out of.”

Will laughs. “I have so many questions about that statement I don’t even know where to begin.”

At least he’s laughing about it. Though his laughter fades into another groan and he looks over at me wearily again. “I forgot to tell you Sean called. He wants to get together for a barbecue.”

Yikes. Will and his brother Sean haven’t really talked to each other much over the last few years, and I know part of that is because Will doesn’t get along with Sean’s girlfriend, Audra. I’m pretty sure another large part is because Will is still embarrassed about the time he set me up with Sean, back when Will was still engaged to Sarah. Sean made a big show of kissing me in front of Will—without mentioning to either of us that he’d gotten back together with Audra a few days previous.

I don’t think Will has ever really gotten over it.

“That could be . . . fun,” I say.

Will gives me a look that screams oh really. He sighs and rubs at his forehead. “Last time I saw him and Audra, Audra called you a slut.”

“What?”

“She was talking to Sean in the kitchen, and I don’t think she realized anyone heard it, but I sure as hell did. And left before I said something a lot worse back.” He glares at the far wall.

I cringe. The last time he saw them was about six months ago, but I don’t blame him for not mentioning this to me before now. He tries to avoid even talking about his family—and by extension, Audra—and it’s always been clear that she’s not my biggest fan. But. “She knows that I wasn’t aware they were back together when he kissed me, right?”

“Well, apparently she’s told my mom about how obsessed you were with Sean and how you threw yourself at him, so I’m guessing that’s what Sean told her.” He sounds pretty pissed about this, and honestly, I’m not much happier.

For one thing, it’s been years since that date with Sean. I’m clearly not the one with the obsession problem here. And I threw myself at him? Seriously?

I’m not all that close to Will’s parents, mainly because Will isn’t all that close to Will’s parents. They’re pretty self-centered and absorbed in their own lives, and my brand of awkwardness in uncomfortable social situations doesn’t mesh with their brand of long pauses and general lack of humor. But I don’t love that his parents have been thinking of me as some hussy who settled for Will because I couldn’t get Sean. When really, I only went out with Sean in the first place to try to convince myself I wasn’t in love with Will, who was engaged at the time.

Though I’m not sure how great that version makes me sound, either.

“Okay,” I say, toying with the frayed edges of a tear in Cushionless Couch’s upholstery. “That makes me less thrilled about hanging out with them.” Will nods, like this is the end of the conversation, but I know that it shouldn’t be. “But he’s still your brother. And you guys used to be close, right?”

“Yeah, well,” Will says. “Things change.”

I hold in a sigh. I feel kind of bad for getting in the middle of things between Sean and Will, though objectively I know it’s Will’s fault I ended up there in the first place—my reasons for going out with Sean aside, it was Will who started the whole thing. I wouldn’t have even known he had a brother if Will hadn’t made such a big deal about how I needed to go on a blind date with Sean, how we’d be “perfect for each other.”

I wasn’t the only one trying to hide my feelings.

Things may have worked out for Will and me (and Sean and Audra, I suppose), but I still wish Will and Sean’s relationship hadn’t been collateral damage. “You can’t hate him forever just for kissing me,” I say.

“Not hate,” Will say, narrowing his eyes. “That’s too strong a word. I feel . . . dislike. Discomfort. Irritation, maybe. And definitely resentment.”

“I don’t know what your critique group is talking about,” I tell him. “You’re clearly a master at describing emotion.”

“‘I am annoyed at this uncomfortable awkwardness,’ he said irritably,” Will says. “Not at you, though. At me. And at Sean.”

“We only kissed that one time,” I remind him. I pause. “Well, twice. And I spent the whole time trying not to imagine I was kissing you. If it helps, you’re a much better kisser than your brother.” There’s a sentence I never thought I would have cause to say. High School Gabby is actually kind of proud.

“Thanks,” Will says dryly. He runs a hand through his hair, mussing the curls even more. “I’m really not upset with you. I’m mad at myself for being stupid and making it weird. And not breaking up with Sarah when I should have and asking you out myself. And pissed at Sean for being such a jerk to you.”

