14. 14
If I was visibly thrown off by immediately making direct eye contact with Callum, I tried my best to pass it off as nothing.
I jerked my eyes away, pretending to look at everyone else while actually just trying to get my nerves under control. The guy had been unnecessarily rude, and I wanted nothing to do with him. There was no time like the present to start that personal mandate.
Getting my wits about me, I focused on the other guys. They were all tall, the shortest standing at just six feet, and I thanked my lucky stars that my five-foot-ten-inch self wouldn’t feel like such an ogre among them.
A few of the guys had tattoos, arms and legs either fully or partially covered.
One was smiling wide, and his teeth were so blindingly white and so obviously too big for his face that I had to stifle a laugh.
They had to be veneers. It was distractingly obvious.
I made a mental note to ask the girls if that was a thing among guys our age in the UK.
“Gents,” Gemma said, holding court in the middle of us all. “Why don’t you introduce yourselves to the ladies?”
One by one they went down the line, sharing their name and where they were from.
Bradley, a.k.a. “Mr. Veneers,” was from Bristol.
Adam, who had both arms and most of his left leg covered in tattoos, was from Manchester.
Hugh, who had an impressive eight-pack of abs on display through the shirt he left unbuttoned, was from Surrey.
Liam was also tattooed, though less aggressively than Adam, and was from South London.
And, finally, there was Callum, who said he was also from London even though I was of the belief that he was actually from Pricksylvania.
“They’re so hot!” Chiara whispered to me.
I nodded along, agreeing. They were all good looking, I’d give them that. Well done, Casting Director Harriet.
“Right—now it’s time for the fun part. Are you all ready to find your match?” Gemma asked excitedly.
A thrill of nerves had my spine straightening as everyone cheered.
“This year, we’re going to be doing things a little differently,” she continued.
I tilted my head to the side, sneaking a look over at Chiara.
“Different?” I whispered to her. “What does that mean?”
Chiara was smiling as brightly as ever, but I could detect a hint of confusion in her expression. “No idea,” she whispered back.
“A week ago, when you lot left to come to this beautiful island,” Gemma continued, “we let the public know who would be entering the villa.”
She looked around at all of us, smiling. The woman really knew how to draw things out for effect.
“But that’s not all we did. We also let them have a bit of a say in how things kicked off.” Her eyes twinkled with a knowing gleam, keeping us on edge for a heavy, prolonged beat.
Then she came right out with it. “The public has been voting over the last few days and have decided who will be matched together.”
I let out a small gasp of surprise. This was not what I had prepared for during my Bella Amore crash course.
In every previous season of the show, the guys always chose which girl they wanted to be paired up with.
The wildest change to this format was in season four when they let the girls pick first.
Letting the public decide who would be paired together was sure to have caused quite a bit of fervor back in the UK. I’d give it to the producers; it was a good move on their part to invigorate interest in the show and spike ratings. I understood why they would make the change.
That didn’t mean I had to love being part of it.
A pit formed in my stomach. Who would the UK think was my best match?
Callum’s cold eyes on the ferry flashed through my mind as I continued to avoid looking at him across the way. I could not be matched with someone who clearly didn’t like me. I was barely keeping it together as is. That would simply be too much.
“Do you want to know the results of that vote?” Gemma said, shimmying back and forth in glee over the bomb she just dropped.
Everyone else shouted out “Yes!” but all I could do was nod as I tried to focus on my breathing and do some mental math. There was a one in five chance I could be paired with Callum. That was an eighty percent chance of being with anyone else but him. Those weren’t horrible odds.
I would be fine. Totally and completely fine.
“Our first match is . . . ” Gemma drawled out, launching into it, “Olivia and Hugh!”
We all clapped as Olivia and Hugh stepped forward and walked toward each other. They hugged before taking a seat on the semicircle couch around the fire pit.
That’s alright. There were still three other guys that I would be happy to be matched with.
“Next . . . Jess and Bradley!” Gemma announced.
