Season 2, Episode 1 Storm’s A-Brewin’
“Storm’s A-Brewin’”
Imogen was scheduled to be on my flight to Turks and Caicos, but she didn’t know if Arjun was flying with us.
I texted her at the gate to no response, which was unusual, since we’d spoken daily since Mitch’s diagnosis.
Once onboard, my knees strained against the seat in front of me as I feigned sleep.
The last thing I needed after weeks spent shuttling Mitch to chemo was spiraling into tears at the sight of Arjun Bhaduri.
“Well, fancy meeting you here.”
I frantically looked up as a muscular blond kid slid into the seat beside me. Was I about to endure a fan pestering me with Endeavor questions? At least he was cute. Then I realized.
“Barnes?!” This was hardly the scrawny little operator I’d last seen at Season 1’s Reunion.
Bulging thighs burst from his pink shorts, and a University of Georgia polo clung to his torso, waves of downy blond fuzz rolling down vascular forearms. His unruly mop of hair had been tamed into the meticulously parted cut that it would be ever after, drawing new focus to his electric blue eyes. “Sorry, you look…”
“Like a Ralph Lauren ad? Geek chic wasn’t doing me any favors. Brawn is what sells.” He smirked bitterly, tucking his tote under the seat. “At least I’ll be able to defend myself in a Trial now, since you, Ron, and Hermione will target me the first chance you get.”
Our trio wouldn’t be doing anything together any time soon, but strangely that wasn’t what snagged me. “How am I Harry?”
“That’s what you took from that sentence?”
“I’m way more Ron.”
“Black hair and scarred? I assumed ‘Muscle Queen Harry Potter’ was your annual Halloween costume. Besides, you’re not funny enough to be Ron.”
I pointedly stared past him, remembering why we hadn’t bonded before.
“Looking for someone, or am I so insufferable a random stranger will suffice?”
“Imogen,” I replied tersely.
“Greta said Imogen’s on her flight from LAX, but they’re not making the connection. A big storm’s coming, and we’re the last flight out of Charlotte. What, your BFF didn’t call?”
He sat there lording it over me, but I sniffed back any emotion, despising how on edge I was. “Look, her phone probably died.” He shrugged, softening. “I didn’t mean to be a dick.”
The flight attendants began their safety drill, and we remained silent until the half-hearted pantomime ended, when he nudged my elbow. “I was sorry to hear about your dad.”
My stomach caved, the last topic I’d expected. “You know about that? How?”
“The new producer who replaced Clem. Helena Malloy, the Australian lady?”
“So the whole cast thinks I returned for a televised pity party? Perfect.”
“Nobody thinks that, not of you.”
“I wanted it to stay private.”
He inhaled, jaw gently wavering. “I’ll guarantee nobody talks about it.”
“As if you could.”
“I most definitely can.”
I held his gaze, floored by how sincere he seemed. “But why?”
“Because I really am sorry.”
Barnes stayed by my side even after we landed, talking nonstop about everything from quitting Lobby Boys to his tenure as UGA’s first openly gay student body president.
I hadn’t recognized how quiet my life had become—and how thankful I was to have it interrupted.
Lately my nights had been solitary affairs in which I prepped the next day’s meals while my evaporating father retired to bed, often before sunset.
When I tried calling Jenny, she’d usually text she was “stuck in the lab,” but Imogen always checked on me.
I tried not to belabor our chats and rob her of her own evenings in LA, but I always wondered…
Is she seeing Arjun tonight? Will he ask about me? Will he call me? Do I even want him to?
Our plane was indeed the last to sneak into Providenciales before Tropical Storm Alberta carved her unseasonal path through the Caribbean, and Mary Peach was already more harried than the previous summer.
With the season’s villa too vulnerable to the storm, we’d shelter at a faded resort, where the other cast members were already marooned in the lobby with their luggage.
There were barely any other veterans from Season 1, but then I saw him—laughing by a random brunette.
