Chapter Five
Amy squeezed her eyes shut and embraced the heat of the sun on her face.
In a perfect world, Brenda wouldn’t have paired Luna with Kate or Wyn with Maya.
Amy wished that Brenda hadn’t decided that Erica and Jade would be a good fit.
And she felt that it was an unfair advantage that Brenda kept Avery for herself.
Brenda had even paired Ezra and Sloan as if they went together like salt and pepper.
Most importantly, she wished that Brenda had not paired her with Savannah.
In Amy’s much more agreeable version of events, she would have been paired with Ezra, who could no doubt transform beans into a lime-infused gallo pinto.
Jade would have been another excellent choice.
Her breathy rendition of If I Say Please could send Amy into an absolute trance.
Amy would have happily accepted Sloan too, especially if she came armed with stories about her runway days in Milan or posing beside the brooding Tyson Beckford for a Tyler Mitchell shoot.
“What are you doing?” Savannah’s voice echoed.
Amy flicked her eyes open just in time to see Savannah emerge from the surf.
The late afternoon sun made it look like she was dipped in gold.
She wrung a steady stream of ocean water out of her thick hair and then adjusted the strap of her ribbed, olive-green bikini as she walked toward the shore.
Amy would be lying if she said she didn’t feel a spike in her heart rate or that the inner writer in her had immediately tried to find a synonym for an attraction that sounded less like a teenage crush and more like professional appreciation.
After all, Savannah’s body was pretty perfect.
“Nothing,” Amy muttered quickly, bending to grab the cast-iron pot by its wire handle. She’d filled it up minutes earlier with salt water. It swung heavily against her shin as she straightened, and she winced. “I’m just getting water for the beans and rice.”
“You know I like this less than you do,” Savannah said, coming to stand beside her. She faced the water and folded her arms over her chest.
Amy nearly stepped away and treated Savannah to the same silent treatment Savannah had subjected her to earlier.
Unfortunately, her mother had practically beaten Southern decorum into her DNA, which had further been reinforced by bi-weekly finishing classes.
By nature, Amy was as polite as a debutante at a high-society tea party.
“And frankly, I feel personally responsible for Brenda pairing us up,” Savannah added. “It was my comment about your celebrity status, or lack thereof, that probably made her think we should go together. Two people who can’t stand each other were easy targets.”
Was that an apology?
If it was, Savannah really needed to take a masterclass in saying sorry.
She was horrible at it. Before Amy could suggest this, however, Savannah cleared her throat.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a little ironing out to do with Luna, the queen of sapphic fiction over there. ” Then she stomped off toward camp.
Amy looked back over her shoulder just in time to spot Luna sidestepping Savannah, who clearly wanted to get something off her chest. Before Savannah could intercept her, Wyn stepped right into her path like a nightclub bouncer, cutting her off.
She said something Amy didn’t catch, then a second later, Savannah was led away by the actress, looking aghast.
Amy laughed so hard she nearly dropped the pot.
When she turned to head back toward the fire pit, Luna was already coming her way. Behind her, Jade was taking a whack at getting the fire started. Maya, Avery, and Brenda had each tried before her, but none of them had managed more than a spark.
“I think Savannah wants my head,” Luna said cheerily, her purple dress flowing like a billowing curtain around her small frame.
“She’s still upset that I called her a literary bully on Book Time.
I heard she lost like twenty thousand followers in a matter of minutes.
Not that it matters if you’ve got over fifty million. ”
Amy offered only a noncommittal hum. She was still mad at Luna for the whole book-signing ordeal.
And yes, it had been an ordeal. Luna had been Amy’s hero, her North Star, so to speak.
The very reason Amy had picked up a pen to write her first book and subsequently had enough confidence to enter Outlast Her.
Without Luna, Amy might still be shelving books for a minimum-wage living.
Now, thanks to her royalties, she didn’t have to rely solely on the library to pay her salary.
She owed that bit of freedom to Luna, which made the sting feel worse.
But Luna seemed entirely unperturbed. Either Amy wasn’t doing a good job at exuding grumpiness, or Luna lived in a world where she was the sun and the rest of them were just expected to orbit around her.
But Amy didn’t orbit around anyone. Not around Luna.
Not around Savannah. And most certainly not around her maddening writer’s block.
“You know, we haven’t officially met,” Luna said, sticking out her hand. Her nails were short and polished obsidian black. “When Elise said there were going to be two romance authors, I was wondering if it’d be you back for redemption.”
“We’ve met before,” Amy said flatly. It had been rather cruel of the Outlast Her gods to strand Amy with both of her recent enemies. Then again, the pool of lesbian celebrities wasn’t an ocean but a fishbowl. They were all bound to bump the glass eventually.
“We have?” Luna asked, then her gaze blurred as if she’d retreated deep into her head to search for that particular memory file.
But Amy knew she wouldn’t find it. Luna hadn’t even looked up at the book signing.
She blinked fast, then shook her head. “I would’ve remembered meeting you,” she added.
“You were one of my favorites in Season Ten. There’s no way I would’ve forgotten. ”
“Barnes & Noble two months ago,” Amy said, holding back the smile she was suddenly desperate to give.
