14. Fourteen
fourteen
ELLIOT
Ginger is managing the hell out of the campsite, and I can’t take my eyes off her. The high of riding the zip line with her softened the blow of her dismissal the other night, but it’s impossible to tell what’s real between us and what’s the job. I would kill to get her alone again to find out.
While I sit alone on a log in the middle of the campsite, Ginger directs the women and crew from interview to interview.
My afternoon has involved intensive sessions with Lavonne while she posed questions to me and each woman to see how well our answers match up, like the Dating Game around a campfire. All the conversation and self-examination has left me worn out and wishing for something simpler. Something physical to get me out of my own head.
On the other hand, I’m relieved the rules of engagement on this show don’t involve my having to get intimate with multiple women over the course of filming. I’d never be able to figure out which end was up, much less pick a future partner. Removing sex from the equation was smart on the network’s part. Since The Panel has so much power to send women home in the final rounds, sexual advances tend to hurt a contestant’s chances, not help. Having sex with Jenna on her season torpedoed me with her Panel.
Though so far, despite the appropriate behavior of the women, clarity has been hard to come by when the object of my most intense desire is never more than a hundred yards away.
But Ginger couldn’t have been any clearer about where we stand: nowhere. She wants me here, playing the fan favorite, doing the work, making this the best season ever. She wants to reap all the rewards that come with a major success story. And the truth is, I need the success story, too. The last thing I’m up for is another heartbreak.
A clinking noise drags my attention away from Ginger who’s ushering Cassie into a tent. Behind me, my mother pulls a beer from the cooler and cracks the lid. Unbelievable.
Fuming, I stand, then freeze in place. If I say something, production could come to a screeching halt. If I don’t say anything, she could wind up blitzed on her ass again, and we’ll all be forced to reckon with the consequences.
My fists clench as I try to gather the courage to confront her when a flick on my ear snaps my attention around.
“The hell?” I cover my ear and take a step back from Ginger who might as well have steam coming out of her head. “Was I scratching my ass? What’s the problem?”
“What the hell are you doing standing over here all by yourself when you could be talking to people, helping gather firewood—making real actual connections—what the fuck , Elliot?”
A fly lands on her hairline, and I slap it away, not gently. Her head rears back, and she bats at my hand. “Don’t touch me.”
I snap. “That’s how it’s gonna be? Your signals are getting a little mixed, Ginger.”
Eyes blazing with frustration, she seethes, “Let’s take a walk.”
I glare at her. “No, thank you. My producer keeps reminding me I have a job to do.”
“Your producer is about to have a screaming fit if you don’t come with her right now.”
“Yeah, I’d like to see that.”
In a sudden move, her hand wraps around my waist and expertly flips off my mic. “You said we needed to talk. We talked. So now you have to do your part and figure out how to work with me.”
“We did a little more than talk...”
Her eyes widen, and she glances around the campsite like she’s marking the positions of all the people within eyesight. “Come with me,” she whisper-hisses.
Toward the camera crew, she calls out, “We’ll be right back. Find Davis, I want him doing some interviews, and get some eyes on The Panel. Use Vanessa. And hey—” She snaps her fingers to get Matt’s attention.
The other producer looks up from his monitor to where Ginger is pointing at my mom with the beer. Matt rises immediately to handle it.
Distracted and amazed by Ginger’s complete control of every situation, I nevertheless get turned on as she takes me by the arm and force-walks me into the line of trees.
Once we’re away from everyone, and she powers down her headset, she squares off with me. “What is going on? Every time I make a suggestion, you act like I’m telling you to give yourself a root canal. This is not what the network wants. So what ? What needs to happen to make you work with me?”
I’ve done every single thing I was told today, up to and including getting on a fucking zip line. So what she’s so ticked about, I have no clue. If she wants to get me alone, all she has to do is say so. “What exactly am I not doing that I’m supposed to be doing?”
“Helping—building a fire, cooking some hot dogs with someone, whatever. We’re not gonna script every interaction you have. You’re gonna have to do some of the work, otherwise how’s The Panel supposed to know who you’re gravitating toward?”
“You could have told me that back there, but you dragged me away—like you can’t keep your hands to yourself or something.”
Her incredibly sexy eyebrows rise in shock or offense, an expression that screams how dare you? “You sat on a log for twenty straight minutes,” she says with a jerking gesture in the direction of the campsite.