“I’m over it,” I tell him. And I am. I was pretty much over it by the time the big bruise on my face healed from when I ran away from Sean and right into a giant statue of Ganesh. And definitely by the time Will and I got together.

“Yeah, but I’m not,” Will says.

“You told your mom the truth, right?” We may not see them often, but I definitely don’t want Audra’s (or really, Sean’s) version of what happened to be at the forefront of their minds every time we do have one of our already socially painful interactions.

“I may have told her that you had absolutely no interest in Sean, which was also a lie.”

“I prefer that one.”

“I also told him no barbecue.”

“Really?” I say. Truth-stretching and slander aside . . . “I mean, it would have been free food.”

“If we want a barbecue, we could ask Ben and Wyatt to throw us one. Or we can tell your brother we want to come over for dinner. You know he and Jenna wouldn’t mind.”

He’s right, but that’s not the point. We sit in silence for a little bit, and probably he’s lost in his thoughts about his brother and family, or maybe his novel. And I can’t help but notice that despite his comment earlier about my corset, he hasn’t gotten up or even set aside his laptop to invite me onto his lap. I try not to take it personally; talking about his family or our rent problems isn’t particularly conducive to being in the mood for sexy times. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get in the mood. I flip over on Cushionless Couch and prop myself up on my elbows, squeezing my boobs in his direction.

Will doesn’t seem to notice. “Are you hungry?” he asks. “I think I’m going to get started on dinner.”

I’m about to tell him we’ll order in Fong’s so that he can focus on getting me out of my corset, but then remember I’d said we’d cut back on ordering in.

Stupid money. Stupid Sean. Stupid life.

Stupid me, I add before I realize it.

Because it’s not like our lives have ever been incredibly smooth and easy. We’ve always lacked in the money and career-stability department—my nursing job somehow being the one exception. Because that’s not exactly new, it’s hard for me to believe that it’s really Sean or our rent or Will’s critique group that account for his recent lack of interest in our sex life. Maybe this isn’t just a normal couples thing. I don’t want to believe it’s because of the weight I’ve gained—only ten pounds in the three years we’ve been together, and Will says he can’t even tell, but I can’t help but think that’s a lie. A kind lie, but still.

I’m not sure what else the problem could be besides me.

Three

Gabby

I’m still unsettled as I drive to work the next day. Which is crazy. Just because Will didn’t follow up on his comments about getting me out of my corset, and fell asleep early, and once again we didn’t have sex . . . It doesn’t mean anything about us.

Right?

I ease my grip on the steering wheel, inch up further on the slow-moving freeway. My car makes a rattling noise, which it does pretty much all the time now. I’ve had this same car since I started college, and now I’m pretty sure it’s being held together with duct tape and pride. Not my pride, but its own indomitable will to prove my judgmental sister Dana wrong by not becoming “a dormant pile of metal only fit for housing raccoons.”

I should get it checked out, but that, too, requires money we don’t really have, and I don’t want to stress Will out more.

Because that’s what it is, I’m sure. He’s stressed about finances, and his book not selling—yet—and I’m stressed about finances and a job that requires a corset and basic knowledge of faux-medieval language. And all that makes us sort of out of sync right now.

The Hyundai makes a little whine.

Although it has been going on like this for a while now. The thing with Will, not the whine. We’ve been together for three years, and I hear all the time about peoples’ sex lives getting stuck in a rut. It doesn’t feel that way to me, but that doesn’t mean Will isn’t feeling . . . stuck.

The idea that he might feel stuck with me is what makes my heart twist.

I sigh, switching lanes even though I know it’s futile. Sure enough, the lane I left is now moving—and I, sadly, am not. My phone rings.

My brother’s pic pops up, and I answer on speaker.

“Hey, Felix,” I say, though occasionally it’s Ty calling from my brother’s phone with a burning need to tell me about his latest Super Smash Brothers game—which I pretend to know anything at all about.

“Hey,” Felix says, and while I love talking to my adorable nephew, I’m glad that I don’t need to feign interest in some character named King K. Rool while navigating LA freeway traffic. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, you know. Choking on car exhaust. Listening to some K-Pop from the next car over.”

