“You need to get up to set,” she said as if they were children she needed to reprimand, which Becca guessed their behavior had warranted. Then, she roughly switched the battery pack to Becca’s mic back on and said, “Keep. These. On,” before slamming the door.
Becca turned to see that Brian was switching his on before turning the ignition. Just as the engine roared to life, Becca’s door flung open again.
“And act natural,” she stated firmly before once again shutting the door.
Becca knew that she needed to get Brian to laugh, to lighten up. She had to push down all of the feelings, emotions, and confusion she was feeling and just be here for him, so as they passed the PA, Becca saluted.
The PA didn’t see it, but Brian laughed. It was a small laugh, but it was enough to break the tension in the car. She knew that, normally, Brian would be making small talk. They had been instructed to do that very thing by Sabrina when she’d come into the makeup trailer to prep them on what to expect on their ‘arrival shot.’
“This place looks so much bigger close up,” Becca said, trying her best to sound natural. She was pretty sure she’d just sounded weird or creepy, but hey, she was kind of dealing-with-slash-processing a lot right now. “It’s beautiful.”
She looked over and saw that, as Brian turned the wheel, putting the car where they’d told him to park, he definitely had his ‘serious’ face on. Apparently, her little salute joke had not lightened the mood as much as she’d thought.
Knowing that she had to try a new tactic—and quick—she rapidly ran through the topics they’d been prompted to discuss during their small talk.
Castle, she’d tried. People? No, they hadn’t “met” anyone yet. Love? Ooh, that would get him talking.
“So, Bri, what do you think the chances are that one or both of us will actually find our fairytale love?”
Brian looked over at her and the moment their eyes met Becca’s heart slammed in her chest. His gaze was so intense it felt like he could see all the way to her soul. She had no idea what he was about to say, but she knew that, until he spoke, she didn’t think it would be possible to breathe.
“Good. Very good,” he said.
To everyone listening, it would have sounded like she’d asked him a question and he’d answered it, but to Becca, it was more than that. Somehow, his words had felt like a promise.
“Oh,” was all she managed to answer, totally dropping the ball on the small talk portion of their entrance.
His lips turned up in one of her favorite smiles. It was also one of his rarest smiles. The only way she could describe it was his bad-boy smile. It was the one that had finally convinced her to go into that haunted house a decade earlier. It was the one that had convinced her to scale the fence at the local swimming pool, The Plunge, after it was closed when they were twelve. It was the one that had convinced her to ditch school and go down to the river the day before they graduated with the rest of the senior class. It was also the one that always caused her to follow him, blindly, and she was so happy that it had made its appearance today because, right now, that’s exactly what she needed to do.
“You got this, B?” he asked, the twinkle in his eye making her stomach feel like it did when she’d jumped off the high dive.
“I’ve got this, B,” she confirmed, suddenly feeling more confident and ready to take on this show as just one more of the adventures Brian had taken her on.
As she stepped out onto the gravel for the second time today and took in the massive structure before her (now that it was no longer blocked by huge trucks), she did actually begin to experience some excitement brewing inside of herself.
Before she knew it, Brian was at her side with their luggage and they were making their way up the walkway, which was surrounded on either side by perfectly manicured lush green shrubbery.
As they reached the tall, wooden, arched doors, Brian moved closer and easily pushed open—what looked like—a very heavy door, all while carrying not only her luggage, but his as well.
She would have tried to take her own luggage, but she knew that, with Brian, it would have been a losing battle. He’d insisted on carrying things for her since they had started walking home together in second grade. Every day after school, he’d take her backpack from her and carry both hers and his the entire two-mile trip home.
As they stepped into the foyer, Becca was overwhelmed by not only the beauty of the interior of the space, but also how modern it looked. The intricate woodwork looked flawless, and the stained-glass windows high in the walls gave the space an ethereal feel.
“Woohooo!”
“New people!”
