BENSON BOONE
OWEN
“It’s… something…” Brooke and I stand with the other contestants, gaping at our new home, and if she’s feeling anything like me right now, she’s very aware of the collection of cameras pointed in our direction as we take inallof the glory of our new place.
And there’s very little.
“It’s a camper for fairies,” Brooke whispers through giggles, bringing her hands up to cover her mouth. Though the idea of stepping into this miniscule camper—if you can even call it that—makes me prematurely claustrophobic, the sound of Brooke laughing after so much tension back at the house during counseling has me finally relaxing at her side.
Things have moved quickly, obviously, but I thought over the last week we’d settled into a rhythm that wouldn’t spook her. For all intents and purposes, little has changed between us. I’ve taken things slow, nudging her into marriage a bit like I’d gentle a wild cat who thinks it’s been taking care of itself, never realizing you’ve been leaving food out for her all along.
Only, I don’t want to tame Brooke. I just want to take care of her.
And, as a part of that gentle conditioning, do I take the opportunity to touch her as much as possible now? Um, yeah. Unapologetically so.
She’s wearing my ring, and she’s got my last name—or will soon, if I have anything to say about it—and now that the dam is broken and she’s allowed a bitmorebetween us, I can’t seem to help myself.
But I’m a man, not an animal. So I’ve been careful not to overstep the boundaries Brooke evidently wants to maintain between us.
I’m also not crazy.
Which is why I’m positive that if we hadn’t been interrupted back in the kitchen this morning, we would have kissed. Again. And it wouldn’t have been a chaste church-kiss, I can tell you that much. It wasn’t just me, which is why I couldn’t resist kissing her during marriage counseling, using the presence of the Lovetts as a safety net.
Oh, the pastor and his wife are our pseudo chaperones? Don’t mind if I do.
It’s a little convoluted, but it’s working. I just think of it like me leaving out a nice, warm bowl of milk for my feral cat—aka: treasured wife—to… lap up. I’ll keep slowly offering her more and more until she finally chooses to come inside and let me really take care of her. Forever.
If I’m to encourage Brooke to have confidence in the longevity of our relationship after a lifetime of doubts, I’ve got to use every chance—every tool in myloving-Brookearsenal—at my disposal. But somewhere between our almost-kiss in the kitchen and the real one I placed on her unsuspecting, perfectly tantalizing lips mid-marriage counseling, something jarred her. I’m holding steady, though.
We’re only in the second inning, and there’s plenty of game left to play.
I’ve studied Brooke for every year I’ve loved her, and I’m fluent in her love languages. So I’m gonna write that woman a love letter in all the ways I know she’ll understand—and won’t be able to deny. Starting with wrapping my hand around her curvy waist and pulling her into my side so there’s no doubt about who she’s married to in this bunch and who she’ll be spending all of her time with in that tiny excuse for a camper.
“Think we can make it, Mrs. Jones?” I whisper conspiratorially, running my thumb where it meets a bare patch of skin on her back. “It’ll be tight quarters.”
She stares ahead, murmuring out the side of her mouth, “If we can even manage to get you through the door. You’re like a giant next to that thing.”
“Just imagine it’s one of your little collectibles.” And it could be. I’m not sure my body will actually fold into the RV we’re staring at.
“They’re so cute,” she says wistfully. “But they aren’t fit for full-sized humans.”
“What is this?”I ask in my bestZoolandervoice.
She answers in kind,“A center for ants?”
“These are the Airstream Tinkerbells.” Sumer Morison pulls our attention back to the matter at hand. Wearing some sort of oversized, bohemian dress for our first day of shooting, she raises her arms in the center of the camper circle and rotates, really selling our new digs as a camera on a giant arm pans around her overhead.
Brooke can barely contain her giggles. I elbow her, but that only makes it worse.
“The Tinkerbell is a state-of-the-art, single-axle travel trailer equipped for your every need.”
“Unless you need to stand up straight,” one of the guys beside us quips.
His wife hip checks him but says under her breath, loud enough for me and Brooke to hear, “Who cares about standing. Where will we sleep?”
“At only sixteen feet long”—Sumer continues with cameras following her into one of the teensy trailers for an inside peek, only confirming the tight quarters, as we all watch via livestream on a massive screen just beyond the circle—“the Tinkerbell will house our twenty contestants for the next eight weeks as they battle for their very own mini-Airstream, the new, fully-loaded RAM 3000 that’s pulling the trailer, and their chance at the million-dollar, tax-free grand prize.”
Though they nervously watch the screen, the rest of the couples seem excited by the prospect.
