20. 20
As the cocktail party dragged on, I found myself both emotionally exhausted and hungry. Starving, actually.
I excused myself from where I was sitting with Chiara and Jess.
Chiara had been going in circles about her situation with Hugh and Adam.
She and Hugh had a great conversation and now Adam was giving her the cold shoulder.
We had only been here a few days and she already found herself in a love triangle.
I made my way to the kitchen, which was mercifully empty. I was tapped out for the night, tired of small talk and feeling rather defeated by my dismal conversation with James.
Standing inside the pantry, the door ajar behind me, I tried to decide what late-night snack would magically cure my glum feelings.
“Hi,” a voice sounded behind me.
I almost jumped out of my skin and whipped around.
Callum was standing there, leaning against the door frame.
Acting off instinct, I shoved his shoulder. “What the hell, you scared me!”
He had a weird look on his face, half aloof and half contemplative, as he remained still, standing between me and my exit out of the pantry.
He glanced over his shoulder for a second before stepping forward, crowding into me and the already small space, and closing the door behind him.
“What are you—” I started but stopped when he put a finger to my mouth, telling me to be quiet.
It was perhaps the utter shock of him touching me in such a personal way that had any retort dying on my tongue. I froze, both with surprise and curiosity. What was he doing?
He fiddled with something on his mic pack and then leaned forward toward mine. I looked down just as he was flipping the power button to “OFF.”
There were no cameras in the pantry, and once our mics were off, we were well and truly alone.
Before I could ask him what he was doing, why he had hidden us away and turned our mics off, he spoke.
“I need to ask you something,” he said. He still had that serious look on his face.
“What the hell are you doing?” I let out, finally finding my words. I was still stuck on the fact that he had sequestered us in the pantry.
“I need to ask you something, off camera and with no one listening, but I need you to tell me one thing first,” he said.
I had a million questions, a zigzag of thoughts running through my head. I didn’t know where to start, so I just nodded at him.
“Why are you here?”
“To find my one true love, of course,” I shot back at him.
“Poppy,” he said, seemingly already exasperated with me.
An odd thrill ran through me at hearing him say my name. I don’t think he’d said it out loud yet, and there was something surprisingly satisfying about hearing it, even if it was essentially to scold me.
“Callum,” I shot back.
“I’m serious,” he said.
I was about to give him another sarcastic reason. I had repeated about a million of them since agreeing to do the show.
I was here for love. I wanted a summer of fun under the sun. I was looking for my happily ever after.
But when I looked up at him, something in his gaze stopped me from brushing him off, just like it had that night on the hotel terrace.
He was looking at me as though he really wanted to know.
It was jarring, staring into his eyes like this, and coupled with the vulnerability I was already feeling, I found myself unable to lie to him.
“Truth?” I asked.
He nodded, still holding my gaze with that intensity I couldn’t place.
I sighed and looked away, unable to maintain eye contact as I told him my real reason for being here. Or, at least, the abridged version of it.
“I needed my work visa extended. I couldn’t . . . I just need to stay in the UK for as long as possible.” I could tell him the truth without telling him the truth. “Also,” I continued, finally looking back up at him, “I couldn’t say no to the money.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment, and his eyes got a faraway look to them, as though he was working something out.
Then, he finally spoke, and what he said had the world around me spinning, like the Earth was off its axis.
“Let’s stay together for the rest of the show.”
It was so ridiculous that I laughed. Out loud and in his face.
He did not find it funny. In fact, he was scowling at my reaction.
“You’re serious?” I asked, not understanding why he would suggest such a thing. We didn’t like each other. Why would we stay together any longer than necessary?
“Yes, why wouldn’t I be?”
“I thought you couldn’t stand me.”
“I can fake it.”
“How nice of you,” I said. I’d had enough of whatever game he was playing and moved to slip past him.
He stopped me with a hand on my arm.
“I also need to stay here as long as possible,” he said. My curiosity got the best of me, so I stopped, listening to what he had to say. “I have my own reasons.”