Part of me was relieved that I didn’t get matched with Mr. Veneers. I’m sure he was a lovely guy, but a line had to be drawn somewhere.
Gemma’s gaze scanned over the remaining contestants, taking her time to let us know our fates.
“Our next match is . . . ” she said, and time seemed to slow down as her gaze locked on to mine.
“Poppy and . . . ”
I could feel my heart beating through my skin, could hear it pounding in my ears.
And then Gemma was opening her mouth and calling out a name, making it a reality I wouldn’t be able to avoid.
All I could do was stand there, waiting for what now seemed inevitable, as she said: “Callum!”
***
My eyes locked onto Callum’s, and for a moment, everything stopped. The other contestants, Gemma, the cameramen off to the sides, all disappeared.
It was just me and Callum and his green eyes.
The sound of everyone clapping quickly snapped me back into reality. Spurred by instinct—or perhaps some sort of parasocial muscle memory that came with binge watching so many episodes of the show—I stepped forward and walked toward him.
We gave each other an awkward, one-armed side hug before taking our seats. I wondered if everyone else could feel the uncomfortable tension or if it was just me.
The rest of the Matching Ceremony flew by in a blur. Ella was paired with Liam and Chiara with Adam.
Gemma was speaking into the camera, saying something about dates and votes and romance, but all I could think about, the one thing holding my attention, was Callum’s arm draped across the back of the bench behind me.
The closeness of him, after our previously tense encounters, threw me completely off kilter.
I would have preferred to be seated next to anyone else, to have been matched with any of the other guys, and yet the warmth of his body pressed up against mine was melting something in my brain. I suddenly felt rooted to the spot, as though moving away from him would have been impossible.
Finally, Gemma finished whatever it was she had been saying, and as the cameras went down, I snapped back into reality.
It didn’t matter how warm or comforting Callum felt next to me.
I didn’t have time to deal with someone so cold and confusing.
I needed to settle in and find a nice guy I didn’t mind being matched with for the next few weeks.
Another producer’s voice called out, this time from speakers hidden in the bushes behind us. “Boys and girls will now split up for a debrief. Girls can stay at the fire pit. Boys, please go to the pool loungers.”
Callum immediately pulled his arm away from me. I turned to him to say something, determined to keep things friendly at the very least, but he was up and moving away before I could even open my mouth.
Fine, I thought. If he wants to be a dickhead, I can ignore him until the next matching.
That would be my strategy: I would simply ignore Callum, continue to pretend we had never seen each other before, get to know someone else, and then pick a new match the first chance I got.
“So, ladies,” Jess asked once the guys had all left, a gleam in her eye. “What do you think of the boys?”
“Proper fit, every one of them,” Chiara cooed, eyebrows wiggling.
Olivia and Ella followed suit, each fawning over their partners with “He’s so great” and “I love his tats.”
There was silence then, and it took me a beat to realize the girls were turned to me expectantly, waiting for me to chime in to the conversation. My mind had been too busy moving a million miles a minute, trying to come up with a plan to avoid Callum at all costs.
“Callum is super hot. I’m so happy I’m with him,” I let out, trying to keep my voice high and light, as though I actually was excited about my match. I knew how this was supposed to go, knew what the viewers at home wanted; I at least had to feign interest in Callum before I could move on.
“I wonder what we’ll do next,” Chiara mused, and I let out a breath. I’d gotten away with my sorry excuse for enthusiasm.
“I’d love a tour of the villa!” Jess exclaimed.
The rest of the girls nodded in agreement, and the conversation moved along to what everyone was planning on wearing that evening. Taking advantage of the crisscrossing chatter around me, I surreptitiously glanced across the pool to the daybeds where the guys were grouped.
My eyes immediately caught on Callum’s. Intense eye contact seemed to be a trend with us. So were his looks of indifference; the one he was sporting now came as no surprise to me. At least I was prepared for it.
Refusing to give him any more attention than necessary, I rolled my eyes and turned back on the group around me, letting myself get swept up in girl talk and trying to keep one very annoying boy out of my mind for as long as possible.