“And you?” I took a step closer, the roses clouding every brain cell in my head. How weird. How droll. How utterly ridiculous was this?
“I’m the guy who loves you,” he said softly. “And the guy who is going to spend the rest of this goddamn summer with you. No more uni for a couple of weeks. Gotta go back and sort a few things, and do that summer camp. The rest of the time? Fuck the rest of the world. I’m going to look after you.”
I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to run away. I wanted him to just grab his twatty flowers and then take my hand and remove me from this place. Letme be with him and go back to that place he took me, where I didn’t care so much.
“You’re like…a Lana del Rey song,” came out of my mouth.
“I know.” He smiled. We talked about this. Shared our playlists. He made them for me. Full of…
“You make me all stupid with thoughts, just like Lana. I just need to hear the opening chords and I go all funny.”
“ ‘Blue Jeans’. Followed by ‘White Mustang’,” he said quietly. “I feel like there’s just peace on the inside when I hear those.”
“ ‘West coast’,” I filled in, without thinking. “Love the last playlist you made. You had that track twice.”
“ ‘Peace’.” He never wavered. His eyes on mine. “ I have that on repeat, because it’s the only thing that fixes me when you’re not there.”
Then silence. We didn’t need more words, because he’d just fixed me right back, just quoting me song titles.
“I’ll pick you up tonight, when you’re done here.”
I nodded. “And in the meantime? What am I supposed to do with these?” I tried to shove the flowers back in his arms, when they were already full. He plonked my bits on top of the flowers, making me steady the tablet with my chin, then he stepped backwards with a cheeky smile on his face.
“Careful with your hands, those thorns prick the hell out of you.” He grinned, walking backwards away from me. Giving me a little wave.
I just grinned. I couldn’t explain anything. Nothing.
Instead I walked back inside, carrying far too many things in my arms.
“Flowers,” someone said, smiling at me.
I didn’t care…about flowers. Flowers were stupid. Yet I was bringing these back home. I was going to fill my bathtub with them and let them prick my body. Bleed into them until I was one with him.
I laughed. The stupidity of my stupid head.
Meeting. Now. Be professional. Stop smiling. Stop thinking about his lips on your skin. Or the fact that your best friend was the sloppiest kisser on the planet. How he made me feel should be illegal. I shouldn’t be allowed to even think about it.
“It feels like it’s a bit of a…disaster?” Storm’s voice was strained, her face seemingly twisted in embarrassment, snapping me out of my haze as I took my seat in the room. Flowers dumped in the corner. I raised the pad of my hand to my mouth. Sucked gently at the many pricks covering my skin. He’d done that on purpose. Trying to bleed me dry when there wasn’t anything left of me. Nothing at all. Just him. He filled me up.
I wanted so badly for him to fill me up.
“What disaster? That word should not be part of your vocabulary. This is a meticulously planned, scripted show, and in my book? We have exceeded expectations with the footage we got today at the luncheon, and are still well under budget.” Kirsten’s voice snapped me back into gear.
“We’ve just had to escort two more contestants off the premises!” I half shouted. Because? Yes. I was with Storm here. And I was back in the room.
“Some minor misdemeanours that will play right into our hands. Chloe-Catherine has been a good investment. We will have a few stern words and bring her back in a week or two. Build on that, Storm. We can absolutely play our cards right here and craft a situation that demands her instant return. Ben was becoming a liability, but he brought exactly what we needed to put both Oliver and Caspar where we needed them story-wise. Ben’s replacement is already downstairs, and this evening’s filming will be explosive. The visuals we need will be child’s play to obtain. First, the bottom eight contestants will be removed, and then we bring in the twins.
“The twins.” I sighed. “Didn’t we agree not to?”
“Rupert and Robert – brothers or lovers? It’s too good not to. The viewers will be right on top of that. Scandalously delicious!” Kirsten was licking her lips and laughing. It wasn’t a kind laugh.
“Their lives could be… I mean.” I should have known better than to speak up.
“You know where the door is, George. We all do. Now does anyone else want to spread any negativity around the room?”
The silence was telling. And Kirsten smiled knowingly.
“What happened last night was…” She lifted her arms, doing little quotation marks in the air with what I could only describe as a triumphant look on her face. “A minor software glitch. The first episode went live on the website, and with some simple social media seeding? The views are through the roof. We are dealing with the network to contain the fallout, but the viewer reactions are gold. There has been traffic all night, as well as commenting on the big five accounts we needed. We have the right people on board who will post content today and…” She looked very pleased with herself as the hairs at the back of my neck stood right up. I was cold. Stone cold. This was…not part of the plan, and we were not ready. Nothing was ready. The first episode? Was that even back from the cutting room? What on earth was Kirsten playing at here? I looked over at Alastair, who was simply staring at his hands. This was bad. Really bad.
