Chapter Twenty-Four
Stay hydrated. There’s a lot of alcohol on set and you need to keep your wits about you.
—Shacking Up: The Definitive, Unauthorized Guide to Winning Love Shack
Lainey’s Cheshire cat grin makes me shiver.
But she doesn’t shoot right away. Instead, she wanders forward, then leans on the kitchen island between us.
The position only emphasizes her unique twist on a power suit: dark slacks, a matching blazer, and a peekaboo of red bra strap in lieu of a shirt.
It looks like a knife slice in the middle of her chest.
“Are you having fun, Georgia?”
I’m shaking so badly that I have to set my paintball gun down on the counter, leaving me defenseless. Maybe I shouldn’t let it out of my hands, but something tells me that getting paint all over Lainey won’t score me any points. I give her a weak smile. “So much fun.”
I can’t help looking at the bison head mounted on the wall behind her. I wonder if its glassy eyes are actually hidden cameras. I shudder, unsure what’s more intimidating—the bison, the paintball gun, or Lainey.
Or the bottle she takes from a cupboard. She pours an inch of clear liquid into a tumbler and slides it across the counter to me.
“Drink up,” she says. “We can’t have you getting dehydrated.”
I sniff the glass. “And vodka helps with that?”
“Oh, come on.” She laughs. “Have a little fun! It’s just us girls.”
My tolerance isn’t that low, but there’s nothing in my stomach, since I woke up too late for breakfast.
“You first,” I say.
She considers me for a beat, then takes the drink and gulps it down, smacking her lips. She pours out more vodka and scoots it toward me. Now I have no excuse. When I pour it down my throat, it makes my whole body quake.
She grabs the bottle and refills the glass. As painful as it is, I know this moment will be key when I drag Lainey through the mud. Staring her down, I toss the second shot back, imagining the words I’ll use to burn her reputation to the ground.
The rumors of forcing contestants to drink were always some of the most tenuous—they’re easy to discount because how does someone force you to drink something?
Isn’t it always a choice? And on a show with so much flowing booze, it’d be easy to assume that contestants get plastered all on their own.
But the burning in my throat tells a different story.
“You know, Georgia, I don’t like a liar.”
Her words hit me as the alcohol slides sickeningly into my stomach.
“What are you talking about?” My throat throbs.
“I know you were in Rhett’s room,” she says.
Even though I suspected this, it knocks the wind out of me.
Lainey picks at her perfect French-tipped fingernails and sighs dramatically. “What will Roland think—because you’ll have to tell him, right? Unless you want your whole relationship to be based on a lie.”
“It’s ended,” I splutter, mouth dry. “It’s over.” Isn’t that what Rhett told her?
“I know it’s over,” she says. We’re talking about me and Rhett, but her tone suggests that my life might be too.
Or at least my time on Love Shack. “I knew you weren’t here for the right reasons.
One minute you’re telling Roland you’re here for him, the next you’re naked under Rhett’s bed.
Only a slut would do something like that. ”
I reel back as if she’s slapped me.
“How dare you,” I seethe. I’m numb to the vodka burn now, all anger, all ice. “Roland’s the one screwing around with other women while I—”
“While you what?” She raises a penciled brow. “Are you about to tell me why you’re really here?”
“I’m here to find love.” I say it so forcefully that Lainey’s eyes widen in surprise. “I’m here to find love,” I repeat, my voice quivering. “I’m here to marry Roland.”
In a flash, Lainey steps around the counter and leans in so close I can smell her mascara. “If that’s true, then you probably don’t want me telling him about you and Rhett, do you?”
“Why would you—”
“You heard something in Rhett’s room,” she says. “I’m asking you to keep it to yourself. If you don’t, I might let something slip to Roland.”
The irony is almost comical. She thinks she can use Roland to keep me quiet, but he’s the furthest thing from my mind.
“I won’t say anything, I swear,” I lie. I glance at my paintball gun. The plastic edges make it look like a pitiful defense.
My breath is coming so fast, heart beating so furiously, that I don’t notice a tear of anxiety puddling in my eye until it falls down my cheek. I dig my nails into my palms, cuticles, anything to keep me going, to keep my gaze on Lainey so she knows she hasn’t won.
She licks her lips like a snake, tongue darting out as it surveys its next meal, before she picks up my left hand and holds it up between us. A drop of blood trickles from the little half-moon indent where my fingernail has picked my skin raw.
Lainey scoffs. She lets my hand fall back to my side. “I don’t know what Roland sees in you. I’d think he would want someone a little more sure of herself.”
“I—” But I can’t finish. Suddenly, I’m back in my apartment with Serena, watching Rhett’s Love Shack contestants parade across my laptop screen.
God, does that woman even like herself? Not nearly enough confidence. He’s already a celebrity; he wants someone who knows who she is.
“Pathetic,” Lainey says.
“That’s enough.” Rhett’s voice echoes through the room.
Lainey grabs her paintball gun, looking to the door of the kitchen as Rhett walks in, hands outstretched like he’s approaching a rabid animal.
“Rhett, what the hell are you doing?” Lainey asks.
“You have to stop,” he says, glancing between me and Lainey. “This is way too far.”
“We were just having a little chat,” she says, smoothing the front of her blazer. “Don’t forget what we talked about, hmm?” With one last look at me, she stalks out of the room.
As soon as she’s gone, I collapse back against the counter, then slide to the floor.
“Are you okay?” Rhett crouches down and takes my hand in his. “What happened?”