This is, indeed, true. My car’s AC is on the fritz, and so, apparently, is the Miata’s next to me, which is blasting the music of some Korean boy band along with the driver’s pitchy accompaniment.

“Ah,” Felix says. “That explains the music. You on your way to the hospital, or back home?”

It’s a testament to life as a nurse that at nine AM on a weekday morning, it could be either.

“Neither,” I say, as my lane finally starts moving, allowing me to leave the K-Pop a few car lengths behind. “I’m actually on my way to my other job. At the Ren faire.”

“Oh, yeah!” Felix sounds too excited about this. “That’s this week? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because when I first mentioned it to you, you said—and I quote—‘Oh man, I can’t wait to come down there and mock you.’”

“That does sound like me.”

“I assumed that’s why you were calling—to find out when I’d be working, for mocking purposes.” The cars ahead move forward, and I feel a sudden freedom, gunning my old Hyundai.

And then stopping again about four seconds later.

“Good guess, but no,” Felix says. “Ty has a school project coming up where he needs to interview someone whose job he admires, and he picked you. I wanted to give you the heads-up to prepare, because he’s going to want all the gory wound stories, and he also thinks you’ll teach him how to give people shots.”

I totally will—on fruit, at least.

“He admires my job?” I say, a happy little warmth squeezing at my chest. It’s so nice to have a job I love, let alone one that my nephew could admire and want to learn more about—even if I get that, as a nine-year-old, he’s primarily in this for the wound stories.

Felix laughs. “Oh yeah. He’s way more impressed with your job than ours.”

This feels like a pretty epic achievement, considering his parents are literal pop stars. His mom has been one for years, as part of the pop duo Alec and Jenna. And though now she and Felix aren’t quite as big of music sensations—playing a more indie sound, and even some classical—they still play sold-out shows on national tours and have legions of screaming fans.

Alec, so I hear, is off filming some reality show in South America, so they’re doing a hell of a lot better than him.

But I guess if that’s what a kid grows up with, it’s not as big a deal. Probably even Blake Pless and Kim Watterson’s kids are like, “Oh yeah, my parents are mega-famous movie stars, whatever. But you say you sort mail at the post office? That’s awesome!”

So maybe I shouldn’t be too proud of his job preference.

“Well, tell him I’ll be happy to help,” I say, then sigh as the K-Pop car passes me.

“Hey, are you okay? You sound kind of down.”

“I should be happier about being stuck in traffic on my way to a Ren faire to remove splinters and tell people to drink more water?”

“Is that what you’re actually unhappy about?”

Damn Felix. He didn’t used to be this insightful—I blame all that recovery therapy.

Still, it would be nice to have someone to talk over my worries with. I’d planned on calling my best friend, Anna-Marie, and still probably will, but maybe the male perspective could be useful.

“Not entirely, no,” I admit. “I’m just . . .” I pause, not sure how to jump right into this. With my brother. Who has always been a lot more comfortable talking to me about his sex life than I have with him—probably because he’s had a sex life for a much longer time than I have. “I know you and Jenna haven’t been married that long, but . . . do you ever feel like you might need to spice up your sex life?”

There’s a long pause, in which I begin to have regrets.

I’m about to make those fake static noises and tell him the call is cutting out and hang up, when he finally speaks.

“What does that even mean?” Felix asks.

“What? It means what I asked! I don’t think that question could have been clearer!” Then it occurs to me that I have no idea what kind of freaky stuff they do in the bedroom—or elsewhere. Jenna had a lot of previous experience before Felix—even more than he did before her, which was not insignificant—and though I know much of that time of her life was really awful and traumatic, it doesn’t mean she didn’t find some crazy sex stuff that her and Felix are taking full advantage of now. Maybe they’re already at maximum spice level. “Like, I don’t know, what kind of stuff do you guys do?”

Another pause. “We have sex.”

“Oh my god, Felix, forget it.”

“Okay, okay,” Felix says. “Sorry, I’m just trying figure out what you’re really asking here. Are you worried about your sex life? Is Will?”

