by Amy Vansant
Sebastian brushed a clump of wet hair from Emily’s face. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Thanks to you. If you hadn’t caught me I would have bashed my brains in or at least really bruised my butt.”
“It was the least I could do. It was my fault. The water went so cold so fast—it was like someone punched me with a block of ice.”
She pointed to his face. “Your eye...”
He touched beneath his right eye and winced. “That’s gonna leave a mark.”
He stood and helped her to her feet.
She dropped her forehead on to his chest and he hugged her, his chest rising and falling with a great sigh.
“I guess sexy time is over,” she said.
He snickered. “I’ll be lucky if I can ever sexy time again. That might have been some seriously messed up Pavlovian training.”
“How are we going to get showers without hot water?”
He turned the tap to allow a trickle of water. “Still freezing. We’ll have to speed-shower. We’re going to be late. You want first shot?”
Emily stepped out and wrapped a towel around herself. “You go ahead, I’ll figure out what I’m going to wear and hop in when you’re done.”
He grimaced. “Thanks a lot.”
Emily returned to the bedroom and heard Sebastian hoot as the water hit him.
They were the last to arrive in the ball room. Nicole stood at the front of the group, surrounded by men and women with large cameras. Seemingly agitated, she flipped through sheets of paper on her clipboard. Her makeup was greatly exaggerated compared to the previous day, and she wore camo-pants and an Army green t-shirt with the logo Minefield stamped across the front. The font was the sort of lettering Emily associated with spray-painted words on the sides of wooden crates, like FRAGILE, giving the logo an industrial feel.
It all seemed very official.
Emily felt butterflies flock in her stomach.
Oh my god, I’m going to be on a television show.
Garrett sat on a large wooden table behind Nicole, swinging his legs back and forth like a little kid.
“What’s with the camo getup?” Sebastian asked Nicole as they approached.
“I’m the host,” she said, checking them off her list.
“That’s what this show is called? Minefield?”
She looked up at him. “Yes. How can you not know that?”
Emily chuckled, knowing that Sebastian knew the name of the show and was just teasing Nicole.
Watching to see if Nicole caught on, Emily spotted the exact moment Sebastian’s sister-in-law noticed his eye. Nicole gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.
“Your eye.”
“Dude, what happened?” said Garrett.
Sebastian shrugged. “The shower’s what happened. The water went cold in the middle of my shower and we slipped.”
“We?” asked Garrett.
Sebastian shook his head. “Me. I. I slipped.”
Garrett guffawed. “You two were in the shower together when you lost hot water? And you both fell?”
Remaining non-committal, Sebastian looked away. Emily pretended not to hear.
Nicole’s attention snapped to a man beside her wearing a headset skewed to cover one ear. “Harry, did we get that? The two of them falling in the shower? Do we have the cameras setup in the rooms here?”
Harry shook his head.
Nicole frowned. “Shoot. That would have been gold.”
Sebastian’s eyes grew wide. “There are cameras in the bathrooms?”
“No, apparently,” grumbled Nicole.
“Hold on, that’s not right—”
Nicole rolled her eyes. “We would have blurred out the bits.”
Emily thought about their pot-smoking visitors from the night before.
Thank goodness they hadn’t wired the room.
Sebastian was shaking his head, waving his hands in front of him. “No, no. We didn’t sign up to be filmed in the shower.”
“Actually you did, it was in the waiver,” said Nicole, her eyes never raising from her notes.
“I didn’t actually read all that stuff.”
Nicole caught the eye of a nearby cameraman and walked away.
Sebastian looked at Emily. “Did you read about shower cameras?”
“No. It happened so fast and we were doing it for your brother—I just closed my eyes and signed. To be honest, reading lawyer documents makes me want to cry.”
“There’s something else we have in common,” he muttered.
Sebastian stepped forward to poke his brother’s shoulder “Your only job, from here on out, is to find and warn us about anything embarrassing.”
Garrett nodded. “I got you, dude.”
“And prevent all room cameras.”
“Consider it done.”
Emily glanced down at her outfit. “I’m glad I like these clothes, because now I can’t take them off for the duration of the show.”
Sebastian nodded. “I guess if there’s a teddy bear on the mantel we know what’s up.”
“No kidding. We should think about that. Where else can they hide cameras?”
Garrett pointed to a cameraman standing ten feet away, his huge lens pointed at them.
“How about in the cameras? They’re everywhere, all the time. It’s the point. You’re on television.”
“This couldn’t get any worse.” Sebastian hung his head and his brother clapped him on the back.
“Well, you won’t have to worry about the showers for a while because tonight you’re sleeping in the woods.”
Emily and Sebastian whipped their attention to him.
“What?”
Garrett nodded. “Camping. You’re in tents tonight.”
Emily groaned.
“It can get worse.”
Chapter Nine
Sebastian’s cheekbone had turned a fascinating shade of purple.
“Can you get some makeup on that?” asked Nicole, passing him on her way to talk to more staff.
“Sure. Can I just shovel some off your face?” Sebastian called after her.
She raised her middle finger and kept walking.
