Losing to Win

by Michele Grant

  “Deal.”

  “I don’t know, Mal. I might’ve got the better end of the deal on this one.”

  “Which one of us is on kitchen duty for a week?”

  My face fell. “Oh yeah. And I ache all over. I could use a hot shower.”

  “I could give you a little massage later, work out some of the kinks?”

  I smacked him on the shoulder, though the offer was hella tempting. “I’ll just enjoy the Snickers and worry about my own kinks, thank you.”

  He whispered in my ear. “Sounds nasty.”

  “Everything sounds nasty to you.”

  “You used to love that about me.”

  “Hmph.” Yep. That was my witty comeback. I was spared having to say anything more intelligent as we pulled up in front of the dorm.

  13

  Now I’m not ready

  Malachi—Monday, June 27—9:14 p.m.

  I had to admit that the Losing to Win folks did not miss a beat. No pun intended. They decided to make tonight’s challenge a Zumba dance-off. The three teams would be challenged to first watch, then mimic dance steps inspired from the popular dance workout craze, Zumba. Each combination would be more complicated than the last. The couple that showed the most accuracy and style and learned the most steps won the challenge.

  In a savvy twist, the production team had opened up the event to the whole town and surrounding communities. The ballroom on the ground floor of City Hall hosted Town Hall meetings, the Christmas pageant, and the Veterans Day dance. This year, it was hosting the Belieux County Brazilian Dance-off sponsored by Losing to Win.

  A few hundred people had ventured out on this steamy Monday night, dressed in their versions of club gear, and getting their samba, cumbia, and salsa on. Sad to say I witnessed my parents doing some sort of dance that could have stayed forbidden for my well-being.

  “Boy, you don’t know nuttin’ ’bout dat!” my dad cackled, and swiveled his hips in a way I won’t soon burn from my memory.

  “I’m so sorry I saw that.” Carissa’s voice floated over my shoulder and I turned around.

  “Ni-ice!” I hissed as my eyes took in her flirty purple wrap dress with a ruffle that stopped above the knees and ridiculously sexy high-heeled sandals. “You are looking right, Carissa Wayne.”

  She checked me out in my black dress shirt tucked into black pants. “I’m just trying to keep up appearances, Bayou.”

  “Well, you’re doing a hell of a job there, Teach.”

  Meshach walked past. “Did you see our parents out on the floor?”

  “Man, I can’t un-see it.”

  Carissa snickered. “Reverend Young had an inappropriate grip on my mother’s hips two songs ago. I had to walk away.”

  Jordy, Suzette, Niecy, and XJ had come over. “When does this thing start for us?” Niecy asked.

  “In about fifteen minutes,” Bliss called out as she headed toward the stage.

  “Well, that’s enough time for me to steal a dance,” Meshach announced and pulled Niecy out on the floor with a haste I found interesting.

  I reached for Carissa, but Jordan was already drawing her along with his hand around her waist. I narrowed my eyes as he looked over his shoulder and caught me watching. It was going to be like that, huh? Okay. Game on.

  “Suzette, do you want to take a quick spin?” XJ asked.

  “Not really.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder and walked off.

  “Dude,” I said to XJ.

  “Right? Suzette is some maintenance and a brother is tired. I called her husband every day this week to come spend some time with her. Got me hemmed up in that tiny-assed suite night after night with old girl. Sheesh.”

  “She wasn’t always this bitter. I mean, she was shallow, she just wasn’t mad at the world.”

  “Well, she’s sure as shit mad now. You get the feeling she’s out of her element and would be happier someplace else. She can be bearable when Carissa’s not around.”

  “Yeah, they’ve always been oil and water and Suzette wanted to be a big fish in a big pond. Belle Haven is a small pond without space for...” I stopped talking as Jordy pulled Carissa in close and slid his hand down her waist to her hip.

  “Uh, Mal, I don’t need to stand here and make sure you don’t rip somebody’s head off, do I?” XJ said in a half-nervous, half-serious tone.

