Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
I was not prepared for this. But there was nowhere to run and he was almost in front of us.
“Hey, sorry to interrupt,” he said in that smooth, deep voice. “I was hoping we could talk, Calla.”
My throat felt completely parched despite the drink in my hand.
“Sure,” I said unsteadily before gesturing to the chair across from us. “Join us.”
He looked to Arnie and then back to me before scratching the back of his neck. “I was kind of hoping to talk, just the two of us. There’s a fire pit outside on the deck. I heard the stars are beautiful out here.”
He held out his hand, offering to help me up. I placed mine gingerly in his. No point in making this weird, right? He just wanted to talk. No big deal. A few minutes of conversation and then he’d realize I wasn’t all that interesting.
“I’ll see you later,” I said to Arnie.
Eli tipped his head at him and then tugged my hand lightly toward the glass doors. I expected him to drop my hand immediately, but his touch lingered. I gently pulled away, pretending I needed that hand to straighten the bottom of my sweater. He held the door open for me and we stepped outside. The air was cool, but not in an uncomfortable way.
“Here,” Eli said, handing me a blanket that he’d pulled from a bin to the right of the door.
I thanked him and wrapped myself in the soft gray fleece. Gazing upwards at the sky left me stunned. Eli hadn’t been kidding. The night sky was adorned with thousands of bright stars—more than I had seen in my entire life.
“It’s beautiful,” I murmured before shaking my head. “You know, this might sound silly, but I didn’t even realize we were allowed out here.”
He chuckled. “We’re allowed anywhere with cameras.” He pointed to the exterior wall of the lodge by the door. “They’re mounted everywhere.”
“Makes you feel like you’re in a fishbowl,” I said, looking up at them.
The gas fire pit, already ablaze, was encircled by concrete and a handful of plush seats—all just large enough for two. I hesitated, silently hoping Eli would take his seat first so that I could create some distance between us. But he remained standing, waiting expectantly.
Reluctantly, I sank into one of the seats before he settled in right next to me. As I inhaled the crisp evening air, his scent mingled with it. He smelled both enticing and unfamiliar. It beckoned me to lean in closer.
I shifted instead, positioning myself as far away as the seat would allow.
“So,” I started. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
He let out a breath of a laugh and his face broke out into the prettiest smile I had ever seen on a man. His reputation didn’t surprise me at all anymore, because if he gifted me a few smiles like that, I would likely follow him anywhere.
“You get straight to the point, huh? I just want to get to know you better.”
“We chatted for a while yesterday,” I pointed out, like that would have been enough to tell him everything he needed to know about me.
“Barely.” He ducked his chin and forced my eyes to meet his. “I want to know more about you. That’s the point of all this, isn’t it?”
“After today, I think the point of all this is to embarrass us all horribly on national TV,” I said, cringing at the thought of all the footage they now had of me.
His grin widened. “Arnie did you dirty, sending you through the mud like that.”
“Right? Thank you!” I exclaimed. “Like I was really going to fight off those goats just to finish first.”
His laughter rang through the otherwise-silent night. “Not very outdoorsy, I take it?”
I scoffed. “If not very outdoorsy means I can’t go toe to toe with a farm animal and don’t enjoy crawling through dirt, then yeah. I guess you could say I’m not outdoorsy.”
Eli’s expression sparkled with amusement.
“I’ve lived in Chicago my whole life,” I admitted before sticking a finger up. “But I have been camping. Once. It was in the eighth grade for a science field trip, and I wasn’t half-bad at it.”
“Wasn’t half-bad at it,” he repeated playfully.
“I wasn’t,” I insisted.
“Well, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities to show off those skills in the next challenge,” he said in mock seriousness.
I crossed my arms. “I bet I will. ”
Our knees bumped carelessly and I jerked away.
Eli’s face turned serious. “So, how are you? I know yesterday was a little extreme.”
I knew what he was doing. He was trying to lure me into a meaningful conversation where we both got vulnerable and shared something about ourselves. I might not be the biggest fan of reality TV, but I knew how these scenes usually played out.
“No more extreme than today, considering I almost got eaten by a goat.”
He tipped his head and gave me a look that said, you’re really not going to talk to me?
“Fine,” I huffed. “I’m doing fine. This is all a bit much.” I waved to the small cameras pointed down at us. “But it’s only for a couple of weeks.”
Considering this, he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together near the fire. “I’m kind of surprised you agreed to stay after you ran out,” he admitted.
A hollow laugh escaped my lips. “Brady so kindly reminded me that I have a contract, and that they would slap a hefty fine on me if I left.”
He shrugged. “Contracts can always be broken. There’s no way they’d enforce some kind of stupid fine and risk you giving them bad press by complaining to the media. You could have left if you were really determined.”
Biting my lip, I met his eyes, once again surprised by how sincere he seemed. Was this all for show, or did Eli actually want to get to know me?
