When the announcer concludes the explanation, his assistant starts passing out notebooks and pens to the girls. I walk over to Amy and sit down beside her.
“Are you ready or what?” I ask.
She glares at me. “You arranged this, didn’t you?”
The coldness in her voice sends a chill down my spine, but I try to maintain my composure. I knew when I planned this that she’d be thinking of the day Harper read her fanfic aloud, but that’s the point.
This is part of my atonement.
“I did,” I say. “I want you to show everyone that you deserve that ten grand. This is your expertise.”
She scoffs. “The game is stupid anyway. No one has to earn anything. They just have to make you like them. Is it too impossible for everyone to imagine you liking me for myself?”
Her hostility makes my stomach sink. I set my hand on her thigh and give it a squeeze. “I’m not trying to embarrass you. I couldn’t if I tried. Your writing is good. The scene Harper read that day was good, too. People only laughed becauseshewas laughing. I’ll bet a lot of them thought she was being an asshole, even if they didn’t say it. You have no reason to be embarrassed. I’d do anything to go back in time and stop her from doing it, but I can’t.”
She’s still frowning, but she doesn’t look nearly as angry as she did a moment ago. I lift my hand and stroke her cheek. “This is me making amends, Amy. Not trying to embarrass you.”
Her lips quirk. “I’ll write a scene about you and make you terrible in bed.”
I burst into laughter before leaning in and kissing her cheek. “You can make me as bad in bed as you want, as long as your fictional Amy is only with me. No one else. Not even Mr. Darcy.”
Her smile grows. “I’ll make my fictional Amy a witch and have her use magic to torture you.”
I graze my mouth from her cheek to her ear. “The real Amy’s a witch. She’s had me under a spell for years.”
When I pull away, her eyes are wide. I stand up and walk to my seat right in front of the stage to give me the best view when the girls read their scenes. Maybe I revealed too much, but I’m past caring. It should be obvious to her by now that she really does have me under a spell.
One I plan to break, if I can only win her first.
The announcer tells the girls that they have thirty minutes to write their scene. As soon as he says they can start, I lift my phone and pretend to look at it while I watch Amy.
Her dark brows are drawn together, and those doe eyes are downcast as she looks at her open notebook. She doesn’t start writing immediately like the other two girls do. A few minutes later, she must have an idea, because she starts furiously scribbling. She’s so absorbed, I bet if I called her name, she wouldn’t hear me. She told me her mind becomes the story, just like my mind becomes the game.
The thirty minutes are almost up, and Amy looks completely different than she did in the beginning. She’s sitting back in her chair with her shoulders upright and her chin lowered, like a fucking queen. I can’t wait to hear her read her scene.
I hope she meant it when she said it would be about me. I don’t give a fuck if she makes me bad in bed.
Just the thought of her writing me in a sex scene makes me hard.
“Time’s up!” the announcer calls. He explains that each girl will take turns reading their scene aloud on the stage.
Natalie is the first to stand up. She reads her scene. While it’s not bad, it’s clear she’s not a writer. She shoots me a smile when her scene concludes, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. I’ve noticed a similar apathy from the other contestants since I made my little “love confession” to Amy on our one-on-one date.
They know it’s already over. They know I’ve already made my choice.
“Alright, Amy, you’re up,” the announcer says, gesturing toward the stage. She hesitates for a moment and then takes a deep breath and walks to the front of the room.
Amy shoots me a pointed look before reading her scene. The setting is contemporary, and it’s about a football player and a writer. My heart starts to race.
It’s about us.
There’s no reason she wouldn’t use her skill in writing Jane Austen fanfiction if this scene weren’t about us.
I hardly even blink as she tells the story of a sarcastic journalist who gets stuck in a broken-down elevator with a professional football player. Amy smirks at me every time the football player says something stupid, which is pretty much every other line. I shoot her a look that promises retribution, but the story takes a turn. The football player—notably a cornerback—tells the girl he’s always watched her from afar. He’s tried to talk to her, but he could see in her eyes that she found him boring. The journalist doesn’t believe him. She asks him what game he’s playing, and then he kisses her.
The story ends.
My whole body is buzzing as Mia reads her story next. I hardly hear it, but a few phrases puncture my daze. From the little I hear, the story doesn’t sound as good as Amy’s, but I might be biased.