  I patted him on the shoulder and kept one eye on Carissa and Jordy dancing. “Xavier, I’m a receiver. Don’t you know we don’t like contact?”

  “Ha! I’ve seen you almost full-body slam a cornerback that got in your way. You don’t fool me.”

  I smiled at him. “No worries, I won’t be delivering any hits tonight.” I watched as Jordy dipped Carissa over his arm and spent way too long admiring her cleavage as he pulled her back up.

  “How did you ever let that go, man?” XJ asked in an awed voice as Carissa danced some sort of fancy kick-step ending in a spin with her arms over her head.

  God, she looked amazing. The slow burn of desire and possession started spreading in my gut as I shook my head slowly. “It’s a long, sad story.”

  “I mean, but . . .” He paused as if not sure how much to say. “You gotta get that back, right?”

  I really did.

  “Yeah, he does.” Renard and Ruby had been standing behind me watching me watch Jordy and Carissa as well.

  “Only if he knows what he wants this time.” Ruby sucked her teeth. “Ain’t nobody got time to be put through your changes, Malachi Henry.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answered.

  “Why didn’t you come get her?” Renard asked. “Before this?”

  “First I was mad. Then I was proud. Then I was hurt. Then I’d waited too long.”

  “And now, Malachi? What do you want with my sister now?” Ruby asked with a hand on her hip.

  “I’m trying to figure that out exactly. But I know I want her.”

  “You always have. And then what?” Ruby probed.

  “Ruby, let the man have some breathing room. I’m sure he wouldn’t start anything if he couldn’t do right by Carissa this time. Now, would you?” Renard pinned me with a glare.

  “No, I wouldn’t do that. Not this time.” I swore.

  Ruby said, “Hmm. Good luck convincing her of that.”

  I nodded.

  “Ladies and gentleman, if we could have the Losing to Win contestants come to the stage?”

  “We’re up,” XJ said with a sigh, looking around for Suzette.

  I headed for Carissa and held out my hand. “You ready to do this?”

  She slid her hand into mine. “I’m ready to win this.”

  We grinned at each other. No need to be modest; we had an unfair advantage. We’d been dancing together for years. I was a natural athlete and Carissa could always cut a step. Our only real competition was Jordy and Niecy. And while they might hold their own, they were no match for us in this challenge.

  We climbed onto the stage. Jim came out from wherever he’d been hiding and waved at the crowd. “Hello, Belieux County, Louisiana!”

  The audience applauded politely.

  “Y’all ready to see these folks get their groove on?”

  Carissa whispered, “Should we tell him to never say ‘y’all’ or ‘get their groove on’ again? Like ever? He’s not Southern and he’s not hip. Bless his heart, though.”

  I cleared my throat to hide the laughter bubbling up. “After the points are tallied, you can tell him whatever you’d like.”

  “Good point.”

  Jim went through the instructions and rules and then introduced the dance instructors who would be leading and judging us. Within moments, we were learning a cumbia hip swivel followed with some Bollywood arm movements and ending with a reggaeton “stop and drop it like it’s hot” move. We walked through it once.

  I shot Carissa a smile. “You got this?”

  She raised a brow. “You want the extra style points?”

  “Bring it.”

&n
bsp; Not even twenty minutes later, I was regretting challenging her. Her last move resulted in her ass brushing my pelvis as she dropped down and came back up. Lord have mercy, I thanked the roominess of these pants. I could not stand in front of all these folks sporting wood; at least the pleats camouflaged my condition somewhat.

  When the instructor said we were going to slow it down a bit, I actually broke out in a sweat.

  “Let’s put a little tango in here, shall we?” the instructor enthused and it was all I could do not to groan. They demonstrated twice, once slowly and once to tempo. As we stepped together stepped in the first set of the next routine, Carissa looked up at me through her lashes. The mischievous sparkle let me know she knew what she was doing all along. “You’re killing me right now, you know that, right?”

  “I had an idea,” she said with a total body shimmy against me.

  “You’ve turned into a tease.”

  “Me?” she asked with false innocence.

  “You know I want you and you’re playing me. Is it payback?”

