26. 26 #2
“Was she?” I asked, wondering if her approval would better my odds of a good edit.
“Majorly,” he said. “Everyone in the Hut was screeching. We were so excited.”
At least my public display of affection brought someone joy.
Harry reached for my hand then and squeezed it in his.
“Don’t get in your head, Pop. I can see your cute little walls hiking themselves up already. Just enjoy having made a bit of great TV and leave it at that.”
“I will,” I said, straightening my shoulders and trying to will myself to follow his advice.
Maybe it really could be that easy.
***
After I finally headed back to the cocktail party, I had to go over it all again with the girls.
I repeated the party line I’d decided to stick with—I like him and wanted him to know—so many times without any further detail that the girls eventually got bored and moved on to how Chiara was feeling about Adam being out with Amy.
I was eternally grateful I was not the only one in the hot seat.
The truth was, I didn’t know how I felt about the kiss. I knew, just as Harry had said, it would play well on camera and that it would get Callum and me the attention we needed to cull public favor while furthering our mutual goal of getting to the finale.
But if I was being honest with myself, I had to admit that there was more to it than just putting on an act, more than simply trying to get the upper hand over Sara, who had clearly come in with a plan.
I had wanted Callum to know I was in it with him, even after all the back and forth with James.
That we were still a team, and our deal was solid.
As for the other part of me—the deep, primal one that reacted on pure instinct at seeing Sara touch Callum—that was something I was currently trying to bury away and never think of again.
It wasn’t working.
Especially when the dates went so long that the producers let us all go to bed before they were even back. By that point, the light nerves that had been flittering through me since Callum and Sara left the villa had snowballed into full-blown anxiety.
Was he having a great time with her? Was that why they were gone so long? Did they discover an incredible connection and were currently making out under the stars?
Callum didn’t strike me as the kind of guy to move quickly from one girl to the next, but I wasn’t exactly his girl. What we were doing wasn’t real.
Kissing him in such dramatic fashion now felt painfully embarrassing. I had taken my emotions and run with them, and this is where they led me: lying awake in a darkened communal bedroom waiting for the guy I was fake dating but really kissing to come home from a date with another girl.
I must have worn myself out with my own worrying because the next thing I knew the lights were being thrown on in the bedroom and it was morning.
As the others around me began to stir, I looked over to Callum. He was already awake, laying on his back and staring up at the ceiling.
“Hey,” I said, my voice quiet with sleep.
He turned his head toward me, and we lay there, facing each other.
“How was your date?” I asked, trying to keep my voice low so no one would hear me.
“Yeah, it was good. Sara’s a nice girl,” he said.
I waited for him to say more, but it soon became clear that was all I was going to get.
No mention of our kiss, no actual hint of if his date went well or not. I couldn’t tell if he meant that Sara was a nice girl in a general, friendly way or in an “I like her and I want to end our deal” way.
“Great,” I said.
“Yup,” he replied.
There was so much I had wanted to say to him, so many things that had been left unsaid when our conversation was interrupted last night.
Laying here now, in the light of day, it all felt like too much.
I didn’t know where to start, and his silence wasn’t encouraging me to try.
So, I continued to lay there, next to him but so far apart, staring up at the ceiling until we were told to get out of bed and head to our respective morning catch ups.
I was hoping to sit out the debrief, wanting to take a backseat and be in my own world for a while, but the moment I sat down, I knew that was a pipe dream.
Sara, who had gone to bed in what could only generously be considered lingerie, was lounging back against a pillow on the daybed, chatting away.
“Callum is just the sweetest,” she blathered on. “He’s a total gentleman, and we had the best chat. The banter was amazing, and he really ticks all my boxes.”
I nodded along, trying to act as though it was all fine. As if she was talking about anyone else.
“Sorry, Poppy,” Sara said, looking over at me in a way that was anything but apologetic, “Is this weird for you? I know you guys are together, but I think I’m going to try and get to know him as well.”
I put on my best smile, aiming to appear as unbothered as physically possible.
“Yeah, sure. Totally. He’s great. You should talk to him if you want,” I said.
“Great,” she said.
“Great,” I replied.
We stared at each other, but I was in no mood for a showdown so early in the day, so I looked away first.
The rest of the conversation flowed from there, but I wasn’t paying much attention.
Glancing across the lawn to the fire pit where the boys were all gathered, I wondered what Callum was saying to them about our situation.
What he thought about everything. I supposed we were in a love triangle now, as Sara wasn’t backing down from pursuing him.
I knew I could simply ask him where we stood and if he liked Sara. Hadn’t he just asked me the same about James?
But something deep down in me wasn’t ready to hear his answer.
Not quite yet at least. I was already wildly embarrassed about kissing him last night.
The boldness I felt in the moment had morphed into pure mortification at the way I all but pounced on him out of nowhere.
If he were to tell me, after that kind of gesture, he didn’t want to stay together, it would simply be too much.
As the girls’ catch-up wrapped and we headed inside to get ready for the day, it dawned on me that I wasn’t sure what was worrying me more: that Callum could ditch me for Sara or that I cared so much if he did.