She was on the run.
I was close.
‘Since none of you are going on a single date this episode, we need to do something else with you,’ I told the seven Juliets, arrayed around the Villa dining table. ‘So we’re going to have a dinner party.’
The first time Lily and I had used the question box gambit, ten years ago in the Adjudication Station, we’d been trying to expose cracks inDesert Island Castawayvoting alliances so we could shift the power balance. However, as we’d gone on to discover, it was a startlingly versatile stunt. You could use it for a whole variety of narrative purposes.
This time, I’d filled the box with romantic compatibility questions. In the narrative of the show, I was going to make this dinner party read like a punishment. We were going to put pressure on the Juliets for knowing less about Romeo-Dylan than an eliminated contestant did. This part of the episode was going to be driven by one question: were any of these women actually compatible with him?
It didn’t matter how any of the women actually answered the questions from the box. I hadn’t even posed them to Romeo-Dylan. Juliet-Dylan was going to win this dinner party.
And that would be the framing I used for the Dylans’ relationship going forward. I couldn’t rely on chemistry to carry it, so I’d use compatibility instead, emphasising repeatedly that these two people justfittogether.
Amanda was gazing at Juliet-Dylan over the dinner table, a complex cocktail of emotions bubbling behind her eyes. Juliet-Dylan hadn’t noticed, but Lily had. ‘Are you open to changing the seating arrangements at all?’ she asked me, in her trademark Lily Fireball purr.
‘No.’
‘Shame. I could have done a much better job.’
I looked at her.Come back to work and show me, then.
She looked away.
Ha. Point O’Connell.
Kumiko reached into the box of questions. ‘Name one thing you and Dylan JM have in common.’
‘Subtle,’ Lily said dryly. ‘I’ll start. Dylan JM and I have nothing in common.’
‘Then why are you here?’ Parisa asked.
‘Because opposites attract, obviously.’ Lily waved her hand dismissively. ‘Who’s next?’
We’re too similar, Murray. We both have hard edges.
I dug my knuckles into the meat of my thigh. No. I was not going to let her get in my head. Not now, not when I finally had an advantage.
‘We’re both very clear about what we want,’ Juliet-Dylan said.
A good answer. I had some ITM footage from last week of Romeo-Dylan saying something similar. It would cut together beautifully.
Jess D took the next question out of the box. ‘What’s the worst thing a romantic partner could do to you?’
‘Clearly a man wrote that question,’ Kumiko said. ‘How many kinds of abuse do you want us to list?’
Lily shifted slightly in her seat.
From her, that was practically ants-in-her-pants fidgeting.I could have done it better,she was trying not to let me read.
I had her. After all this time, I finally fucking had her.
I’d got her off-balance. If I just pushed a little more, dug my thumbs in a little harder, the thing she wasn’t saying would spill out. She’d give me the final piece of the puzzle.
And once I had all the pieces, I could put it – could put her, could putus– back together.
‘Lie,’ Amanda said. ‘You can’t be in a relationship with someone you can’t trust.’
‘I agree with Amanda,’ Naya said. ‘That goes for lying by omission as well.’
