Chapter Twelve
“What the hell are you doing?!” Elise screamed again. Her lungs felt small and useless, like they’d been replaced with cotton balls, but she kept yelling anyway. “Get down from there! What are you thinking?”
Harper’s black linen pants flapped like flags in the breeze that was beginning to pick up.
A moment ago, she’d lost her step and Elise, who had been reviewing footage from last night’s ceremony on her tablet and trying to decide whether a midday confessional should happen before the next group date had caught sight of something she’d first thought was just a dark blot on the cliffside.
But then the blot had moved. Or more like stumbled, and Elise had realized with a nauseating clarity that she was looking at Harper fucking Angel dangling off a slab of volcanic rock like she was shooting for National Geographic and not The Sapphic Match.
“Elise, relax!” Harper called down in a voice that was annoyingly calm.
Elise wanted to wipe that infuriating grin off her face, which she was going to do as soon as Harper stepped back onto the beach.
“Relax?!” Elise shrieked, gathering all her curls into one tight knot that wouldn’t stay even if she slicked it back with hair gel.
“You are literally hanging off a cliff.” It was a touch dramatic since Harper wasn’t exactly hanging, but still.
“Do you know what could happen?” She swallowed and tried not to picture it, but she did anyway.
“You could fall and die! And I would have to explain to the rest of the contestants why we had to replace their photographer.”
Harper pulled a face. Or maybe she grimaced. Elise couldn’t exactly tell from all the way over here. She considered heading over to the cliff herself, but she wasn’t exactly equipped to climb. And for that matter, she didn’t even know how to. Elise preferred her feet firmly on hard soil.
“Fine,” Harper relented and started making her way down. Tiny rocks skittered down ahead of her, pinging off the sides.
Elise held her breath.
She was acting like some unhinged spouse watching their partner risk their life. Harper wasn’t hers. She was a headache. A very attractive headache, but still, none of this justified the way Elise’s chest felt like a fist was squeezing it from the inside.
“I’ve done way worse climbs than this,” Harper said once her feet hit the sand. She walked toward Elise and flicked her sandy blonde hair behind her shoulder like some Baywatch girl striding across the beach. “Just last year, I was in a terrible predicament.”
“I don’t care where you were or what climbs you’ve done,” Elise interrupted.
“I don’t care if you’ve dangled out of a helicopter or rappelled down the side of freaking Machu Picchu.
There’s a very explicit rule about not climbing geological structures on production days.
” She jabbed her finger toward Harper’s face.
There wasn’t a rule like that anywhere, but clearly there should be.
Elise considered writing it herself out of sheer necessity.
Harper frowned. “Really?”
“Yes,” Elise hissed. “There are rules about everything. We’re running a reality show, not a National Geographic expedition. You can’t go rock-scaling whenever you feel like it.”
Harper crossed her arms. “I needed height to catch the—”
“No!” Elise said loudly, slicing her hand through the air. “I don’t want an explanation. You scared the life out of me.”
Harper’s face softened like butter left out in the sun, and Elise realized her huge mistake… she’d shown her hand. She wanted so badly to reel the words back in, stuff them in a box, and padlock it, but she couldn’t. It was too late. Harper now knew Elise cared about her.
“I wasn’t in any real danger,” Harper said softer, smoother than before.
She looked almost as if she wanted to step forward and hug Elise, which Elise would refuse to let happen.
There would be no hugging. Ever. “If I had fallen, I would’ve landed in the water.
I can swim. Really, the only thing in danger was my camera. ”
She lifted it up, and Elise’s gaze flicked down to it right before her breath snagged. A thin line of blood trickled across Harper’s knuckles, already dry with tiny flecks of grit.
Elise drew in a deep breath through her nose.
Of course, Harper had gone and hurt herself.
And then a memory crawled into her mind like a botfly burrowing exactly where it wasn’t welcome: Harper kneeling on a slab of red rock in Damaraland, camera slung around her neck, blood running freely down her shin from a knee she’d slammed into a boulder while trying to get the perfect angle of the desert elephants.
Elise could still hear her. “It’s fine, it’s fine.
It’s just a little blood. Look at that calf nuzzling its mom.
Do you see it? Bloody hell, this light is perfect.
” Meanwhile, Elise had stood there with a first-aid kit, waiting impatiently for Harper to stop whatever she was doing.
That same kind of protective feeling lodged itself in her stomach.
“I don’t care,” Elise snapped, pushing the memory away. “Just promise you won’t do anything this ridiculous again.”
“I promise,” Harper said. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Elise rolled her eyes and walked away. Once she was halfway between Harper and Megan and Amelia, who were now standing ankle-deep in the water, their eyes wide and watching, she announced, “We’re moving on.
You two can dry off. Towels are near the umbrellas.
Then we’ll be heading up to the shaded loungers for the next part of the date. ”
~~
It was nearly five p.m., but the day had felt like a week already. Elise was exhausted. Her shoulders ached from all the tension this morning. Her eyes were stinging and blurry from glancing at the screen. She needed air. Movement. Something to wipe her mind clean. So she wandered.
