Chapter 7
The Patience Test
“When he loses control — but only for you”
SLOANE
I’d said “good boy” to eleven men over four seasons of testing this concept, and not one of them had made me want to say it again.
Tessa and I had workshopped it in the early days, two women in a conference room surrounded by whiteboards and empty La Croix cans, reverse-engineering the phrase that would crack a man open on camera.
We’d tested “sweetheart” (too patronizing), “darling” (too British), “baby” (too intimate), and “sweetie” (too kindergarten teacher at nap time).
“Good boy” was the winner. It bypassed all the posturing and went straight to the unguarded place — the flinch, the blush, the swallow.
Most men laughed when I said it. A few went red from the collarbones up.
One memorably burst into tears, which had made for excellent television and a deeply uncomfortable post-production meeting about whether we’d accidentally invented a psychological weapon.
But not a single one in four seasons had made me feel anything back.
This was relevant information, because in approximately forty-five minutes I was going to say it to Rhys, and my body already knew something my brain was still arguing with.
Every time I thought about him — constantly, aggressively, with a frequency that would concern a mental health professional — I didn’t picture his face or his voice or any of the things a reasonable person would fixate on.
I pictured his hands. Those calloused, architect’s hands pressing against my arch in the garden, finding the exact spot that hurt without being told, trembling so slightly that if I hadn’t been watching for it I would have missed it.
Two weeks of whatever this was, one foot massage, and now I was ruined for normal human interactions. Fantastic. This was going great.
Tessa found me in the Queen’s Suite doing my own makeup, which she correctly identified as a crisis signal.
I only did my own makeup when I needed the ritual of it — primer, foundation, concealer, the systematic layering of a face that said everything is fine when everything was demonstrably not fine.
War paint. Armor you could buy at Sephora.
“You’re doing the cat eye,” Tessa observed from the doorway, tablet against her hip, one eyebrow at a diagnostic angle. “You only do the cat eye when you’re either going to war or having a breakdown. Which is it?”
“Can’t it be both?” I held the liquid liner steady and drew a wing sharp enough to cut glass.
In the mirror, I looked — immaculate bone structure and zero emotional complications.
My face had never told a bigger lie, and my face had told some truly spectacular lies on this show.
“I’m fine. Completely fine. Aggressively, defiantly, almost violently fine. ”
“Three fines. That’s a record.” Tessa crossed the room and perched on the vanity, seeing the exact millimeter where my eyeliner wobbled.
She didn’t mention it. This was why she was my person — ten years of friendship had taught her exactly when to hold the mirror and when to smash it.
“The Patience Test setup is ready. Julian’s going first, then Mason, then Derek, then Rhys. I put him last because—”
“Because you’re a sadist who wants maximum dramatic tension.”
“Because the scheduling made sense.” Her pause was surgical.
“Also because I’m a sadist who wants maximum dramatic tension.
” She studied my reflection with a practiced eye she’d been sharpening since college and was rarely wrong about when to bring wine versus tissues.
“You don’t have to do anything special with him.
Same approach as the others. Walk around them, test composure, say the words, move on. ”
“Obviously.” I blended my contour with more force than the technique required. “Walk, test, words, move on. I’ve done this four seasons running. I could do it blindfolded.”
“And that he looked wrecked when he came back from the garden last night? That has no bearing on your approach today?”
I put down the contour brush. Picked it up. Put it down again. “He told you about that?”
“Honey, Mason told me about that. Rhys hasn’t told anyone anything, because Rhys communicates exclusively through scowls and structural metaphors.
” She bumped my shoulder with hers. “Mason noticed. He always notices more than people give him credit for. And I noticed how you looked when you came back inside. And between the two of you, I’ve seen less emotional carnage at actual funerals. ”
I should have argued. Should have deployed the arsenal of deflections I’d been stockpiling since night one — he’s difficult, he’s cold, he doesn’t even want to be here.
But underneath all those convenient narratives was the thing I hadn’t told anyone, the thing I kept turning over like a stone I was afraid to look beneath.
