Chapter Twenty
“Occasionally people are not on Love Shack for the right reasons. It’s those people who take the ‘reality’ out of reality TV, the ‘truth’ out of true love.”
—Lainey Williams, executive producer of Love Shack, in an interview with Cosmopolitan
I dash the tears from my eyes and try to ignore the feeling in my stomach that’s somewhere between a stab wound and a no-anesthesia appendectomy. I do a reasonably good job putting on a happy face for the pre-ceremony talk from Rhett, but I can’t look at him. My throat wobbles every time he speaks.
I thought we might have something.
Just like that, I’ve lost any possibility of him.
Olie and I do tequila shots at the bar and pass an hour by the pool, sitting with our dresses hiked up and our feet in the water.
She doesn’t ask what’s wrong, and I don’t tell her, instead listening to her describe the best way to get into owning Dunkin’ franchises like she does as a side hustle. Apparently you need connections.
“Miss Georgia?” A singsong voice rolls over the patio, and I look up to see Norbert emerging from the mansion, backlit and huge from this angle. “Roland wants to see ye!”
Still numb from my fight with Rhett, I stand and dry off my feet, then step back into my heels and follow Norbert back inside.
“You’re absolutely glowing,” Roland says as he plants a soft kiss on my cheek. I wouldn’t say I’m glowing so much as falling apart, but maybe tequila acts as a natural bronzer. He takes my hand and leads me through the front doors to the rose-lined path outside.
“Listen, Georgia,” he says, and my heart drops.
As if this night couldn’t get any worse, I’m about to be sent home.
“It’s about earlier this week.” My brain whirs into overdrive.
Does he know about my burner? Does he know how close Rhett’s lips came to enemy territory? Is it written all over my skin?
“I slept with someone,” he says.
I blink at him. “Oh, I…” I lean against the column behind me, trying to look surprised. “Who?”
“I don’t know if I should say,” he says, frowning. “I just … I don’t want to put a target on her back, you know?”
So he’s fallen in lust with Addison, and now he wants everyone else gone. Great.
“I wanted to tell you because I really see a future with you,” he says. I gape at him. Is he about to say he wants us to be sister wives? He takes my hand, looks me in the eyes. “And I couldn’t move forward with you if you didn’t know everything.”
My mind whirls with clips of the episodes I’ve seen.
What am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to be upset?
I think of the people inside, watching us on the monitors, of the people in three months, watching from their couches, the posts that will roll across the internet with #LoveShack tattooed at the bottom.
“I appreciate you telling me.” I squeeze his hand and offer a conciliatory smile. “I’m not mad, I promise. And … I see a future with you too. I think one of the most important things in a relationship is communication, and you telling me shows that you believe that too. Can I ask—was it Addison?”
He rubs his chin, then nods. “Yeah.”
I weigh my next words carefully, knowing I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Ratting on her makes me a snitch. Not warning him might mean that I don’t have his best interests at heart.
But I can’t afford to be edged out, not when I’ve come this far.
“Roland, I have to tell you something. I don’t know if I should but…” I steal a glance at the cameras, the producers hanging on to my every word.
I’m finally going to take the bait and give Lainey what she wants.
Looking over my shoulder, I shiver as if I’m scared Addison is there, ready to strike.
“She pushed me. During tennis—and on the ladder. And she told me…” I hesitate, unwilling to say the words that will make me the biggest hypocrite in history. “She’s not here for the right reasons.”
Roland shakes his head, and my stomach sinks. What if he doesn’t believe me? “She’s seeing someone at home,” I continue. “I don’t want to believe it, but apparently she said it herself.”
This gets him—I can tell by the way his gray eyes widen in disappointment.
“Thank you for telling me,” he says. “I guess I have some thinking to do.”
A light rain starts, misting my face. When I look up, I see a crane floating over us with a dispenser that’s spraying out water. Roland takes my face in his hands and looks at me.
“You and me, Georgia,” he whispers. “I can feel it.”
My stomach twists, my mind still in the interview room with Rhett, his words echoing in my head.
I thought we had something.
Roland presses me gently against the column behind me, his fingers on the buttery satin at my hips.
“I feel it too,” I tell him. If “it” is the battery pack digging into my back.
Then his mouth is on mine and the cameras are swirling around us. The rain beats down, soaking us, erasing every minute Brooklyn spent on my hair. His fingers are light, his mouth gentle but firm.
Isn’t this what I should want? A Notebook-worthy kiss in the rain with a husband-material man.
But every inch of my skin is screaming, wishing the fingers, the burning lips, the dripping hair all belonged to someone else. Because deep down I know that no matter how hard I pretend, this isn’t the right guy.
It isn’t even real rain.