Season 20, Episode 1 The Viper Room
“The Viper Room”
After breakfast, Zara corralled the Devils to select men for the Trial.
Despite Vanessa effectively eliminating herself, the producers would never omit a Trial from the season premiere.
As we gathered in the living room, I mentally rehearsed my speech to volunteer.
Obviously I’d never tell these lunatics the real reason, but nobody would dispute a sacrificial lamb.
Then right before I raised my hand came Chrissy’s vacant drawl…
“Luke.”
What?
“Luke,” Aspen seconded.
They had to be fucking kidding.
Solana moued unconvincingly. “Sorry, sweetie… Luke.”
Apparently volunteering wouldn’t be necessary, but I was pissed nonetheless.
Melange shook her head in disbelief, platinum locks tumbling down her oversized designer T-shirt. “You peons are voting in the guy who won us the Tribulation?”
“He almost lost it too,” Chase countered coldly.
King Hartt summarily seized his conch. “Yo, it sucks, especially since we got close so quick, Luke… but you gotta earn your stripes, brother. Plus, you want revenge on Bal, yeah?”
I was—yet again—a stupid fucking idiot. At least I’d only indulged Hartt’s bullshit for twenty-four hours.
This must have been his plan all along, ever since he’d lied to me about Imogen.
Maybe it was exhaustion or that I was already prepared to fly home, but I no longer had any interest in being polite.
I needed to test how screwed I actually was. “Okay, I’ll go against Bal.”
Hartt clapped theatrically, encouraging the others to join.
“… But if I come back, we should rotate who goes in. Maybe Chase or Aspen next time?” Both guys cut their eyes to Hartt, confirming what I should have seen instantly. “Except you already have an alliance, and I’m screwed regardless.”
Hartt hung his head with a sigh. “Whoa, dude, I don’t know what to say other than… you got us!” He smiled, pretense gone. “But you’re ballsy, old man, I’ll give you that.”
Even though I might go quietly for Erika, I certainly wouldn’t for Hartt. “So everybody’s cool risking me? PB, you seem smarter than that.”
“I wouldn’t look to Old Eyebrows for your life vest,” Hartt said with a derisive laugh. “He knows you’re the only thing keeping his ass out of the Arena.”
PB saluted grimly. “Always a pleasure to watch you dabble in brinksmanship, Hartt.”
I leaned in, pushing my last appeal. “You all seriously want your strongest guy gone?”
“Strongest guy, my ass.” Hartt leapt to his feet, a new edge in his voice. “You honestly thought we’d bow down because you were hot shit ten years ago? That’s not how this works. But, hey, we want you to win. As long as you keep going in, the rest of us sit pretty.”
“What if I throw the Tribulations like Vanessa threatened?”
“You might think you’re the Big Bad Wolf, but all I see is a broke-ass housewife with bills to pay. You’ll pull your weight whether you’re on the bottom or… actually, I guess you’re always on the bottom, huh, buttercup? At least according to your hubby.”
I glared back, refusing to cede a reaction, all too certain it could haunt me in a divorce court after this aired. After one last smirk, Hartt marched his pack of Devils out with the cameras in tow, leaving only Melange. “Thanks,” I finally said. “For having my back.”
“All good. Chrissy’s gonna send me in first chance she gets, but I’ll raise hell until then.”
“You’re definitely better at speaking up than I’ve ever been.”
She shrugged ruefully. “Well, we can’t all be Imogen Cuthbert.”
“What do you mean?”
“Girl power isn’t exactly what keeps the lights on here. The network makes it clear: Endeavor is a ‘sports drama.’ So, the dicks bring the sports, the chicks bring the drama. No one cares I was all-state in track. They care when I throw drinks in Chrissy’s face.”
Sadly her assessment wasn’t inaccurate. “Why do you despise each other so much?”
She ran her fingers through her gleaming hair, looking off wistfully. “It’s a long story. A Southern Gothic melodrama tracing back to the oil baron husbands of two feuding sisters, their hatred now bound in the blood of both families until they reach mutual destruction.”
“That’s… a lot.”
“That’s the logline for Mason Dixon on all streaming platforms. It’s not the real reason.”
“Which is?”
“I get paid to hate the bitch,” she replied. “It’s just economics.”
A few hours after the deliberation, Troy grabbed me for my next video chat with the kids. My frustration with him was reignited after the vote, but if I was heading to an Italian prison for killing a reality TV producer, I wanted to see my kids first.
I was relieved they were settling into a routine with Jenny. Andie even asked questions about the show, the only thing to make me smile that awful day.
