Bedroom Games (21 page)

“Maybe they ran out of challenge ideas,”
Marla suggested and stubbed out her cigarette before getting to her
feet.

Maybe so.

We headed to the challenge area that had been
roped off and curtained. Since Brodie had Power, he’d be running
the challenge. And since we were singles now, I could compete. I
lined up with the others and waited for the curtains to be pulled
back.

Brodie grabbed the card that dangled from a
rope and began to read. “Hello, contestants. This is your last
reward challenge of the season, so we’ve decided to make this one
truly worth your while. Today, you’ll participate in a zombie
party. It’s kind of like musical chairs, but with a twist.” He put
down the card and grabbed the cord to the immense challenge-area
curtain, dragging it backward and revealing the challenge area.

I blinked. It looked like a giant ball pit.
Well, sort of. If ball-pits were a swimming pool filled with
reddish water and small pink and green balls. More of the foggy
mist from nearby smoke machines covered the area.

Brodie pulled out the card again. “This pit
is filled to the brim with balls. Some have been weighted so
they’ll sink, and some will float. The pit is once again filled
with blood—”

We all groaned, remembering the goopy ‘blood’
from the first challenge.

“—
and when I say go,” Brodie
continued reading, “you’ll all dive in and look for a ball shaped
like a brain. Grab one and proceed to one of the chairs on the
sidelines.” He pointed at the row of pink and green chairs on the
edge of the tank. Only five were lined up. “The last person to
arrive with a brain will not have a chair, and they will be out.
Once that round is completed, five will fight, and four will move
on to the next round. We’ll continue the challenge in such a
fashion until we get down to two people. The last person to win a
chair gets the ultimate reward—twenty-five thousand
dollars.”

I sucked in a breath so loudly that the
others turned to look at me. I didn’t care.

Twenty-five thousand dollars would go a
really long way towards helping Mom. It meant that even if I didn’t
win, I’d have a little bit of security for a time. Maybe we could
figure out what to do about her mortgages and her gambling
issues.

I needed to win this. I trembled at the
thought of twenty five grand. Twenty-five grand would pay off the
most pressing credit card debt and allow my mom to catch up on her
two mortgages. It’d be gone in a flash, but it was a start, and one
I desperately needed.

“Does everyone understand the rules?” Brodie
looked down the line, and his gaze seemed to linger on me for a
moment. “Ready? Go!”

We raced across the challenge area and
stumbled our way into the pool. The challenge pool was only about
three feet deep, but the balls—and the goo covering everything—made
it hard to move around. I settled for slowly mucking through,
grabbing at each ball. They were all the size of a fist, and upon
closer inspection, not all of them were regularly shaped. Some were
footballs, some were shaped like eggs, and some just looked as if
they’d been half-deflated and shoved into the water. More
balls—weighted ones—smacked against my legs in the syrupy goo.
Trying to find a ‘brain’ in this was going to be like finding a
needle in a haystack.

At my side, Sunnie squealed and held
something aloft and then began to slowly trudge her way out of the
pool. Well, shit. If she could find one, surely I could. I began to
grab at the shifting, squirming balls under the water, looking for
ridges or irregular shapes. A brain would have something like that,
right?

I spotted one a few feet from me by sheer
chance, and I dove for it. I plowed into the muck face-first but
was successful in grabbing it. As I dripped my way out of the pool,
I thumped into a seat with a whoop, soaked from head to toe in red
goop.

A few moments later, Jendan was out of the
pool and slamming into a seat. Fido and Jayme were next, and Marla
was still in the pool. She threw her hands up in disgust as the
buzzer sounded.

“Marla is out,” Brodie announced. “Everybody
stand up again.”

We did, and he took one of the chairs away.
When we deposited the ‘brain’ balls in a bucket at his feet, we
headed back to the starting area. At his call, we dove in for the
next round.