“I think we’re all here.”
“Partayyy.”
Becca turned to where she heard the voices coming from and saw the rest of her cast mates all standing in what appeared to be a sitting room, complete with several incredible paintings hanging on the walls, two couches, and a large fireplace as the centerpiece of the room.
Brian set down the luggage with everyone else’s, and as they walked to greet everyone, they did just as they’d been instructed to do. Everyone was friendly. Even Natalie and Brooklyn—who had been ready to throw down over the seat next to Brian—were talking and laughing like old friends.
Becca did notice that Brooklyn was making herself very cozy next to Brian. Becca tried not to stare since she knew that they were filming. Plus, it was just creepy.
“Welcome, everyone, to Fairytale Love!” A familiar voice boomed loudly, filling the entire room and even echoing off the walls.
Becca blinked twice to see if what her eyes and her ears were telling her was actually reality or if the roller coaster ride of emotions she’d been on for the last few days had officially gone off the rails and she was crashing straight into delusion.
“I’m your host, Lance Sparrow.”
Nope, still firmly strapped in and riding the crazy-emotion roller coaster. Still, Lance Sparrow being the host of this show just made her feel even more like she was in the Twilight Zone—or, at the very least, that she was seriously out of her league.
She felt Brian’s head turn towards her and knew he was doing one of his famous ‘visual checks.’ Every few minutes, no matter where they were, Brian would scan the crowd, find Becca, and not take his eyes off of her until he knew that she was okay.
Honestly, she had no idea how long he’d been doing it. She did know when she’d become aware of it—Morp, which was prom spelled backwards, and was HCHS’s version of the Sadie Hawkins dance, where the girls ask the boys. The HCHS twist was, that you dressed the same as each other. It was the first dance they’d gone to as freshmen. Since neither of them had a boyfriend nor girlfriend, they’d gone together, starting their tradition of being one another’s plus-one. Her sisters had also been in high school—Haley a senior, Krista a junior, and Jessie a sophomore.
It was Jessie who had pointed out his behavior, telling Becca that she could almost set a clock to the fact that not five minutes would pass before Brian would start looking for her. Becca had thought it was ridiculous, but when Krista overheard Jessie trying to convince Becca that it was true, she’d challenged Becca to prove their sister wrong. So for almost an hour, Becca and one or two of her sisters moved around the room, playing conversation leapfrog with almost every social circle in attendance at the dance.
Two things had come from that little social experiment. One, Jessie had been absolutely right. Brian hadn’t gone more than five minutes without seeking her out and giving her an assessing look before, once again, turning back to whatever conversation he was having. The other was that she’d made a lot of friends that night she wasn’t sure she would have ever talked to otherwise.
“It’s good to see that you are all getting along,” Lance Sparrow continued.
Were they? Becca hadn’t talked one on one with a single person in the bunch. She shifted her eyes to see if anyone else was feeling the same way she was. Instead of getting her answer, she saw t
hat Brooklyn had wrapped her fingers around Brian’s forearm and was hanging on him like she was an ornament and he was the Christmas tree.
She looked back at Lance as his voice lowered, which she was pretty convinced was purely for effect.
“This journey is not going to be an easy one. Over the next few weeks, we will be testing you, as couples, to see if you have truly found your fairytale love. In order to pair you as couples, I’d like you each to come and pick a card, at random, from the bowl.”
Oh, the bowl. Yes! Finally, something Becca had remembered and been expecting. The PA—Jennifer, she thought—had explained that the couples had already been selected, so each person was supposed to look down at the blank, white card—where a name would be edited in for the viewing audience—and make sure that they had look of surprise, excitement, or even “seductive plotting” on their face.
Becca knew there was no way she could pull off seductive plotting, mainly because she had no clue what it was. As she watched her cast mates go up one by one and take a card out of the bowl, she decided that she was definitely going to go with excitement. When it was her turn, she began walking up to the bowl and searched for the tape that, they’d instructed her earlier, was going to be on the floor, so she would know where to stand. Easy-breezy-beautiful-Cover-Girl…right?