He doesn’t seem to be, which is part of the problem. Granted, when I had that sinus infection I wasn’t exactly in the mood, and when the antibiotics finally kicked in, Will was perfectly happy to make up for lost time. But then the next night, when I joined him in bed and cuddled up with him to get something started, he mumbled something about needing sleep and rolled away from me. And that definitely wasn’t the first time that’s happened in the last several months.

Not that I don’t appreciate a good night’s sleep myself, especially now that such things have gotten harder to come by, what with my work schedule. But a year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to imagine a night—no matter the hour—when Will wasn’t ready to go.

I sigh. I’m in this now, might as well see if my brother has any sage advice. “I may be a little worried,” I say. “It’s not that it’s not great, you know . . . when it happens.”

“Oh. So it’s more a frequency thing?”

“Yeah, maybe. And that when we do, it seems like it’s always me instigating it. Which I don’t mind, but—I don’t know. He’s just distracted a lot, and . . . and yeah. It’s just not happening as much anymore.”

“Okay, yeah,” Felix says. “But once you get past the infatuation phase, that happens, right? It turns into a more mature love.”

He’s right, I know this, but it’s still trippy hearing my little brother tell me about “mature love.” My little brother, who is a husband and a father. Who somehow fits into both those roles—loves both those roles—like they were the ones he was born for.

It’s trippy, but it also makes me so happy to see. Especially after where he was a year ago—in his third stint of rehab after years of heroin addiction. Lost and scared and resigned to misery.

He’s come a long, long way since then, and I couldn’t be prouder.

“I mean,” he continues, “It’s not like Jenna and I have sex every day anymore, either.”

“Really?” I ask, a little surprised. “How often, then?”

There’s another pause. “Well, almost every day,” he admits, and my pride in my brother notwithstanding, I have the big-sisterly instinct to reach through the phone and punch him. “But it’s a little different for us,” he says quickly. “You know the love languages thing? I’m pretty sure both of our main love language is physical touch. Sex is this really important thing for both of us, like in helping us feel connected. It fills this emotional need that’s way deeper than just the physical.”

I consider this. It makes sense that connecting that way would mean so much to them—especially Jenna, after all she’d been through.

“Not that I’m saying your sex life is just physical,” Felix says in a rush, like he’s worried he’s offended me. “It’s just—”

“No, I get it,” I say, and I’m pretty sure I do. I love having sex with Will—because, um, sex with my gorgeous, amazing boyfriend who I love is incredible—and there’s definitely emotional connection that happens there. But I’m not sure I would say that I feel so much more connected to him that way than, say, when we’re curled up together and joking around with each other, just content in each other’s arms.

Now that I think about it, that hasn’t been happening a lot lately, either.

“So this mature love,” I say. “Do you feel like you guys are there already? I mean, it’s only been a year.”

Felix laughs. “Crazy right? But yeah, I do, and it’s great. We’ve had a lot of excitement over the last year, and I think we’re ready for things to calm down.” I can hear the smile in his voice. “We’re really happy.”

Considering the last year for my brother involved meeting Jenna, shoving her ex-boyfriend off a stage at the VMAs, getting married, adopting Ty, going on tour and then getting stabbed by Jenna’s other ex-boyfriend . . . Yeah. I can see why they’d all be ready for some calm.

But I see them together all the time. And I don’t think they’re going through . . . whatever is happening with Will and me. I suppose that could be because we’ve been together for three years—three much calmer years—and they’ve only been together for one.

“Okay,” I say, “But I see what you guys are like with each other. You always find ways to touch her, like when she’s walking by in the kitchen, or she’ll just come up and put her arms around you. The little things, you know? Intimate moments.”

“And that’s not happening with you guys?” Felix asks.

I shrug, realizing belatedly that the only person who can see me do so is the guy in the Volvo next to me, who is creepily staring at me as his car inches past mine.

God, how far until my exit?

“It’s not that it’s not happening,” I say. “But I feel like lately I’m always the one instigating those moments, too.”

“Have you asked him about it?”

My silence is all the answer Felix needs, apparently.

