I lunge for Olivia and give her a tight hug. “Your heart will tell you when it’s time,” I say to her. I don’t have any experience with losing a spouse, but I imagine the pain will eventually subside enough for her to focus on the future more.
“Thank you for saying that,” she says. “Besides this intense weirdness here at the bonfire, I had a fun night. I needed tonight, and I hope we can do it again sometime.”
“I won’t leave you alone when we hang out again,” I tell her.
“Tell that cutie-pie of yours we said hello,” Noah adds in.
“Mia will love to hear that,” Olivia says.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Theo says, walking toward us.
Theo, Jim, and Olivia say goodnight and leave the party full of hostile-looking men.
“It’s only been a week,” Colin hollers from in between the small crowd of men, standing around, sipping on their beers.
“A week,” I reply. “A week where none of you made any effort to get to know me. A week where most of you spent the only five minutes we chatted, talking about yourself. I didn’t come here looking for a man. I came here looking for a job and to take advantage of the free rent my brother offered me. Yet, you came here for a completely different reason, signed your lives away for this reason, and now you’re lonely.” I realize I sound like I’m on a soapbox, but the expectations these men have are incredibly absurd, and I don’t think they even know what they want. “You’re all attractive men with successful careers, but again, that isn’t why I came here. However, you should all focus on the reason you signed up for this study, take each day as it comes, and realize what you agreed to. I was not what you agreed to.”
The men have a synonymous look of shame written across their faces, so I check on Noah who is standing slightly behind me. He has the same look. The difference between them and Noah is that he made an effort to get to know me. He was honest upfront. I’m sure most of these guys are great, but maybe they have something more to learn before this study is over. “So ... you’ve made your choice then?”
This isn’t a choice. I wasn’t choosing someone. “If that’s how you want to still look at this after everything I just said, then yes, I’m falling for Noah.” I swear I hear a whimper from the dark crowd. “Look, I know you must all be lonely living in this situation, but in five months, you’ll have a new outlook on life, and you’ll be able to find a type of love you don’t have to fight for.”
“I’m out of here,” one of the guys who is standing farthest away says. I squint to make out who it is. I think his name is Chad, but I didn’t spend much time talking to him. “I don’t care about the money, and I’m not going to sit around and wait for one chick to choose me out of nine others.”
Nice. I have some choice words I could respond with, but in reality, I don’t blame him. He made a mistake thinking he could participate in this study, so be it.
Chad makes his way over to me with a pure look of despondency. He takes my hands and places a kiss on my right cheek. “I wish you luck, Ashley. I wish we had gotten the chance to get to know each other a little more, but that’s life, right?”
“Thank you for being here,” I say without thinking. Why am I thanking him? He didn’t come here for me. I’m here to be a tool to make people like Chad leave the study. In any case, I feel bad.
The rest of the men slowly disperse. The clink of beer bottles falling into a metal bin by the path shuddersthrough my body, one after the other. I’m surprised Noah is still standing behind me.
“You’re falling for me?”
“It’s been a long week,” I tell him, twisting around to face him. “I’ve come to see what I don’t want, what I want to avoid for the rest of my life, and the type of men I might actually be afraid of, but then there was you. Honest, integral, real, and we’ll add extremely hot into the mix because you are. I like you, Noah, and I think I want to like you a lot more after we spend time together.”
A cute smile perks along Noah’s lips. “You like me?”
“I do,” I tell him, sounding shy.
“I really like you too, Ash,” he says, pulling me in and refreshing the feeling of what the kiss under the dock did to me.
I pull back an inch, needing to add in that, “I might want a lot more of this too.” My words whisper into his mouth.
Noah twists his head to the side, speaking softly near my ear. “Want to run away for a few?”
“Would you think less of me if I said yes?”
He places a soft kiss on my neck, and my body temperature skyrockets.
“Maybe,” he says.
“Think less of me, then.”
Noah hums a sigh of relief into my ear and takes my hand, leading me back toward the docks.
Without exploring this direction of the island yet, I wasn’t aware of the gorgeous hotel situated on the water just a half mile down the shore.
It’s the direction we’re heading. Noah apparently has a key to the resort as he scans a card in front of a small machine at the pool gate. “If you had a bathing suit on, I’d say we could take a quick dip in the hot tub.”
