Chapter 19
NINETEEN
DON’T WANT YOU BACK — BACKSTREET BOYS
Things I did not have on my celebrity bingo card: Tom Tomlinson being a nail-biter.
And not a subtle nail-biter, either.
No, this grown-ass man has spent the past forty-three minutes of this forty-five-minute bus ride from Catania chewing the nail off each finger, then biting it into tiny pieces in his mouth with a series of high-pitched click-chomp noises as his teeth slice nail.
I’m not sure if he’s swallowing the fragments, but I also haven’t seen him spit them out.
Honestly, I don’t care what weird bodily function someone does as long as it doesn’t encroach on my own peace. Whatever floats your boat, and all that.
But Tomlinson’s click-chomp, click-chomp, click-chomp from the seat directly in front of me is like an incessantly dripping faucet at 3 AM when you can’t sleep.
It’s driving me absolutely bonkers.
I’m imagining throwing my phone at the back of his head when Sora nudges me.
“I’m confused by this,” she says, biting her bottom lip and flipping through the pages of her crew binder. “Why are there only two male contestants scheduled for this excursion, and four women? Then it says a five-seater truck takes them to the next stop? That doesn’t make sense.”
Tomlinson bites his nail again and I wince, then try to concentrate on Sora’s question.
“Uh, yeah—they do these challenges sometimes where they’ll ‘leave’ two contestants behind,” I say, using air quotes to indicate that no one is actually getting ditched.
“Oh, I see…”
“The two male contestants have to pick which woman they each want to take on a private date after the tour,” I explain.
“They get some one-on-one time—they’ll probably make out, enjoy the sights.
Meanwhile, the two women who get left behind have to try to hitch a ride back to port.
Glen always plans something funny for that, usually it’s like a pig farmer or something. ”
Sora is quiet for a moment, then flips to the last page.
“Is that why I have a number here for a…circus troupe…under transportation?”
“Yup. That would be why.”
“Reality TV is so bizarre.”
“You’re telling me.”
A few minutes later, the bus finally pulls to a stop in front of a long, two-story building with a dark stone foundation.
Above it, a patchwork facade of creamy beige stucco, walnut-colored wood, and metal siding gives the impression that the facility has been remodeled and renovated multiple times over the years.
Considering it’s situated at the base of an active volcano, I don’t think I have to guess why.
“Alright, folks!” a very tall, very beautiful woman calls from the front of the bus, as she stands and turns to face the rows of seats.
When we boarded the bus, Sora pointed her out under her breath, informing me that this Amazonian goddess is Greta, the producer I had apparently never noticed before—probably because I thought she was a contestant.
“We have arrived at Funivia dell’Etna, the cable car station on the south side of Sicily’s Mount Etna.
It’s the only way to make it up the side of the volcano—unless, of course, you want to spend your entire day hiking. ”
“Uh, no thanks!” Duncan booms from the back, laughing inanely as he puts his arm around Molly’s shoulder. She looks positively annoyed to be anywhere this early—and if I’m being honest, I don’t exactly blame her.
“That’s what I thought,” Greta continues. “Looks like the second bus is just arriving, too. So, if your producer isn’t on this vehicle, please meet them over at the other bus to touch base before we begin.”
Tom clears his throat and gives Greta a smarmy grin.
“Right,” Greta says with a sigh. “Tom Tomlinson will be doing his spiel here before you guys get on the cable cars, and then after the activity he’ll meet the winning pairs at the wine tasting. Tom, why don’t you go ahead and get yourself sorted with the makeup team in the other bus?”
“Thanks so much, hon,” he says, and he moves to slip off the bus. As he passes her by, I watch as a rogue hand slides subtly down her back to her ass. Her lips flatten into a thin line.
Either Tom and Greta are an item and she isn’t too keen on him blowing their cover…or Tom is a handsy prick.
Something tells me it’s the latter.
Once Tom is off the bus, Greta crosses the aisle to where he had been sitting, facing Sora and me.
“Hey, Chloe—it’s so nice to have a female DOP on this excursion.
Would you mind sticking close to Carly and me while we shoot this morning?
” Greta’s warm smile makes it easy for me to say yes, but I’m also grateful for any excuse not to follow Molly around with Demi.
I’ve done a fairly decent job at avoiding both of them over the past week, but something tells me my luck is going to run out soon.
“Hell yes!” I exclaim, giving Greta a grin of my own. She beams at me, then looks down at her clipboard.