It didn’t matter either way. I was not letting him in. Not in this lifetime.
“My sister convinced me,” I said.
His brow furrowed. “They let you talk to her? ”
I leaned against the armrest, trying to gain a few additional inches of separation between the two of us.
“Brady knew I was about to bolt. He was desperate. He let me talk to her to prove that I wasn’t here by mistake.”
“Wow,” he breathed. “What did she say? How did she justify what she did?”
His interest felt genuine. He was in the same boat as me, after all. Neither of us was here by choice. It felt so raw to repeat the conversation I’d had with my sister to him. But I had promised Piper that I would put myself out there.
“She said she was worried about me,” I said, willing my eyes to stay dry. “She and my mom—we’re all close. So, they see the best of me, and the worst of me. The last couple of years...let’s just say they haven’t been great.”
“What about your dad?” he asked carefully.
“My dad lives in Florida with his new wife. My parents have been divorced since I was ten, and I’ve always been closer to my mom,” I said. “I love my dad, don’t get me wrong. I spend time there every summer and most holidays, but my mom, Piper, and I have always had this different bond. They’re my people.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but my relationship with my dad had grown distant since Michael passed. He was concerned about me, but he didn’t know what to say. I honestly couldn’t blame him. Piper and Mom were sometimes at a loss for words too. The difference was that they would never stop trying.
“And your sister just did all this because she cares about you,” Eli guessed.
“She wants me to move on. Both she and my mom think I spend too much time alone. They think I’ve pushed away all my friends.”
“Have you? ”
I thought back to all the times I had turned down a dinner invitation. How my friend group had begged me to go on that trip to Mexico with them, just to break up my routine. How many times I had seen one of their names flash across my phone before I’d hit ignore. How they had come over every week to bring me takeout and talk. But those talks always turned back to one thing. Michael.
Because at the end of the day, that was the problem. They had been our friends, not mine. Everything about them reminded me of him.
“It’s just. . . he’s just. . . all over them,” I finally said.
Even though it was a vague response, Eli nodded as if he understood. Something about the lack of sympathy in his eyes encouraged me to keep going.
“When I spoke to Piper, I couldn’t tell her that she didn’t have a point because that would have been a lie. I don’t have a social life. I can tell she’s worried about me. I’ve become a burden on her and my mom, and that kills me. I don’t want them to be fake with me. To tell me I’m doing great when I’m not. They’re the last people I have left that I can be real with. So that’s why I said yes to this. For them. Because maybe this whole thing is going to be a disaster that will probably result in humiliation, but at least I’m doing something .”
I drew in a silent, slow breath through my nose, then looked at Eli to gauge his reaction.
To my absolute shock, I found him staring at his shoes, a small smile on his lips.
“I said something funny?” I asked incredulously.
He jerked his head up and shook it, but his dimple remained, as if imprinted there. “Not at all,” he said. “I can’t even imagine what you’re going through—what you’ve been through. It’s just...it’s just that you’re here for the exact opposite reason as me. ”
“How so?”
“I’m here because I’m too social. My dad thinks I party too much.”
I snorted. “Do you?”
“Maybe. He thinks I’ve never faced a single obstacle in my entire life and that I’ve had everything handed to me.”
“Have you?”
“Do you want me to share or not?” he asked, a hint of laughter in his voice.
“Yes,” I said swiftly. Despite having just shared something with him that would typically send me running back to my room in tears, I smiled. Because he didn’t focus on it. He didn’t ask me to dissect how everything made me feel. He didn’t tell me how sorry he was, or run away. He just kept going. Like I was a real person and not some weirdly fascinating display of tragedy. He kept going, like he wanted me to know him just as much as he wanted to know me.
“My life has been easy as you can imagine. My father is disgustingly wealthy and famous.”
“Sounds tough.”
“Let me finish,” he scolded, but his lip turned up.
I held up my hands in surrender before gesturing for him to continue.
“I never knew my mother. She was a producer, but she died from cancer when I was just a baby. I honestly don’t think about her much, which makes me feel guilty sometimes.” The openness of his words left me hanging on everything he said.
“But her passing left my father to raise me, much to his dismay.” Eli’s forced chuckle didn’t meet his eyes. “He never wanted kids and didn’t really know what to do with me. So, he decided to model me after him. He insisted that I go into acting early on, even though I never really enjoyed it. I hated it as a kid and begged him to let me quit. ”
“Is that why you haven’t done anything in years?”
He tilted his head slightly. “Honestly, I stopped getting many offers when I started to act up as a teenager. Maybe it was immature, but rebelling was the only way to get his attention. I sound like a spoiled brat, but when I started partying more, I finally got out of doing things I despised.”
“I guess I get that.” He watched me intently as I answered, as if worried I might have a different reaction. “But you want to be a writer instead? That’s why you wrote a screenplay?”
