One To Watch: this summer's must-read romcom to fill the Love Island-shaped hole in your life

by Kate Stayman-London

  To make her decision even tougher, all five of the men had recorded video messages for her, which she was made to watch on camera to capture her reactions. First was Sam, his jubilance completely infectious, his infatuation with Bea totally obvious.

  “Bea! I haven’t seen you in two days, which is the worst!” He looked dramatically from side to side, as if to make sure no one was watching him, then leaned in close to the camera. “But I’ve spent the entire time thinking about kissing you in the hammam, which was the best.”

  “Marin was right about him,” Bea murmured with a little grin.

  Next up was Luc, stunningly handsome in a plain white T-shirt, looking straight into the camera with his smoldering eyes.

  “My Bea, this week I have seen a new side of you, I think. Thank you for trusting me, for showing me your softness.”

  He gave her a little smirk, and Bea felt a wave of nausea. Luc had thought this would be a private reference, but because of his unseemly brags to Asher, every single person watching would know he was talking about their night together. That night had felt like the foundation of a fragile trust between them, but now she found herself doubting every word that came out of his mouth. But the question remained: Was she sure enough that he was lying about his intentions toward her to send him home, despite the fact that she had more chemistry with him than any other man here?

  Then came Asher’s video, which was perfectly Asher: “Bea, per our discussion, I know what a difficult decision this is for you. I hope you’ll decide to continue to pursue our relationship.”

  It would be easy to write him off as cold or unfeeling, but Bea was starting to learn how to read his subtext, to see all the things he didn’t say, to trust in their connection and in him. Letting him go was unthinkable—but she owed it to him (and his children) to think about it all the same.

  The fourth video was Jefferson’s, and Bea felt a twist of uncertainty when she saw his face.

  “Hey beautiful,” he said with a grin. “I had so much fun today, and I can’t wait to introduce you to my family—and everything you’ve been missing with that KC BBQ! But on a more serious note, I also want to say, Bea, you and I just make sense together. I felt it from the second I saw you—didn’t some part of you feel it too?”

  Everything Jefferson was saying was true—sweet, even—so why did it make her uncomfortable? Was she really getting in the way of her own happiness, as Jefferson (and Marin, and her mother) had suggested? Or, on the other hand, was she simply trying to convince herself to have feelings for a man who looked the part of a husband for a woman like Bea? Maybe she and Jefferson just needed more time together to cement their bond—but if what he wanted was a wife and family in Kansas City, and Bea could hardly see that for her own future, was it even worth the effort?

  Then again, Wyatt lived on a farm in Oklahoma, which was even more foreign to Bea—but she couldn’t deny the surge of joy she felt when his face appeared onscreen. Her feelings for the other men were so fraught and complex; with Wyatt, she just felt happy.

  “I missed you this week.” He beamed. “Morocco’s very beautiful. Did you know you can eat camel meat? I tried a camel burger. So that was … different! Anyway, I hope your week was great, and I hope you decide to come visit my family on our farm. We have a tractor that I think you’re really going to love.”

  Bea still had far more questions than answers about Wyatt: Did he want a relationship at all, let alone one with her? Did she want a relationship with him—and would having one actually mean moving to Oklahoma? But no matter what the answers to any of these questions were, one thing was certain: Of all the men left, Wyatt made Bea feel by far the most safe. And she really, really wasn’t ready to give that up.

  “So?” Lauren came in after the videos were done playing. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”

  Bea nodded. “I think so.”

  “And you feel good about your choice?”

  “No! I feel nauseous and exhausted and like it’s entirely possible I’m making the wrong decision.”

  “Good.” Lauren smiled. “That means you’re right on schedule. Let’s roll!”

  She led Bea into the riad’s living room, where all the furniture had been removed, and her five suitors awaited her in a semicircle.

  “Hi, guys.” She smiled, pushing through her jitters. “How’s your jet lag? You ready to head back home and confuse our bodies all over again?”