  “Mal, come on. This is just a little seductive suspense. It’s not like I, say . . . promised to marry you, strung you along for years, and forced you out of my life with nothing but a Benz for a parting gift. Now, is it?’

  I stopped dead still for a second as her words hit their mark. “Ouch.”

  “See?” she said with a dazzling smile as she danced in a circle around me. “Now that’s payback.”

  I glanced around and started moving again, my mind no longer in the dance or in the foreplay. “I thought we were getting past it?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  Improvising on the steps we’d just seen, I wrapped my arm around her waist and dragged her close. “Well, I want another shot.” I whipped her away from me in a spin and pulled her back in close.

  Our breath was labored from more than the efforts of the footwork. “Another shot at what? Me?” She turned away and turned back quickly before we pranced sideways together with hands clasped.

  I put my hands on her shoulders as she slid down my leg and gritted my teeth as her hands got a little familiar on the way back up. “Oh yeah.”

  “What are we talking here? Sex?”

  “To start. I think I’m finally ready for you,” I whispered as we pressed our cheeks together for the last phase of the dance.

  “Well, that’s something,” she said breathlessly as the dance finished.

  “What?”

  “Now I’m not ready.”

  “I’m right here when you are.”

  “Really,” she drawled. “You, Malachi Knight, are going to wait for me?”

  “It’s my turn, don’t you think?”

  Her eyes went wide and she had nothing to say.

  “Carissa and Mal, come over here and tell us where you learned to dance like that!”Jim crowed.

  We both blinked as we realized where we were and what we were supposed to be doing. I put my hand in the small of her back and gestured. “After you.”

  She flicked an uncertain glance my way before affixing her “television” smile and walking toward Jim.

  I had my work cut out for me here. But I was definitely up to the challenge.

  14

  I needed to eat, I needed to sleep, and I needed to think

  Carissa—Friday, July 1—9:02 p.m.

  “Carissa, you’ve lost a little over eighteen pounds in three weeks, and while that’s very impressive, it’s also too fast. Since your initial weigh-in, you are down twenty-six and a half pounds. You’re averaging a loss of four and a half pounds a week and your body is going to rebel. We’d like you to lose between two to three pounds a week.”

  I had been coached to quit rolling my eyes so much on camera, so I flashed a carefree grin and asked, “Does this mean I’ll be having a fried crawfish po’ boy for dinner tomorrow night?”

  Hannah, the nutritionist, shook her head and laughed at me. “I don’t think you’ll be seeing fried anything for quite some time.”

  Of course not. I resisted the urge to heave a sigh and listened while Darcy, super perky trainer extraordinaire, rambled on about pacing my weight loss and concentrating on replacing fat with muscle. Loose skin and jiggly flab were the enemy. I nodded at the appropriate intervals and then thankfully stepped off the scale.

  Mal stepped on; he’d lost seventeen pounds in three weeks and got a different lecture about muscle fatigue and hitting the wall. The guest judge this week was in sports rehab, so he and Mal talked about how much stress he could put on his rehabbed knee.

  Niecy and Jordy lost ten pounds each over the last few weeks. Suzette and XJ had been up and down but combined for a total weight loss of seven pounds. Apparently, they had been caught on film tipping over to Ruby’s to have a decidedly NOT low-fat, not low-carb, not sugar-free dinner plus dessert.

  In the end, Mal and I were ahead not only in weight lost but in competition wins as well. When we were paired together we won extra points for sportsmanship and partnership. There had been no more silly-assed challenges requiring us to bare our personal business. We had put whatever issues or conflicts we had to the side for the sake of trying to maintain some dignity throughout this competition. One time with the blind challenge was more than enough. We had no desire to see what kind of crazy scenarios they would put us in if given the chance. All I had to do was get through the last of this weigh-in and then we were off for the Fourth of July weekend.

  By off, this meant we were allowed to live in our own homes without microphones or cameras dogging our every step. We were expected to work out and stick to sensible diets, but we had four whole days to interact with people not affiliated with this damn show. Four days where I could walk around in a bathrobe and not fear that my ass was jiggling on primetime television.

