Chapter 3 #2
The other six contestants blurred together — a parade of men trying too hard or not hard enough or in all the wrong ways.
One talked about his car for the entire five minutes, giving flashbacks to every man who’d ever opened a Hinge conversation with a photo of himself next to a vehicle he did not own.
One asked if I’d ever considered going blonde, which — sir, this is a dating show, not a suggestion box.
One called me “sweetheart” three times and seemed confused when I didn’t swoon.
One had clearly done opposition research on me, which would have been flattering if he hadn’t also called my viral tweet “a fun little rant” — the dating equivalent of patting my head while explaining my own career to me.
By the time my session with Rhys approached, I was exhausted, overstimulated, and forty-two percent convinced that heterosexual romance was an elaborate hoax.
The remaining fifty-eight percent was thinking about forearms — one pair, specifically in a charcoal sweater, specifically in a way that would have made my therapist reach for a second notepad.
I was also, not that I would admit this to anyone, nervous.
I never heard him approach. One second I was alone with my aggressive sunshine, and the next — cedar, woodsmoke, a scent that made me think of cabins and terrible decisions made in low lighting. The air between us seeming to charge.
I turned.
Rhys was standing three feet away, hands in his pockets, jaw tight in a way his bored expression couldn’t quite sell.
Charcoal sweater today, sleeves pushed up to reveal forearms that I was not going to think about because I was a professional and professionals did not catalog contestants’ musculature.
This was a televised dating show, not a Renaissance art appreciation class.
(I memorized them anyway. Michelangelo would have wept.)
“You’re early.” I crossed my arms, aiming for regal composure.
“You’re nervous.”
“I’m not nervous.”
“You’ve touched your earring three times in the last thirty seconds.” Flat. Observational. Like he was noting a structural flaw. “You did the same thing last night right before you told me I had to play. It’s a tell.”
My hand froze halfway to my ear. I had not — in twenty-eight years of human existence, through debate competitions, job interviews, and one harrowing first date with a man who collected teeth — ever been informed that I had a tell. “I don’t have tells.”
“Everyone has tells.” His gaze hadn’t moved from my face — that same intensity, the kind that stripped you down to your wiring. “You just don’t like that I noticed yours.”
“Or maybe I just have itchy earlobes,” I said — the worst comeback I’d delivered since middle school. The corner of his mouth twitched. Not a smile. Worse. The promise of one.
For a moment — just a moment — I forgot how to speak. Which was inconvenient, since speaking was my job.
The production assistant saved me. “We’re ready whenever you are, Miss Mitchell.”
I smoothed my expression into queenly composure and gestured toward the chairs. “Shall we?”
Rhys stayed still. “Ladies first.”
I was halfway to my chair when my heel snagged — a cable, a rug, possibly just karma — and the floor rushed up to meet me.
I didn’t hit the ground. A hand closed around my arm, firm and warm, and pulled me back to vertical with exactly measured force — enough to stabilize, not enough to bruise.
And then he was right there, close enough that I caught cedar and woodsmoke and the faint clean scent of his soap, my brain starting to make suggestions my dignity would prefer to ignore.
“Steady.” Completely neutral. He let go, and the absence registered as loss — a thought that would make a future therapist lean forward in her chair and say Tell me more about that.
“Did you just compliment my center of gravity?” I said, because apparently that was what my mouth decided to do with the adrenaline.
“I stated an observation.” Not a flicker of awareness that this might be the strangest thing anyone had ever said to a woman on national television. “The heel was angled wrong when you stepped. Manufacturing defect, probably. You should return them.”
“I’ll be sure to file a complaint.” Dear shoe manufacturer, your product caused me to fall into the arms of a man who smells like cedar and talks like an engineering manual. Please advise. “Your schedule is precise and I don’t want to throw off your timeline.”
He offered it as courtesy, not a compliment, but your schedule is precise coming from Rhys sounded like the highest possible praise — one architect admiring another’s blueprints.
The five minutes with Rhys passed differently.
