Dylan was still so close to me. Our pinkies were still linked. If this were a movie, she would have jumped twelvefeet away from me the second the bathroom door had banged open, but she hadn’t moved at all.
‘Good for you,’ Naya said. ‘Although she was nice enough later. I’ve never seen you two actually be civil before, Dylan.’
Dylan rolled her eyes. ‘She only puts on the Disney villain act when the cameras are around. It annoys the shit out of me.’
She disentangled her hand from mine and sat down on her bunk. She and Naya kept talking, but I was only half-listening. Quarter-listening, really. Maybe only eighth-listening.
It wasn’t just me. This wasn’t all in my head.
I wasn’t Jac-sure. But I was pretty sure.
I’d been about to kiss Dylan.
And Dylan had been about to kiss me.
12
We had a rare day off the next day. ‘We would have been shooting the Last Chance Party and the Necklace Ceremony, but because Heather got canned at the group date yesterday, we don’t need to,’ Suzette told us. ‘So the crew will be taking a well-deserved break today, and you ladies can too.’
‘Can we see Dylan JM?’ Parisa asked.
‘He’s taking a day off too.’
‘Can he take a day off with us?’
‘Let the man rest,’ Suzette said. ‘Most of you are only filming properly three or four times a week. He’s filming pretty much every day. He could use some peace and quiet.’
‘I get that,’ Parisa said, ‘but I just feel – and so do most of us – that I haven’t had any time with him. How are we supposed to fall in love with him without spending time together?’
‘I hear you, Parisa, I really do,’ Suzette said, ‘but any timeyou spend with him needs to be on camera. Today, we’re resting. If you and Dylan G want your phone calls, now’s your chance. Come with me.’
I didn’t wait for Dylan to come back from talking to Noah. As soon as I found an opportunity to slip away, I went outside. It was a beautiful day, and some of the other women were talking about having a picnic next to the pool, which sounded lovely – or would have, if things weren’t soloudin my head.
I headed out to the maze instead, trailing my left hand against the wall and letting it take me down whatever pathways and dead ends it wanted. It knew what it was doing. It would get me somewhere.
Ididn’t know what I was doing, though.
What I’d been positive – well, almost positive – fairly sure of? – last night seemed ridiculous in the light of day. I might have wanted to kiss Dylan, but there was no way she wanted to kiss me.
I knew Dylan liked me. Dylan might even love me. Those affirmation flashcards had been such a beautiful act of love. Jac and I had dated for well over two years and she’d never once done anything so loving for me.
That didn’t mean Dylan was attracted to me, though. It was my poor, lonely, affection-starved brain playing tricks on me again, like it had that morning when we’d sat outside and watched the sunrise. I just… wasn’t her type.
Because there was no getting away from one simple fact: if Dylan was attracted to women, she would have told me by now.
I came to the end of the hedge maze long before I reached the end of the maze in my mind. Although it probably hadn’t taken me the fastest way through, that piece of advice about picking a wall and following it worked. I’d solved it.
It had spit me out about three quarters of the way down the hill. I wasn’t exactly close to the Convent, but I was closer than I’d ever been before. I could see that all the windows were open, upstairs and downstairs, including a set of French doors that opened onto the verandah, letting the lovely day’s fresh air in – and probably the smell out. Despite our cleaning roster, the Villa was starting to smell pretty lived in, so things must be twice as intense in a place as small as the Convent.
Three women were outside doing yoga – Kanda, Marija, and one of the women who’d been eliminated on the first night, whose name I couldn’t remember. I thought about walking down and saying hello, but decided against it. Murray would definitely be mad if I crossed the still-in-the-game/gone-from-the-game Juliet streams.
Murray. God. I was doing such a bad job of not making heart eyes at Dylan. I was lucky there were no cameras in the bedroom. Screw mad, he’d belividif he saw how we were last night.
Instead of walking down towards the Convent, I headed across the hill, trailing my hand along the outside edge of the maze. Maybe I could follow it to the corner and then walk back up the hill to the Villa, instead of having to go through the maze again to get home. Or I could walk around the hill, come back up the driveway, and give everyonea bit of a scare by knocking at the front door.Oh my God, it was all a lie!someone would squeal.It’s Z with a date card!Sure, it wouldn’t be agreatpractical joke, but when you didn’t have access to any outside entertainment, your standards really dropped.
It was a beautiful clear day, and the lake was shining silver in the sun. Romeo-Dylan’s boat was tied up to the jetty, bobbing gently. There was a golf cart parked nearby, like the ones the crew zipped around in. Romeo-Dylan’s big day off clearly wasn’t as Day Off-y as Suzette had suggested.
I stopped, one hand still on the hedge. If I squinted, I could just make out two figures on Romeo-Dylan’s boat, sitting on the deck.
