34. Thirty-Four
thirty-four
ELLIOT
Matt glances up from his phone and pushes the button to shut off his screen. “Ginger’s out.”
I recross my legs, still trying to find a comfortable position in the airport seat. Our flight back to the States doesn’t board for another hour. Kat went to get coffee, leaving me and Matt alone for a few minutes. Not that it’s any better being with one of them instead of both. “Out? Meaning she quit, or...?”
“Email says she resigned.”
Across the terminal, I catch Michelle’s eye. Her expression reminds me of the time she borrowed my car a few years back and left it at a bar but couldn’t remember which bar. To this day, she’s still paying my gym membership to make up for it. I wonder what she’ll offer to comp for me this time. Humiliating myself on national television is a few degrees worse than having to Uber through the south side of Chicago for three hours retracing her steps of the previous night. My forgiveness won’t come so easy this time around. She let me down by not listening when I told her this wasn’t working, by not getting it in general.
“This can still work, Elliot,” Matt says.
Michelle finally blinks and looks away. “How do you figure?” I ask.
“It’s what the show’s designed to do. You can still get what you came here for.”
And then some . A relationship with no heart. What was meant to be a simple transaction—a fill-in-the-blank—became an empty exercise leading to a result I no longer want. A partnership. An arrangement. A marriage in name only.
“Hannah and Daisy are incredible women,” Matt adds.
“How is this gonna work exactly?” I ask. “How is it that you guys are gonna make this look like I had any choice at all?”
“We’re working on that, Elliot, so if you’ll please chill...” Kat’s back.
I glance up at the lanky redhead as she hands Matt the coffee he asked for. She plops down in the seat between us.
I’ve reached my limit. “This is such bullshit. You guys are unbelievable. And I mean that literally. Even if you could convince Michelle and my Panel to pick one of them for me—how are you planning to shut Jenna up?”
Kat lifts the lid off her coffee and blows a stream of air over the top. “That’s the lawyers’ problem.”
“You have no plan, do you?”
“What does Ginger see in you? Exactly.”
I hope she burns her tongue. She sure has a lot of fun throwing stones from her pretty glass house. “Hey, where’d you and Jamie get off to last night after the ‘blessings’?”
Matt lifts his head and turns toward us.
Kat’s face flushes cherry red. Even the tip of her nose. She would be cute if she weren’t such a terrible person. “Ginger’s gone, Elliot, and I’m glad. She can do better than being your girl on the side.”
“Is that what you told her?”
“More or less.”
“Thanks. Thanks for the help, Kat.”
“What? You wanted me to aid and abet your total violation of every contract you signed before coming here? No, thanks. I like my job. Ginger liked hers, too.”
“Thanks for looking for the best in me. I appreciate it. It’s what I like so much about this show—how everyone’s so invested in my future happiness.”
“Pfft.” She takes her cell phone out of her bag and opens the lock screen. “She’s too good for you.”
I take issue with that. They all but begged me to star on their show. “Is she?”
“She deserves someone who knows what the fuck he wants and isn’t afraid to make a decision by himself. She deserves a man. Not a boy.”
“Like Jamie?”
Deflecting again and without looking up from her phone, she continues. “I’m not trying to be a bitch, but you’ve gotta see this the way she sees it. You came here to find a wife because you weren’t able to do it on your own. Meanwhile, you can’t even follow the rules. I’m not saying I think you’re pathetic, but I mean...”
“Jesus, Kat,” Matt finally interjects.
I pluck her phone from her hands. “You might think I’m a pathetic loser, but I’m not giving up.”
She faces me, eyes all indignant. “Oh. I see. You’re gonna wrap things up here, then violate your contract and go after Ginger? That’ll go over well on Twitter. And with her, too, I’m sure. You guys’ll be so cute standing in the unemployment line together. I’m so jelly.” She snatches her phone back.
“You know, I don’t know who fucked with your head and made you so goddamn bitter, but it wasn’t me, Kat.”
Fully triggered, Kat lights into me. “I’m so sick of men like you who think giving out good orgasms is the same thing as having a real relationship.”
“I’m out.” Matt stands and starts across the terminal toward The Panel.
Itching to unleash, I turn all my frustration on Kat. “You think that’s my problem?”
“Let it go, Hale. Let Ginger go. She was fine before you waltzed back onto her set, and she’ll be fine once you’re gone. All you’re doing anymore is complicating her life. Deal with your own shit. Pick yourself a trophy wife and go ride off into the sunset together. Leave the rest of us out of it.”
Her last words hit me like a smack across the jaw. The implication that I’m not a part of Ginger’s world, and never will be. Or I’ve been a blip on her radar, easily forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind.
“Face it, Elliot. You’re stuck. This is your option. You know why this show works? Why we have the best long-term success rate of any dating show?”
“Why?”
“Because we take out the heart.”
A week before, I would have agreed with her. Not anymore. “I still have a heart. And it’s in love with your friend. You think you’re so good at your job, Kat? How’d you not notice? How’d you not see it was me and her this whole time? From night one. You can’t tell me none of what happened between us never made it to one of your monitors. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Why do you think she wanted Jenna to come back?”
Kat gapes, speechless.
“Because she knew this was happening. She knew I’d fallen for her, and she was terrified of falling for me, and then you know what happened?”
I take a breath to answer my own question, but Kat answers it for me in a whisper. “She did.”
I dial my rant down a notch. “She did.” Sensing an opening, my first glimmer of light in the cave I’ve been in, I lunge for it. “Did she tell you about the night at the Hilton?”
“She—” Kat fumbles for a word, can’t find one, so she nods.
“I tried to get in touch with her afterward. I wanted to see her again—I needed to. But then the show was crawling up my ass for an answer and?—”
“Ginger is loyal to the show,” Kat supplies.