I snatch my hand back, shaking my head. What happened is that I got what I came here for: proof that Lainey Williams is a sadistic, evil producer.
Proof that Roland failed dope tests and hid it.
Proof that I meant nothing to Rhett. A sob forces its way out of my throat and I bury my face in my arms.
“Talk to me,” Rhett says. “What did she do?”
I sniffle, wipe my nose. “Nothing. It’s—nothing.” It’s what she said that shook me to my core. Her words, so like Serena’s, even if they were about a different man: I’d think he would want someone a little more sure of herself. I raise my head, look into Rhett’s worried eyes.
He wants someone who knows who she is.
That isn’t me.
And now I’m in far too deep.
“Georgia,” he says again. “I want to help.”
Another sob breaks through, and he leans forward, takes my face between his hands, and brushes his thumb across my cheek.
“Can I do anything?”
“Haven’t you done enough?” I snap.
“What are you talking about?”
“You told Lainey about me—my phone.”
Rhett’s eyes widen and he drops his hands. “I didn’t.”
“I heard you talking to her on the veranda—you told her it was mine.”
He shakes his head. “I was talking about when she found your … undergarments in my room.” He whispers the word, leaning forward and making me blush despite my tears. “I said you came in trying to start something and I shut it down. I told her you’d been drinking—that you weren’t thinking straight.”
I sniffle a laugh. “What, ‘Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off’ or something like that?”
He drops his hand to my bare knee and smiles. Heat shoots up my leg. “Thought you didn’t like country music.” He’s so close I can smell him, woodsy and calm.
“It’s a classic.” I shrug, wipe my eyes. When I turn my gaze back to Rhett, his is already on me, hot and intense, boring a hole back through space and time. It’s like I’m unraveling into him all over again, gathered in his arms, his mouth on my neck, melting into well-worn sheets.
“I told her the phone was mine,” he says.
“You—what?”
“It’s not like she can fire me. She didn’t believe it was Nina’s, so I told her it was mine.”
My heart sinks. If what he’s saying is true—that he was protecting me, that he took the fall for me … then I’ve completely misjudged him. He’s saved me multiple times, and all I’ve done is lie and sell him out.
“And you told her … about us?”
He shakes his head. “She only knows you were in my room last week. Nothing else. I was worried,” he says, then breaks off.
“She’s had it in for you from the start.
At first, I believed her—that you were just here for your job.
” He takes my left hand in his, running his thumb over my raw, bleeding cuticles.
“But I hope no one would put themselves through this just for a story.” His eyes find mine, asking a silent question of me.
I look away, feeling monumentally foolish.
“Let’s get you cleaned up.” He gets to his feet, pulling a stool up beside the counter and helping me onto it. “Here,” he says, twisting out of his flannel overshirt. He puts it around my shoulders, and I shrug into the sleeves, letting the warmth calm me down.
“Where are the others?”
“They’re outside,” he says. “Olie’s on the roof and Addison is staking her out.”
If Olie’s hiding on the roof, things can’t be going according to plan. “I should help Olie.” I move to get off the stool, but Rhett sets a hand on my knee.
“Just wait a minute.” He rummages in the cabinet and pulls out a first aid kit. His forehead knits in concentration as he opens a bandage and gently wipes the drops of blood from my fingers.
“Jeez,” he whispers, eyeing the fake nail that’s hanging from my finger like a screen door after a storm. He peels it off and tosses it in the trash.
“It’s—it’s an anxiety thing,” I murmur. “I got better for a while, but being here … It’s really hard.”
“It is hard,” he says, nodding. “You’re doing great.”
My heart starts to slow as he turns to my face.
“May I?”
I nod, not daring to speak. With that same featherlight touch, he wipes the tears and makeup from my face.
“So serious,” I whisper, a smile tugging at my lips as his fingers skim my cheekbone. His face lights up, but he stays focused.
He turns my hand in his so he can see the new tattoo at my wrist. His thumb rolls over the bone, and I shiver as he murmurs, “I like it.”
We’re kissing distance now, his lips parted like they’ve just whispered a secret.
“Georgia,” he breathes. It’s a secret in itself, the way he says my name. Like a wisp of perfume slipping into me.
I lean closer, my knee bumping his hip. He sucks in a breath, his teeth snagging his bottom lip. He hooks his hand under my knee, tugging me forward on the stool.
Suddenly, a high-pitched scream rips through the air, and he leaps back like I’ve burned him. Then: Crash.
“She’s trying to kill me!” someone screams.
“Oh god,” I whisper. “Was that Addison?”
Footsteps pound through the living room and I see a flash of rust-red beard fly by before Norbert bursts out onto the veranda.
Rhett and I look at each other, then hurry to follow Norbert. Paintball be damned, I have to make sure Olie isn’t hurt—or hasn’t hurt someone else.
We make it outside just as Norbert leaps off the veranda and into the cluster of bushes beneath the terrace roof. A jumble of limbs pokes out of the top as the bushes shake violently.
Monica jogs up to the house from the gardens, looking less dewy than usual, her modesty bandanas askew on her hips. “What the hell—”
“I HAVE APPREHENDED THE CULPRIT!” Norbert bellows, his arms clawing their way out of the bushes. “ADDISON IS ALIVE!”
Addison crawls out from under one of the bushes, spitting leaves out of her mouth.
Rhett bends down and helps her to her feet. Damn him for being so gallant.
The bushes give one last shake, and then Norbert rolls out, entangled with someone else, and shouts, “THE ATTACKER IS DOWN, I REPEAT, THE ATTACKER IS—Olie?”