“Which are?” I asked, suddenly desperate to know exactly why he was here if it wasn’t to find love.
“None of your business.”
I rolled my eyes. Of course he wasn’t going to share.
“Look, I’ve studied this show,” he continued, undeterred by my attitude. “The matches who get together in the beginning have the highest chance of making it all the way to the end.”
It seemed we had both done our research before arriving. He was saying exactly what I had been thinking since entering the villa but hearing it said back to me now, from him specifically, was frying something in my brain.
I said nothing in reply, simply blinking up at him as I tried to process what he was really saying.
My silence spurred him on, and he continued. “If we get to the finale and, by some miracle, actually win the whole thing, you can keep all the money.”
My stomach dropped at the thought. Making it all the way to the end of the show and winning the cash prize had seemed so far-fetched that I hadn’t considered it an actual possibility.
My goal had been simply to stay for as long as possible so I could continue to receive the weekly compensation checks.
But to win the prize money? And to be able to keep it all?
It was almost too much to wrap my head around, but I knew, even in this tense moment in the tiny pantry, it would give me the breathing room I was so desperate for in my real life.
Callum kept going. “Neither one of us has found a good match yet, have we?”
James’ face flashed through my mind. Did our stilted conversation earlier in the evening mean we weren’t a good match in the long run?
Callum took my silent contemplation as agreement and carried on. “The other girls are nice, but they’re all actually looking for love. If there was someone else I thought I could do this with, I would, but it seems you’re my best bet.”
“You’re really winning me over with all that flattery,” I said.
“I’m sorry, but it’s the truth. If we do this, the one thing I promise is that I’ll always be honest with you,” he said, looking at me as if his entire life hung on what I said next. On the decision I would make.
“I . . . ” I started but couldn’t find any words after that. I didn’t know what to say. The turn of events had thrown me for a loop, and I was struggling to keep my thoughts straight.
“Think about it,” he said.
We stood there then, neither of us moving, simply staring at each other. Time and space seemed to stretch for a long, weighted moment.
I was still as a board, suddenly not wanting to move, not wanting to break the spell we were under. We were so close to each other, mere inches away, and I could feel the warmth of his body radiating out and wrapping around me, his annoyingly delicious scent infiltrating my senses.
Was I leaning forward? Or was he? Everything felt jumbled and heavy, until—
The pantry door was pulled open from the outside, bursting our bubble. I jumped back, away from Callum.
“Found them!” Jess exclaimed. She gave me a wink before turning and walking over to the kettle and clicking it on. I’m sure it looked like Callum and I had just been caught in a very compromising position.
From an overhead speaker, a producer called out, “Callum and Poppy, you’re cut off from drinks at the cocktail party tomorrow night. Bellas, hiding in the pantry and turning off your mic packs is not allowed.”
I flushed at the embarrassment of being called out in front of everyone. I was sure that my face was bright red as I stepped out of the pantry and quickly walked away from Callum, heading to the daybeds.
I sat next to Chiara and Jess and was immediately inundated with questions about what exactly had gone down.
“We were just chatting about snacks,” I lied, hoping I was selling it. “I didn’t even realize my mic was off, I must have bumped the switch by accident.”
I could have told them what Callum really said.
Could have gone right to Harry and the other producers and exposed him for trying to rig the game.
But I knew as soon as I thought it that I would not be doing so.
His offer was too tempting. It would be a solution to the one overriding worry I’d had since walking into the villa: staying as long as possible.
The real question was: Could I actually do it? Could I pretend to be with Callum for the next six weeks? Would we be able to act like we liked each other enough to make it all the way to the end? Would anyone even buy it?
It seemed impossible and yet I couldn’t let it go. Couldn’t dismiss it outright.
I thought about it long after the cocktail party was over, and everyone had gone to bed. It kept me up through the night, until finally, in the early hours of the morning, I managed to turn off my brain enough to drift off to sleep.