As Arjun intuitively revolved our way, I excused myself to the bathroom.
The first open door I could find was a janitor’s closet, where I sank between a glade of mops. Was my appearance fee worth the farce of Arjun cruising the female cast? Or worse, watching him sneak off with yet another oblivious guy?
Mary Peach was assigning roommates when I reemerged, right as my eyes at last met Arjun’s across the lobby. He involuntarily lit up, in the way that just can’t be faked. But not again, I swore. Never again. I tapped Mary Peach and made the choice that would change my life. “I’ll room with Barnes.”
Our room was painted a muted rose, complete with a chalky stucco ceiling and decor that had likely been untouched since 1988.
Only a giant board shielded the glass patio door from the incoming storm.
Barnes flung himself on one of the wicker beds, his untucked shirt betraying the light dusting of sandy hair over his navel. “So Harry’s rooming with Draco.”
I tossed my duffel on the couch. “You’ve really got to get out of Hogwarts.”
“Killjoy,” he said, eyes blatantly on me as I bent over to unzip my bag.
“Anyway, I’m going to shower while there’s still running water.
” He casually doffed his shirt, freckles dotting his pale muscular shoulders until they abruptly halted halfway across his back.
After months of training, he’d carved himself to beauty.
I tried not to stare, fearing another disappointment, the toll of investing in another person, but I also couldn’t resist the temptation of knowing I could get exactly what I wanted. For once.
As he passed, I snagged one of his belt loops with my finger and pulled him closer, the soles of his feet scuffing across the tile.
He suddenly looked so guileless, his tentative kiss shattering my fragile bravado.
I found myself welling up, but he somehow stayed quiet as he gently embraced me.
We stood like we were slow dancing at a party no one else had bothered to attend, not even the band, until he guided me to one of the two narrow beds, cradling me against the flat pillows.
Eventually, I spoke about Mitch’s treatments and how Jenny barely visited, avoiding a crisis for the first time ever by burying herself in TA commitments.
I even told him about “my ex,” a nameless murky figure until fifteen minutes later when, without any pressing, I revealed said ex was Arjun.
Yet Barnes kept silent, letting me purge, the fluorescent from the bathroom our only illumination.
There were so many tragedies I’d later learn he could have recounted—how his parents died of carbon monoxide poisoning while he’d been at a friend’s lake house when he was sixteen, how it felt to sell his childhood home and never look back when he left for college, how lonely so much of his life had been—but instead he let me speak, like no one had in months.
It all felt safer in the darkness, the confessions I’d made, the urges to pull him closer and breathe in his sharp metallic cologne, still lingering even after hours of travel.
When I finally kissed him, it was an act of hunger.
Sudden, impulsive, foreign. I didn’t expect him to retract, his palm on my chest. “We can just talk. We don’t have to do more. ”
“Do you not want to?”
“I just don’t want you to think I’m chasing a one-night fling because you’re the hot guy who won a reality show. I’ve seen how smart you are, how loyal, how kind—”
I kissed him again, and soon enough he was riding me, back arching as he doggedly guided me in, resorting to spit for lube.
Once he was comfortable taking all of me, he reclined on his back, signaling me to stand and fuck him at the edge of the mattress.
I felt relieved Barnes took control, his fingers gripping my ass, pushing me deeper and deeper inside him.
As gentle as we’d been while talking, we grew rough while fucking, sweat drenching us in the airless room, palms eventually stifling our mouths to combat the paper-thin walls.
The knock came not long after we’d finished. Barnes grabbed his pink shorts, our cum barely dry across his chest. I saw nothing when he answered the door.
“Arjun!”
“Barnes. You… wow, you look very fit.”
“I’ve been training like a fiend since Lobby Boys wrapped.”
“Right. I heard Luke’s rooming—”
“Oh, he’s asleep.”
“It’s eight o’clock.”
“He’s really tuckered out.”
I didn’t answer, my silence marrying Barnes’ lie.