Fed up, I put my hand on the back of Ginger’s neck and march her several yards farther into the woods, until the chatter at the tents fades. She moves without argument or struggle, like she’s used to having my hands all over her. That familiar throb below the belt threatens to derail me, but we need to get a few things straight.
Stopping again, I step in front of her. “I’m no one’s puppet, Ginger. Not the network’s. Not yours. If you don’t like how I’m doing this, then you need to find yourself another star. I’m not gonna be your bitch so you get another promotion. Dream the fuck on.”
Her jaw drops, and to my complete amazement, her eyes blur and glisten. Like she’s about to cry— holy shit .
She’s not a robot.
I take a breath to speak, but she cuts me off with a sharp shake of her head and daggers in her eyes. “Don’t you dare threaten to tank this show. You signed a contract. You’re ours. You don’t get to pick and choose what parts you will do and won’t do. You will do all of it. When your Panel selects the lucky final two, you will pick one and live happily ever after. Until that moment comes, you will make an effort .”
“How am I supposed to do that if you keep grabbing me? I was trying?—”
“Oh yeah—trying to do what?”
“Get some firewood!”
“Oh, bullshit, you were gazing off into space like you wished you were anywhere but here, and the cameras are on ! Do what you came here to do—otherwise why did you sign the contract?”
“I signed it because you—” I stop myself short, coughing and looking beyond her into the shady woods.
“I what?”
I shake my head, unwilling to look at her in case she sees the glimmer of truth in my eyes.
Her voice drops to an intense whisper. “You didn’t come back here for me, did you?”
No, I didn’t. I came because she didn’t return a single email and I’m sick of my meaningless life. The Jenna-Ginger doubleheader rejections left an empty hole, and I need to fill it with something— anything . I want to make a difference for someone. I want to be part of something for once. But all Ginger wants is a career win. “Like I said—dream on, Ginger.” I nearly choke on the lie.
Signing that contract was a huge mistake.
A lock of hair falls across her eye. “Good. Because despite what happened in the limo, I’m not one of your options.”
“Don’t worry,” I say, the words ringing hollow. “Like you said, you’re not my type.”
She puts her hands on her hips. “Oh? And what exactly is your type?”
I have no idea how to answer. All I can do is stare at her.
She grimaces. Her sudden gulp doesn’t go unnoticed, but she keeps her shoulders straight and confrontational.
In the tense silence that follows, tiny bugs swirl in motes of the late-afternoon light. Over an instant, the leaves become a vivid green, and the tree trunks burn dark red. Ginger’s skin glows porcelain and smooth. Her dark brown eyes warm and soften with the changing landscape. All her sound and fury dissipates. She looks…sad. For a single moment, her guard is down, and she’s finally giving me a glimpse of her own inner struggle. “Ginger...”
“Don’t.”
“You want me to back off?”
“I want you to do your job.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She drops her gaze to the forest floor. “You’re impossible.”
What does that mean? What is that look on her face?
I cup her cheek, urging her to meet my eyes again. The weight of her head presses into my palm and her eyes close. “Fuck,” she groans.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Pushing my luck, I step closer. Starting at her hip, I run my other hand up her side. She shivers, lips parting with a long sigh before murmuring, “You need to be having this moment with someone else in six weeks. Pick a girl. Any girl.”
What other girl? It’s hard to remember if there even is such a thing. I’ve been lying to myself and to her. Ginger is the only reason I came back.
My lips meet hers gently, waiting for her mouth to open, waiting for her to want this as much as I do.
With a breath, her tongue brushes mine, and I press into her soft, full lips. She tastes like fresh air. For a moment, she kisses me like the forest is burning all around us—everything is on fire—but then a furious shake of her head tears her mouth away. She squirms out of my grip, glancing over her shoulder toward the campsite as she straightens her clothes even though they’re fine.
“We’ve been gone too long.”
“Stay,” I whisper, the word as desperate as the kiss. But she’s already walking back through the woods. Bracing a hand against the tree, I rest my head in the bend of my elbow, breathing hard and trembling with unspent adrenaline. My erection strains against my jeans while I talk myself off the ledge.
There are two things I know for sure about Ginger Moon. One: she still wants me as much as she did at the Hilton.
Two: she’ll never let herself have me.
Either I have to find a copy of my contract and start looking for a way out of this mess, or I need to get a fucking grip. Because if she comes within five feet of me again, I can’t promise I won’t break every rule I agreed to not to close the distance.