Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
“Tell the camera what happened, Ariana. Spare no detail.”
Bridgette was waiting on the television when I entered my room to get changed after leaving the pack suite. She told me where to find the interview room, saying I had to go there right away while everything was still fresh in my mind.
Like I could ever forget what just happened.
I’m pretty sure the image of Derrick on his knees in front of Grant will live rent-free in my head for the next fifty years.
I thought the room she directed me to was a broom closet when I first explored the house. I’m surprised that it’s actually a small room with green walls, and a single chair with a camera pointed directly at it.
It’s uncomfortable. Almost clinical. I feel like I’m on trial.
Why bother calling it an interview room if no one is here talking to me?
I adjust myself uncomfortably in the chair. What do I even talk about? Where do I start?
This is the first time I’ve been acutely aware of what I look like in the house. The camera directly in my face makes it hard to forget that people will be watching my every move once this airs.
I should’ve brought some water or something. Just to hold onto and keep my hands busy.
“Uh. Yeah. I don’t know what to say here.
How much detail do you need? Everyone saw that I had a heat spike.
Which, if I have any say in it, can we please minimize the airtime that gets?
I know being an Omega is nothing to be ashamed of, and going into heat and having spikes is part of it, but damn.
Does anyone want their coworkers to see them try to ravage the guy who lied to them for years? ”
I run my fingers through my still-damp hair and sink a bit deeper into the chair. I should’ve put on makeup. I am sure I look wrecked.
“I guess that’s unfair to Derrick. Reducing him to ‘the guy who lied for years’ is an oversimplification of who he is to me. Yeah, he lied, but he’s still Sax.”
It’s his face I saw, his voice I heard.
But the filthy words Ivan whispered in my ears in the bath are not the type that were whispered over the phone.
What does it say about me that I’m starting to differentiate who I was talking to by their dirty talk? Shit, if I’m not careful, that won’t be my only heat spike this week.
“But it’s not just Derrick that is Sax. All three of them are.
It’s weird to look at Ivan and Grant and know we’ve talked before and yet feel like we haven’t.
They know me, but I don’t know them. I love Derrick.
I can admit that. And by extension, doesn’t that mean that I love Grant and Ivan, too?
It’s the transitive property or whatever. ”
It’s like my knowledge of Sax is a rope, and they’re each a strand, and now I’m going to have to figure out how to unweave it even though it’s knotted and frayed.
It’s like doing a puzzle backward, which doesn’t sound that challenging, but this isn’t a case where I can push it off the table and watch as the pieces scatter.
In that scenario, I’m the pieces, and they’re the table, right?
Fuck, I don’t know. I’m not making sense. ”
A slush of Omega hormones has emptied my head of all rational thought.
I’ve never spiraled after an orgasm, but that one I just had may have changed my brain chemistry.
All of their scents were smothering me, pushing me higher and higher, and watching Derrick and Grant was almost a religious experience.
It wasn’t just the eroticism of watching two people together. There is a natural intimacy between the four of us. It’s history, even if I don’t know who is mentioned in the books.
“I didn’t cross any boundaries. I’m not going to let myself feel bad about it. They wanted me to watch. Who wouldn’t like to watch two people they love together?”
“Uh. Ariana? We have no idea what you’re talking about.” Drew’s voice from the small speaker on the wall startles me. “Can you tell us what happened during your bath?”
“No. That’s between the four of us. You don’t need those details.”
I can hear his frustration in a sharp exhale. “Yes, we do. Don’t forget that you signed a contract. In areas where there are no cameras, you have to give us the details of what transpired.”
My head is starting to hurt, and I want nothing more than to go lie in my bed. It’s making me a little whiny. “Seriously, Drew? Screw the contract. This is my life. This is their life. Why do you get to know the intimate details of how we try to figure out our relationship?”
My bare feet barely reach the wall when I’m turned sideways in the chair, so I stretch out the best I can to support myself. If I close my eyes, I can pretend I’m lying on my bed, talking to Marlie.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t know where to go from here. My life has changed forever because of this experience. I’m not being a drama queen right now. This isn’t in the ‘Knowing you has changed me’ romance novel way. This is the ‘Life as we know it has ended’ zombie movie way.”
I’m pretty sure there are zombie romance novels. There’s a way to combine those two things into a happily ever after, isn’t there?
“I’m scent matched and will have to be around them for the rest of my life. Why should I give even more of myself to the producers? To the viewers? Haven’t I given up enough of myself for this show?”
“Ah, I understand the defensiveness now. Which one did you sleep with?”
My feet hit the floor. I wish Drew were here so I could poke him in the chest. “Excuse me? I didn’t sleep with any of them. Not that it’s any of your business. No one touched me but myself.”
I realize, as soon as the words are out, that this is exactly what the producers wanted. I let Drew bait me into giving them the exact sound bite they needed.
“Tell us about it.”
My body feels heavy as I bury my face in my hands.
There is no more pretending that I’m not here.
“Do you understand how uncomfortable this is for me? I’m…
I’ve never been with anyone, okay? Not a whole lot of chances to fuck people when you won’t leave your house.
And now you want me to come here and tell you I got myself off watching them together? ”
“I’m sorry, Ariana.” His voice is softer now, less argumentative.