“Well, a bunch of us are having a little hurricane party—”
“Is it a full-blown hurricane now?”
“It’s just… what people call it. Apparently.”
“Well, if Luke perks up, we’ll swing by.”
“When he’s awake, will you tell him to find me? He and I need to catch up.”
“Sure.” A long beat. “Anyway, good to see you, Arjun. It’s going to be a fun season.”
The door shut, and Barnes rounded the corner, ditching the pink shorts.
“You didn’t have to lie,” I said.
“I never feel guilty lying to liars. Especially after the shit he pulled on you in LA.” He ran a hand over my ribs, grazing their scars, and I shivered. “Ticklish?” He grinned.
“I just… get weird when these guys become the focus.”
“Right,” he said softly, peering at the marks on my face. “You could hide them, you know? With makeup, concealer?”
“I… don’t think that’s for me.”
“Every guy on TV wears makeup.”
“I never saw anyone do it last year.”
“Correction: every guy who understands how cameras work wears makeup.” He hopped off the bed, retrieving his dopp kit. “Lucky for you, our complexions aren’t far off.”
I instinctively flinched, but he took me by the chin. “It’ll wash off, you big baby. If you like it, wear it when you want. It’s your face. You should be in control of how people see it.”
Fifteen minutes later, I couldn’t believe who stared back at me in the bathroom mirror.
The texture of the scars was there if you squinted, but it had been buffed down, painted away, like the accident never happened, like the NFL-bound college senior was resurrected before my eyes.
“You look really good,” Barnes said, hugging me from behind.
“Yeah.” I nodded as my hands glided over his. “We both do.”
Two days later, I was returning from a jog when the production van arrived at the resort, our final cast members at last joining. Greta burst out, leaping on me like a long-lost relative, only to recoil once she realized how sweaty I was.
“Never get stranded in Houston, especially with Greta Hendricksen,” Imogen sighed when she emerged next. “You okay?”
I shrugged, some part of me already resisting. “Just ran eight miles.”
She discreetly pulled me aside as other contestants trooped by. “How’s Arjun so far?”
“We haven’t spoken,” I replied tightly. “Did you lose your phone? I texted you.”
“You mean a few days ago? I saw your text when we landed in Texas, but I figured you were already in lockdown. Didn’t they take everyone’s phones like always?”
“Not with the storm.”
“Huh, funny.” She still didn’t get it, but it wasn’t my job to tell her. “Do you mind if I wait in your room until we head to the villa?” she asked.
I exhaled, fighting to be noncommittal. “Sure, Barnes is packing, but he won’t care.”
“Barnes?” she laughed. “You were hard up for company.”
In the lobby, I introduced Imogen to Helena Malloy, the ambitious new Aussie producer.
If Clem had been a cuckoo, Helena was a great white with French tips.
Barnes had buttered her up every day at breakfast, so I wasn’t surprised he and I were together on Team Purple, with Arjun opposite us on Orange.
Imogen, however, was on my team. “Guess the show had to break the three of us up,” she reasoned, but I only stewed behind the sunglasses Barnes had bought me in the hotel gift shop, in no mood to point out we’d already broken ourselves up.
After avoiding Arjun while we filmed the opening credits, our first Tribulation came at sunset. It was a brute force “Capture the Flag,” the show’s violence amped up by the ruthless Helena. “Time to do what you do best, footballer,” she smugly directed me.
When did the war officially begin? Perhaps when I saw Arjun nuzzling the ear of his brunette (“Rebecca R.,” lest she be confused with fellow newbie “Rebecca K.”), his eyes aimed directly at me?
Maybe when I kissed Barnes on the lips after scoring the point that tied the game?
Or when I body checked Arjun, who shoved me back and called me “an immature child desperate for screen time”?
I didn’t respond; Barnes was already rushing to my defense.
Instead I watched Imogen, who exhaled raggedly, as if she had been the target of Arjun’s remark.
Personally, I’d argue that was the moment.
Wars don’t start until the innocent bystander must choose a side.