Walk of Shame

by Gregory, O. L.

  "Okay," I said. "But if I get stranded up here for real, your ass is out tomorrow night."

  He smiled and leaned down to meet my gaze. "If they strand you up here, I'll climb up to rescue you," he promised and leaned down further to kiss me.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck to continue the kiss and he smiled. He hauled me up and straightened, wrapping his arms around me and lifting me off the chair, all the while letting the kiss get out of control. He left me utterly flustered when he put me down and pulled away.

  "I've got to go, my turn is done," he whispered as the chopper crested the peak and found its landing spot.

  Stephen got off with a backpack of his own, and Liam climbed on.

  "Hi," Stephen said, once I'd waved bye to the chopper and turned my attention to him.

  "I thought we weren't going to get aerial shots this week," I said with a smile.

  "It turns out that when I was looking over my list of assignments, I found a couple things I could cross off my list here. I didn't know until this morning that Liam was planning on coming up here. When I found out, I figured this would be the perfect spot for some video work."

  "What do you need to record?"

  "Cloud movement, and then later, a sunset."

  "Haven't sunsets been way overdone?"

  "The park actually asked me to do the sunset when I told the ranger I wanted to come up here to do the clouds. PR wants a time-lapse of it for their state parks website."

  Well, this is going to be boring. I'd just gotten done with sitting here for a few hours. Now I was going to have to sit here in silence for a few more.

  "There won't be any audio turned on. All I have to do is set the cameras up and let them run. Then you and I can pull out the two pair of binoculars I brought along and we can spy on whatever we can find down there."

  "We're going to people watch?"

  "People and animals, yeah. They're good quality binoculars I keep, so I can track whatever it is I'm trying to film or photograph."

  I was amused over this one. I wouldn't have thought to use the height, and people's lack of thinking to look up, as a way to spy on what they were doing.

  He set up the film equipment and handed me a pair of the binoculars. We spent a good chunk of time pointing things out to each other and laughing at our finds. Mountain goats in search of salt, a bear eating its latest kill, a couple going at it a few hundred feet off a trail, a father picking up his toddler to put her on his shoulders halfway through another trail, people waterskiing out on the lake, a bear fishing on an uninhabited part of the shore, the list went on. It was an eye-opening experience. Leave it to Stephen to come up with such an original idea.

  "Ready for dinner?" he asked.

  "Sure."

  He pulled out numbered packets. "I don't cook," he said.

  "I remember."

  "The downside is that I eat out a lot, and buy a lot of pre-made stuff. The upside is that I use my lack of cooking skills to really try the different foods available in the area that I'm in."

  "Okay."

  "I had catering gather samples from the area of different kinds of prepared meats. If you're feeling a bit adventurous, we can sample our way through the American west."

  I gave an overwhelmed sigh, trying to figure out the best way to get myself to participate. "Okay, don't tell me what any of them are until we're done, or I won't be able to try them all. We can each make a like and a dislike pile and then compare. How's that?"

  He smiled. "Deal. And we don't have to eat the entire sample, just enough to get a real taste."

  "Okay."

  After we'd compiled and compared our lists that contained bear, elk, antelope, and the like, he pulled out another set of packets.

  "These are edible plants found in the park. I figured these might be a tamer choice for round two," he teased.

  "Sounds like a walk in the park after the meat."

  "And if you're a good girl, after this I'll brew you some pine needle tea."

  I laughed. "Well, I wouldn't want to miss out on that."

  Once again, I'd had a wonderful time with Stephen and had totally underestimated him. It was something that I needed to stop doing. Every date he planned came as a complete and utter surprise to me.

  I'd half-expected Jared to steal me away next, when we returned to base camp, since he was the only one I hadn't spent time with today. But he made no movements to take me away. I guess he figured his three encounters with me were enough to solidify his getting a spot to stay on for another week.