“She never responded. Because she knew you assholes wouldn’t stop until I was here. And what do I get for my trouble? An arranged marriage with the second runner-up because you’re keeping the first runner-up for yourselves. Assholes.”
“Elliot—no one was ever trying to hurt you. Or Ginger. I honestly didn’t see it.”
“Well, it’s there. There’s no way it isn’t. How bad do you think they’d sue me?”
Kat’s face loses a few shades of color. “Elliot...”
“How bad?”
“More than you have,” she says. “Way more.”
My savings? My house? 401k? Fuck it. I’ll figure something out. “I don’t care. I quit.”
“You can’t.”
“I just did.”
Kat scans the terminal, sending a desperate look Matt’s way. He’s too busy talking to Lavonne to notice. Forced to respond to me, she scrambles. “Give me three days.”
“To what?”
“You take three days off, decompress. Sleep. Imagine the kind of future you could have with Hannah or Daisy. Give us a chance to make this work. We aren’t stupid. We know what we’re doing.”
I give my head a sharp shake. “I’m not interested in that.”
“Then what?”
“Talk to Ginger,” I say.
“What? Why?”
“Tell her what I said. Tell her I’m so fucking in love with her I don’t care if they take everything I have or everything I will have for the next ten years.”
“And then what?” Actual fear widens Kat’s eyes. The same as I saw on Ginger’s when we were in the Redwood forest and the sun was setting. Everyone’s livelihood is on the line. Ginger already lost her job because of me. The idea of Kat and Matt both getting fired because I tank the show doesn’t sit well, but hurting Hannah or Daisy the way I hurt Jenna doesn’t either.
I change course, hoping there’s still some room to make a deal that won’t screw us all. “What do you want?” I ask.
“Just pick a winner. Film the finale. Finish the season.”
“That sounds like a win-win for you. What do I get if I stay?”
“I’ll talk to her,” she says.
“And?”
Her face pinches. “I’ll figure something out.”
“What?”
“Fuck, I don’t know yet, but I promise I’ll talk to her. I’ll try.”
“This is such bullshit?—”
“I’m asking you to trust me, Elliot.”
I laugh out loud.
She pounds her hand on the arm rail between us. “Goddammit! I am not as big of an asshole as you think!”
GINGER
The Matched offices are dark late Tuesday night. With so many fewer moving parts to the show now that there are only two women left, there aren’t as many fires to put out. The finale is all that remains. One show. One production. One happy ending.
I wish I was surprised Elliot didn’t quit, but I’m not. Cassie is a fantastic option for him. He’d be an idiot not to try for a future with her. Refusing to reminisce about all the good times and bad times I’ve had at this job, I make my way to my office with my empty box. Passing the cutting room, I notice the light is on. Unable to resist, I take a peek inside.
“Hey,” Kat says without taking her eyes off the monitors. I stare at the screens, too—all in freeze-frame.
The first one that catches my eye is from the day of the barbecue. I have my hand on Elliot’s collar, straightening it. He’s staring down at my oblivious face with so much heat it practically burns the screen. In another, he’s unhooking me from the zip line. He’s holding my hand to keep me steady, and I’m smiling so big it’s a miracle my face didn’t break that day.
The third is in the Hacienda, the afternoon Jenna came back. Elliot and I were in the living room, shouting at each other. His hand was on his heart, his face wrenched and torn apart. My head was hung, guilty, devastated at what I’d done.
In the last, the grainiest and darkest, we were standing by the pool, toe-to-toe, and I was staring up at his face because he asked me to spend a day with him in Paris. I look like I was seeing the sun for the first time after the longest rain. His arms were crossed, but his fist was clenched, like he was doing everything in his power not to touch me in front of the cameras.
It’s our love story. Caught on tape.
It takes my breath away.
“I’m sorry,” Kat says.
“You didn’t know,” I manage to reply.
“I should have.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered. You only would have gotten pissed at me sooner. I would have had to leave sooner. The ending stays the same.”
“I would have been nicer. I would never have sent you that picture from the Eiffel Tower.”
“Ha. Well...I don’t think I deserve anyone’s kindness. You were right.”
“It doesn’t feel right,” Kat says.
“Not everyone gets a happy ending.”
Kat swivels in her chair to face me. “You should.”
“I’ll figure something out.” I move to leave the room, but Kat’s voice stops me.
“Ginger?”
“Yeah?”
“Elliot told me how much he loves you. He wanted me to tell you that.”
The words are like a blade slicing through an open wound. “You see him again, tell him I said same.”
“How did this even happen?”
I lean on the doorframe. “I don’t know. You know one day, I wanted to climb him like he was a rock wall, and the next day he was taking out my trash. I’m not exactly sure how we got there, but everything changed for me.”
Kat smiles. “Taking out the trash sucks.”
“Good luck with the finale.”
“It’s tomorrow,” she says.
I don’t bother asking why they changed the filming date. “Why is no one else here then?”
“Matt went to grab dinner. Anyway. It’ll be over soon.”
I wish so hard that were true. My misery has other plans for me, though. They include wine and anything with “Flaming Hot” in the title.
Kat stands, her tired body reluctant to leave her chair. “Let’s go on a girls’ weekend after this. Doesn’t have to be anything major. Palm Springs or something?”
“Yeah.”
“I really am sorry.”
Kat rarely apologizes for anything work related, whether shady or straightforward, so I know she means it. Sure, she can be a bitch sometimes, and her personal life is a mess, but I’ve known Kat long enough to see how soft her heart is, what a true romantic she can be. “Palm Springs sounds fun.”
“I kinda want to hug you if that’s okay.”
Relieved I wasn’t the one to have to ask, I make the first move.