Scorpio

by Lauren Landish

  “Hayden?” Meredith asks, and I look over, realizing that the interview’s over. “What do you think?”

  “I . . .” I start, but before I can half bumble-fuck some answer, my phone rings, and even though I don’t want to talk to anyone, I’m grateful. I look down. It’s Jay, and I look up at Meredith. “Gimme five minutes to talk with my agent?”

  “Jay?” Meredith asks. “Sure. Tell him I said hi, and I’m sending over some contract paperwork to him soon.”

  I answer in the hallway, leaning back against the wall. “Yo, Jay.”

  “Hayden, my man! Way to roll a runner-up slot into an even better gig! Listen, I know I’m not supposed to know, but Meredith was nice enough to reach out to me. She showed me some of the early edits on the first few episodes, at least the parts where you’re on screen. I didn’t think you had it in you, but you were napalm fucking fire on that screen. Women all over the US are gonna be wet for you this fall!”

  That’s just what I want to hear, Jay, totally makes up for what I’ve been through. “Yeah, uh . . . thanks, I guess? It played out how it did. I’m not sure I want to do that again though.”

  There’s silence on the other end of the line, and I know Jay’s sitting in his office, probably trying not to drop his feet from his desk to the carpet and tip over his coffee. “What are you talking about, Hayden? Of course you’re doing it again! It’s the best gig you’ve ever been offered. You’re going to be a fucking one-name celebrity right now, and we’re capitalizing on that. Hell, you need it. While you’ve been gone filming, Frances has been flaming your unprofessional ass all over the industry.”

  “I know. It’s just . . .”

  Jay sighs, and this time I can hear his feet come down off his desk. “She fucking got to you, didn’t she? Man, I saw the videos. The bitch played you. Don’t you dare let that fuck up your career. No way in hell, I’m not letting you do that to yourself.”

  I can’t help but feel a twinge of anger at the words, ‘the bitch’, but I know he’s just trying to show he’s got my back, so I shrug it off. I lean back, bumping my head on the wall and rubbing at my eyes. “Just give me some time, okay? We’ve still got the reunion show to film, and I did actually drag my happy ass down here to talk to Meredith. By the way, she said she’s sending you some paperwork or some shit. Maybe after the reunion show, I can move on.”

  “Uh-uh. No maybe bullshit. After the reunion show, filming starts in three months and you’ll have some promo gigs before that. Get your shit straight and get ready. If I need to, I’m gonna pull out the sofa bed in my house and put you into Matchmaker boot camp. You’re gonna walk onto that second season set ready to own it.”

  I sigh. Why is Jay so worked up about this? The modeling contracts? What? “Okay, whatever, man. I’ll keep it all in mind.”

  After Jay gets off the line, I talk to Meredith for a few more minutes. Nothing big, I don’t think. I hardly hear anything she says. I’m just going through the motions right now.

  “Listen, here’s some of the girls we rejected for the first season. We already reached out to them, asked if they would be interested in being in Season Two. Take a look through the videos. Get back to us if there’s any, in particular, you might want to see on the show.”

  Leaving the studio, I look at the flash drive, tempted to throw it into the street. I don’t know if I can do this . . . any of this. I need to talk to someone about all of this, but I signed a fucking NDA. Fuck it, I know someone who’ll keep quiet and listen to me. I ride back to my apartment and load up the saddlebags of my Harley before hitting the road.

  I drive all night, pulling into my childhood home just as the morning sun is rising over the horizon. The lights are already on, and as I shut off the loud bike, the door opens, my mom smiling warmly at me. She’s dressed for work, looking a little surprised as she sticks her head out of the ranch-style house I grew up in. The paint’s a little faded, but Mom looks just like she did when I last saw her six months ago.

  “Hayden? Baby, you surprised the shit out of me! Get in this house before the neighbors start yelling about the racket at this time of morning.”

