Chapter 9
AMARA
“Ican’t believe you’re about to break the curse tomorrow,” Isla says as she downs nearly an entire espresso martini. Her face pinches as she swallows, her head shaking.
“It’s the end of a weird little curse you guys have, that’s for sure,” Izara chuckles. “You guys should have seen my face when Briar told me she was going to work for Leo. No good comes from hanging around football players.” She raises her glass in a toast, and we all follow.
“I love you guys so much,” I tell them with a small smile, looking around. “But you all know football just isn’t my thing.”
“Isla started it,” Mila snickers.
Isla tosses her long brown hair over her shoulder, her eyes drooping a little. “I don’t regret it! You guys are in wonderful relationships!”
We’re huddled in a large booth under a giant purple neon light. The Purple Crab is one of the more upscale restaurants in Baltimore, right on the harbor. In a city full of great food, it was one of the places that truly lived up to the hype.
It’s also one of the most expensive. Literally right over the water, this restaurant is normally completely out of my budget.
Thankfully, my budget is now an allowance from a reality TV show.
“I think the guys were here just the other night actually,” Briar says, looking around. “Some of the guys who live here took the rookies out.”
“That’s really sweet,” Zara hums.
Heidi shakes her head with one of the biggest eye rolls I’ve ever seen, her red curls falling past her shoulders. “No, no it’s not actually once you realize the hazing of it all.”
Zara looks confused.
“They make the rookies pay,” Isla laughs. “When Leo was a rookie he had to pay like three thousand dollars for dinner that night. And that was split between a couple of them.”
“This is a thing?” I ask, dumbfounded.
The three girls nod.
“This is why I don’t fuck football players!” I sing, holding up my glass what has to be the millionth toast.
A man moves behind me, and I flinch.
Because I have forgotten, once again, that I’m being filmed.
In fact, I’m almost completely certain that that’s why every single one of us are double fisting drinks like our lives depend on it.
How the hell are you supposed to act normal when there’s giant cameras around you? People you’re not supposed to talk to?
Isla’s eyes flicker to the right before downing another shot. She’s fading fast.
When our dinners come, I let out a sigh of relief. We can get some food in us, take a couple deep breaths, and go back to my place where we will wake up in the morning, wide eyed and bushy tailed, and get me ready for my fake-ass reality show wedding.
I don’t have high expectations, and they don’t make us officially sign the papers until the very end.
“What are the guys doing tonight?” I ask, nearly passing out as I cut into the giant crab cake in front of me, steam releasing as the lumps of crabmeat fall apart.
Briar smiles. “Apparently they’re having some secret party thing. I wasn’t allowed to know much but Leo was very excited about crab picking.”
Isla groans, her fist hitting the table. “Nothing good comes from Leo crab picking.”
Everyone looks at her expectantly. It doesn’t even look like Briar understands.
Isla rears back dramatically. “You haven’t been crab picking with him?”
Briar shakes her head, her eyes giant.
“You lucky son-of-a-bitch.” Isla is clearly drunk, her entire head rolling along with her eyes. “You think he’s competitive over football? You think he’s an absolute menace to society then? You should see him pick a fucking crab. I swear to god.”
Crab picking is one of the many things that Delaware tends to share with Maryland.
Cooper and I grew up knowing that if the rolls of brown paper were out, we were going to be covering the table in the backyard in them, my dad coming home with a giant box of steamed crab.
It’s a social thing. You’re there for hours, eating crab after crab, the shells piling up around you, old bay under your nails.
I think about it for a second. “I actually think that’s the least surprising thing I’ve ever learned about Leo,” I admit.
“Yeah I have to agree, though it’s good to know,” Briar says with a nod.
“He’s a menace.” Isla grumbles. She and her brother have always had a close relationship, with Leo taking on a lot of her bills in order for her to also follow her dreams. But that doesn’t mean that Leo is a saint, and he’s had his fair share of growing to do.
“A cute menace with a nice ass,” Briar closes her eyes, a giant grin on her face.
The night starts to get blurry. We finish our dinner. And then we definitely finish our drinks. And then we all pile into a van to head back to my place.
“Nothing good happens in a sprinter van,” Isla says as she looks around, climbing onto the van like she’s an Australian wildlife expert.
We get back to my place, and the first thing I do is grab Fluffernutter and carry him into my room.
“You okay?” Mila and Isla ask, sitting at the end of it. Heidi makes her home on my couch in the corner, her arm hanging over the side.
“I’m getting married,” I tell them, dumbfounded.
Mila smiles. “You’re getting married!”
And I start to panic. “What the fuck am I doing?”
She shrugs as Isla flops down, her eyes glassy as she stares at the ceiling. I’m fully aware that she’s probably staying there the whole night. “You’re living. You’re getting out there. And I’m proud of you.”
She grabs my hand, kissing the back of it, and tears well in my eyes, my chest tightening. “I feel like we’re all growing up too fast.”
And I know that I’m drunk. I know that I’ve had farrrrrrrrrrrrrrr too much to drink. But even in my hazy state, I can see the sadness in her eyes. “I think some of us are.” Her smile is tight.
Before I can ask her what she means, she gets up, only to come back a few minutes later… I think.
“Take this, and drink this whole bottle of water,” she demands, forcing a cold bottle into my hands. I open my mouth, and she drops two pills into it.
Rolling Isla over, Mila demands the same, sitting her up and placing the pain medication into her mouth before holding the bottle up to her lips.
And finally, she does the same with Heidi.
We down the water, and I ask Isla if she wants to get under the covers with me. She lets out a string of words I don’t think anyone would understand, and wiggles herself up the bed, nearly falling out as she crawls under the covers.
“Heidi?” I ask.
She slowly picks her head up, looking at the bed. “I think I can fit at the end.”
I’m too tired to argue with her, or say that we’ll cram together like sardines.
The one thing I said when I got my own place was that I wanted a king bed.
I looked for apartments that specifically had a big enough room.
I have a giant-ass cat who loves to take up half the bed.
I was not settling for anything smaller.
Without a word, Heidi falls onto the end of the bed, and Fluffernutter mews, leaving my side to curl up with her.
Mila watches us, and when she’s about to get up and leave, I catch her hand. “Can you stay with me too?” I ask.
It takes her a second, but she nods. “Let me just make sure Briar and Zara are okay, alright?”
My eyelids feel the weight of everything that I’ve gone through this past week.
The interviews. The challenges, which were really just puzzles I had to do that resulted in me ranking how hot different public figures were, or ranking what I find most hot in a person.
Apparently, they were designed to match us with someone who scored nearly the same.
And today. Knowing that tomorrow, I’ll be walking down a damn aisle to a man I don’t know, wearing a pretty dress, and surrounded by my friends and family. My family who’s tried to talk me out of it every single time I’ve spoken to them, which of course, was every day.
What feels like thirty minutes later, I feel Mila crawl in next to me, the bed vibrating with Fluffernutter’s content purrs.
“I love you guys,” I mutter, and the two of them reach for my hands.
“It’sss the t—three of sss alwayssss. Gottt it?” Isla slurs.
“Always and forever,” Mila confirms.
“You could never get rid of me,” Heidi whispers at the end of the bed.
“Remember when we used to have sleep overs like this?” I smile, my brain feeling a little less fuzzy at the memory of our small little bodies all crammed into bed, watching mid-2000s romcoms all night.
Eventually, we’d fall asleep with the TV still on.
I was almost always the first one up, unable to move until they eventually stirred.
I can feel Mila smile. “We should do this more often.”
I nod, and it’s the last thing I remember before sleep takes me.