“I know this isn’t what you thought you were getting into when you joined the show.
But this is what it is. This is reality television.
We put on a good show for our viewers. You don’t have to admit to anyone that what happened is real.
In fact, most viewers assume it’s mostly scripted. ”
“Am I done?”
“Yeah. You’re done.”
Dinner is awkward.
Or rather, I’m awkward. The guys are fine. They’re laughing and cutting up, trying to include me in the conversation. They’re kind enough not to push for more than a few grunts from me as I stuff my face with pasta.
I opted to cook dinner for all of us tonight, if only so I didn’t have to look at them or participate in the conversation.
Every time I look at Grant, I see his head thrown back, eyes closed in bliss.
When Derrick smiles, I can picture his lips wrapped around Grant’s swollen dick.
And every time Ivan speaks, I remember his words tickling the back of my neck and can almost feel his hardness digging into my ass.
I need to think about anything other than what happened in that bathroom if I am going to get out of here without melting into a puddle.
A soft bing from the living room draws my attention as the TV flickers, the show’s logo fading and revealing Bradley’s smiling face.
“Hello, lovebirds!” Holy shit, did they adjust the volume remotely? Why is he so loud? “While you didn’t quite use the spa basket how we intended, production has decided that you did, in fact, earn your reward. It’s outside the door. Why don’t you go collect it, Derrick?”
And then the logo is back, Bradley gone.
Derrick pushes away from the table and goes to collect whatever it is they decided to grant us.
The rewards in this show are a double-edged sword.
They’re always enjoyable, but it’s another opportunity for the show to get footage of us that makes for good television.
I want to go to my room and hide under my blanket for the rest of the evening, but there is no way I can opt out of whatever they planned for us.
The Alpha comes back with a box roughly the size of a shoebox tucked under his arm. He silently offers it to me to open, but I shake my head.
It doesn’t matter who opens it. The contents stay the same.
Derrick sets the box on the table in front of me and lifts the lid.
“Oh, no way.” His face lights up with a massive smile as he pulls out several clamshell cases. “It’s DVDs of Unexplainable and Bizarre.”
“Seriously?” I lean closer and yank them out of his hands. Sure enough, it’s the first two seasons of the paranormal show that was the catalyst for our relationship. It was a comfort watch for me for a long time, but it was taken off streaming services last year.
Derrick leans over my shoulder to read the back of one of the cases. “Season two is when they visited the shipyard, right? That one’s the most obviously fake.”
I smack his chest with the case. “It is absolutely real. None of them are fake.”
“They embellished a lot—especially that one. You expect me to believe that there are poltergeists that imitate the sound of ships’ horns and not that, I don’t know, someone is playing recordings of the horns in the distance for dramatic effect?”
“Are you serious right now?” His words light a fire under me, and I jump to my feet.
I do not play when it comes to the supernatural.
“Listen here! I’ll tell you the same thing I told you a decade ago, Sax.
Why bother watching a show if you think it’s fake?
Suspend disbelief for a moment and accept that there is more to this world than what we can explain.
If a duck-billed platypus can exist, why can’t a poltergeist? ”
“A platypus is a marvel of evolution!” He threw his hands up in exasperation. “And I’ll tell you the same thing I told you a decade ago, Onion. I like to be entertained, and part of that is seeing gullible people believe the obvious lies.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I am pretty fucking gullible, since I fell for you!”
Grant is on his feet, touching my forearm as soon as the words fall from my lips. “Hey, hey. He didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Maybe I did!”
“He didn’t.” Ivan places a hand on Derrick’s shoulder and puts some of his weight into it, anchoring the other Alpha to the floor. “Do you know how many times we watched that episode before it was taken off of streaming?”
“Shut up, Ivan.” Derrick elbows his packmate in the gut.
“No, you shut up, Derrick. You’re picking a fight for no reason.”
While they argue back and forth, my eyes drift to the DVDs of the old, cheesy show.
This was our reward.
A reminder.
Of where we came from, of who we used to be.
We argued for ages, as Sax and Onion, about whether the show was real. Even after we left the forum, we still watched the episodes together until the show was cancelled a year later. Neither of us would give up our position in the debate.
An incredulous laugh bubbles out of my throat. Well played, Bridgette and Bradley. Well played.
I slip away from the table and put one of the DVDs into the gaming system hooked up in the living room, and plop myself down in the center of the couch. As the familiar, haunting title music plays, the guys stop their bickering.
“Did you know, they had a budget of only two thousand dollars an episode in season one?” I look over my shoulder and gesture for them to join me.
“It’s why it looks like one of those spooky found footage movies.
After they got picked up by a network for season two, the production value increased dramatically. ”
Ivan vaults over the back of the couch and takes a seat beside me, and Grant sits on my other side. Derrick lowers himself into the chair across from me as I point the remote at him.
“That is how I know it’s not fake, Sax. The shipyard may have been in season two, but they still didn’t have the money for crazy special effects.” He’s got a strange look in his eyes as he listens to me, and the corner of his mouth is ticked up in a small smile. “What?”
“I… this is better than I could’ve ever imagined.”
“What is?”
“Arguing with you. Seeing your passion in person.”
I duck my head, cheeks hot, and try to ignore the way his words make my stomach flip.
Because I was thinking the same thing.