Past the infinity pool where Megan and the contestants were lounging and giggling, and down a winding stone path that went parallel to the paths leading to the crew houses.
She came upon a tiny, terraced garden carved into the cliffside.
She’d never noticed it before. Which made sense considering the gnarled trees lining the small garden, their branches so heavy with fruit they were drooping over, obscuring everything from view.
In the middle of the garden was a single stone bench, shaded and cool.
Elise sat down and slipped her iPad from her crossbody bag and propped it on her knees.
Some would call her a workaholic, and they’d be entirely right.
She couldn’t make her marriage to Michael or Daniel work, but she sure as hell could get television schedules to run on time or knit together story arcs like they were embroidery.
Work was the one relationship that had never ghosted her.
Elise swiped her finger across the screen until it glowed and then tapped the folder labeled Confessionals. The first one she clicked on belonged to Nadia.
Nadia was sitting on a teal-green winged-back chair, and the wall behind her was covered in hand-painted tiles depicting tiny scenes of Positano’s coastline. Her hair was up in a loose bun. Stray curls stuck out in every direction, and her brown eyes looked darker than ever.
“It’s intimidating, you know,” Nadia said, fidgeting with the tiny microphone that was clipped to her lilac sundress.
“Like how do you even compete with someone who’s literally saving lives every day?
She’s a pediatric surgeon. And here I am, trying not to trip over my own words in front of her.
I guess I just want her to look at me and think I’m interesting, you know. ”
Off-camera, Katy Chris, the story producer who had joined the team two years back, asked, “And what do you think Megan sees when she looks at you?”
Nadia took in a breath so deep her shoulders lifted and fell.
“I don’t know. I hope she sees someone who’s genuine.
Someone who actually wants to be here. Someone who could be a good match for her.
” There was a long pause and a half-laugh.
“That sounds so cheesy. Is anyone actually going to watch this?” Nadia added.
Elise felt herself drifting somewhere else entirely.
Her mind was on Harper climbing that stupid cliff.
To the way Elise’s body had felt when she’d seen her, like she was looking a great white shark dead in the eye, and then to Harper walking across the beach like nothing was amiss as her linen shirt clung to her stomach, to her perfect breasts.
She blinked.
The confessional had ended. The screen had gone dark.
“Fantastic,” Elise muttered to herself, dragging a hand down her face. She inhaled hard, breathing in air that smelled like lemon peels and salt. She quickly tapped the next video before her brain could zone out. She promised herself she’d concentrate this time.
Jamie appeared on the screen. She was sitting cross-legged on the chair.
Her dark hair, the side that wasn’t shaved, fell onto her shoulder.
She was dressed in a white tank top. Wait, was that a stain on the bottom right-hand corner?
Elise squinted. Yes, it was. She shook her head and rolled her eyes. Hopefully, it would go unnoticed.
Katy’s voice came through first. “So, why did you decide to enter the show?”
Jamie twirled a silver ring around her middle finger.
Elise could just make out that it was a skull.
No. Two skulls with their noses touching.
“Honestly?” Jamie asked. “Mostly boredom and curiosity.” Her grin was more crooked than a boxer’s nose after too many punches.
“I like putting myself in situations that are unexpected. I’ve always chased experiences.
Life’s too short to sit on the sidelines. ”
Katy’s voice came again. “So, if you could describe yourself using only one word, would it be impulsive or adventurous?”
“Can it be both?” she asked, smiling again.
“I love adrenaline. Always have. I’ve gone skydiving, bungee jumping, paragliding, you name it.
But I’m also the type of person who will be up at three a.m. and take the subway for fun.
Even entering this show was a last-minute decision.
But I want to be here.” She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees.
“Honestly, I came here to annoy people a little bit. Make them laugh.” She then sat back and stretched out her arms, and Elise could see three more tattoos.
A six-legged octopus, a mermaid’s tail attached to a lion’s front half, and what looked like an incomplete heart.
“If Megan is into that, we’ll click. It’s still early days. ”
CRACK!
A branch snapped somewhere behind Elise. She yelped so hard her knees jerked, and her iPad went flying to the ground. Jamie’s voice came out muffled through the speaker, but Elise wasn’t listening because suddenly Harper appeared from behind one of the lemon trees.
Seriously. Couldn’t Elise catch a break?
She stood up and snatched her iPad from the ground.
“What the hell are you doing?” she snapped, only realizing once the words were out that she’d said them multiple times today already.
And all three times, the question had been directed at Harper.
“All I want is some peace and quiet. Is that really too much to ask? How did you even—”
But before Elise could finish her sentence, Harper stepped closer.
Too close, in fact. Close enough that Elise could smell the faint tang of sunscreen on her skin.
Close enough that she could make out the tiny links of Harper’s gold necklace, each one catching the sunlight, and the miniature compass pendant that rose and fell with each of her breaths.
Close enough that Elise could even see her heartbeat pulsing at a spot on her tanned neck.
“What are you—”
But she couldn’t get anything out because then Harper lifted a palm to Elise’s cheek and, well, whatever happened after that was a complete mystery.