“Perfect. Then we’ll get you to ride back with Molly, if that’s okay? It’ll just be the two of you, since Demi is off sick today, so you’ll have to kind of manage her, too—she can be…difficult.”
And there it is—my luck supply officially running dry.
“Ride back?” I ask, puzzled and slightly panicked.
“Yeah, back to the ship. Tom prefers working with male DOPs, so Dan will join us on the wine tasting. Then you can film Molly trying to hitchhike.” The glint in Greta’s eyes when she mentions Molly tells me that the dislike for this particular contestant may be a shared sentiment amongst the producers.
I lower my voice and lean in toward Greta so the contestants don’t overhear as they shuffle past us off the bus.
“I don’t mind riding back with the women who don’t get chosen, but aren’t the guys picking their dates after the tour?”
“Oh. Well, I mean, they technically do, but that decision was already made last night. Duncan let us know he would be picking Carly, and Kory is picking Tanesha.”
“Makes sense,” I reply, acting like I belong in this weird world where real-life love stories are prewritten by a personality puppeteer. “What about the other female contestant who isn’t getting picked—sorry, what’s her name again?”
“Oh, Nicole was held back last-minute. It’s only three women and two men now.
Kind of brilliant, though, isn’t it? It increases the stakes and will make for a lonely ride back to the ship for the loser.
” I recognize the same hungry expression in Greta’s eyes that Glen had when he realized I knew Molly.
“Yeah—brilliant,” I offer, doing my best to sound more enthusiastic than I feel. Sora and I exchange looks as Greta slips out of the row and makes her way to the exit, leaving the two of us alone.
“This is going to suck for you, isn’t it?” Sora says, wincing at the thought of Molly and I stuck in a fucking clown car or whatever it is Glen has planned for us on the way back.
“You have no idea.”
Standing atop an active volcano like Mount Etna is about as close as I’ll ever get to being on another planet. Or at least, this is how I imagine it might feel.
A seemingly never-ending field of ash-colored rocks lies at my feet, the sky a vivid blue canvas stretching above it.
Every few minutes, I’m swallowed by rolling waves of what I first thought was smoke but quickly realized are clouds.
Tiny multicolored dots inch slowly along the crest of the dark gray hill ahead of me like a line of ants.
Actually, it’s not a hill—it’s the edge of a crater.
And they’re not insects at all—they’re people.
It doesn’t take long until I’m hit by an overwhelming sense that, in the grand scheme of things, my existence here on Earth is so very small and insignificant.
And yet here I am, on the side of an actual volcano—a massive and incredible natural phenomenon that would be any videographer’s dream to film—and instead of capturing the rugged beauty around me, I’m currently filming two very scantily clad people making out.
Why did we get off the ship for this?
Carly, at least, I expected to be dressed in next to nothing—she’s a big fan of Daisy Duke’s and seems to own crop tops in every color imaginable.
But I wasn’t counting on Duncan ditching his shirt and trading his Adidas track pants for shorts after Carly told him this was the perfect place to work on a tan.
This statement was followed by his question of, “Even though we’re in the clouds? ”
Apparently, he didn’t get the memo that clouds don’t cancel out UV rays…or that the sun is a lot stronger when you’re approximately 10,000 feet closer to it than you are on the ground.
“Your face has subtitles,” Sora whispers to me from my side as she holds one of my lenses in her hands, hugging it to her chest like a baby.
“I bet it does,” I grumble under my breath, adjusting my grip on my camera and trying to school my expression into something less judgmental.
Molly, Tanesha, and Kory are leaning against the front of a white Mercedes-Benz Unimog U5023, an extreme off-roading vehicle that makes climbing the steep terrain of Etna possible.
Molly has her arms crossed over her chest as she watches the other contestants suck face.
I can tell she isn’t pleased, based on her narrowed gaze and the tiny notch between her brows that materialized as soon as Carly made her move.
Which was basically the minute we stepped out of the truck.
“Hey, lovebirds, can we get going, please? I’m hungry!” Kory shouts, his arm slung casually over Tanesha’s shoulders. Her pretty brown eyes are focused on the man at her side, instead of the scene in front of them.
After a beat, Duncan pulls away from Carly and scrubs a hand over his mouth.
“Sorry, guys,” he says with an awkward smile. “I’ll always choose dare. More fun than truth.”
I roll my eyes and watch as Carly threads her fingers through Duncan’s as they walk back to the truck.
“We weren’t even playing truth or dare…” I hear Molly scoff under her breath.