Chapter 19
It’s been a long day at work, and I’m not in the mood to film. But Cassidy clips on my mic in the apartment complex parking garage and follows me to the clubhouse, where a group cooking class awaits.
There’s a full studio setup in the clubhouse kitchen—lights and boom mics and cameras set up to get several angles. It’s not only Cassidy and Steve in the wings, but the producers and camera people assigned to the other couples too.
And Kit got out of it. Somehow, he doesn’t have to be here. After our meeting with Dr. Leon, when Cassidy gave us our schedule for the coming weeks, Kit said he had to have dinner with his mom tonight. He did reveal that his mom was sick and fighting cancer, so the production team said this event was okay to miss.
It’s not fair, really.
I could have had dinner with his mom, too. But then I guess the cameras would have followed, and since she wasn’t at our wedding, I’m assuming the cameras are what she’s trying to avoid.
“Hey, Andie.” Jamie greets me with a smile. “Long day?”
“The longest.” He hands me a red apron, and I slip it over my head.
“I don’t remember you saying,” Leslie pipes up from behind Jamie, “what it is you do for work.”
I do my best to smile. I’ve been designing dresses professionally for years now, but it still feels fraudulent to call myself a designer. “I, um, design wedding dresses.”
“Oh my God.” Kendra bounces over from the other end of the kitchen. “Are you the same Andie from the TikToks?”
“I like sharing my process.” I shrug, heat rising in my cheeks.
“It’s so interesting to see all that goes into making a dress.” Kendra opens a bottle of wine and tips it in offering to all of us. “I had no idea all those things had to happen behind the scenes.”
“I used to design menswear,” Jamie says as Kendra fills his wine glass. “Back in the day, you know. As a hobby, I mean.”
“Oh?” I’m surprised to meet someone else who understands being a creative who works with their hands all the time. “What do you do now?”
He shrugs. “Not much right now. Some freelance writing here and there.”
“He’s trying to figure out what he wants to be when he grows up.” Leslie ties his apron on. The look he gives Jamie is incredibly long-suffering considering we’ve all only been together for about ten days.
Jamie’s eyes lose a touch of their sparkle. Instead of responding, he sips on his wine.
“Hey, me too, man.” Patrick offers Jamie a fist bump. “How the hell are we supposed to know what we want to do when there’s so much out there?”
“I thought you were a firefighter.” I narrow my eyes at him.
“For now, yeah.” He secures his apron, too. “But eventually my body isn’t going to be able to do that anymore. Where’s Kit?”
“Dinner with his mom.” I wave it off and take a sip of my wine. “He’ll join us later.” I think. I hope. He’d better. At least this wine is good. I can already feel its warmth leaching into my sore muscles.
A man with tattoos up and down both arms strolls in and announces he’s worked as a private chef for celebrities and athletes for a decade, and tonight he’s going to teach us how to make pizza. I’m glad it’s nothing too complicated, especially since I’m on my own.
Getting the dough to come together is easy enough. So is bringing the tomatoes and seasonings to a simmer on the stove. It’s when it’s time to begin shaping dough that it gets difficult.
While I’m struggling with how much memory my dough has—I can’t get it flat enough and wish I could use an iron on it like I do with stubborn fabric—a metal pan clatters to the floor on Jamie and Leslie’s side of the kitchen.
All eyes turn to them. A dough blob stretches off the edge of the counter, and one of the pendulum lights above the island swings back and forth. Leslie buries his face in his hands while Jamie shrugs sheepishly. “I thought I’d try throwing it?”
I want to laugh, but Leslie frowns, his hands balled into fists.
“You hurt?” Patrick asks him.
He slowly shakes his head and looks at Jamie, furious. “No, I just—for once, can you take something seriously?”
Jamie’s smile melts into a grimace. “Would it kill you to have some fun for once?”
“You ruined your pizza and made a mess of this kitchen that isn’t even yours.”
“The kitchen will clean, and it’s pizza, not life and death. Relax.”
Leslie closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I think I will relax. At home.” He forces a smile for the rest of us and offers, “Enjoy.”
