Chapter Seventeen #2
When this advantage was first introduced, I didn’t think much of it.
Perhaps I was too consumed in the challenge or my own thoughts then to really worry.
But hearing it said again, like this, settles deep within my chest like a weight falling to the bottom of a pool.
Whoever Valerie chooses has no say, regardless of what anyone else wants.
I force myself to breathe normally, not to panic over things that haven’t happened yet, that are still to come, and that might not ever occur.
“Ladies,” Miranda continues, “when I call your name, you’ll share your reason for your decision before revealing your choice. The floor will be yours, so be honest.” A small smile forms on her face.
With a nod, the ceremony begins, starting with a name draw. Jessa is called first. She steps forward.
“Jessa, please reveal your choice.” Miranda gestures.
“This person, since being here, has given me some perspective on the world. They’ve made me laugh in a way I don’t think I have in a long time.
And this choice I’m making feels the easiest. Right.
So I choose…” She pauses. “Nick,” she says with a smile before walking calmly toward him.
They share a kiss as he holds her tight.
But I don’t pay much attention.
My mind wanders again to last night. Scott had sounded certain.
That low, direct voice in the half dark.
Every word seemed sincere, genuine, like it was simply a fact he was tired of keeping to himself.
And I had stood there at the bathroom counter, working very hard to not let him and his words enchant me.
At least not too much. The desire to believe him while still holding on to the reality that the other shoe could drop at any moment is a balance as challenging as walking on a tight rope.
Please don’t have me be the fool.
My pulse kicks up with each selection. Ava picks Zayne with a smug smile to Kylie. Surprisingly, Kylie chooses Sean. And even more shocking Renee selects Bradley.
How much of what they’re saying in their testimonial is true? Even if there is some truth to their words, how long would that truth be genuine? This time only lasts for ten days, and we’ve already gone through a week of it.
Then there are three men left: Trevor, Damon, and Scott. Only Emily, Valerie, and I remain.
Miranda calls another name. “Emily.”
When this started, I was glad to have time to breathe before the inevitable choice I know I’ll have to make. I hoped I could use that time to finalize a decision. But now I realize I haven’t made one, turning this time into torture.
I don’t know what to do.
Emily steps forward. I watch her scan all around her, not just at the three men in front of her. She looks as nervous as I feel.
Giving a heartfelt statement, she finally calls Trevor’s name. And with a relieved smile, she walks over to his waiting arms.
Then Valerie steps forward. Her blue sundress flows in the wind, her hair loose around her shoulders. She seems cool and collected. Not like she doesn’t care about the outcome, but rather like someone who has made her decision and settled it. She takes a breath, hands loosely clasped.
“I came into this experience thinking I knew exactly what I wanted,” she begins, her voice warm and measured.
“Someone ready. Someone uncomplicated. What I found instead surprised me.” She pauses.
“I found someone who reminded me what it actually feels like to be in the presence of a real man. Someone grounded in a way most people here aren’t. Someone I think deserves to be chosen.”
Her vague words have my nerves skittering.
My eyes move to Scott, searching for any kind of reaction, anything that would give me a hint of an answer.
But he’s gone quiet. Not in his usual stillness, but something tighter underneath it—the look of a man hearing something he wasn’t expecting, jaw locked, shoulders rigid, like the ground just shifted under his feet while the cameras keep rolling.
He has no idea what’s going on, either.
He looks alarmed.
Why?
Neither of us know what’s about to happen. And that fear I’d tried to bury claws its way back up, sharper than before.
“My choice,” Valerie says, her eyes moving between the two men as if she were standing on a great precipice and about to jump—taking someone with her in the process, “is Scott.”
The name settles like ice into the morning air.
Around me, the group reacts. Murmurs ripple; a few gasps cut through the breeze.
I freeze in place. I can’t move.
Valerie crosses the terrace with easy, unhurried confidence.
When she reaches Scott, she rises onto her toes and presses a kiss to his cheek, her hand curling around his arm, settling beside him.
He remains as rigid as before. His expression panicked, his eyes erratic like he’s working something over in his mind at lightspeed. Then his gaze snaps straight to me.
Was what he said last night a lie? Or was he telling the truth… and this blindsided him, too? The questions slam into me so hard my stomach twists. I harden my expression, force my face into blank calm, and look away.
I feel Scott’s eyes on me. I don’t give him the satisfaction of meeting them again. Instead, I straighten and turn my gaze to Damon.
Moments later, Miranda calls me to stand beside Damon. I’m grateful that this is finally over.
Emily’s hand finds mine at my side. Quiet. Discreet. Just there.
Behind me somewhere Scott is standing next to Valerie with her hand still on his arm.
I turn away, not looking back as I grip Emily’s hand.
But the confusion doesn’t leave. It only grows—thick, heavy, more tangled than ever.
Day 7 (Late Morning/Afternoon)
Scott
Miranda steps forward before anyone even gets a chance to breathe.
“Before everyone disperses,” she says, clapping her hands together with that fake smile she saves for shitstorms, “one more update. Starting tonight, we’re moving to co-ed sleeping arrangements.”
The group loses their minds. Voices overlap, Kylie mutters a curse under her breath, and a producer in the back just nods like it’s Tuesday.
Miranda continues. “You’ll have the afternoon to get settled. New couples, my suggestion is to use the time to get to know each other better because soon you’ll be sharing a bed.”
Suggestion, my ass.
I lock my face down, eyes straight ahead. My brain’s already spinning.
What the actual fuck just happened?