Wrong!
Her knees were shaking so badly that she was instantly regretting the choice to wear shorts that day. At least if she had material covering her legs, the jelly-walk she was doing might have seemed less obvious.
Somehow, by the grace of God, she made it up to the front by Lance Sparrow. He smiled, encouragingly, as she reached to pull a white, plain card out of the pristine, glass fish’s house, and she noticed that her legs were not the only things that were shaking like a leaf. Her hands had also joined in the party and it looked like the anthem was ‘shake, rattle, and roll.’
It must have been the cameras that had her body feeling so out of sorts.
Becca tried to take steady breaths and not lock her knees as she pulled the card out. The last thing she needed to do was pass out. That would be beyond humiliating. When she flipped it over, it was, as promised, blank. She smiled brightly as she turned back to crowd, who were definitely split down the middle. The men all had pleasant, even friendly expressions on their faces. The girls did not. She suspected she would not be doing much bonding with any of the girls here. There would definitely not be split-heart necklaces exchanged with ‘Be Fri’ on one and ‘st ends’ on the other.
After shooting one last glance over to Lance Sparrow—who, up close, almost looked like the wax figures she’d seen at Madame Tussauds in Hollywood—she took her spot back in the pack.
Leaning down, Colton whispered encouragingly in a barely audible tone, “Good job.”
Becca grinned, feeling ridiculously proud of herself. Had she cured cancer, uncovered a drug ring, fed starving children? Nope. All she’d managed to do was follow directions that were easy enough for a child to perform. Still, it felt nice to hear Colton say that she’d done well anyway.
Her attention was, once again, pulled to the center of the room as she watched as Brooklyn made her way to the front. The pretty blond wiggled her fingers at Lance in greeting before making a big show of digging into the bowl and selecting a card. When she turned to the group at large, Becca found out exactly what ‘seductive plotting’ looked like. Brooklyn had nailed it as she looked at each one of the guys, in turn, like she had plans of the sexy variety in mind.
It was impressive. No way in a million gazillion years could Becca have pulled it off, but she had to give credit where credit was due.
After each contestant had selected their blank cards, Lance Sparrow held his hands out much like she remembered seeing Mr. Roarke do on the television show Fantasy Island. “Welcome to Stone Castle, where one lucky couple will find their fairytale love.”
He held his too-big smile for several seconds before dropping his hands down by his sides. The second he did that, his entire demeanor switched right before her eyes. It was bizarre.
His face fell and he spoke—to whom, she wasn’t sure because he wasn’t looking at anyone in the room. He was looking down at the ground as he said, “Do we have it?” There was a pause, and then, without another word, he nodded and turned around, disappearing to…somewhere.
Becca looked around to see if anyone else thought that this was odd. And by anyone else, she meant Brian. What she saw was that his head was leaned down as Brooklyn whispered something in his ear.
The sight made Becca sick to her stomach.
“Okay. We need everyone to grab your luggage and head upstairs to find your rooms. The girls are in one suite and the guys are in another. There are cards with your names on them above the beds you’ve been assigned.”
Everyone moved back to the foyer, and Becca was, once again, struck by just how breathtaking the castle was. She couldn’t get over how much the entryway looked like what she imagined a Roman cathedral looking like.
Just as she was reaching for her bag, she saw Brian’s hand reach for it.
“I’ve got it,” she heard herself snap.
He froze, and she looked up at him. Obviously, he was taken aback by her tone. She was taken aback by her tone.
“I got it.” This time, her words came out sounding much friendlier.
It looked like he might have a follow-up question for her, but Brooklyn showed up beside them and started talking to Brian. Becca took the opportunity of him being distracted to grab her bags and head upstairs.
