Chapter Eight
“I’m looking for a really great girl to spend the rest of my life with. I’m ready to start a family, settle down, and have that solidity that you don’t get when you’re on the professional circuit. I’ll still be playing, sure, but my family will be my rock.”
Our date does, in fact, involve a hot tub. My bet for total hot tub appearances this season would be somewhere north of fifty. By the end of this, I’ll be shocked if my skin isn’t permanently puckered.
Maybe I’m getting spoiled, but the view last night with Rhett was better.
From this deserted field overlooking the Malibu hills, all we can see are brownish-green mountains dotted with zillion-dollar houses and private tennis courts.
Even the shrubs are scraggly—nothing like the effervescent greenery caught in the Love Shack mansion’s time warp.
There’s an impromptu changing station set up by the hot tub, and Jules, a production assistant, hands me a strappy black bikini I’d never buy for myself.
“Is your cheek okay?” she asks.
I nod. It’s still a bit sensitive, but hopefully won’t bruise. I guess Addison’s aim wasn’t as lethal as she hoped. I turn the bikini over in my hands, trying to figure out where a battery pack would fit. “Do I need a mic?”
Jules shakes her head, her purple braids bouncing off her cheeks. “There’s mics on the hot tub, so no need.”
Nodding, I step into the changing station and wriggle out of my clothes and into the black bikini.
When I come back out, another car appears, and Lainey and Rhett climb out.
Why in the ever-loving hell is he here? Surely, he won’t be joining us in the hot tub.
I was under the impression that I was here to date Roland, not both of them.
How would that be for some R&R? But Roland is far too active for either rest or relaxation, and Rhett …
well, I don’t think I’d get much rest with him either, and I find him quite the opposite of relaxing.
Jules catches me looking at Rhett and leans in. “I think he’s just here so they can film a conversation between him and Roland after.”
I blink at her. “Right.” That and the producer credit, probably. Which seems to mean that he can watch me make a fool of myself whenever he pleases.
“You’ll be great,” Jules says. “I know it can be intimidating to have all the producers here, but honestly I doubt he’ll even be paying attention.”
If only.
The cameras set up while Roland and I stand a few feet apart, waiting for our signal to begin.
I want to wrap my arms around myself, pretzel them in front of my nearly naked chest, but I force myself to hold them at my sides like my boobs are priceless works of art.
Which they are, but Roland doesn’t seem to be the most discerning critic.
“Damn,” Roland says on Lainey’s cue. “You look great.” He gives me a once-over, his gaze lingering on my chest, stomach, skating down to my thighs before he bites his lip and meets my eyes again. I’m burning to pick my nails, dig them into my palms—anything to take the edge off.
“Same to you.” I rake my eyes conspicuously over his washboard abs.
He holds his hand out to me and I take it, grateful that he’s wiped off the post-tennis sweat. We climb into the hot tub and he puts his arm around my shoulders, angling us toward the cameras.
“How are you feeling?” He places his hand on my thigh beneath the bubbling water. I force myself to lean closer.
“I’m good,” I say. “I’m still a bit dizzy, but I’m really happy to be here with you.”
“I have something that might make you feel a little better,” Roland says.
For one wild second, I think he’s about to kiss me, or claim that his dick has magical healing powers, but then he reaches behind the hot tub and pulls out two flutes of champagne.
Of course—hot tubs and champagne. Love Shack’s staples.
That and making women appear emotionally unstable.
I take the champagne, not pointing out that alcohol isn’t exactly known for its medicinal capabilities, and clink my glass against his.
“To falling in love,” Roland says. “Though hopefully not literally.”
I smile at him, his face inches from mine. “To catching each other even if we do.” Even I’m surprised by how good my response is. It’s the kind of thing I never believed anyone could actually come up with when I was watching the show. But here I am reciting poetry like it’s braided into my DNA.
Roland’s eyes widen at my words, like he’s as impressed with me as I am with myself.