After a cameraman follows him out the door, I check on Jamie. He gives me a small smile. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
I squat down with him to help scrape the pizza dough off the floor. “I’m sorry. He shouldn’t talk to you like that.”
Jamie sniffs, making a point to hide his face so the camera can’t see him cry. “I’m trying so hard to get to know him, and nothing I do is right.”
This experience is an uphill climb for all of us, apparently. “Is he always like this?”
“No.” He shakes his head and plops a handful of dough onto the metal pan that fell. “When we’re alone, no cameras around, he’s so … gentle. And kind.”
I nod. “It’s stressful to get married to someone you’ve never met and then be on camera all the time.”
Jamie laughs. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”
“Do you want to help with my pizza since I’m solo anyway?”
He smiles. “That’d be fun.”
I smile in return. As wild as the experience of this show is, I’m glad I’m at the very least not doing it alone.
By the time our pizza hits the oven, it’s a misshapen lump of dough with some sauce on it, but I’m proud of the work. I remove my apron and excuse myself to go to the bathroom. My hands are covered in flour and dough bits, and the rest of me is sticky with sweat from hovering over hot pots and ovens. Cassidy flicks off my mic before I duck into the ladies’ room in the clubhouse.
After splashing my face with cool water and sniffing my shirt to make sure I don’t smell like yeast, I stare at my reflection. The woman looking back is tired, dark smudges under her eyes.
I open the bathroom door and lean on the frame. Cassidy waits patiently in the hall. “How do you do it?” I ask her.
She tilts her head. “Do what?”
“Work full-time and keep a house clean and eat and”—I gesture at the clubhouse kitchen, where Steve and the army of producers and equipment wait for us to return—“keep a relationship going?”
Cassidy shrugs, watching Steve frame a shot of the pizza in the oven. “Our place is a mess and we’ve been living off gas station food. While we’re filming, something has to give. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.”
“What about each other?”
She smiles. “We’re lucky. We get to work together.”
I look at my shoes. There’s a splotch of marinara on my right toe. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”
“You did great with the pizza.” She waves it off.
“No, I mean”—I shift on my feet—“the relationship part.”
“It’s new. Give it time.” She studies me and twists the cord for her headphones around one finger. “Listen—this is my third season filming the show, and I can tell you, if you’re worried about how to make it work, it’s a good thing. It’s the ones who don’t think they need to try that are in trouble.”
I nod, not sure what to say to that. Making it work shouldn’t be what I want, right?
“Some days that’s all it’s about. Trying, I mean.” She gives me a small smile. “Show up. Try. Repeat. Some days are hard. Hardly any are perfect. But the good ones always follow as long as you keep showing up.”
I frown. Things were so easy with Kit the first time, but we really only made it a few months. Where would we be now if I didn’t expect everything to be easy with him forever? What if I let him in the door when he showed up after his absence, and what if I’d forgiven him for not being able to tell me he loved me too? I rub my forehead with my palm, shaking my head. I can what if myself to death, and it won’t change where we are now.
“Look who’s here.” Cassidy nods toward the kitchen.
Kit strolls in, his shirt unbuttoned at the top, sleeves rolled to his elbows. It’s a look I’ve come to appreciate on him. A look that says he’s worked his ass off and now he’s coming undone at the seams, just a little. It isn’t fair how he looks so … so …
“God, that man is walking kryptonite, isn’t he?” Cassidy says, tutting as she shakes her head.
I crack my neck turning to look at her. Is she serious?
Cassidy laughs. “I have eyes. And I know you do too. I see how you look at him.”
I stutter, exasperated, and cross my arms over my chest. “How I look at him?”
“Cool your jets.” Cassidy gestures for me to turn around so she can flip on my mic. “I don’t want your husband.”
“What? Are you saying I’m jealous?” I say it too sharply, too loudly. Loud enough for Kit to look at me. The grin he gives me is devastating. I grip my skirt in my fists to keep my hands from shaking.
“I’m saying, Kit’s one of the good ones. It’s okay to want him. And it’s okay for him to know you want him.”
She flicks my mic on just in time to catch my mumbled, “The nightmare never ends.”