Chapter 24
Chapter XXIV
Demi
Nothing said romantic date like a staged setting and having a camera crew in your face the whole time.
Not that there was any romance going on during these so-called dates.
They were becoming more like therapy sessions, with me as the therapist. My Dear Abby side was in heaven.
And I had no doubt that side would be coming out any moment now on what was my fourth date in the last two days.
First there was Todd. Yeah, that was a real joy. We’d ended up writing his ex-fiancée, Olivia, a letter when we should have been playing minigolf on the resort’s property. Of course, he would give it to her after the show since, technically, we couldn’t have contact with the outside world.
Although I was planning on making sure Olivia got an appearance on the show, one way or another. Believe me, Todd wasn’t having anyone else. He’d literally written in the letter: I even miss your toenail clippings in my bathroom. Yuck.
Even if I hadn’t known Todd wasn’t right for me, I might take spending the rest of my life with a locked heart instead of with a man who wrote odes to toenails. But if that didn’t say love, I didn’t know what did.
My second date was with Carter. My besties had labeled him “the king.” There was something royal about him. Maybe it was his height or the way his beautiful brown skin glistened in the sun.
I had to say, I had fun with him, but only because we ditched our picnic and shot hoops the entire time while we talked about everything from his days in the NBA to Cassie, who he was more than fond of.
Date three had started early this morning with Jax—the model.
We’d been all set up to paint on one of the lodge’s verandas, a scene so curated it practically begged for a slow-motion montage.
Jax, ever on brand, had leaned over and asked if I wanted to paint him instead of the landscape.
I’d declined, figuring that would probably entail him stripping down.
Which, of course, was exactly what the crew had probably hoped for, to spice things up.
Instead, Jax had broken down, right there in front of the easels, and told me about his body image issues.
Which, I’ll admit, had shocked me.
This was a guy who stood six-two and had mountain-peak cheekbones and dark mussed hair that even Adonis would envy. But that was the thing. The spotlight doesn’t care how perfect you look. It just keeps demanding more.
We ended up talking about society’s expectations—how exhausting it is to be reduced to a face, a body, a brand. Jax didn’t want to be worshipped. He wanted to be seen.
I could relate.
If you’re wondering, the crew of Love Unscripted, specifically Jazzy and Miles, did not seem impressed with my dates.
I was pretty sure I’d heard Jazzy mutter “Boresville” under her breath.
Miles questioned why I had even joined the show in the first place.
Believe me, I had too. Especially when I kept thinking about my encounter with Roman two days earlier at the creek.
I’d obviously had a serious lapse in judgment.
He must have thought so too, the way he’d looked at me like I’d asked him to jump off a cliff when I’d not so casually suggested that maybe we kept getting thrown together because he was meant to be more than my sidekick.
He hadn’t even been able to say anything to me after that bombshell. I’d felt like such a dope. Still did.
It didn’t help that he hadn’t contacted me since then. No morning runs, no pebbles to the head.
I blamed Cassie for making me believe that maybe Roman really was my true love. She was still under the impression that my goddess couldn’t be wrong, but I was going to say there was a very decent chance that she could. And that this quest was a bust.
And while I was blaming people, I was going to add Roman to that list. All his talk about my father saying I was special and that he wouldn’t send me on a quest if it meant him never seeing me again.
I wasn’t so sure.
Especially since I’d tried to call him last night via the Oracle and, instead, the call mysteriously got rerouted to Hestia, dressed in her fuzzy pink bathrobe, sipping on her own wine label, called Hearth and Homebody.
Her joke was that her wine didn’t go out much, just like her.
But her message to me last night had been anything but funny—Dearest, we are all rooting for you, but contacting the god of love on your quest for love—that’s not kosher.
Kosher? Was she serious?
You know what wasn’t kosher? My father sending his daughter with a locked heart on a dead-end quest with the man who’d inspired her to lock her heart in the first place. Oh, and also Hestia just hanging up on me. That definitely wasn’t decent. At all.
“Demi, what sounds better to you? Pizza or pasta?” Blaine asked, bringing me back to reality . . . or whatever this was. Reality TV was anything but real.
Blaine and I were in a cozy cabin kitchen. If you could call being surrounded by stage lights, microphones, and half a dozen interlopers “cozy.” We were supposed to be doing some cutesy couple thing and making dinner together.
“Um, both,” I said, distracted.
“I like it. A woman with an appetite.”
I didn’t know about that, but I was a stress eater, and was I ever stressed. Having your fate hang in the balance tends to do that to you.
“I’ll work on the dough,” I offered, needing something to keep my hands busy while my mind was free-falling.
“Homemade dough?”
Blaine’s pretty blue eyes lit up like he’d hit the jackpot.
Oh, he was not winning the prize here. Granted, I could make a mean pizza.
Or at least I used to be able to. My mom and I had loved to cook together.
And Mom had been all about everything being fresh and organic.
She’d believed in properly fueling your body.
“It’s the only way to eat pizza,” I said flatly, not even remotely flirty.