  The guys laughed amenably, and Bea was struck by how few of them there were. This week’s lip color was Don’t Wine About It, so Bea readied herself to leave a deep berry stain on the cheeks of four men to whom, against all odds, she’d grown very attached.

  “Sam?” she called, and he strode toward her with a brilliant smile. Bea had some input as to which men would stay, but Lauren always determined the order in which she called them. After their night in the hammam, it was no surprise that Sam had rocketed to frontrunner status.

  After Sam came Luc, who rested his arm possessively at Bea’s waist as she kissed him on the cheek. Bea bristled at this—she hated the idea that Luc was actively trying to make the other men jealous, but at the moment, there wasn’t much she could do about it. It would be easier next week, she reasoned, when the men were all in their separate hometowns, not cooped up together in one house day after day.

  “Wyatt,” Bea said next, and she felt a rush of reassurance as he broke into a soft, easy smile and stepped forward to give her a huge hug.

  “I’m so happy you’re coming home with me.”

  “Me too,” she assured him after she kissed his cheek.

  Once Wyatt stepped aside to join Luc and Sam, that left Asher and Jefferson. Bea looked from one man to the other and took a deep breath.

  “Asher and Jefferson,” she said, “I want to thank both of you for how open you were with me today in the mountains. You’ve both made me think about the role of family in my life, about what I want that to look like, and what I’m ready to take on. This wasn’t an easy decision.”

  She looked over to Johnny, who took his cue to give his regular speech before the final name was called.

  “Okay, guys, Bea is about to choose her final suitor. If your name isn’t called, you must immediately leave the riad. Bea, whenever you’re ready.”

  Bea inhaled—she wasn’t sure she was ready at all. But either way, it was time.

  “Asher,” she said, and the relief that washed over his face was palpable.

  “You scared me,” he whispered after she kissed his cheek.

  “Back at you,” she said, and he hugged her tightly. The truth was, Bea wasn’t totally sure she was ready to be a mother—but she knew she absolutely wasn’t ready to say goodbye to this man.

  “That’s it for this week’s ceremony,” Johnny pronounced. “Jefferson, take a minute to say your goodbyes.”

  “I’m sorry, Jefferson.” Bea delivered the speech she’d rehearsed with Lauren in what she hoped was a consoling manner and not a condescending one. “I really appreciated our time together today, and I’m so happy I got a chance to know you better. I just think our visions for our futures are pretty different—but I know you’re going to make an amazing husband for whatever woman is lucky enough to become your wife.”

  She hated the awkwardness of dismissing only him, especially since he’d been so sweet to her. But she couldn’t deny how much closer she felt with the other four men.

  “Can I walk you out?” she asked, conforming to Lauren’s dictates. She was meant to accompany Jefferson to the riad’s entrance, say a brief—and hopefully emotional!—farewell, then see him off as he got into a car that would take him to the airport and out of Bea’s life forever (or, at least, until the reunion show).

  But Jefferson didn’t seem very interested in acting according to plan. He was shaking slightly—maybe with laughter?—his eyes hard and narrow.

  “Are you kidding? You think you can do better than me? Trust me, Bea, I’ve never had a problem getting a girlf
riend—and none of them have ever looked like you.”

  Bea shook her head in confusion. “No, I—Jefferson, it’s not a matter of better, it’s about what I want for my future—”

  “And what you want is to go live on a farm in Oklahoma? That’s your dream? Please, Bea. You’re a fat hypocrite—I guess that’s half a revelation.”

  Bea stopped cold. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “You heard me.” He stalked toward her, taking his time, savoring that all eyes were on him. “Now that I’m out of the competition, I guess I can finally be honest with you—good thing, too, since no one else has been.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, her voice unsteady.

  “What I’m talking about, Bea, is the fact that none of the men in this room is remotely interested in you. Least of all me.”

  Bea shot a glance over at the other men, but Jefferson kept going.

