Which, I’ll admit, had shocked me.
This was a guy who stood six-two and had mountain-peak cheekbones and dark mussed hair that even Adonis would envy. But that was the thing. The spotlight doesn’t care how perfect you look. It just keeps demanding more.
We ended up talking about society’s expectations—how exhausting it is to be reduced to a face, a body, a brand. Jax didn’t want to be worshipped. He wanted to be seen.
I could relate.
If you’re wondering, the crew ofLove Unscripted, specifically Jazzy and Miles, did not seem impressed with my dates. I was pretty sure I’d heard Jazzy mutter “Boresville”underher breath. Miles questioned why I had even joined the show in the first place. Believe me, I had too. Especially when I kept thinking about my encounter with Roman two days earlier at the creek.
I’d obviously had a serious lapse in judgment. He must have thought so too, the way he’d looked at me like I’d asked him to jump off a cliff when I’d not so casually suggested that maybe we kept getting thrown together because he was meant to be more than my sidekick. He hadn’t even been able to say anything to me after that bombshell. I’d felt like such a dope. Still did.
It didn’t help that he hadn’t contacted me since then. No morning runs, no pebbles to the head.
I blamed Cassie for making me believe that maybe Roman really was my true love. She was still under the impression that my goddess couldn’t be wrong, but I was going to say there was a very decent chance that she could. And that this quest was a bust.
And while I was blaming people, I was going to add Roman to that list. All his talk about my father saying I was special and that he wouldn’t send me on a quest if it meant him never seeing me again.
I wasn’t so sure.
Especially since I’d tried to call him last night via the Oracle and, instead, the call mysteriously got rerouted to Hestia, dressed in her fuzzy pink bathrobe, sipping on her own wine label, called Hearth and Homebody. Her joke was that her wine didn’t go out much, just like her. But her message to me last night had been anything but funny—Dearest, we are all rooting for you, but contacting the god of love on your quest for love—that’s not kosher.
Kosher? Was she serious?
You know what wasn’t kosher? My father sending his daughter with a locked heart on a dead-end quest with the man who’d inspired her to lock her heart in the first place. Oh, and also Hestia just hanging up on me. That definitely wasn’t decent. At all.
“Demi, what sounds better to you? Pizza or pasta?” Blaine asked, bringing me back to reality . . . or whatever this was. Reality TV was anything but real.
Blaine and I were in a cozy cabin kitchen. If you could call being surrounded by stage lights, microphones, and half a dozen interlopers “cozy.” We were supposed to be doing some cutesy couple thing and making dinner together.
“Um, both,” I said, distracted.
“I like it. A woman with an appetite.”
I didn’t know about that, but I was a stress eater, and was I ever stressed. Having your fate hang in the balance tends to do that to you.
“I’ll work on the dough,” I offered, needing something to keep my hands busy while my mind was free-falling.
“Homemade dough?”
Blaine’s pretty blue eyes lit up like he’d hit the jackpot. Oh, he was not winning the prize here. Granted, I could make a mean pizza. Or at least I used to be able to. My mom and I had loved to cook together. And Mom had been all about everything being fresh and organic. She’d believed in properly fueling your body.
“It’s the only way to eat pizza,” I said flatly, not even remotely flirty.
He had the whole California beach vibe—golden flippy hair, chiseled jawline, and that sun-kissed glow we were allsupposed to swoon over. He reminded me of the surfers I used to watch from my penthouse balcony. Overly tanned. Casually charming. Didn’t seem to take life too seriously. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
But I had more important matters to attend to. Like Blaine putting his hand over mine on the counter in what he clearly thought was a romantic gesture. All the guys—except Todd—had done something similar. It was my divinity. Calling to them. Pulling them in. Regardless, I had to shut it down. Fast. Maybe I had a locked heart, but I wasn’t heartless. I wouldn’t give any of these men false hope.
I sent the opposite of a love pulse through him. A cold flicker. A divine nope. I wasn’t sure what to call it. I wasn’t even sure anyone else could do it. Maybe my father. After all, he’d locked his heart, just like I had. Maybe I’d inherited more from him than I’d realized.
Blaine popped his hand off mine immediately and took a step away from me. Very good.
“So, Blaine, what did you think of Jessica?”
From the corner of my eye, I could see Jazzy throw her hands up in the air like she’d lost all hope for this season, for me. I was losing hope too. But I could still help people, even pretty boy Blaine. Not that I necessarily thought Jessica washis person.
I was on the fence, which I took to mean there wasn’t a simple answer. Love wasn’t this cut-and-dried thing. Most matches weren’t written in the stars. If they were, there would be no reason for the Bureau.
Blaine took a moment to recover from my divinenot in this lifetime, buddypulse. He was probably trying to figure out why he no longer found meattractive.