For once, Eli didn’t appear quite as confident as he normally did as he ducked his head.
“I mean, I’m trying. I grew up on a set, watching the directors and the writers run the show while my dad stood there looking pretty in front of the camera. I always felt like that was where the real magic was. Behind the scenes. For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to write and direct.”
“And your dad doesn’t like that,” I guessed.
“Not even a little. He acts like I’m the biggest disappointment imaginable, so I figured I might as well lean into that.”
“It must be hard to have him disappointed in you,” I said, thinking about my own delusionally supportive mother, who had read everything I’d ever sent her and insisted I could be the next Jane Austen.
He frowned. “Even when I was acting and doing as I was told, he never thought I was good enough. He’d be disappointed in me no matter what.”
“That doesn’t really sound like an easy life,” I pointed out.
“According to my dad, I’ve had the cushiest life possible.”
“And that’s why you don’t care about your reputation? You’re trying to prove something to him, or something like that?” I winced at the bluntness of my question, but hey, he wanted us to get to know each other, right?
“Maybe it started out that way,” he admitted. “Now it’s just what I’m used to. Every time one of my escapades makes the news, it pisses off my dad so much. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t give me the tiniest surge of joy. But now it’s kind of biting me in the ass. My father has had me blacklisted at every major production company. I’ve finally finished a screenplay—one I think could actually be something great. But I can’t get anyone to take me seriously.”
“I don’t miss those days.” I thought back to when I was first submitting my novel to publishers.
“But you’re getting your book published. You made it.”
“After, like, ten rejections,” I said. “I’d written a bunch of manuscripts that I scrapped before I finally got someone to take interest in one.”
“You still did it. All on your own, too. Nobody handed you anything.” A curl fell into Eli’s eye and he brushed it away. Light from the fire flickered across his features.
“Well, one good thing about losing your dad’s support is that when you finally do find success, you’ll know it wasn’t handed to you, either.”
After a few seconds, he nudged my knee with his. “I like your attitude.”
“There is no way that someone with as much charisma as you isn’t destined for greatness,” I added.
His curled lip transformed into a broad grin. “Says the girl who’d never heard of me before this week.”
“I guess you make a strong impression,” I admitted, before wishing I could take it back once I saw the gleam in his eyes. Would he read too much into that?
“If this show had gone to plan—if you were actually writing or pitching or whatever right now—what would your next book have been about?” he asked instead.
“Oh, uh, I’m not really sure.” I bit my lip. “Your guess is as good as mine. I haven’t been able to write much lately. Ever since...” I couldn’t finish the thought, but he must have known what I meant by the way his intense stare locked on me.
“You should pick me tomorrow,” he said, after a beat of silence.
I blinked in surprise. That hadn’t been at all what I expected him to say. “Um, but Sofia,” I said pathetically, hoping he would drop the subject immediately.
“What about her? There’s nothing there. Pick me, Calla. This whole thing is about taking risks, right?”
Suddenly I felt too hot, and the fire in front of me felt uncomfortably close.
“I have Arnie,” I said. There. A perfectly valid excuse. He couldn’t expect me to bail on my partner.
“Again, so what? You and Arnie are friends at best. He’s the safe choice for you, and you know it.”
I found myself at a loss for words, struck by the realization that Eli seemed to see right through me. I had indeed identified Arnie as the safe choice. Arnie was kind. Arnie wouldn’t push me. And most importantly, I had zero chemistry with Arnie.
Eli was something entirely different. And that scared me.
“We’re still getting to know each other.” The excuse sounded pathetic even to my own ears, but I needed Eli to back off this subject.
He laughed wryly. “That’s bull. Come on, Calla. Take a risk and pick me.”
“You don’t even know me,” I said.
“I’m hoping to change that.”
I looked past him toward the lodge, longing to be back inside and out of this pressure cooker.
Eli shifted, blocking my view. “You don’t have to search for an escape route. ”
“I’m not.” I tried my best to appear unfazed. “I seriously want to stay partnered with Arnie. I’m not trying to play it safe. I really don’t feel anything for you. I know that might be hard for you to believe, but it’s the truth.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not saying all this to you just because I think every woman in the world must be interested in me.”
I arched a brow. “Don’t you?”
“No!” he exclaimed, clearly flustered. “That’s not what this is at all.”
“I don’t know what else to tell you.” I tried to act like this conversation had become tedious to me. “I’m not interested.”
It was a miracle that my voice wasn’t shaking at the lie. He evaluated me before letting out a long exhale.
“Okay, then.”
“I’m going to head back inside,” I said, standing. “It’s getting a little chilly out here.”
Liar . My body felt like it was on literal fire.
Eli’s forehead creased as if trying to figure me out. “You’re scared. I get it, I do. But I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here when you’re ready to talk.” The sincerity in his voice made me want to hightail it out of there even faster. “We’re stuck in here together, after all.”