Season 20, Episode 7 Ain’t No Mountain High Enough… （Part One）
“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough… (Part One)”
The Lodge at Huangshan is breathtaking.”
“The Marco Polo Lodge at Huangshan…”
“The Marco Polo Lodge at Huangshan is breathtaking.”
“Would you say it’s… romantic?” Troy nudged, grinning.
He’d started seasoning our convos with these little nuggets today.
With Jiamin gone, Troy clearly needed a new “couple” storyline, but I wasn’t taking any bait until Shawn and I were on the same page.
Unfortunately, he’d barely spoken to me for the last twenty-four hours.
As irritating as his behavior was, I was even more annoyed I’d missed my last two video calls with the kids.
Going overtime at the previous night’s Trial robbed me of the first one due to the time difference; then we’d been blindsided with the news our next Tribulation was at Marco Polo’s new property in the Huangshan mountains—which Troy apologized had neither Wi-Fi nor cell reception.
The Lodge was totally unfinished. Our rooms had been rushed to completion for filming, but the rest of the compound lacked electricity and running water.
A dozen Marco Polo execs had greeted us after the six-hour bus ride from Shanghai, steering the cameras toward the finished bits, scared even an exposed nail of this ghost town might be recorded.
Nonetheless, I couldn’t critique the views.
Since we’d arrived, clouds had tiptoed through the verdant cliffs, the peaks now an archipelago in an ocean of mist.
“Maybe you and someone special will visit the resort’s natural hot spring?” Troy teased.
I faked a big smile. “There are great activities for the whole family. I’ll bring my kids back as soon as their visas get approved.”
“That’ll have to do for now.”
“Troy, I promise if there’s something to know, you’ll be the first person I tell,” I replied, fighting to sound sincere.
“Valiant effort, but… we’re going to have to start talking about you and Shawn soon, bud. It’s been coming up a lot in other people’s confessionals recently.” He extracted my mic for the night with a conspiratorial wink. “Just FYI.”
I entered the suite I was sharing with Shawn.
Of course we were finally in a bedroom with no mounted cameras precisely when he was ignoring me.
I heard the shower thrumming through the cracked bathroom door.
Was this my chance to exit the doghouse?
I caught a fleeting blur of myself in the fogged mirror, and in that perspiring glass I didn’t look as old as I felt.
Emboldened, I discarded my shirt right as the shower shut off and the glass door swung open.
“Should I leave it running for you?” Shawn asked, crushingly matter-of-fact.
“No, I… wondered if you might want company.”
He exhaled heavily. “I don’t know how to do this.”
Here we were then, colliding at last with the uncomfortable truth that whatever this was always had an expiration date. “I know what you mean—”
“Quit assuming you know what I mean,” he interjected. “What I’m trying to say is I don’t know how to fight with you.”
“Fight with me?”
“Yeah, I’m furious with you. You could actually win this game, but you won’t do that by volunteering for elimination!”
“That’s what this is about?”
“Luke, it was like you were someone else. You had this look in your eye, like you’d been waiting all along to blow everything up. You clearly didn’t give a damn what I had to say.”
“You’re overreacting a little.”
“Oh, really? You think a few rounds of Endeavor trivia would have gone well for you? You’d have pissed your whole game away, and you don’t see how selfish that is?
” he asked. “All I’m doing at this point is trying to be a shield for you.
I grabbed Camdon on that building to make sure Imogen won and you’d be safe. ”
“I never asked you to do that.”
“I did it because I wanted to!” he fired back. “But last night freaked me out, how willing you were to switch things up so quickly. And now… I’m wondering how else you might do that.”
“Shawn, don’t grade me in life based off this stupid game.” I also wasn’t the only one of us prone to sudden mood swings, though it didn’t seem wise to make that point. “I’m not looking to upend anything when it comes to us. All I want is to keep getting to know you—”
“You don’t have to say that.”
I moved closer, wrapping him against me.
He half-heartedly pushed me away, but I held on.
“I mean it. Two months ago, I thought I’d never trust anyone again,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
“PB didn’t help with that particular issue yesterday, but when it’s you and me alone… you make me think I can.”
The tension in his body finally released, and we sank in silence to the bathroom floor. “I’m sorry I freaked out,” he finally said. “Luke, there’s so much I want to tell you, but I feel like I’ll never say it the right way or I’ll just fuck things up—”
“Shawn, we’ll never figure all this out before the show ends, but time doesn’t stop when the game does.”
“You actually want to keep talking? Out there?”
“Yes,” I insisted, knotting our fingers together. “I’m sorry about last night. I know how it feels when someone goes rogue on you, but I’ll never blindside you again, I promise.”
He sighed before kissing me on the cheek. “Okay.”
“Also, not to pile on, but Troy’s steering his spotlight toward us and soon.”
“Damn… How do you want to handle it?”
I breathed him in, remembering myself at his age, the price of stolen glances, of hiding. “I think be honest. We’re two people who like each other… and we’re seeing where it goes.”
He blinked, an irrepressible smile breaking across his face. “That’s what we’re doing?”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
“What about… you know, how it will look for the divorce, with me being a former—”
“Aspiring film and television actor,” I supplied. “Whom my kids really like? I think I can stand behind that.” And I genuinely believed I could. After all, when had suppressing my true feelings ever ended happily?
“Okay, then,” he replied, a little dazed. “Okay.”
I nodded, hugging him to me. “Well, good first fight.”
“You just like making up.”
“There are definite perks.”
“Well, go find me a bottle of water before you get any more perks. Zara said we shouldn’t brush our teeth without one.” He regarded the sink suspiciously. “This place is a fucking construction site.”
