He starts chuckling again. ‘Honestly. The more I get to know you, the more I think I’m falling head over heels in love with you.’
It’s as though everyone suddenly stops what they are doing to look in our direction.
Silence. Plenty and plenty of silence.
Giovanni, suddenly self-conscious, is pulling himself together and waiting desperately for me to respond.
‘Cut! Set up for the blind taste test and points round, then we’ll announce the winners.’
21
We are given a comfort break, while the crew set up the next part of the challenge. I do hope we don’t have to actually taste each other’s mocktails for real. I saw Brad drop a slice of melon on the floor and casually fling it back in the blender when he thought no one was looking.
‘I guess we should talk,’ Giovanni says to me. He looks as shocked as I feel. I bat him away and use the reverse psychology I’ve trained my whole life for.
‘We all know you were just joking around. Puft! No one ever means what they say in here anyway. They just think they do.’
‘Yeah, bro. Totally like yeah,’ he says, looking bewildered. ‘And like no. You know?’
Nope.
‘Totally.’ I scuttle away from him to find the Tree House for a quick breather. At the last second, I risk a quick visit to the blind spot, desperate to hear what Cam has made of my performance in the mocktail challenge and also to see what he thinks of this amazing bikini I am wearing, but a runner approaches as I hurry along.
‘If you’re off to the toilets, can you not wipe any of the mocktail off your hair, face or bikini, please? It’s for continuity. And Porscha says don’t sit down or touch anything because if you stain it, she will… erm, she will…’ The runner looks down to her clipboard at some imaginary notes. She flips a page up and down searching for ways to say Porscha has threatened to karate kick me in the throat, kill me or worse.
I stop walking. ‘It’s okay. I understand. I’ll go back to the outdoor kitchen.’
‘And just one other thing?’ she says, staring down at her notes and back up to me. ‘You said you don’t like pineapple. Is that an allergy thing because I’m pretty sure almost everyone put some in their mocktails… but also…’ She looks back down, flicks a page over and scans the text. ‘Didn’t we see you with a bottle of pineapple juice yesterday?’
Fudge.
‘Erm, yes. Yes, you did. Because I do like it. But today, I’m just not feeling the vibe. You know?’
What complete and utter bollocks. She will never buy it.
‘Okay. Cool.’
She walks away as though our entire conversation made sense.
* * *
After the tasting round, which got very, very messy, most of the Islanders hurry back to the villa to take showers and get ready for the evening’s firepit visit from Destiny. I hang back in the outdoor kitchen in the hopes that Cam might try to contact me in some way because of the numerous mentions of pineapple, even though I am sticky with mocktails. I’m just about to give up when I see a downcast Mimi walking out of the PANTRY. She glances at me and looks quickly away.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask her quietly. ‘Did you get pulled by a producer for a chat?’
She looks warily around, whispering, ‘Yeah. She had the cheek to say I’m being too needy towards Giovanni.’ Her voice is almost inaudible. ‘She wants me to make him jealous. But how can I? Now that he’s in love with you?’
‘No, he isn’t. He was just messing about. Probably trying to make you jealous. I’m sure he’d love it if you pulled him for a chat.’
‘Really?’ Mimi cheers up a bit. ‘In IRL I never usually have a problem with guys. But in here, everyone is so damn gorgeous that I feel like if we all act like divas, it can’t possibly work. There’s no… what do you call it?’
‘There’s no hierarchy,’ I say, warming to the subject. It’s just like being back in the classroom.
‘Yeah. It’s like we are all the popular kids so none of us are the popular kids, if you know what I mean?’
She has a valid point. ‘I do, Mimi. You all have such an unreasonably high sense of self-importance, requiring constant and excessive adoration that it’s hard for any of you to stand out sufficiently.’
Mimi nods in agreement. ‘Yes, that’s it.’