His hands had trembled. And instead of feeling powerful — which was literally my job, which was the entire premise of this show — I’d felt seen.
Not by the trembling itself. By what came before it.
The quiet do you want me to like my answer was the only thing that mattered.
His hands finding the spot in my arch that hurt without being told.
Those hands — calloused from drafting tables, steady from years of designing things that had to stand up under pressure — holding my foot like it was a load-bearing element he was personally responsible for.
I’d Googled “is it normal to be attracted to someone because of their hands” at 2 AM. The results were not reassuring.
“I’m going to be completely normal about this,” I said.
Tessa looked at me for a long time. “Okay,” she said, in the tone that meant I’ll have the wine open when you get back.
Julian went first, and he was perfect.
Of course he was perfect. Julian approached the Patience Test with mechanical efficiency, every response pre-calculated to any possible scenario.
He stood on the platform — which the production team had dressed with dramatic lighting Tessa personally designed to make everyone look simultaneously gorgeous and slightly terrified — and arranged his face into composed confidence.
Leading man screensaver. Power save mode.
I circled him. This was the choreography: slow approach, gradual proximity, testing the perimeter of a man’s self-control for weak points. I trailed my fingertips near his shoulder without touching. Stepped so he could feel my warmth. Leaned in near his jaw and let my breath graze his neck.
Nothing. Zero movement. That polished surface held. His breathing was steady. His pupils were exactly the same diameter they’d been when I walked in. He might as well have been contemplating quinoa options at Whole Foods.
“Good boy,” I murmured near his ear.
He smiled. The polished smile — pleasant, appropriate, and so completely empty that I felt a wave of sadness more than satisfaction. Julian had won the test and also proved, definitively, that nothing I did could reach him. There was nowhere to reach to. You can’t rattle a man who’s all surface.
“Thank you,” he said, like I’d validated his parking.
Mason failed in eleven seconds.
I hadn’t even completed my first circuit around him when he let out a noise — half-laugh, half-wheeze — and covered his face with both hands like a kid caught stealing cookies.
The crew was already laughing. Mason’s inability to maintain composure was becoming a show tradition, a recurring bit that the audience loved because it was so transparently, helplessly genuine.
“I can’t,” he said through his fingers, shoulders shaking. “I’m sorry, I cannot — you’re doing the walk, the slow walk, and all I can think about is how my mom does the same thing when she’s checking if I cleaned my room, and now I’m thinking about my mom and this is so not the vibe—”
“Mason.” I was laughing too, which wasn’t in the script but was going to make the final edit. “The test hasn’t even started.”
“I know! That’s what makes it worse! I failed the pre-test. I’m failing the tutorial level.
This is the easiest boss fight in the game and I walked into a wall.
” He dropped his hands, face red and beaming and completely incapable of the composure this challenge required.
“Can I at least get partial credit for showing up? A participation trophy? I was told there would be participation trophies.”
“Good boy,” I said, mostly because he looked like he needed the kindness.
Mason clutched his chest in mock horror. “See, now that’s a Geneva Convention violation. You can’t deploy that on someone who’s already emotionally compromised. I’m filing a formal complaint with the UN.”
He stepped off the platform still laughing, and when he passed the remaining contestants, he pointed at his own face and mouthed save yourselves with theatrical desperation, like he’d survived a firing squad and found the whole experience unreasonably funny.
Derek was the opposite problem.
He stood on the platform with relaxed confidence, as if he’d been waiting for exactly this challenge — a test of control, of dominance, of who could hold still longest. His attention tracked me as I circled, not with Julian’s blankness but with sharp, watchful focus that made the back of my neck prickle.
The same prickle I’d felt during our date when his hand had pressed flat against my lower back, two inches below where I’d have placed it myself.
I stepped close. He didn’t flinch — but he didn’t stay neutral, either. His chin tilted down. He looked at me with an intensity that was meant to read as confidence but registered, underneath, as ownership. He was playing at making me feel watched.