Makeup artists responded to Nicole’s command and guided Sebastian to a chair where they painted him for fifteen minutes. Despite what looked like a little shovel to work the foundation, no amount of concealer could hide his swollen face.
“How do I look?” Sebastian asked as the makeup lady threw in the towel.
Emily winced. “Like you’re about to say, You should see the other guy.”
The other couples had scattered about, chattering with one another. Emily scanned the room, and spotted Marc chatting with the twins, grinning like a panting puppy. Somehow he’d found a way to score swag and was already wearing a Minefield tank top stretched tight across his pecs.
Kady chatted with the motorcycle couple.
Greta and Joe had made friends with the preppy couple. Emily remembered them laughing at their table the night before and made a mental note to keep an eye on The Prepperonis as well.
Greta had her chin held a little too high, as if she were presiding over the room—a pose Emily remembered from an article on how to be photographed. If Greta had read the same article, it would explain the supercilious tilt of her chin and her odd placement of one foot in front of the other while at a standstill, a trick she remembered made people look thinner on camera.
Cameras lurked everywhere, and Greta clearly didn’t want to be captured at a bad angle. Emily fretted at the idea of watching herself on television when the competition was over.
Maybe I should pose more.
She raised her chin a fraction.
Beside Greta, Joe seemed dour. She couldn’t help but wonder if he regretted agreeing to be on the show. Who had goaded who? Had Greta insisted he join her so she could stalk Sebastian? Or had Joe begged Greta to get him a spot so he could try and win back Kady?
From the high ballroom ceiling, lights beamed o
n Nicole, who had again taken her place at the front of the room.
“With that light on her, she looks like aliens are tractor-beaming her into their spaceship,” noted Sebastian.
Nicole nodded to one of the staff and music rose from hidden speakers. She took a deep inhale and raised her hands into the air.
“Welcome to Minefield!”
The sounds of explosions boomed.
Behind Nicole stood two cameramen, sweeping their lenses back and forth across the room.
Emily swallowed.
Ohmygod. I’m officially on camera.
A little part of Emily hadn’t believed she’d really appear on television. She smiled, but she wasn’t sure why, and immediately felt the corners of her mouth drooping.
Smile? Don’t smile? Smile?
I’m going to look like a psychopath.
She glanced at Sebastian to check how he’d decided to appear on camera. His eyes were rolled so far back in his head she thought they might flip him backwards. He clearly wasn’t impressed by the fancy explosion noises.
Nicole continued. “Today is your first challenge. It’s called Abandoned.”
The sound of a howling wolf filled the room.
“Really?” said Sebastian, to no one in particular.
Nicole continued. “You’ll be left in the woods with the bare minimum to survive. Your challenge will be to escape the forest using the clues we’ve left you, while avoiding the minefields!”
More explosions.
Sebastian leaned towards her.
“Did she say the bare minimum to survive?”
She nodded. “You caught that, too, huh?”
He scowled. “Garrett’s going to have the bare minimum to survive when I’m done with him.”
The spotlights switched off.
“Okay, everyone line up over there in the corner. A cameraman will tape your contestant interviews. They’ll ask you a few random questions. Just answer things as honestly as you can.”
Sebastian chuckled. “She does not want me to answer honestly.”
Nicole continued. “After your interview, head outside and get in the vans, which will take you to the starting point.”
“My mother told me to never get in vans,” said Emily.
Sebastian looked surprised. “Really? My mother was always trying to chuck me in passing vans. Go get the candy from the nice man, she’d say.”
Emily laughed. “You’ve got issues.”
“I know. Thanks, Mom.”
Sebastian raised his hand and Nicole’s shoulders slumped. She raised her eyebrows in begrudging acknowledgement of his question, or possibly his existence.
Sebastian lowered his hand. “Thanks. Will the men in the vans have candy?”
Laughter rippled through the room. Nicole forced a quick smile-sneer before striding to her cameraman and falling into animated chatter.
“She seems really happy you’re here,” said Emily.
“She knows better. She must have been really desperate to ask.”
The contestants shuffled toward the interviewing area. Marc ran toward Sebastian and Emily as if he intended to bowl them over, stopping just in time to avoid a collision. He clapped Sebastian on the arm.
“Hey, we should work together, right?”
Sebastian shrugged. “Sure.”
Kady arrived beside Emily. “So how was your night? You both went missing.” Kady’s tone implied she thought they’d sneaked off for some alone time. Looking back on the previous evening, Emily realized that probably would have been the smarter move.
“Sebastian went missing. I went to the room to look for him and ended up falling asleep for a bit. Turns out he was with his brother. Then we invited the waiter and the maid back to our room so they could smoke pot without getting caught and I had to kick them out when they both fell in love with Sebastian.”
Kady tucked back her chin. “Really?”
Emily nodded. “Something like that.”
“Wow. You had a much more interested evening than I did. Ask me what I did last night.”
“Uh oh. What did you do last night?”
“Hooked up with Marc.”
“Really. I’m shocked. How’d that go?”
Kady glanced around Emily to check that Marc wasn’t looking. “Terrible,” she whispered, but her expression was almost giggly.