Halfway up the grand staircase, Becca couldn’t help herself. She looked over her shoulder to see if Brian was still talking to her. He was. And not only that, but Brooklyn also had her hand ‘casually’ resting on Brian’s chest.
Turning her head back around so fast that she was worried she might have given herself whiplash, Becca decided no more looking back. Best to keep her eyes straight ahead from here on out.
Chapter Twelve
The doorway rattled as all the men made their way inside the dining hall. Brian tried to take in the amazing works of art hanging around the room, but he was having a hard time seeing since his eyes were watering. He was practically choking on the intense smell of aftershave and cologne. Apparently, most of these guys did not operate on the ‘less is more’ philosophy. At least, down here in the dining area, there wasn’t a cloud of the stuff like upstairs. In the guys’ suite, Brian had barely been able to see a foot in front of him.
There was a quiet rumble of trash talk going on. The guys in this group seemed highly competitive. Not that Brian wasn’t—he absolutely was. He just didn’t usually talk out his ass. And since he had no idea what the next few weeks would entail, he didn’t feel like making an idiot out of himself by predicting that he would be the last guy standing, especially when everything they said was being recorded for posterity.
“Okay, fellas.” Jennifer, the PA, walked in looking down at her clipboard. When she looked up, she stopped up short. “Wow. You guys look nice.”
Brian looked at the other four guys and had to admit that they had all cleaned up pretty nicely, himself included. Tonight, they’d been instructed to dress in cocktail attire. He was wearing a maroon button-up shirt, dark gray slacks, and black dress shoes. Most of the other guys were wearing variations of the same thing. With the exception of Colton, who was wearing cowboy boots, and Jax, who was wearing a white button-up shirt—which he had decided not to button up—and cargo shorts with tennis shoes.
Brian had seen Gavin’s expression when he’d seen what Jax was wearing. For a moment, Brian had thought he was going to say something about it, but instead, he’d just briefed the guys on what to expect the first night in the house and once again went over the ‘no sex in the champagne room’ rule that he’d said would only be lifted on the final overnight dates the two remaining couples would be going on.
Brian didn’t blame Gavin for not saying something to Jax about how he was dressed. The
re was no way he’d want to get into it with Jax. Not only was that guy huge and a professional weightlifter, but he also seemed like he had a short fuse. Not a combo anyone in his right mind would want to agitate. ‘Don’t poke the bear’ fit better in this situation than any he’d ever encountered before.
“Sorry.” Jennifer shook her head, looking a little embarrassed for making that observation. “The girls are running late, but they should be down any minute.” With that declaration, she spun on her heels and was out the door so fast that her ponytail trailed after her as she sped through the door.
When she was gone, Jax turned and threw his arms up. Even in this massive space, he filled the room. “Of course they’re running late! Probably caking that shit all over their faces. Don’t they know all we care about is tits and ass? We don’t give a shit about anything from the neck up. It’s all the same when the lights go out.”
As Jax moved to give Blake a high five, Brian noticed that all five of the women were now standing in the doorway of the dining room. He had no idea how much of Jax’s little speech they’d overheard, but from the looks on their faces, they’d definitely caught a sentence or two.
“Excuse me?” Brooklyn crossed her arms and looked like she was about to spit fire from her eyes.
Jax’s face froze in horror as he stared at the other guys, his eyes pleading for a little help. None came.
You’re on your own big guy.
“What?” Jax turned to the girls, a huge smile on his face. “I was kidding. I knew you were there.”
All of the ladies looked at him like they knew exactly where he could put that apology, and it involved someplace where the sun don’t shine.
Brian tried not to laugh. He didn’t want to make the situation any worse or add fuel to the fire. He was rescued when Gavin stepped into the room, speaking quietly to both Lance and Sabrina. Lance was holding his script in his hands, rehearsing his lines under his breath. Sabrina’s eyes were glued to her iPad, and it looked like the only one listening to Gavin was Gavin.
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