  At the end of the night, I grabbed a leash and hooked Goldie up to walk her one last time for the night. I rounded some humongous boulders and Phillip came up behind me. I didn't even know he'd come to seek me out. I just thought that the other footsteps behind me all belonged to the crew following me.

  He grabbed me and started backing me up to the boulders, out of sight of any of the other guys. And just like he'd done in the kitchen of the cottage, and behind the main house, he cornered me and kissed me. And just like I'd done each time before, my hands reached around his head. I delved into the familiar kiss and he lifted me off my feet, guiding my legs to wrap around his hips, before his hands landed on my bottom to help hold me up. He leaned into the rock, pinning me against it. He didn't let up on his careful assault until I moaned into his mouth.

  He pulled his head away and gave me a gleaming smile. "Gentle guys wouldn't do this to you," he whispered. "And you like it every time I do it." He turned his attention to my ear, neck, and shoulder, sending tingles down my spine. "What's the difference between me then and me now?"

  "Well," I said between moans and wiggles to get closer, "you're turning me on more than you did before."

  "I'm going to take that as a good thing."

  We made out a little longer before returning to the extinguished fire.

  "I'm sorry, I really am," Troy said from the shadows before my hand could land on the doorknob to my rig. "We have to do the interview before you go to bed."

  Phillip chuckled, gave me a sympathetic look, and headed to his own rig.

  "We can do it tomorrow. First thing in the morning, I'm all yours."

  "All the other interviews are fresh from the same day. Today's should be, too."

  "Do they pay you extra when you torture me more?"

  "Sometimes," he teased with a coaxing smile. "The sooner you give in and we get it done, the sooner you can go to bed."

  I sighed in disgust. "You suck."

  "I know."

  Sunday

  "Even when Stephen is all wind-blown and smelling like a mountain, he still looks damn good," I informed Chloe the next morning.

  She'd gotten up, made a sign for the door, and taped it to the outside, before she grabbed bagels and cream cheese from the breakfast buffet. 'Off Limits: Women Deliberating', it read. I shook my head and told her that production had devices that I was sure would allow them to hear everything we said. She said she didn't care, as long as people stayed out of our hair.

  "So whose life do you see merging with yours the best?" Chloe asked.

  "Stephen, because he doesn't have to be in a particular spot for too long, usually. Phillip's would be easy too, since he mostly does computer work. Then Mike, but the only reason he's third is because he has to stick around specific sites longer. Liam and Jared would be the most difficult. Liam would have way more interesting views, but Jared has all the answers as to how to make life with him work."

  "You just defended all of them when the question I asked merited a one word response."

  "Fine, Stephen and Phillip would probably tie."

  "Pick one," she pushed.

  "Stephen."

  "Why?"

  "Because he can film clouds from anywhere. He can film and photograph stuff along the way and pull the files out if he ever needs them. So, sometimes an assignment is done before he even gets it."

  "Who treats you the best?"

  "Impossible to answer. They're all here
to impress, they all treat me very well. After all," I said and fluttered my lashes at her, "I'm the pretty, pretty princess."

  "Who turns you on the most?"

  "Again, impossible to answer."

  "Unless you start seeing some fault in someone, you're going to have to make them all draw straws."

  "Your idea has merit."

  Chloe rolled her eyes. "I'm not a big fan of Phillip."

  "That's because he's old."

  "It's creepy."

  "Not unless he's Mom and Dad's age, and he's not."

  "You and Jared aren't going to work, you know this. You can't live your life in the swamp. Mosquitoes love to feast on you."

  I sighed so hard. "Everybody keeps telling me that. I just like him so much. In some ways, he's my favorite. I really, really like him."

  She turned serious. "He's swamp boy. He's exotic. He's the summer fling you find on vacation, and then never call him again once you get home. He's a big turn on, granted, but the novelty will wear off."

  "Ugh."

  "With Liam, it's his heritage."

  "Uh, I'm pretty sure it's him."