  “Sure, they talk a good game, but you’ve never seen them without the cameras rolling. You have no idea the horrible jokes they make about you, the way they laugh at your expense. How could you? You’re so desperate for love that you’ll believe any nice thing a man says to you. It’s sad, Bea. And it’s probably pretty great television. But at some point, you’ve got to wake up and face the fact that you are the only person on this show who actually believes that any of these men could fall in love with you.”

  “You’re lying.” Bea felt the first tears coming. “If none of you were interested in me, why would you even stay on this show?”

  Jefferson laughed. “Are you stupid? The longer we stick around, the more likely it is that one of us will be the next Main Squeeze! Don’t you think it’s worth it, pretending to like you for a few hours a week to increase our odds of having twenty-five women compete for us? And you made it so easy, Bea, you really did. Honestly, you bought that I didn’t want to kiss you last week because there were kids around? How gullible can you be? I was just putting off getting physical with you for as long as possible.”

  “Stop”—Bea was shaking—“please stop.”

  “I think in time you’ll come to see that I’m doing you a favor. No one in your life is honest with you—that’s how you ended up on this show in the first place, got tricked into being a national laughingstock. So take it from me: You’re not single because you’re focused on your career, or because you’re pining after unavailable men, or subconsciously trying to protect your heart because some kids made fun of you in elementary school, or whatever bullshit you tell yourself. You know why no man wants to be seen with you in public? It’s not that hard to figure out. You know what’s standing between you and marriage? About eighty pounds.”

  Bea didn’t know what to do, where to go. She stepped backward and nearly tripped on the hem of her dress, wobbling in her high heels.

  “Bea,” Wyatt stepped forward, “don’t listen to him, it’s not true—”

  “No,” Bea yelped, and Jefferson laughed. She hated herself for crying in front of these men she’d finally started to trust, but who could just as easily be using her, same as Jefferson, same as Ray, same as always. She couldn’t be here, couldn’t take this. Couldn’t spend one more second on this set where her existence was one big joke, the setup her fatness and the punch line her loneliness.

  “Excuse me, I—excuse me.” She choked out the words and left the living room as fast as her high heels could carry her, then blindly stumbled up the stairs back to her room and slammed the door.

  EPISODE 6

  “DECLARATION”

  (4 men left)

  Shot on location in New York, New York,

  Boone, Oklahoma,

  Middlebury, Vermont,

  Newark & Short Hills, New Jersey

  TRANSCRIPT OF CHAT FROM #SQUEEZE-MAINIACS SLACK CHANNEL

  NickiG: I WANT JEFFERSON TO DIE

  Beth.Malone: He will eventually

  NickiG: NOT SOON ENOUGH

  Enna-Jay: Has anything like this ever happened before?? That was … awful

  KeyboardCat: I mean, there’s never been a plus-size person on this show before, so no, not really.

  Enna-Jay: Can Bea just leave? SHOULD she?

  KeyboardCat: No!! She still has good guys left!!

  Beth.Malone: That’s a hot take, Cat

  KeyboardCat: I believe!! #TeamAsher

  Beth.Malone:

  Colin7784: jeez, you guys have been right this whole time

  Beth.Malone: Yes definitely. About what?

  Colin7784: men are trash

  @AndersMMQB You all gave me shit when I said they shouldn’t put a fat woman on Main Squeeze, but look what happened!

  @AndersMMQB This isn’t the UN, dummies. It’s reality TV. If you put a fat cow on there, people are going to call her one. It’s not Jefferson’s fault for speaking the truth. It’s Bea’s fault for expecting anything different.

  In the hour after Jefferson’s outburst and Bea’s dramatic exit, her greatest source of comfort was the lock on her bedroom door. The door itself was heavy and wood, stained dark and engraved with intricate latticework. The key was old-fashioned, thick and brass, and the lock emitted a satisfying click when Bea shut out the entire mess of her life.

