CHAPTER 5 Ainsley Riggs
Completely and Totally Intimidated
Have his abs always looked like they were carved by some artist who makes art that’s not realistic? Because nobody’s body has any real business looking like that. Is he some AI-generated creature?
That’s twice in the last seven hours I’ve had the pleasure of sneaking a peek at his abdomen, and good Lord, those abs are something else.
Dexter Bradley was always something special to look at.
He’s the hottest of Ivy’s older brothers, but he’s really peaking here in his thirties.
His body is out of this world, and he’s got this worldly experience in the way his dark, mysterious eyes land on a person.
It’s enough to feel completely and totally intimidated.
I’m just here to help, though. I’m not here to study his abs or feel intimidated by him. It’s a job and a place to lay low when I was desperate for both of those things.
Desperate for Dex Bradley I am not.
I just got dumped on what will be on national television in a few months…
or national streaming, anyway. International, probably.
Hell, I don’t know how this works, but I can’t imagine it’s going to cast me in a very positive light when I’m made the laughingstock because Jordan wasn’t ready for marriage.
At some point, I’ll have to face Jordan. Today, likely. Before or after my interview with producers. Definitely at the reunion show in a few months. But at least it feels like I have something to come back to now. I didn’t have that when I ran out of the chapel yesterday. I was alone.
Was that really just yesterday? It feels like forever ago.
And now that I’ve had a minute away from the cameras and producers pushing me in a certain direction, I can see I was never really in love with Jordan.
I think I was in love with the idea of being in love, but considering the only tears I shed were from embarrassment as I ran from the chapel, I’m not convinced it was really love that I felt for him.
I certainly wasn’t ready to marry him. I thought I was, but as the saying goes, hindsight is twenty-twenty.
And in hindsight, it’s pretty damn clear to see that I was desperate for a path to my happily ever after, and that’s why I took a nontraditional approach to try to get there. I had people who wanted to make good television telling me I was ready, he was ready, and we were perfect together.
But today, I can see that I still have plenty of time ahead of me. There’s no rush. I’m only twenty-two. Sure, my parents got married at twenty. My mother is a mere twenty-one years older than me. My aunts and uncles all married young, too.
But that doesn’t mean I have to take the same path. I guess I’ve just put a lot of pressure on finding the one and having kids at a young age since my parents did, and it’s possible—probable, even—that’s just not the way life was meant to be for me.
Instead of focusing on any of that, though, I can’t seem to stop myself from being a little angry with how Dex just stormed out of the room.
I get that this is new and scary for him.
It is for me, too, honestly. But he’s acting like a child and not giving himself nearly enough credit.
He’s stronger and more capable than he thinks he is, but he’s already decided he isn’t.
I guess somehow it’s up to me to make him see what he’s capable of.
I’m pretty sure he’s made up his mind, though.
He doesn’t seem like the type of person who ever wanted kids.
He’s too selfish, too into the pleasures of life rather than sacrificing for someone else.
I don’t know him very well, but I know enough to know that.
He already said that me being here is temporary until he can figure out a more permanent solution.
And then what?
This poor, sweet baby goes to live with strangers who don’t share his blood, and I just…go back to Chicago?
None of that sounds right, to be honest. I realize Dex is a stranger to him, but I see a lot of similarities between them.
They both have brown eyes, dark hair, and are prone to throwing tantrums. They both rely on everyone around them to clean up their messes—which makes sense for a six-month-old. Not so much for a grown-ass man.
And maybe that’s the why in all this—why I agreed to be on a reality television show when it’s fully not at all who I am. Why I agreed to come to Vegas for this. Why Jordan said no. Why I ran.
Maybe fate was at work all along, and I was always meant to plow right into Dex’s chest at the exact moment when he needed me.
Fine, it’s a little far-fetched. Fate doesn’t work like that in real life. But a girl can daydream…especially about those abs.
I get Jack down for his after-lunch nap, and Dex is standing by the windows in the family room when I walk out. I take just the briefest moment to look out over that view with him.
It’s gorgeous. I can see all the hotels along Las Vegas Boulevard, and for a girl from Chicago who never left the eighteen-hundred-square-foot modest home she shared with four siblings and two parents, staying in a place like this, even short-term, is pretty damn exciting.
I sigh. “Jack is down, and I need to get going.”
He glances at me. “Milton said he’d set up a ride for you.”
I open my mouth to protest, but he holds up a hand and turns back toward the window.
“Please, it’s the least I can do for what you’ve already done for me. I’m sorry I walked out earlier. This is just all…a lot.” He doesn’t turn to look at me as he says the words.
“I know it is, Dex. But you’ll learn.” I keep my eyes out on the view, too. I feel him turn to study my profile, and I refuse to be intimidated by it. “You got this. You can do hard things.”
“What if I don’t want to? What if there are other answers out there? What if this was never meant for me?” He’s quiet as he says the words, and frankly, I’m shocked he’s being so vulnerable with me. He sounds like he’s truly at a crossroads and not sure what to do.