Had she heard right? Had Luna just said that Amy was one of her Season Ten favorites?
Fine. Maybe Luna didn’t deserve to be on Amy’s enemy list. Maybe Amy had blown it all out of proportion, and Luna was just as lovely as she’d always imagined her to be.
Maybe she had been just a little preoccupied at the time.
Amy dropped the pot down onto the sand and winced when she realized just how close it had come to squashing her toes.
“I was there for your book signing.” It turned out she hadn’t needed to explain standing in a line for over an hour at all.
Luna had said that Amy was unforgettable.
Unforgettable. “It was one of my favorites, by the way. I love how you captured Sandra’s essence.
The scene where they confront each other in the lighthouse... ” Amy didn’t even have words.
Luna laughed. “I loved your book, Outlasting Love,” she said. “It was one of the reasons I accepted Elise’s invitation to come on this season. I needed to see for myself the kind of romance a game like this could inspire.”
Amy’s knees felt weak. This was better than that unforgettable Tuesday when Urma Vance had emailed her with an all-caps offer of representation.
“I don’t know how long we can keep Savannah’s claws from sinking into you, Luna,” Kate said, joining them.
Amy was just about to gush all over Kate because it had always been her dream to meet the actress, but...
Kate’s hair. The humidity had done an absolute number on it.
There wasn’t a strand that hadn’t curled, puffed, or frizzed.
She caught Amy looking and patted the side of her head as if that could somehow tame the chaos.
Oh, honey, no amount of patting could ever tame that, Amy thought.
But Kate had movie awards coming out of her ears.
There was no way Amy, a basic pleb compared to the stardom Kate possessed, would ever be able to say out loud just how horrid the humidity could be for some people. And by some people, Amy meant Kate.
“Remember when I told you about that dream I had?” Luna said to Kate. The look on her face said it had been more of a nightmare than a dream.
“The one about the eagle picking you up while you were napping naked on the deck?”
Luna nodded. “I think the dream was a metaphor. I think Savannah is the eagle and by the end of this season, she’s going to eat me alive.”
Kate laughed, and so did Amy. She couldn’t believe this was happening. Amy was literally surrounded by her all-time idols, and they were laughing at a joke together on the beach along Brazil’s Costa Verde. The only way this could get better was if Savannah quit.
“Where is she?” Amy asked, glancing back toward the tree line. All she could see were the round leaves of sea grape bushes and the twisted trunks of autograph trees.
“Wyn’s taken her to the watering well,” Kate said. “She said if they aren’t back in fifteen minutes, we should assume one of them successfully murdered the other.”
Amy’s frown must have been so pronounced that Luna then grinned and said, “They’re very protective of me.
When I said I was coming on this show, Quin wanted to enter too, but there was no way her knee would survive the challenges.
She sent Wyn instead.” Amy knew Quin was Luna’s cousin and a former professional soccer player because, well, she knew almost everything about Luna, which was why it was so surprising she had no idea that Luna and Kate were friends.
“My entry was more of a fallback plan,” Kate added, scooping the many flyaway strands of her frizzy hair back into a ponytail. “A joke entry, if I’m being honest. We never expected Elise to cast all three of us.”
Amy opened her mouth to ask why Luna even needed the protection since she was quite the bulldog.
Last fall, a video had circulated of Luna really going at a reviewer inside Happier Grocer in Soho.
Apparently, she’d tracked down the woman after the woman had posted a one-star review of Too Many Fish in the Ocean.
Amy had to admit that the book hadn’t been one of her favorites.
The main character, Jolene, had broken up with her girlfriend of ten years during their annual Christmas party.
Over a burned batch of gingerbread men, no less.
The book had been a total one-eighty from Luna’s usual happy endings.
Instead of earning her usual four-and-a-half-star review on Goodreads, it had received a measly two stars.
But then Kate added, “What I didn’t expect was for production to change up the pairings completely this season.” She tugged at a stray strand of hair that had escaped the ponytail. “Brenda putting Luna and me together was actually the smartest move she could make.”
“How so?” Amy asked before her brain could even put two plus two together.
“If we weren’t on the same team, we’d already have half the teams in an alliance with us,” Luna answered first, raising three fingers. “By pairing Kate and me together, Brenda cut the number of people that could’ve been in our alliance by—”
There was the sudden sound of snapping twigs, then a few flabbergasted gasps.
Amy whipped her head back, half-expecting to see either Savannah’s or Wyn’s dead body being dragged out of the jungle.
Instead, it was just Savannah looking utterly miserable as she was weighed down by twelve heavy stainless steel water bottles hanging from her shoulders.
Wyn walked by her side, flourishing an envelope through the air.
At the sight of it, Amy’s stomach dropped to her knees.
Though she wasn’t sure what was more shocking: Savannah looking like a pack donkey hauling twelve canisters while Wyn offered absolutely no help, or the possibility of a challenge so soon in the game.
Or worse... The Sending. “Alright, ladies,” Wyn announced cheerily.
“We’ve got our first reward challenge tonight. ”