  Bending down to give her a big hug, I finally feel myself relax. Five minutes later, I’m sitting down at the table, coffee in front of me, my mom and dad both giving me inquisitive looks as I poke at the plate of bacon and eggs with toast that Mom put together for me. Dad sets his cup down before giving me a tentative smile. “Good to see you, Son. I gotta ask you, though, what brings you here with no call at six in the morning?”

  I thought, as I was riding, that talking about the show would be easy. But sitting here, at the same wood table where I ate countless meals, the same wood table where I learned I’d have to have surgery, and the same wood table where I gave up on baseball forever, I find it hard to talk about. The words come slowly, haltingly at first. Mom and Dad are patient though, listening as I tell them about Frances, about the cattle call for Matchmaker, and about the show itself.

  “And you really have feelings for this young lady?” Dad asks.

  “Something just clicked with us, and it was like no matter what, I wanted to see her, talk to her. I mean, I risked getting kicked off the show over it with all the sneaking around we did. I thought it was mutual, I really did. But I found out I was wrong.”

  “What do you mean?” Mom asks worriedly, and I realize she and Dad are going to be late for work. She glances at the clock and gets up, grabbing the phone and going into the living room. She comes back five minutes later, hanging the phone up. “I called in. We’re taking a half day off. Family emergency.”

  Her simple, unadorned sign of love touches me and I have to clear my throat before I continue. “The producer showed me the videos,” I explain. “Emily and Lee, their confessionals, their . . . dates. It was like a knife in the gut. And so I took the deal Meredith offered. They want me to be the Match for next season.”

  Mom nods like she understands while Dad looks a little perplexed. Then again, his idea of reality television has usually involved touchdowns and strikes. Mom reads him perfectly and explains it quickly to him while I finish my coffee, Dad sitting silently through it all before he speaks.

  “I saw the ads. The premiere episode is supposed to be on tomorrow. I watched what I could just because I knew you were in it, Son. One of the girls at the office told me.”

  “Thanks, Dad, sorry to ruin the ending,” I reply. “Guess you can spend that time watching Baseball Tonight.”

  “Perhaps, but there was something I saw,” Dad says. “Hayden, they showed a lot of the kissing. I guess they wanted to up the heat in the preview or something. Lee, I’m guessing he’s the slick looking one?” When I nod, Dad shakes his head. “Well, one thing I noticed, she never kisses him. He always kisses her for the most part. In the five-minute preview they stuck on the network last week, it seemed like he was the one pushing the issue every time. Seems a little convenient to me.”

  “Okay, so what are you getting at here, Dad?”

  He smiles softly, the same sort of smile he’d get when he was my Little League coach and his hard-headed son was missing something in the game that he knew would be obvious once he explained it right. “No, just seems to me that you thought y’all had something real, and maybe you did, maybe you didn’t. But Lee seems like he’s swooping in all Prince Charming-like, and that’s hard to resist, especially when you don’t see you’re getting set up. Did Emily seem particularly cunning? Skeptical?”

  I shake my head, still not quite getting it. “No, she’s sweet, seemed a little uncomfortable about the whole thing initially. But she seemed to play the game in the end.”

  Dad leans back in his chair, rubbing at his receding hairline which I swear I’ve added at least an inch to over the years. “Okay, let me put it more plain. Who’s the most likely one to get played by a game show . . . you, Lee, or Emily?”

  I realize what he’s saying, understanding dawning. Emily. She’d be the one to get played. She’s
just too sweet and wouldn’t suspect that of someone. But how? What’s Lee’s payoff? Dad raises his coffee mug to me, saluting. “Just a little something to mull over in that big head of yours. If you have feelings for her, tell her. Maybe she did play you, but you’ll never know unless you try. Find out if you misread things or if you both got played.”

  Emily

  After going back home, I hate being in Los Angeles. It’s a week before the reunion show films, and starting tomorrow, I’m supposed to have a bunch of interviews coming up. The show’s been on for over a month now, and all I want to do is disappear into my bed and sleep. I want to pretend the whole thing never happened. Everyone has been supportive, and my friend Cassie was as helpful as she could have been, but I just couldn’t explain to anyone how weird the whole situation was.

