Chapter Eleven Eleanor
The Ryan Seacrest comparison Mae made is not off base, but as I get a closer look at the MC, I decide he reminds me more of the Ken doll Iris and I had when we were little.
Jonathan’s hair has so much product in it, it looks like a hard shell, and he’s wearing a periwinkle suit jacket made of some kind of fabric that glitters in the afternoon sun.
“You must be Eleanor and Adam,” he says when we join the group. We shake hands, and he immediately launches into the setup of the game, distributing cue cards and a black marker to each of us.
The rules are all pretty straightforward, so I mostly focus on taking deep breaths and blocking out the sidelong glances Adam keeps sending me. I can’t tell if he’s nervous, or if he just knows I am. Either way, his constant attention isn’t helping.
Six deck chairs are situated on the stage.
Jonathan directs Adam and me to the pair on the far right, tucked close to each other but angled in a way that will make it near impossible to see what’s written on each other’s answer cards.
I sit down and fiddle with the Sharpie I was given, flicking it back and forth between my fingers.
“You all right?” Adam asks in a low voice.
I still my hand and nod. “Yeah. It’s like a game of trivia, right? I’m great at trivia.”
Granted, usually the trivia I participate in is more focused on pop culture than Adam Shaw’s personal life. But my competitive streak is surfacing all the same.
I find myself thinking of Iris, my trivia partner of choice.
I wonder how well she and her fiancé, Eric, would fare in this game.
They’re the sort of couple who immediately switched to “we” statements, who keep no secrets from each other and share to the point of it being sort of gross—like, I would not be shocked to find out they use the same toothbrush—so chances are, they’d do pretty well.
Adam reaches over and rests his hand on the back of my neck. I’m surprised by how not-annoying I find the gesture. How much I like the grounding weight of his palm. I stifle a little whine when he withdraws his touch a moment later.
Everything would be so much easier if Adam were consistently an asshole. Instead, he’s a part-time asshole, and then he sneaks in these moments of wit and insight and thoughtfulness. What am I supposed to do with that?
On the one hand, he’s sworn that coming to Vegas and going after Dempsey isn’t personal, and I’m inclined to believe him.
We’ve established he’s just as competitive as I am, and it is, after all, a cutthroat industry.
I’ll even admit my anger toward him about Maya was misplaced.
Blaming him was an understandable if knee-jerk reaction, but I’m the one who let her walk.
The thing is, though, why won’t he tell me who tipped him off about last night’s dinner? It’s not like there are all that many possibilities. Why can’t he fess up already so we can move past it?
Adam catches me looking at him, and I shift my gaze straight ahead, picking out details of the so-called audience, which amounts to a handful of people who are being subjected to this farce while they try to enjoy the pool.
One woman in particular catches my eye because she is wearing the most complicated, gravity-defying swimsuit I’ve ever seen in real life.
It’s mostly composed of straps, and I can’t make sense of how she got into it, never mind how it’s staying put while she swims. Then there’s a man with a waxed chest who is applying some kind of oil all over himself, and I’d be willing to bet the entirety of my admittedly sparse bank account that he will be leaving here today with a nasty sunburn.
Maybe it makes me a bad person, but I’m mildly comforted by the knowledge that I won’t be the only one coming away from a trip to Vegas worse for wear.
Finally, Jonathan grabs a microphone, which—good lord—is bedazzled with crystals that glimmer when the light catches it, and welcomes everyone to the game. After a quick introduction of each couple, he poses the first question:
“Okay, this one is for Harvey, Danny, and Adam. Please write down your most prized possession.”
Adam thinks for a moment, then scribbles down his answer.
And I have… no earthly idea what it could be.
Jonathan starts on the other end of the stage, which at least gives me a moment to think.
Absurdly, I keep hoping Adam will meet my gaze so he can prove his little wavelength plan worked, and telepathically tell me his answer.
I don’t hear Harvey’s answer, or whether Chris gets it right. I’m vaguely aware of Tess correctly guessing that Danny’s prized possession is his state football championship ring—which feels so on the nose it’s no wonder she got it right. And then it’s my turn.