I’m careful to keep my eyes out on the view rather than giving away what I’m really thinking—just as I’m careful with the words in my reply.
“Only you know how to answer those questions. Now that you know about him, are you going to step up and take responsibility? And if not, what’s the other option?
Could you give him up just like that and never think of him again?
If you truly could do that, then you already know the answer. ”
He’s quiet a few beats, and then he whispers, “What if I can’t do this?”
I finally turn to look at him, and his anxious eyes meet mine. I lift a shoulder. “What if you can?”
He sighs.
“It’s not going to be easy, but maybe you’ll even surprise yourself. And I’m here to help you,” I say.
“Yeah, but for how long?” he asks.
“As long as you need. I already walked away from Chicago, and it’s not like I could find anything as a communications major that’s paying me what you are.” I smirk a little at that, and he chuckles. I glance at my watch. “Let’s talk more when I get back. I need to get to this interview.”
He nods, and then he surprises me by setting his hands on my shoulders, and he sort of squares off at me. “You got this, Ains. You can do hard things, and I think you might even surprise yourself.”
I clench my jaw as I fight back tears. He just threw all my own clichés right back in my face, and somehow, they’re simply everything I needed to hear.
“Thanks, Dex.”
“Go get ’em, champ.” He drops his hands from my shoulders.
“Champ?” I ask, and I can’t help a giggle.
He shrugs. “Go be a champion.”
“You don’t do pep talks for women very often, and it shows.”
He chuckles. “Okay, wildcat.”
I wrinkle my nose.
“Vixen?”
I cross my arms over my chest.
“She-wolf?”
I tap my fingers on the opposite arm.
“Warrior Queen?”
I raise my brows. “Ooh, that one. I like it.”
“You got it, WQ.” He nods resolutely.
I roll my eyes. “We need to work on your nicknames.”
“Duly noted. Now get to your interview and be the warrior queen you are and we’ll work it out later.”
I laugh. “Deal. And Dex?”
He looks at me with raised brows.
“If Jack wakes up, you’ll be fine.”
He draws in a deep breath through his nose and lets it go slowly. “I got this.”
I nod. “You got this. And so do I.”
He nods, and I head out.
I’m completely and totally intimidated in a different way when I walk through the front doors of the hotel where the entire staff of the show has been working and filming for the last month.
I head toward the conference room where we’ve been taping our confessionals, and the first person I spot is Jen, the producer who always interviews me.
She raises her brows and gives me a pointed look at the same time.
“I can’t believe you ran and didn’t even give us the courtesy of filming it,” she says rather than greeting me with a salutation like a normal person.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, but since you broke your contractual obligations, you won’t receive your payment.”
I press my lips together. It wasn’t much, a small amount meant to offset the fact that many of us quit or left jobs behind to be here. Enough to cover some of our lost wages, I guess. But not as much as Dex is paying me to help out with Jack.
I’d like to think that’s not involved in my motivation to convince him that he should keep his son close, but the selfish side of me has to admit some hard truths.
I like it here in Vegas. I like it at Dex’s place.
I even like Jack already. We’re bonding even though we just met yesterday.
I don’t have anything to return to in Chicago except for my group of friends, and even there we’re losing touch.
I only see Ivy a few times a month at best, and she’s my closest friend.
The others scattered after we graduated from college.
“If you’re already not paying me, do I still need to do the interviews?”
“Viewers will need the closure to your storyline, and if you don’t do the interview, you’ll look like a bitter little girl who didn’t get her way,” she says.
I’m not sure what prompted me to think we were friends because her words show me how very much we are not. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”
She nods to the chair for me to sit in, and we have our own little corner where she can fire questions at me with four cameras catching my every move from different angles.
“Why’d you run?” she asks first.
“I was embarrassed that I thought I was in love and said I’d marry him only to have him say no.”
“Restate the question,” she reminds me.
I sigh. “I ran out of the wedding because I was embarrassed that he said no when I said yes. I know now that I was never really in love with him, and I’m not just saying that to save face.
I’ve thought a lot about it since I ran out twenty-four hours ago, and the moment I stepped away from the cameras, I realized the truth.
He’s not really what I want. I fell in love with the idea of love, and I thought Jordan and I could get there.
I thought maybe we’d spend our first year of marriage falling for each other even more, and we’d eventually travel together to our happy ending.
But things work out the way they’re supposed to, and I’ve already formed a plan for what comes next. ”
“What’s the plan?” she asks.
“I’m going to stay here in Vegas and see what opportunities await.” I look up and feign dreaminess, and I hope that’s all she wrote.
Nope.
She asks me about a hundred more questions, and I’m at the interview for a solid three hours.
Jack will be up by now. He’ll be hungry.
I need to get back…but at the same time, I need Dex to see that he can do this on his own. I just don’t want him to think I’ve abandoned him.
Jen finally gives my phone back to me, and I realize I don’t have Dex’s number to let him know I’m on my way. But the car Milton sent me in is waiting for me, so I hop in and head back to whatever the future holds for me.