“You’re scared to ask,” Felix says, and he sounds more concerned now than in any of the rest of the conversation. “What is it you’re afraid he’ll say?”

The pit in my gut swells larger. I don’t want to examine it. I don’t want to think about why Will might not be as into our sex life, or me. I want it to be something that can be fixed with a couple glasses of wine and a fun new sexual position.

But I know my brother, and I know he won’t let me get away without answering the question.

“I don’t know,” I say, squirming a little in my seat, and not because of the creepy Volvo dude winking at me—or at least, mostly not because of him. “At the beginning of our relationship, I was kind of insecure about . . . stuff. Because, you know, I was a virgin, and he—well, he’d been with several girls, but mainly Sarah.” Felix hasn’t met Sarah—lucky guy—but he’s definitely heard all about her. “I thought I was over all that insecurity, but now . . .” I suck my lips inward, not wanting to finish that thought.

“So it’s like a comparison thing?” He sounds dubious.

“Sarah was like a supermodel, Felix. A blond, British supermodel.” She was actually an assistant director for a soap opera, but I’m pretty sure she could have done modeling, were she so inclined. “And I’m blond . . . ish. But definitely not a supermodel. Or British.” I pause. “I’m not all that insecure about the last part.”

But the rest . . . God, I know it’s stupid. Will loves me. And he's definitely way over Sarah. I just can’t help but wonder if he wouldn’t be more interested in taking my corset off if I was Gabby in a Sarah-like body, slim and perfectly waxed—I’m guessing—and not possessing the little cellulite pockets that my Fong’s addiction only makes larger, or the weird mole under my armpit that’s shaped like a tiny Texas. (Actually, Will thinks this mole is hilarious, and says it clearly means I’m destined to be some Texan Messiah with the powers to summon an army of longhorn. So he wouldn’t change that.)

“Gabby,” Felix says, “you’re beautiful. You are. And Will is lucky to have you.”

I sigh. “You’re my brother. You have to say that. You can’t be objective.”

“No, I can only be objective, because I’m your brother,” Felix says. “I don’t find you subjectively attractive.”

I groan. “Fine, smart-ass.” But it does make me feel a little better. “Okay, back to spicing up my sex life.”

“Is that what we landed on as the solution?”

I ignore this jab. “You must do something besides the basic stuff. You guys have lots of experience.”

“Sure,” Felix says. “But I think Jenna associates a lot of that previous experience with being degraded, you know? It wasn’t stuff she wanted to do. And she likes that she doesn’t feel like she has to do that kind of stuff with me. The basic stuff works for us. Really, really well.” I can practically hear the smug grin.

Huh. Basic stuff is how I would describe my own sex life. “So you’re the wrong person to talk to about spicing things up.” I sound a little bitter, but I’m definitely happy about one thing—I’m finally at my exit. “You don’t have any suggestions.”

I cruise off the freeway, away from the creepy stare of Volvo guy and the intermittent K-Pop.

“Chocolate?” Felix says. “Whipped cream? We’ve done that a few times. Once there was a can of cherries, too. That was fun.”

Now there’s an idea. “Ooh. I could make his body into a Breakup Tub!” It’s both my favorite dessert—a Fong’s staple—and has meaning for our relationship, since we officially got together at Fong’s, with a Breakup Tub there at the table, melting away while we made out.

How many layers of sheets would I need so the mattress doesn’t become soaked through with ice cream and chocolate sauce?

“It’s less messy if you apply as you go,” Felix says, since apparently he’s become a mind reader. Or maybe just knows me too well. “Really, though, you should talk to him. Actually ask him what’s going on.”

I know I should, but I don’t want to, and I’m afraid to fully examine why. “I’m almost at the faire, so I probably need to get going. But thanks.”

“For the advice you won’t follow? Anytime.” But it really doesn’t sound like he’s judging me, which I’m grateful for.

We say goodbye, and I hang up and chew on my lip. I probably should talk to Will about it. But instead I find myself calling Anna-Marie and inviting her to meet me for lunch. Because if anyone knows how to spice up one’s sex life, it’s going to be her.

=

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