  Bea paced the floor beside the little settee where, just the night before, Luc had held her and assured her she was beautiful. What an idiot she’d been to believe he was telling the truth.

  What did she know about these men, really? Luc was a player, Wyatt was lovely but a bit of a mystery, Sam was an exuberant kid, and Asher … Asher. Maybe he was just fooling himself. Maybe she was too.

  It was after midnight now—their flight back to America departed in seven hours.

  “I should pack,” Bea said to no one in particular. But she didn’t. She sat on her bed, still in her gown, her face in her hands. One breath in, another out. All those weeks of holding the men at bay, trying not to form attachments—as much as that hurt, it was better than this. She should have listened to Lauren.

  She tried to convince herself that this was no big deal—after all, what was she really losing? They were just hopes. They’d been intense, maybe, but she could live without them. Put off her chances at happiness for another few weeks until all this was over, just as she’d done so many times before. Waiting to schedule dates until after she got home from this next trip, after she finished up this project, after she lost a little weight. After, always after, until her romantic life became a kind of stasis, cryogenically suspended in a perpetual state of anticipation.

  After this show is over, my life will change. I’ll meet so many new people. Maybe I’ll find someone then.

  And then, a knock on her door.

  Go away.

  Another knock.

  “Bea, are you in there?”

  Was that Sam?

  “Of course she’s there. The producers said as much.”

  And Asher.

  “Dude, I know she’s in there, but it’s after midnight, I’m trying to be polite.”

  “Maybe she’s sleeping?”

  There was Wyatt.

  “No, but you see, the light is on.”

  And Luc.

  “Should we knock again?”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to talk to us.”

  Silence, all of them listening. Bea didn’t want to hate them.

  “I think we should knock again.”

  But the loud click of the lock gave her away as she opened the big wooden door.

  “Hi, guys.”

  There they were, still in their suits, ties undone, looking shades of relieved and apprehensive—and flanked by cameras and sound guys.

  “What is this?” Bea asked, suspicious.

  Sam took a tentative step forward. “Can we talk for a minute?”

  As the men and the camera crew filtered into the room, Bea sank down onto the bed—Sam and Wyatt sat beside her. Luc lounged on the little settee, and Asher stood uncomfortably, surveying the scene. For a moment, they all looked at one another, totally unclear
on who was meant to speak first. Finally, Luc broke the silence.

  “Someone must say it. Jefferson was dull and self-important, and none of us liked him.”

  Wyatt shook his head. “Luc, that’s not the point—”

  “We cannot allow this, this, what is the word, for one who helps Saint Nicholas?”

  “An elf?” Sam offered.

  “Oui, c’est ça, we cannot let this nasty elf poison Bea’s mind against us.”

  “Bea,” Sam added, “what Jefferson said down there … it wasn’t true, okay?”

  Bea swallowed. “So you guys wouldn’t be happy to have twenty-five women competing for you?”

  “In other circumstances, of course we would.” Luc’s manner was easy as always. “But Bea, for us this is not winning. Being with you—this is what we want. This is why we are here.”

  “Jefferson was just angry,” Wyatt piped in. “He wanted to hurt you.”

  “What can we do?” Sam asked. “How can we help you get past this?”

  Bea just looked down, willing herself not to cry again. Sam gave her a little nudge, his shoulder against hers. She thought back to the hammam, his hands on her hips—that had been real, hadn’t it? Not a trick of her mind, a lie for the cameras? It suddenly seemed impossible to know.

  “I’m so sick of questioning everything—especially you guys,” she admitted. “Since the first night, it’s felt like I’ve been some kind of detective, always on guard, looking for signs that none of this is real. And now, with so few of you left, with how much I like you … it feels unhinged. What Jefferson said—I guess in a way that was easier to believe.”

  Wyatt looked concerned. “You’d rather believe we’re all lying to you than that we all genuinely like you? Why, Bea?”