  Part of it is how cold and distant Lee’s been. After that incident with the interview, other than for public appearances, we barely talk to each other. He hasn’t been to see me and we haven’t even Skyped. The few times I have talked to him, he always has this . . . I don’t know what to call it, just a slightly annoyed tone to his voice, like I’m keeping him from something he would rather be doing instead. When I invited him out to spend some time with me, he turned me down, saying that he had some kind of business convention to attend.

  McKayla and Brad have both called me, trying to talk me through the whole thing. They still don’t understand what happened with Hayden, and to be honest, I don’t either, so I can’t answer them. I told McKayla about Lee almost yelling at me to get it together after the interview and she offered to cut his balls off and feed them to him. “A for-reals ball gag, get it?”

  I huffed but couldn’t really laugh and told her I’d keep the offer in mind. I’ve been binge-watching the show, even though it makes me cry every time I see Hayden on screen. The rest of the guys are interesting, surprising me several times in their confessionals. Some of them were much trickier than I thought, obviously hoping for screen time and talking up ways to seduce me. I’m glad they didn’t get much of a chance. I do feel bad for Dean though. While I never had a real connection with him, I do think he’s just about the sweetest guy in the whole bunch. I really wish I could have had more one-on-one time with him. I still don’t think we would have had a love connection, but he’s an interesting guy and I think we could be friends.

  For most of the season, Hayden and Lee’s confessionals have been pretty similar, both talking about how much they like me, our connection, and how much fun we have. It’s hard to watch myself date and kiss and interact with them, making me feel stupid again for being blind to their games. I’m in full pity-party mode when I hear a tap at my door. I sit up. I’m not supposed to be meeting with anyone until tomorrow, and I know the studio didn’t put my name on the hotel reservation. Who could it be?

  Peeking through the hole, I see McKayla and Brad, along with a third person in a hoodie pulled up high enough I can’t see their face. I crack the door open. “Guys, what are you doing here? How did you even get here? I can’t right now, I just can’t.”

  Ignoring the whine in my voice, McKayla pushes the door open, barging in. “Sit down and listen up, babe. You’ll want to hear this shit.”

  Brad follows her in, and as the door shuts, the third person pulls down their hoodie, and I see it’s Nate. I tilt my head, surprised for a moment. I’ve never seen him in anything as ‘low-brow’ as a hoodie. He looks almost normal right now. “Nate? What are you doing here?”

  Before he can say anything, Brad interrupts. “Alcohol. Where’s your good stuff because you’re gonna need it for this.”

  I point to the mini-fridge, waving my hand. “The minibar’s got some stuff. I haven’t really checked exactly what.”

  Brad goes over, squatting down in his pink stretch jeans and humming to himself as he roots around before coming out with three bottles. “Tequila it is. Sit.”

  Brad cracks open the seal and pours the whole contents into one of the tumblers before putting in two ice cubes and setting a shot in front of me, crossing his arms over his skinny chest. “Drink the whole thing. Then Nate-boy here talks.”

  At this point, I’m scared not to because McKayla looks especially pissed as hell and I don’t know why. I drink it all, the Jose Cuervo burning on the way down to bloom like fire in my stomach. Blinking and hoping I won’t be shitfaced in ten minutes, I look at the trio. “All right, consider me prepped. Now what’s this all about?”

  McKayla and Brad sit on either side of me on the bed, looking at Nate, and he shifts in the chair across from us. Finally, after a glare from McKayla that would turn most men to stone, he starts talking. “Okay, so first of all, I was never here. I’m not losing my job for this. Meredith would have my heart for dinner if she knew I was even talking to you. But I see things, hear things. Nobody even notices me because I’m just background, like scenery.”

  I nod like I know what he’s talking about. I mean, most of the filming, everyone just sort of dismissed him as Meredith’s lapdog, her bitch boy who ran around delivering messages more than anything else. “Go on.”

  “I was sitting in when Meredith got a call from Lee’s social media manager.”

  “Uh, what? Lee’s got a social media manager?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. “I didn’t know that. Actually, I don’t even know what that is.”