  "Really? You don't still get lost in the idea of him being Scots?"

  "I've been saying it for weeks. The man behind the accent is awesome."

  "And Mike?"

  "I fall more in like with him all the time. There's just something about him."

  "And Stephen?"

  "He's a constant surprise."

  She shook her head at me. "You have to choose someone to get rid of. If I had to choose, I'd say toss out Phillip or Jared."

  "I'm telling you, drawing straws sounds like a good idea."

  "Okay. I didn't want to have to do this, but I'm going to make this really simple for you."

  "Oh, really. How?"

  "If I asked you which one you wanted to sleep with, you'd have a hard time deciding, right?"

  "Um..." I thought about it, trying to narrow it down to one. "Yeah."

  "Okay. So say you could sleep with four of them, which one would you chose to not sleep with? Who's the last one on your list?"

  "Oh... Oh."

  "See? Easy, right?"

  My smile bordered on the sad side. "Right."

  "Why is that a bad thing?"

  "Because I'll have to say goodbye to him."

  "But at least now you know."

  I sighed. "Yeah."

  The sun was just beginning to set behind me, lighting the clouds in the sky with a myriad of colors. Sequins in my gown were catching the light and sending out reflections onto the sand.

  "Welcome to the Walk of Shame," Troy greeted for the benefit of the camera. "It's been an amazing week here on Lake Placid, in Montana. Emmaline has continued to learn so much about each of you. But, the time has come, once again, for us to say goodbye to one of the men." He paused to turn to me. "It's time for you to make your choices for who is invited to stay another week." With that, he stepped back.

  I smiled at the group of guys. "I appreciate all of your time that you put into planning your ways of spending time with me this week. I'm so grateful that you would try so hard to keep coming up with different things for me to do. And I appreciate, now more than ever, that you're taking so much time away from your lives to see where things with me can go. As you know, this is a near impossible decision for me. That's why I brought out the big guns this week and invited Chloe along. I don't know if she screened you guys so much as she helped me survive the breakneck pace everyone set for me."

  The guys all laughed for my benefit, but they were obviously waiting to find out who was no longer competition for them.

  "Jared, I was wondering if you'd like to continue for another week?"

  Jared smiled and stepped forward. "Absolutely," he said and moved to the line that had been drawn in the sand along the side of the scene production had lain out on our small beach.

  "Mike, I'd really like it if you'd stick around."

  "There's no place I'd rather be," Mike answered and moved to the side.

  "Liam, I want you to stay around, too."

  "You got it," he said and walked over to take a place on the line.

  And now I stopped and sighed. It wasn't for dramatic pause, although I was sure it would be used as such. It was that I didn't want to do this. As much as I wanted to get to the end of this, to know who'd I'd end up with, saying goodbye to someone this week was just something I didn't want to do. I didn't want to close a door with one of them.

  The guys looked up at me expectantly, pushing me to rip off the Band-Aid.

  "Phillip, please stay with me."

  "Of course I will," he said with a comforting smile.

  Stephen forced a smile as he moved to say his goodbyes before Troy could step forward to say anything. He didn't want to linger, having people stare at him in sympathy. It was embarrassing to be in front of the cameras when everyone knew you were the unwanted one.

  I hoped that either the crew couldn't overhear the conversation Chloe and I'd had that morning, or they'd choose not to air it. Because if Stephen knew what had been the deciding factor in his exit, he'd be humiliated all over again.

  I followed him over to the awaiting limo. "Stephen..."

  He shook his head and didn't bother turning around to look at me. "I really don't want to hear it."

  "You surprised me at every turn. I really did enjoy our time together, so much."

  "You're really giving me the 'It's not you, it's me' routine?"

  "It is me and not you," I insisted.

  "Really? Because I didn't think it was about you or me. I thought it was supposed to be about us."

  That stopped me short.

  "I thought we were making strides."

  "We were."