For one charged second, we stare at each other.
My stomach is churning, and I can’t pinpoint the reason.
It’s not the intimacy of the moment, because this isn’t intimate.
How could it be with half a dozen people watching?
“Kiss her!” Lainey shouts, startling me.
Roland raises his eyebrows, as if asking my permission. I nod imperceptibly, and under the water, where the cameras won’t catch it, he rolls his thumb across my thigh, sending chills up my spine.
I imagine how this will be cut for TV, how they’ll go straight from my amazing line into the kiss. How it’ll all seem so natural, no coaxing from producers needed. But then I stop imagining, because the reality is much more pressing.
Roland’s lips are as soft as the steam rising around us. I do my best to keep a hand on my champagne as he tilts my head back, dropping kiss after kiss on my mouth. I try to relax and act natural, but it’s hard with the horde of producers watching.
And when the last guy I kissed is mere feet away.
It’s not like I haven’t had dating opportunities since Rhett.
But besides the two coffee dates I went on with a friendly grocery clerk named Jared who always plays ’90s pop in the store when he sees me coming, the longest relationship I’ve had in the past year is with Presley, whose lifespan is far exceeding expectations.
After a few seconds, I open my eyes and hazard a glance at Lainey and the other producers—at Rhett, who’s put on dark sunglasses and is staring at something in his lap.
My chest is tight, stomach frothing. Why can’t he make this easy?
If he just turned down his frown by 5 percent—even 3—I swear I’d be better at this.
I could pretend to be head-over-boobs in love with Roland and not give it a second thought.
“Eyes closed!” Lainey snaps, and I wince.
“Sorry,” I murmur against Roland’s lips.
In answer, he gives my thigh a reassuring squeeze and moves so he’s shielding me from the cameras.
It’s so unexpected that my body melts into him with gratitude.
After a few more seconds, when Lainey yells “Cut!” he plants one last kiss on the corner of my mouth and winks at me.
I’m immediately pulled out of the hot tub by Jules, who wraps me in a towel. Lainey directs cameras at me for an interview as my legs shiver. We’re not alone, but it’s the closest I’ve gotten so far. She asks me what it felt like kissing Roland—if sparks were flying.
“It was hot,” I say. My anxiety breaks through the dam I’ve kept it behind, and I let out an ungallant giggle. Better than vomiting all over the cameras. “Hopefully my last first kiss—but only time will tell.”
Lainey nods, checks the footage, and stalks away to repeat the process with Roland. I take a long breath and some of the tension leaves my body. I guess I’ll face Lainey another day.
I wave goodbye to Roland as I head to the waiting SUV, but he’s already interviewing with Lainey, distracted from the real me by the idea of me.
Rhett is off to the side, waiting for his turn in front of the cameras.
As I pass, he doesn’t spare me a glance.
It leaves me cold in a way that has nothing to do with the water still clinging to my skin.
In the space of a few short minutes, I’ve been reduced to a pair of lips, a few sound bites. Even if I made it to the end and married Roland, that’s all I would be—a hand wearing his ring, eyes watching him on the court, a body to call his wife.
Once I’m tucked in the car, I lean back and watch palm trees whip past the windows.
My first kiss with Roland. Monumental, life-altering, perfect—just some of the adjectives that should be buzzing in my head, except none of them are accurate. The phrase that comes to mind is “technically proficient,” but has any great love story ever started like that?
The intimacy was so manufactured it could have shattered like glass. But the little touches under the water, the way he put himself between me and the cameras—that had to be real, right? The thought makes me shudder.
I breathe in and out, trying to focus on Roland’s lips. But when I close my eyes, it’s not Roland’s face that surrounds those lips.
His kisses may have been sweet and soft, but they didn’t light my body on fire, and I know it wasn’t just the cameras that made the situation feel wrong. It wasn’t my hidden motivations.
It was Rhett.