  “He didn’t get all those Instagram fans and YouTube subscribers on his own,” Nate replies, making me feel like an idiot. “Basically, he told Meredith that he was preparing a total social media onslaught against the show if Lee didn’t come out looking like a million bucks. He didn’t go into specifics, but after the scandal Bachelorette had down in Mexico, Meredith didn’t want to take any chances. She said she’d make sure Lee either won or got to the finals so that he could be the next season’s match.”

  “That bitch!” I exclaim, but McKayla holds up a hand.

  “Hold your horses. There’s more,” she says, patting my leg. “Go on, Nate.”

  “Meredith started manipulating things. She saw how Hayden was doing so great in the test audiences so she wanted him to be the next Match. It’d give the next season the best chance at success. So she had the tech guys start playing with the equipment, Lee and Hayden getting the solo dates, stuff like that. But she doesn’t take well to being threatened, and she didn’t want to deal with Lee’s douchebaggery again, so she did what she could to ensure he won, upholding her deal with the manager but minimizing Lee’s overall future with the show. His team was the one that had that ringer kid in football. She edited the confessionals and the test audience . . . stuff to make him look like a dreamboat. At the meetings, she told both Lee and Hayden they’d be the Match if they weren’t picked.”

  “So it was rigged?” I ask, aghast, and Nate shrugs. “You asshole.”

  “It was clean-ish until that meeting, pretty standard scripting for a reality show. But in that meeting, Lee was like a kid in a candy store, going on and on about his fans and how they’d be his most loyal viewers. Hayden had to be threatened with his contract, though, and Meredith made a decision. She knew you two were hitting it off for real, and she couldn’t deal with Lee’s bullshit again. It wasn’t worth the risk. Viewers could find out what he’s really like and flip on him in an instant. So she had me put together some edited clips of your dates with Lee, making it look like you two were all over each other and you were just playing Hayden. On the other side, she had me edit Hayden’s next confessional to try and make him look bad.”

  Nate stops, looking at all of us to get our reactions. “Go on,” Brad says in a threatening voice. “Or a certain video of you might just surface.”

  Nate gulps, then continues. “Even then, it took a few confessions to get the right sound bites out of Hayden,” Nate says. “And we tweaked the fantasy dates. Right before, Meredith reminded Hayden that he needed to cool it a bit with you. Nobody’s interested in a rebound guy who just lost the girl he wanted when she picks someone else. That’s why Hayden w
as off on your date. He thought you were all cozy with Lee and just playing him for the cameras.”

  “And I thought he was cooling on me,” I whisper, tears coming to my eyes. “I thought he got freaked out by something I said.”

  “Yeah, well, you both got played . . . by Meredith and Lee.”

  “Wait, I get how Meredith is the bad guy here and Lee might’ve forced Meredith’s hand a bit, but how did he play me too?”

  Nate looks guiltier than ever, shaking his head. “Meredith was meeting with him, sharing tips from your confessionals so he knew where he was doing well and where to improve so he could be what you want. I thought, watching your dates, that you’d have a fling and a breakup, get a bit of publicity, and have a little fun. It’s not like anyone comes on these shows to actually fall in love for real. But he was just hoping to get as much out of your picking him as he can. And when Meredith told him to shut you up anytime you asked questions, he did. Didn’t it seem like he just kissed you out of nowhere sometimes?”

  I think about it, nodding. “Well, yeah, but I thought he was just the aggressive type. He kept telling me how much he wanted me, how I drove him crazy . . .” I reply before realizing how royally I’ve fucked things up and how I’ve lost Hayden. Groaning deeply, I feel like I’m about to throw up when Brad and McKayla put their arms around me. “Oh, Jesus. Guys, what am I going to do? I mean, I could’ve really had something with Hayden.”

  Almost simultaneously, Nate, McKayla, and Brad state together, “Reunion show.”

  McKayla chuckles a little at the harmony before grinning widely “Where the players get played. Muahaha.”

  Brad looks over, grinning. “That’s a pretty legit villain laugh you’ve got there. Too bad we’re the good guys.”