  Plus . . . let me just be really real for a second. I needed a break from Mal’s brooding intensity. And Jordan’s hungry gazes. Yes, that kiss he’d laid on me at the “truth or dare” challenge threw me for a loop. I did not know he had that in him. At all. He kissed me like the answers to the puzzles of the universe could be found in my mouth and he wanted to take the time to discover each and every one of them.

  That thirty-second kiss instantly moved him out of the friend zone and into the “What have we here?” category. He’d taken a few opportunities to talk with me since then, and so far, I liked what I was hearing from him. To be fair, I couldn’t take too many steps toward Jordy until I dealt with whatever was still left between me and Malachi.

  Clearly we still had the chemistry, but was that it? I was not going to reinvest in the Malachi Knight brand if he was going to turn back into that guy. So far, he had been open and communicative. We worked well together, we laughed, we talked—it was almost like it had been, before the adulation and the game turned him into more of a personality and less of a boyfriend. He was warm, engaging, and more like the guy I originally fell in love with decades ago.

  Given the tug-of-war between whatever I felt for Malachi and the curiosity about what I could feel for Jordy, I was exhausted. Add in Suzette’s constant malevolence, the cameras, the production schedule, and the two point two bites of food per day? I was ready for this break.

  “Carissa, did you hear what Hannah said?” Jim asked from the podium.

  “Honestly? No. I’m daydreaming about sleeping in my own bed without a 4:45 a.m. wake-up call.”

  Hannah piped up, “I was reminding everybody to stay on their dietary plans over the holiday.”

  “Who do we need to beg for permission for a piece of barbecue?” Niecy asked.

  Paul, her trainer, laughed. “You can have one piece if you add an extra ten or fifteen minutes to your workout, wash it down with water, and skip the potato salad.”

  XJ sighed deeply. “Barbecue without potato salad? That’s downright un-American!”

  Jim chortled loudly. “It may be un-American, but it’s the Losing to Win way. Good luck over the weekend and remember, we’ll be checking
in on you. See you next time!”

  We stood still with fake smiles on our faces until Bliss called out, “And we’re clear. Thanks, everybody! Carissa, can I talk to you for a second?”

  I wanted to stomp my foot and say no, but then I remembered that I’m supposed to be a grown-up woman. “Sure, Bliss.”

  Bliss, Marcy, and Ren circled around me and led me over to a cluster of rooms they had set up as production offices. Once inside one of the meeting rooms, they closed the door and sat down to face me.

  I raised a brow. “What can I do for y’all?”

  Bliss gave me her most engaging “I want to be serious with you” look. I didn’t trust it. “Carissa, we’ve conducted the focus group, where we show a few episodes of the show to a market research team, some focus groups, and our network execs.”

  Hoping it sucked and was about to be canceled, I answered with cautious optimism. “And?”

  Marcy bounced in her seat. “They love you. People absolutely love you!”

  I blinked twice. “What? Why?” I hadn’t exactly been warm and fuzzy.

  “You’ve got that certain something that people can relate to. You’re pretty, you’re real, and you are a bit of a drama magnet. Whatever the combination, you’re a hit. We’re a hit. They are predicting the biggest ratings ever this season.”

  “Oh. Well. Good for you,” I responded lamely.

  “Good for all of us,” Ren added. “Of course, the tension between you and Malachi is testing uber high.”

  “Really,” I said drolly. “Who knew my discomfort could be others’ entertainment? I’m here to help.”

  Completely ignoring my sarcasm, Marcy continued. “Yes. After the first few episodes, the people in the focus group started taking bets on whether you’d end up with Mal or Jordy. Isn’t that awesome?”

  My brows drew into a frown. Perfect strangers betting on which guy I’d end up with and I hadn’t made a move in either direction? Wasn’t that even more damn intrusive than before? “Awesome, when does the first episode air?”

  “Sunday night. This means that we’re going to spend more time focusing on you. You were always the centerpiece of the show, but now you’re the crown jewel!” Marcy added.