London was too stunned to reply. Or to even take another sip of bourbon. Which they sorely needed.
Dahlia crossed her arms over her chest.
“Did I do something to you?”
London could feel it now, see it in her eyes as Dahlia attempted to bluster on, how the heat was going out of her. Her anger was quickly giving way to sadness, or fatigue, or something else. And while the anger had been startling, no part of London had any room for this stranger’s sadness. By the time she pushed out her last question, she only sounded tired. “Or are you just one of those people who indiscriminately hates everyone?”
London frowned at this characterization, even if it had been weakly thrown. “I don’t hate you. That’s not . . . no.” They took a breath. Fine. They’d put an end to this thing. “I’m sorry I didn’t say good luck back.”
The truth was that London remembered Dahlia saying good luck to them. They remembered their brain registering that they should reply, and the command not quite reaching their mouth. They remembered pretty much everything about Dahlia Woodson from today, from the moment they walked on set and first got a glimpse of that hair.
It was mesmerizing. Thick, almost black, unkempt. But the thing that left London slightly gobsmacked was simply how much of it there was. It cascaded in waves all the way to her waist. It was ridiculous, was what it was.
The season eight cast had met last night for a meet-and-greet cocktail hour and dinner at some swanky restaurant in Burbank. There was so much going on, so many hands to shake and names to remember and fake smiles to plaster on, that London hadn’t kept track of the other contestants as closely as they knew others were, scouting each other out, looking for signs of weakness. But when London saw that hair today, they knew they would have remembered it. That hair had not been at the meet and greet. And now it appeared that it would be in their direct line of vision for the entirety of filming. Or, at least, until one of them was eliminated from the competition.
“Hey,” London had asked Ahmed, their tablemate, when they huddled behind the archway, waiting for the go-ahead to officially enter the set on camera this morning, right after she had run her face into their chest. “Do you know who that woman is, in front of us? Next to Jacob?”
“With the hair? Name’s Dahlia Woodson. I think.”
“She wasn’t around last night, though, right?”
“Nope. I only think that’s her name because I heard Janet say, ‘Where the hell is Dahlia Woodson?’ at some point.”
“Huh.”
London simply didn’t like being thrown off, was the thing. It wasfine, of course, that Dahlia had apparently blown off the meet and greet, that she was stationed in front of them. But it was unnecessarily distracting, really, that all of that hair was down, completely untamed and uncontained. Like, was she actually planning on cooking like that? Because for starters, it was completely unsanitary. It would never fly in a professional kitchen.
But hairnets weren’t sexy on-screen. Maybe the producers had asked her to keep it down? But no, a quick glance around set had revealed several other people with their hair up. The more London had stared at it, the more infuriating it became.
London had been so distracted by it when they first saw it that they had simply stood there, like an idiot, as Dahlia whirled up to them under the archway, a tiny hurricane of energy, and smashed into them. And proceeded to be . . . adorable.
Her hair was up now, drawn into an enormous, slanting bird’s nest on top of her head, the mechanics of which, honestly, London couldn’t compute.
When she collapsed into the seat across from them, unceremoniously shoving her bag onto the floor, a few more strands escaped, floating around her face, her tanned skin. She looked exhausted, but somehow that skin still seemed to glow anyway, even in this dim bar lighting. Which was, London thought, scratching at the back of their neck, scraping across their own ghostly skin, extremely unfair.
“Can I get something for you?” A petite waitress, the roots of a fading dye job clear in her sloppy blond bun, stopped by the table. There was an orange stain on her left shoulder. She, too, looked exhausted.
It was a real party in this hotel bar tonight.
Dahlia jutted her chin toward London’s glass. “What’s that?”
“Bourbon.” London still felt tongue-tied, trying to process this whole interaction, but their brain remembered this.
“Yeah, that. That sounds good.”
The waitress nodded and walked away.
Dahlia sighed, rubbing a hand over her face. She was wearing a loose knit purple dress over leggings, and when she’d sat down, the scoop neckline of said dress had slipped over one of her shoulders, revealing a black bra strap and a delicate stretch of collarbone.
London had barely talked to this woman, and they already felt like they knew too much about her. That she had peed her pants—but just a little—in the fourth grade. How vulnerable her face looked after falling on national TV, a bit of crema on her cheek. That she was wearing a black bra. That she had been nervous today.
London hadn’t actually felt that nervous, somehow. Only generally disgruntled.
The waitress returned, slipping the glass into Dahlia’s hands before disappearing. Dahlia took a good slug, and London cleared their throat. They weren’t quite sure why Dahlia was still here, why she had decided to sit down, but if London smoothed this over maybe she’d leave faster.
“I didn’t mean to be rude to you today, if I was. I’ve, uh, had a rough couple of days.”
Dahlia looked at them over the rim of her glass, freezing for just a moment.