“It could be our fucking construction site,” I joked. “No cameras in the bedroom.”
“We are not having sex for the first time in this hellhole!” He swatted me with a washcloth, somehow even more adorable when scandalized.
“Fine, we’ll resist the temptations of the world’s most upscale staph infection,” I said, pecking him on the forehead before I dashed out the door.
My hunt for craft services led me to three Marco Polo representatives smoking on the rough-hewn lanai.
The youngest handed me some crumpled bills and guided me through the labyrinthine compound to a generator and three incongruously cheerful vending machines, glowing with wide-eyed cartoon characters.
“Somebody get the munchies?”
I flinched, my mood souring as PB emerged under the work lights.
“You recovered from yesterday?” he asked, ignoring my silence.
“Have you? It’s not like you to put a target on your back. What if it wasn’t trivia?”
“This series is a subdivision. The architecture rarely changes if you pay attention,” he sighed.
“Case in point, it doesn’t take a psychic to see what’s coming next.
We’ve done Hell, now Purgatory… One destination left.
” I shuddered to imagine Heaven through the filter of Endeavor.
“Moreover, I’m betting these partnerships get blown to smithereens in Act 3 to produce a single winner… and that’s you, my friend.”
“Don’t mock me. If that’s actually true, you’re not letting me near that final.”
“Luke, you winning this show is the best thing that could happen to me,” he said, looking to the ground. “This is my last season as a contestant on Endeavor.”
“After what you just did to Jiamin? I don’t believe for one second you’re quitting.”
“I said as a contestant… They’re firing Ecklund after this season.”
I scoffed. “Drew’s the show’s only constant. Even if he’s a buffoon.”
“Well, at $8 million a year, he’s an expensive buffoon, and the network’s done paying.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
“We all have our carrot to show up, right? If I make it to the finale, the hosting gig’s mine. $4 million a year, guaranteed three-year contract. Just two conditions.”
“Which are?”
“Apparently America thinks I’m a dickhead. Thirty percent too much dickhead, according to the focus groups. So I have to get to the end, but… I have to lose. And guarantee a deserving underdog wins. Initially I was thinking Erika, but then Cinderella appeared at the ball.”
“So I was your puppet the whole time.”
“No, you were my priority. And at the risk of reenacting She’s All That, I had no idea you’d be so pretty when you took your glasses off.”
“Then why the bribery stunt?” I demanded. “Why have Camdon and Royce vote us in?”
He inhaled, bracing himself. “You weren’t actually supposed to go in.
Imogen would have stuck by those twats no matter what, and her loyalty would have sunk you both.
I needed to prove they’d screw her over at the first opportunity.
” He wasn’t wrong. No one could have convinced Imogen to cross them. “Royce was always my target.”
“But if Royce had been voted in, what would have stopped him from picking us?”
“He knew I’d give Zara the tape. He was supposed to throw the Trial regardless, except Imogen blasted his nose before he got the chance—and more power to her,” he answered. “My only mistake was not anticipating Greta’s asinine attempt at proving a point.”
“You didn’t have a deal with Greta too?”
“There was never a legit deal. It was a sting operation, and I just needed dirt on Camdon and Royce to control them.”
“Right, your beloved tape recorder.”
“Which ironically I can’t even find now,” he muttered.
“But why lie about Aspen?” I demanded. “Why tell us about the scheme at all?”
His face fell, revealing a glimmer of the man behind the machine. “Jiamin.”
“What does she have to…” Then I got there. “You already knew she wanted to go in.”
“I overheard her asking Troy what would happen to Aspen and Greta if we both left,” he admitted. “I thought saying the bribery ring was Aspen’s idea would intimidate everyone from voting for him and Jiamin.”
“But when I told you her plan, you went ballistic.”
“I did not know she wanted to get pregnant,” he said carefully, as if each word were a thorn. “When I realized that was why she was back, my inner gremlin broke free. I was hurt… that she hadn’t told me herself, that she’d weaponized it.”
I scowled, beyond frustrated. “Why not just explain to Jiamin about the hosting deal?”
“I tried. She sent my notes back unopened, and once her big coup was in motion, she had cameras all over her, which fucks me, because I signed an NDA about Ecklund. So, do I leave, destroying every professional connection I have to provide for the woman I love, or do I go to her in a few weeks and apologize? Tell me, oh wise one, what would you have done?”
“I would have told my friend the truth so he could help me.”
“Not exactly used to that luxury.”
We stood in silence, all the cards on the table. Or were they? How could I be sure this wasn’t one more charade to win back my trust, only to cut my throat when most advantageous?
“You really messed up,” I said at last.
“You’re still in the game though. So is Imogen. Shawn. Melange.”
“Erika might not have been.”
“I sincerely never thought she’d go anywhere, but she’s still tied to Fortune,” he answered, voice neutral. “Who is a threat to you.”
“And what if this is some story you’re feeding me to knock Fortune out for you later?”
“Then why was I willing to eliminate him myself the one time you were immune?” PB kept his eyes on me. “Doesn’t matter what I say, does it? You won’t trust me anymore.”
“Probably not, no.” Why did I feel so hurt? Even if I ignored it, I always knew who PB was. Hadn’t I already met a version of this man? Hadn’t I been married to him?
“Well, good. If you were playing me, you’d just lie. Poorly, but you’d try… And that’s not the Luke I know.” A melancholic satisfaction traced across his face. “So, you keep doing you, and I’ll take care of the rest. Consider me your guardian angel.”
“You’re no angel.”
He strolled off down the concrete walkway with a spring in his step, but his shoulders betrayed him, sinking lower with each stride, as he called back, “Guardian devil, then.”