He had the whole California beach vibe—golden flippy hair, chiseled jawline, and that sun-kissed glow we were all supposed to swoon over.
He reminded me of the surfers I used to watch from my penthouse balcony.
Overly tanned. Casually charming. Didn’t seem to take life too seriously. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
But I had more important matters to attend to.
Like Blaine putting his hand over mine on the counter in what he clearly thought was a romantic gesture.
All the guys—except Todd—had done something similar.
It was my divinity. Calling to them. Pulling them in.
Regardless, I had to shut it down. Fast. Maybe I had a locked heart, but I wasn’t heartless.
I wouldn’t give any of these men false hope.
I sent the opposite of a love pulse through him. A cold flicker. A divine nope. I wasn’t sure what to call it. I wasn’t even sure anyone else could do it. Maybe my father. After all, he’d locked his heart, just like I had. Maybe I’d inherited more from him than I’d realized.
Blaine popped his hand off mine immediately and took a step away from me. Very good.
“So, Blaine, what did you think of Jessica?”
From the corner of my eye, I could see Jazzy throw her hands up in the air like she’d lost all hope for this season, for me. I was losing hope too. But I could still help people, even pretty boy Blaine. Not that I necessarily thought Jessica was his person.
I was on the fence, which I took to mean there wasn’t a simple answer. Love wasn’t this cut-and-dried thing. Most matches weren’t written in the stars. If they were, there would be no reason for the Bureau.
Blaine took a moment to recover from my divine not in this lifetime, buddy pulse. He was probably trying to figure out why he no longer found me attractive.
“Uh . . .” He blinked and blinked. “What was the question again?”
“What did you think of Jessica?”
“Oh. Yeah. She’s cool.”
“She is. She’s also really smart. You know, she’s going to law school.”
“Really? She didn’t mention it while we were dancing the other night. I’m going out with her next.”
I knew that because Jessica had said she was looking forward to it. She said she’d felt a little spark between them.
“Well, you should ask her about it.” I was learning that Jessica and Brinley loved it when you asked them about themselves. It wasn’t vanity on their part. It was like their love language.
I grabbed the canister of flour and pulled it toward me on the counter. I was getting hungry.
Blaine ran a hand through his flippy hair.
“The thing about that is . . . I don’t want to feel dumb.”
I grabbed a mixing bowl and some measuring cups.
“Why would you feel dumb?”
“I know what people think of me. That I’m just some dumb rich dude who lucked out because his parents are wealthy.”
“Is that how you see yourself?” My Dear Abby side was kicking in.
He shrugged. “Maybe. I’ve never really had to try that hard. Everything’s been handed to me, and everyone just saw me as Marlene and Derek’s kid. They’re basically the king and queen of Silicon Valley. Their tech firms never interested me, so I got labeled the party boy. The trust fund kid.”
I walked over to the sink to get some warm water so I could start proofing the yeast. “What interests you?”
His cheeks flushed a deep red. “You’ll just laugh.”
“I swear I won’t.”
Blaine debated for a moment before he mumbled, “Flowers.”
I hadn’t seen that one coming. At. All. I did my best to keep a straight face.
“Uh . . . like growing them?”
“No, like arranging them. I’m really good at it. I’ve thought about opening a flower shop, but, you know, it doesn’t seem very manly. I’ve never told anyone that.”
I leaned against the counter, gripping a measuring cup.
“I’m honored that you shared that with me.
And, listen, if you want to arrange flowers, I say go for it.
Who’s to say that’s not manly? It’s kind of romantic if you think about it.
Your boyfriend or husband arranging a bouquet just for you.
” I paused. “You know, you should arrange one for Jessica and give it to her on your date.”
From across the cabin, Miles gave an audible groan.
I was so not their favorite cast member. As evidenced by the fact that they had really scaled back on featuring me in their promos, as Cassie had discovered during some online sleuthing. Fine by me. I refused to manufacture drama or lead anyone on.
Blaine nodded repeatedly as if mulling this idea over. “I think I will. Thanks, Demi. All the guys you’ve gone out with already said you were really easy to talk to. They were right. You’re kind of like a sister.”
“Oh, hell,” Jazzy whispered.
I couldn’t help but giggle.
I knew none of this would make Roman happy, but I’d kept to my end of the bargain.
I wasn’t playing matchmaker per se. And I let him do the honors of the love pulse.
All I was doing was gathering information for him.
Besides, he’d promised to help me find my true love and it had been crickets from him the last two days.
So he wasn’t keeping his part of the bargain.
“Well, just let me know if you need any more sisterly advice.” I patted him on the back. “Now let’s get to cooking. I’m starving.”
Blaine smiled. “If you need some brotherly advice, let me know.”
“That’s it; cut,” Miles called out.
Cut? We weren’t on a movie set.
“I think we’ve seen enough here,” he added, exasperated.
I couldn’t help but smile. Maybe if I was nice enough, they would kick me off the show entirely.
A girl could dream.