“Uh…” Beside me, Adam is clutching his answer card close to his chest. My gaze lingers on his wrist—or rather, the watch wrapped around it. It certainly seemed important to him earlier. “His watch?”
Adam’s face breaks into a gigantic grin, and he turns his cue card around to reveal the answer.
“Well done!” Jonathan says, and I get a little rush of adrenaline and find myself sitting up straighter, leaning forward while I wait for the next question. “Who said ‘I love you’ first?”
I scribble Adam’s name down immediately. I mean, come on.
Jonathan waits for Tess and Chris to finish writing their answers, and then turns back to me, switching up the order. “Okay, Adam, Eleanor has jotted down her answer… Who said those three little words first?”
Adam fixes me with this put-out look, and I curl my lips in to keep from smiling. “I suppose that would be me.”
I flip my card around to reveal Adam’s name and give him a sweet smile. “Obviously.”
Next up are Danny and Tess, and of course they get it right, too—they’ve probably whipped out the story of Danny sweeping Tess into his arms after he won the big game countless times to all their friends—hell, considering they were in high school, their friends were probably all there to witness it.
Last up, Harvey answers he said it first, and Chris is immediately outraged.
“You absolutely did not!” Chris bursts, without even bothering to turn his card around.
Harvey frowns. “Yes, I did. Our first Christmas together, I—”
“You said, and I quote, ‘I love spending time with you.’ I remember, because I didn’t think anyone actually used that line in real life, but I figured maybe you were close to saying it, so I waited, and then three months went by and you still hadn’t said it, so on your birthday I said it to you, and you said it back. ”
Harvey purses his lips. “That’s not how I remember it.”
“Shocking,” Chris mutters, loud enough for me to hear but probably not the rest of the spectators. He tosses his card aside and stares resolutely ahead until Jonathan clears his throat and moves on to the next question, which is about our partners’ guilty pleasures.
Again, I draw a complete blank. I think about how pretentious Adam can be sometimes and guess K-dramas, because it seems like the kind of thing Adam would be embarrassed to admit he likes.
But when I offer up that answer, Adam gives me a bewildered look and flips his card, which reads: strip club meat.
I let out an appallingly loud snort-laugh, and cover my mouth with both hands.
Jonathan doesn’t seem to know what to do with this response, so he moves on without comment.
I put all of my energy into not laughing, which proves impossible the moment I meet Adam’s eye again.
I look away as a fresh bout of giggles bubble up, biting the inside of my cheek and thinking about decidedly not-funny things, like…
waking up in Vegas married to an almost-stranger, for example.
I’ve managed to get a handle on myself by the time Jonathan comes back to us with the next question—what my partner finds most attractive about me.
My gaze is drawn back to Adam, who meets my eye for a long, intense beat.
He looks away first, and nudges his glasses up his nose in a gesture that makes me imagine what he was like when he was younger.
What it would’ve been like to know him in high school, during his awkward stage, assuming he ever had one.
I’m not entirely sure when I started to find the glasses endearing, but the realization is unsettling.
It would’ve been uncomfortable to offer up something about Adam I find attractive, but the inverse is somehow even worse.
Despite my certainty that Adam wanted to kiss me earlier, I have no clue what his answer will be.
I’ve never caught him staring at my mouth or my tits.
He doesn’t strike me as the sort of person to obsess over any particular body part.
In the end, I have to choose something, so I scribble down the feature I like best about myself.
“Her eyes,” Adam answers easily when it’s his turn.
My cheeks go hot as I turn the card around to show my matching response. Not that I’m reading anything into it—eyes are a safe, non-objectifying answer. Finding them attractive doesn’t necessarily mean he’s attracted to me, if he even meant it in the first place.
The questions keep coming, and Adam and I keep getting them right. By the time we reach the final round, it’s clear that by some miracle we actually do have a shot at winning. So of course, that’s when Jonathan asks the most obnoxious question of the day.