“How are the munchkins?” Troy asked afterward, but I only grunted. “Luke, are you still upset about last night? Bal might have done you a favor. You being such a class act will really endear you to the fans—”
“Spare me the platitudes, Troy. I don’t need my hand held.”
“Wow. Sorry, did I do something?”
I couldn’t let it go. “Maybe start with Erika?”
“Luke, she’s been on Endeavor for a while now. How was I to know you hadn’t watched TV since Bush was in office?”
“You could have told me she was Arjun’s sister.”
“Wait, you didn’t know she’d transitioned?” He stared at me, anticipating more but getting nothing. “Okay, I get why you’re pissed, but this was not some ‘gotcha moment,’ not like that. We assumed you knew who she was.”
“I didn’t.”
“Have you talked to her? You might be surprised how it goes.”
“Don’t force that story on me, Troy. I’ll quit first—”
“Hey, I didn’t mean it like that. No one wants you here more than me.”
“Yeah, here on Team Devil!”
“We had one spot left in the cast. If I said the D-word, you’d never have agreed,” he replied, and I hated that he was right. “If anything, I’m pushing for your redemption arc.”
“Troy, you’re gay. You have every reason to make me look bad.”
With a resigned sigh, he pulled out his phone, scrolling until he found an old picture of me with a tan teenage boy at an Endeavor fan event, a photo of a photo, probably circa 2004. “I was going to show you this whenever you wrapped, but now seems better.”
“That’s you?”
“Luke, I came out because of you and Endeavor. You showed me how crucial it is to control your own story, what happens when someone makes you hide who you are.”
A pang seized in my stomach, as if anyone could label me the hero of that story. “Yeah, an asshole like me ruins your life. Bal hit the nail on the head.”
“I meant how Arjun kept your relationship in the closet, made you pretend. When you finally told your truth, it was messy, but it was honest. It inspired a lot of people, me included. That’s why I started working in reality TV, first Beverly Blonde, now Endeavor.
Plus, uh, you were my first celebrity crush,” he said, blushing.
Was he overplaying his hand now, doing what a producer did best and crafting a narrative?
Sincere or not, he needed to think I believed him.
“Troy, that’s very flattering, but I’m—”
“Oh God! I didn’t mean—I have a partner back home! Going on seven years! I’m not throwing myself at a contestant, I swear,” Troy said, a throaty laugh escaping him. “What I’m trying to say is… I hope you go far. It’s the show I’d want to see.”
“Hartt’s going to make that pretty impossible.”
A grin broke across his face as he pocketed his phone. “My friend, nothing’s more compelling than the impossible.”
The combo of jet lag and my sleepless night was catching up to me by the time I emerged from the confessional into the midday haze of the cast partying.
I noticed the only people absent were Imogen and Erika.
Imogen was smart. She’d waited until the cover of the party to tell Erika, far from the maddening cameras.
Across the way, I noticed Shawn in the kitchen, engrossed in conversation with the Angel guys, drunk, charming, and oddly…
luminous. I’d never radiated like that at his age, even before the accident.
Thinking back to his kindness the night before and watching him now, there was something innately warm about him, a gentleness, a decency that couldn’t be faked.
He glanced in my direction, but I quickly went upstairs.
I shuffled to my bunk, sleep long overdue, my bleary gaze drifting to the photo of Andie and Wallace that I’d salvaged and stuck on the wall near my pillow.
Something else was taped alongside it now.
A folded piece of paper bearing Imogen’s fluid handwriting, perhaps the only thing about her that had not changed: “She says you stay.”
A smaller blurb was beneath, as if written later, a separate entry: “I do too.” An arrow was drawn beneath this second sentence, pointing toward the photo of the kids.
I wasn’t delusional enough to think I’d been forgiven, but I’d received more than just permission to stay. I’d been given permission to fight.
After my nap, I repacked my freshly laundered, de-margarita-ed wardrobe in preparation for the Arena. If I lost, this inmate would not return to the asylum.
As I lugged my bags down the hallway, two doors opened simultaneously.
I was trapped between Jiamin and PB, their eyes locked on each other.
I recognized their expressions intimately, the paralysis that strikes when you see someone you adore and despise so equally you can’t speak.
There was the answer: they’d been lovers.
Jiamin turned, abruptly seizing my bookbag. “Let me help you,” she said crisply, her stylish sandals clacking like gunfire on the tile stairs as I awkwardly followed past a stewing PB. I was stunned when she lingered with me below. “Sorry they threw you in,” she said.
“They’re Devils for a reason.”