I told Valerie flat-out I wasn’t interested, suggested she should pick Damon. Why the hell would she choose me anyway? Why throw away her advantage like that? Unless she doesn’t see it that way.
This is a goddamn cluster fuck. On one side, I’ve got a woman I don’t want thinking we’re a thing. On the other, Lyla’s about to get hauled off by Damon, and I can’t stop it. And even if I did, regardless of cameras, I don’t think she’d let me.
I need to know why Valerie chose me. Before this day gets any worse.
I grab Valerie’s arm, gentle but firm. “We need to talk.”
She doesn’t fight it, following me through the scattering crowd.
The villa’s already turning into chaos—bags hitting floors, people claiming beds, that low hum of everyone figuring out the new rules.
I don’t stop. I’ve had this spot mapped since day one.
A narrow gap between the kitchen and the production hallway where the two corner cameras don’t quite overlap. A blind spot.
I steer us in, looking back behind me to make sure we’re not being followed, and put my back against the wall.
I then reach down and kill my mic pack. She must realize what I’m doing because then she does the same with hers.
We’ve got maybe thirty seconds before production notices they can’t see or hear us. It’s not ideal, but it’s what I’ve got.
“Why did you do that?” I ask, keeping my voice low.
Valerie’s composure cracks. Tears well in her eyes.
“I’m not mad,” I tell her. On the outside, I’m calm. Inside, I’m already calculating how fast this is going to blow up in my face. “Just tell me what happened.”
She swallows hard. “I was going to pick Damon. I’d decided last night after dinner. But this morning, right before the ceremony, a producer pulled me aside.”
My stomach drops. I already have an inkling on where this is going.
“She sat me down. Said she’d been watching the footage from our date. Told me she saw something real between us.” Valerie’s voice wavers. “She asked why I was so quick to throw it away just to play it safe.”
I go completely still.
These motherfuckers.
They know exactly which buttons to push.
Valerie keeps going, words tumbling out.
“She made it sound like choosing you was the brave thing. Like picking Damon was me running away from something good again. Same crap I always do. She got in my head, Scott. By the time I was standing there, I…I just said your name. I didn’t realize what I’d done until it was out. I’m so sorry.”
I can’t be pissed at her. Not really. She’s just another person this show is chewing up and spitting back out. They manipulate scenarios and emotions for a living. She never stood a chance.
“It’s not your fault,” I say. The words taste like ash.
But the real problem hits me like a gut punch.
Lyla is never going to believe a word I say now.
Not after this. Not with us split up, not with cameras in every corner, not with Damon right there for Lyla to think she’d be better off with him.
I can explain until I’m blue in the face, and I worry it won’t matter.
This place is rigged. I’ve known that for a while.
But now that it’s royally screwed us like this, every move I make will only give her another reason to think I’m full of shit.
Valerie wipes at her cheek. “For what it’s worth…I saw her face when I said your name. She’s not as indifferent as she’s pretending.”
I don’t answer. Because that’s the worst part. Even if she’s hurting, even if some tiny part of her still wants what we had, I’ve got no way to come off as genuine. Not here. Not like this.
I answer with a plastered-on smile. “Thank you, Valerie.”
I click my mic back on, gesturing to her with a nod that she should do the same, and step out of the blind spot like the conversation never happened.
The afternoon drags in that slow, forced way the show loves—meals, small talk, everyone pretending this new coed bullshit is normal. By evening, the novelty’s worn off and everyone is simply tired.
I keep eyes on Lyla the whole time. She sticks close to Emily, laughing when she’s supposed to, nodding at the right spots. A perfect performance. But I know her. She’s confused, spiraling. And right now I’m probably the last person on earth she wants anywhere near her.
The shared room, designed barrack style, fills up as night rolls in. Seven beds in two rows on opposite sides facing each other, ceiling fans turn lazily, ocean rumbling through the louvered windows. Everyone begins to settle into the awkward dynamic no one asked for.
Out of habit, I take the bed nearest the window on the left. My back to the wall, with a clear line to the door. Valerie climbs in on the other side of the bed without a word. We just exist next to each other like two people who already said everything that needed saying.
Those fucking producers. Manipulating Valerie like that, finding the exact crack in her head, twisting until picking me sounded like the brave choice instead of the safe one.
Misinformation getting to Lyla before I even finished dinner.
The challenge that paired me with Valerie in the first place, handing her the advantage without realizing it’d kick off this whole chain reaction.
The lights drop to almost nothing.
I look across and see Lyla in the bed third from the left.
On her side, she faces away, her hair loose on the pillow.
Her shoulders seem tight, like she’s forcing herself to stay still.
She’s wide awake and pretending she’s not.
The same way she was at seventeen when she didn’t want anyone to see her break.
Their corner goes dark.
I stare back up at the ceiling again. She’s ten feet away, and I can’t say a fucking word. Not without the whole room being in on it. Not without production catching it and giving them ammunition to make things worse.
I can’t win in here.
The thought hits hard and sticks. Staying won’t change shit.
Even if I somehow get her to talk to me again, the show will just keep twisting things.
Producers will poke another crack, and cameras will catch whatever they need for ratings and spin it.
I’m willing to eat all this bullshit for her, but right now, it feels like using a stationary bike as transportation. It doesn’t prove a damn thing.
She needs something this place can’t give her.
And so do I.
Only one move comes to mind. One thing they can’t redirect or reframe if I do it just right. One gesture that’s completely mine and irreversible. I’d be risking everything doing this, but what choice do I have?
I need to leave.