  "I thought we had caught up to your other relationships."

  I sighed. "We were getting there."

  "Then what's the problem?"

  "I still feel like I know more about the others than I do you."

  "Current gossip round the campfire is that Phillip was the one who threw you for a loop this week."

  "Phillip only did one thing that surprised me and put me on guard this week."

  He narrowed his eyes in confusion. "I put you on guard?"

  "No. It's that when one of the others surprises me with something, I can still see them as being the one to do whatever it was. You, I just never see it coming. I think one thing, and you hit me out of left field with something different. And while I like that about you, I can't figure you out. And the fact that I can figure the others out, almost always, but not you, it's off-putting."

  "So I'm being penalized for thinking outside of the box?"

  "Look, I didn't want to get rid of anybody. But I can't get away with that again, it's not fair to all of you. I had to pick somebody. And at this point, I'm the least self-confident with you."

  He let out a noise of disgust and got in the car, slamming the door.

  I took a big breath and turned straight to the camera. "Sometimes I think it's more kind just to let them go. He may have been left to wonder, but at least he wouldn't feel insulted."

  I returned to the guys, who were off to celebrate with shots of vodka all around. The competition had just tightened, but it seemed like they were content to worry about that tomorrow.

  Troy interrupted their jovial mood with some reminders. "We're packing up in the morning, gentlemen. Finalize your plans with production on the exact location you want Emma to arrive when your turn to introduce her to your family comes. And remember to say goodbye to Chloe, she leaves in the morning, as well."

  "Go change, princess," Jared called out. "Let's spend our last night all together just relaxing and enjoying each other's company."

  Chapter Fourteen

  Week Seven - Four Guys Left

  Monday

  It was time to meet all the guys' families. We all put our rigs into storage for the week, before heading out. Three guys went to the airport with Chloe on Monday morning. Ja
red's plane headed for Alabama, Phillip's for Maryland, and Liam's for Edinburg, Scotland. It was easier and cheaper for the network to fly us out, rather than to try to gather family and fly them in.

  Mike lived a nine and a half hour drive away, in Riverton, Wyoming. In quiet whispers, he asked production to arrange for him to drive an SUV the distance, instead of flying. And then, he asked me to make the drive with him. We'd have to drive through Yellowstone and Shoshone National Forest, he'd warned with a hopeful gleam in his eye.

  The thought of it made me smile. They'd have cameras set up in the vehicle and be eavesdropping on everything we said, and there'd be a convoy of vehicles behind us, but the sound of a road trip with limited people immediately around me right now sounded so good.

  Besides, it was either that or I wait around for five hours, so Mike would have time to get family together first, and then we drive the distance behind him. And I'd have to spend the drive being interviewed by Troy. So, um, yeah, I chose to let Mike steal those nine hours, whistled for Goldie, and got into the SUV.

  In retrospect, I should have requested a long-haul drive with each if my suitors. Knowing how we'd get along in the cab of a truck for hours on end could have been very beneficial when considering my future.

  He made his phone calls and told family to gather at his parent's house. The last I heard, his mother had gone into full cooking mode.

  We talked about everything under the sun during those nine hours. And the more we talked, the more I felt myself falling for him. I just simply liked everything about him.

  And I felt safe with him. Every time I hit the road, there'd be this niggling voice in the back of my head. It was my father's voice, talking about all the concerns he had about a lone woman taking to the road by herself. Goldie or no Goldie, there was always a level of nervousness that hit me whenever I set out for a new location and adventure. And it would stay with me until I'd settled into my new surroundings a bit. But this time, no nervousness.

  I'd wondered if it was just because I was with someone, but no, this was different. He was making me feel safe. I took a moment to stop and think if all four of the guys left would each make me feel safe in a similar situation. Two of the others, yes... but damn, I didn't think the fourth one would. That thought made me sigh. If I still felt that same way by the end of this week, I may have just figured out how to narrow it down by one more.