“Terrible?” Emily’s interest was piqued. Months ago, she’d come dangerously close to falling for Marc’s physical beauty as well. She wanted to know all about the bullet she’d dodged. “What made it terrible?”
“He’s like a rabbit on meth. Jumping around, changing positions every two seconds, posing—”
“Posing?”
“Yes. I swear one time I caught him moving me to the end of the bed just so he could watch himself in the bathroom mirror.”
“I suppose we could have guessed it would be something like that.”
Kady nodded. “No sooner did something feel good and it was on to something else. The plus-side is I officially don’t consider him boyfriend material anymore.”
“I’m not sure the rabbit sex should have been your first clue he isn’t exactly boyfriend material.”
“Oh it wasn’t the first, but it was the nail in the coffin. And it wasn’t sex-sex. We just fooled around and then we both lost interest.”
“Well that’s good, I guess. So you guys are still buddies?”
Kady nodded. “Oh yeah. I think he’s got a crush on Ashlyn.”
Emily chuckled. “One of the twins? There’s another shocker.”
Looking grim, Nicole made her way across the room to Sebastian and pulled him aside. Emily looked away to offer them privacy, but heard every word between the two.
“Don’t make me look like an idiot, this is big for me,” Nicole hissed.
“Sorry. Got it.”
“Thanks. Can you do me a favor?”
Sebastian laughed. “I think I already am.”
“I need another.”
“What’s that?”
“Come outside and do a weather report for me. The station wants to run teasers for the show on the local news. I know you love weather stuff.”
Emily forgot to be inconspicuous and glanced behind her. Nicole spotted her interest and hooked a thumb toward Sebastian. “He wanted to be a weatherman.”
Emily grinned. “Really? Why didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “You know how things go. One day you think you’ll be something, but you take a different job to pay for your first apartment and then next thing you know years have gone by.”
Nicole patted him on the shoulder. “Well, you can be a weatherman today.”
“Ooh, I want to watch.” Emily hustled to follow them outside.
On the sprawling back porch of the Cherry Lodge, Nicole positioned Sebastian like a doll in front of one of her cameraman.
“What should I say?” asked Sebastian.
“Just say, ‘Hi, I’m Sebastian from Minefield and today’s weather here on the Eastern Shore is sunny, humid and seventy-nine degrees.’”
Sebastian stared across the Chesapeake Bay for a few beats and then nodded. “Got it.”
Nicole motioned to the cameraman, who held up a hand and then quickly dropped it, letting Sebastian know to begin.
Sebastian’s expression lit as if someone had flipped his switch. “Hey, I’m Sebastian from Minefield, filming here on the Eastern Shore. It’s sunny, humid and seventy-nine degrees—so it’s a good day for our state flower, the Black-eyed Susan, and for me, Black-eyed Sebastian.”
He pointed at his blackened eye and grinned, freezing for the camera.
Emily was taken aback at his seamless adlibbing.
Who knew Sebastian was born to be on camera?
“Cut,” called Nicole. She skipped to him. “Bash, that was great. They’re going to love it.” She whirled to face the cameraman. “Did you get that? Did you zoom in on his black eye?”
The man tilted from his position be
hind the lens and stared at Nicole, coming just short of rolling his eyes. “Of course.”
“Yes.” Nicole pumped a fist and then flung her arms around Sebastian, who grimaced as she hugged him.
He put on a big show, but Emily could tell he was pleased.
Chapter Ten
Leaves and sticks crunched beneath their feet. From Emily’s calculations, she guessed they’d been walking approximately four thousand miles.
It didn’t help that they were blindfolded.
After the contestant interviews at the Cherry Lodge, show staff drove everyone—contestants and a smattering of camera operators—to the side of a road in the Middle of Nowhere, Maryland.
As she’d stepped out of the bus and on to the gravel road, Emily couldn’t have been happier to be in the middle of nowhere, as long as they were out of the van and away from Greta. Greta and Joe had sat on the bench seat in front of her and Sebastian. Half way through the trip, Greta turned to gaze at Sebastian, her eyes soft, as if only they had ever seen the true Sebastian.
Maybe Emily was reading a little too much into that gaze, but it sure felt like Greta was trying to telegraph intimacy. It didn’t help that she’d used a pet-name in addressing him.
“You’re going to hate this, Sebby,” she said, before her gaze shifted to Emily and she continued sharing secrets. “Sebastian isn’t really the roughing-it type.”
Sebastian’s gaze slid in Greta’s direction. “Thanks for the update.”
Emily did her best to look unperturbed. Sebby. It seemed there were a thousand nicknames for Sebastian—his brother and sister-in-law called him Bash, she’d heard someone call him Bastian, back in high school Marc had once called him Seabass back in high school and paid the price—and now she’d discovered Greta’s nickname for him.
Sebby.
The dumbest one of all, in her opinion.
“You know you hate forests and camping and dirt,” Greta clarified. She was addressing Sebastian but her gaze never left Emily. “He hates camping. Once we went camping with friends and he was so freaked out by a bug he found in his sleeping bag that he insisted on sleeping in my sleeping bag—”