The conservatory had been rearranged between sessions, the crew adjusting lights and shuffling furniture in their endless quest for the shot that would make strangers sitting in armchairs look like the opening scene of a rom-com.
I’d taken my seat and arranged my face into an expression that broadcast I am a composed woman in full control of this situation, a lie so comprehensive it probably qualified as performance art.
With Rhys, there was zero flirtation. The other men had all tried some version — the lingering eye contact, the strategic compliments, the subtle lean-in.
Rhys sat in his chair like he was enduring a performance review, his posture perfect, his face unreadable, answering my questions with the minimum words necessary and studying me like he was waiting for a crack to appear.
“Tell me a truth about yourself,” I tried, deploying the open-ended prompt that had worked on everyone else.
“I’m an architect.”
“I know that. Something I don’t know.”
He considered this for two seconds. “I don’t like this room.”
The production assistant behind camera three coughed. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling. “That’s your opening move? Interior design criticism?”
“You asked for honesty. The lighting is aggressive and the chair is uncomfortable.” He shifted. “Also, you already knew I was an architect, which means you remembered. So we’re both noticing things. The difference is I’m willing to admit it.”
“You hate this.” About two minutes in. Not a question.
“I hate inefficiency.” He glanced at the camera behind my left shoulder. “And this is remarkably inefficient.”
“What would be more efficient?”
“Knowing what you actually want instead of making people guess.”
The words hung between us, live-wired and humming. “And what do you think I actually want?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” He tilted his head — a movement that somehow made him seem more predatory rather than less.
“Everyone here thinks they know. The romantic. The comedian. The nice guy who calls his mother every Sunday.” His mouth curved — not quite a smile, more — a dare.
“They’re all performing for the version of you they’ve constructed in their heads.
The confident queen. The demanding feminist. The woman who knows what she wants and refuses to settle for less. ”
“And you’re not performing?”
“I’m terrible at performance.” Stated flatly, like he was describing the weather or the load-bearing capacity of a concrete beam. “I don’t have the patience for it. So I’m just going to sit here and pay attention until I figure out which version of you is real.”
“They’re all real.” Sharper than I intended. “That’s the point. Women are allowed to be multiple things at once.”
“I know.” His eyes held mine. “That’s what makes you interesting.”
Something did a complicated maneuver behind my ribs — part freefall, part cardiac event.
Interesting. The man had the emotional vocabulary of a Wikipedia stub and somehow “interesting” coming out of his mouth hit harder than every “you’re beautiful” I’d heard all day combined.
This was a problem. This was a Brené Brown chapter waiting to happen — vulnerability and connection and how the people who scare you the most are usually the ones who see you most clearly.
I covered it by asking about the decor, the conversational equivalent of pulling a fire alarm to escape a room you were dangerously enjoying.
“You want my professional opinion?”
“I want to know if you’re capable of expressing one without insulting someone.”
“Unlikely.” He glanced around the conservatory.
“The columns are purely cosmetic — not actually holding weight. Someone spent a fortune making this room look classical without understanding what classical architecture accomplishes.” He paused.
“It’s a conversation that sounds intelligent until you realize no one is saying anything meaningful. ”
“Is that a metaphor?”
“Architecture is always a metaphor. You build walls to keep things out or to keep things in. The real question is always which one.”
“And your walls?” I asked. “What are they keeping in?”
Pain flickered across his face — there and gone. “Everything.”
The word landed through me heavily. I knew that word. I’d lived inside it for years.
The production assistant called time before I could respond.
The Attention Test began three hours later: sit in front of all ten contestants, talk about myself for thirty minutes, then quiz them on what I’d said. Anyone can fake five minutes. Thirty minutes of sustained listening is where the pretenders get exposed.
“This is the challenge that separates the listeners from the performers,” Tessa had explained during prep. “Anyone can nod through a speed date. Can they actually hear you?”
The producers had given me talking points — safe topics, curated anecdotes designed to create intimacy without exposing a nerve. I’d memorized them all, planned my timing, rehearsed my delivery like the type-A nightmare that I was.
I sat down in front of ten men with notebooks and pens, and I told them the truth instead.