“Eleanor, what are you most likely to nag Adam about?”
Beside me, Adam immediately starts scribbling his answer. I clench my jaw and try to move past the fact that he needed absolutely no time to think this one over.
I’m probably expected to offer an answer that’s demure and funny and relatable, but my nails are digging into my palm and I can’t stop myself from blurting out: “That actually feels like a really sexist question.”
Jonathan is taken aback. He glances at the other contestants, as if he’s hoping they’ll bail him out, but they’re all staring at me, most of them with a mixture of amusement and respect, although Danny has more of an oh, shit look on his face, so I’m guessing his answer isn’t going to go over well with Tess.
“It’s meant to be hypothetical,” Jonathan says, in the same tone men use when they say something inappropriate at the office and then follow it up with, lighten up, it was a joke.
A tone that implies it’s my fault for not having a sense of humor, and oh, buddy, I am so not in the mood for that kind of fuckery.
“Yeah, well, I’m not going to answer it.”
Jonathan huffs a humorless laugh. “No answer. All right—you’d better hope your husband shares your thoughts on this. Adam?”
Adam smirks without making eye contact with anyone and flips his card over. It reads: “That’s pretty sexist, dude.”
Now, does Adam seem a touch too proud of himself for something that should be common sense to anyone who respects women?
Yes. Do I find myself feeling incredibly fond of him regardless?
Also yes. It’s possible I just fell the tiniest bit in love with him.
Which is a testament to my untapped acting skills.
I’ve committed to the role of Besotted Newlywed, and am, frankly, impressed with myself.
Jonathan seems less impressed.
“Is that what your wife wanted to hear, or are you as like-minded as your answer suggests?”
Adam shrugs and casts his answer card aside. “Both.”
He shoots me another wink, and I bite down on my grin.
The idea that Iris would approve of Adam comes to me unbidden.
His answers don’t seem like ones a person who has said disparaging things behind your back would give.
I want to believe that. I want to believe I’ve been projecting onto Adam all this time, and that he never spread any of the gossip about me, never listened to a word of it. I want that to be true so badly.
I’ve lost track of everyone’s score. I’m pretty sure we’re neck and neck with Chris and Harvey, who are responding now.
And of course their answers match up as well.
My foot tap-tap-taps against the stage and I sit ramrod straight on the edge of my seat as Jonathan wraps things up and turns back to the audience.
“All right, let’s give all our contestants a round of applause!
” Jonathan says. I give a few half-hearted claps, my body moving on autopilot.
A hand finds mine, Adam finally giving in to the urge to touch, or maybe the instinct to soothe my nerves.
I lace our fingers together and grip hard.
“They all did a fantastic job, but let’s see what the final tally looks like. ”
Someone from the front row of the audience stands up and passes Jonathan a piece of paper. He stares at it for a moment and then folds the paper back up. “With a total of eight correct answers, our top scoring team—and grand prize winners—are…”
Jonathan has proven he has a flair for the dramatic, but it feels like he draws the pause out for an eternity, and I am about three seconds away from launching at him and screaming, FUCKING TELL US ALREADY.
The longer Jonathan unnecessarily drags this out, the harder I squeeze the life out of Adam’s hand.
“Adam and Eleanor!” He turns toward us and claps some more, his hand meeting his bedazzled microphone. “Let’s hear it for our winners!”
“Holy shit,” Adam says beside me.
The sentiment echoes in my head, and then I’m moving.
On my feet, then jumping into Adam’s arms. He straightens to his full height and my toes lift off the ground.
His astonished laughter fills my ear and his warm breath huffs down my neck.
I loosen my hold on him enough to lean back and look him in the eye.
His smile slips into something more serious, hazel eyes growing heated as his gaze flickers down to my mouth.
Jonathan’s mic’d voice and the smattering of applause filter away, until all that remains is Adam.
His strong arms holding me up and his soft hair brushing against the back of my wrist and his lips—full and slightly chapped—meeting mine in an adrenaline-fueled, celebratory kiss.