This time, I was the first one to slosh out
of the pit with my prize. One by one, the others emerged until only
Fido was left. He wiped goop off his cheek and shook his head as he
moved to go sit next to Marla.

Jendan won the next round, and the two after
it. I hung with him, though, and when the final round began, it was
just Jendan and me. I practically danced with excitement. I was
nervous, of course, and exhausted from slogging through the muck
back and forth, but I wanted that money so bad I could taste it at
this point. I’d endure for a bit longer if it meant I’d get that
safety net of twenty-five thousand dollars.

The other girls cheered for me when I got in
place for the final round. “You just give up now, Jendan,” I called
out. “That money’s mine.”

“Kandis wants that money bad,” Sunnie called.
“Better not get in her way.”

Jendan just looked over at me and grinned,
his face smeared with red. His teeth seemed unnaturally white in
his face. “That so? You need the money?”

“More than you know,” I said, and I gave a
small laugh to take the seriousness out of my words.

“Final round,” Brodie called from his place
at the sidelines, where the final chair remained. “Ready? Go!”

Jendan and I tore back into the pool,
splashing through the thick, murky red water and dragging our hands
through the myriad balls. My breathing was shallow with anxiety. I
had to find one before he did. Had to. Minutes passed and I
couldn’t find one on the surface, so I dragged my hands through the
water, looking for the ones that bobbed below. My stomach was in
hard knots—I needed this so bad. Just one brain! Just one! Surely I
could find one. At my side, Jendan dragged his hands through the
water, having no more luck than me.

“Come on,” I muttered. “I need this. Come
on.”

“You need it bad, huh?” Jendan was at my
side, pushing through the sea of sliding, gooey pink and green
balls.

“I do,” I said, pushing aside a pile that was
off to my left. “You have no idea how badly.”

“Mmm,” was all he said. He pushed through a
nearby pile.

I turned to look at him. As soon as I did, I
spotted one. It lay atop a pile of its siblings, drippy lines of
red coating it.

It was also right next to Jendan’s hand. As I
watched, he looked at me, down at it, and then deliberately, slowly
turned away.

He was letting me win.

I could have kissed the man. I lunged for the
brain and grasped it in my hand, feeling a surge of success that
mingled with my guilt. He was letting me win…because I needed it
more than a stuntman, maybe? Whatever the reason, Jendan had my
thanks. Hauling ass (well, as much as one could in a pool of
clinging goo), I headed to the final chair and slid into it. I
raised the brain into the air and gave a victorious cheer.

“Winner!” Brodie grabbed my messy, sticky arm
and raised it above my head. “Kandis gets the twenty-five
grand!”

I whooped again and immediately burst into
tears, emotional. Twenty-five grand would help so much. It meant
digging Mom out of the hole, even if it was only a little. It meant
I wouldn’t have to get a second—or third—job to keep her above
water.

And Jendan let me win it.

“Aw, she’s so emotional,” Sunnie said.

Brodie and I high-fived each other, reluctant
to hug and get our clothing stuck to each other. When Jendan came
to my side, though, I threw my arms around his neck and hugged the
heck out of him. “You are the best man ever,” I told him in a low
voice.

He laughed and gave me a tight hug back.
“Nah. I just know what it’s like to need the money.”

I stiffened and pulled away from him, our
shirts peeling apart with a wet noise. Shame filled me. “Oh god.
Did you need the money—”

He shook his head. “No, I’m fine. I was
speaking in past tense. It’s your win.”

I hugged him again, tears streaking down my
face.

“All right, all right,” Marla said in a sour
voice. “You two get a room.”

I giggled through my tears and pulled away
from Jendan. “Ugh. Speaking of rooms, I need a shower.” I glanced
over at Brodie, grinning.

He wasn’t smiling. In fact, he’d left
entirely and headed into the house.

~~ * ~~

There was one good thing about having
wickedly short hair — it took no time at all to clean it. I took a
quick shower to clean off after the challenge and raked a comb
through my wet locks, and then I dressed in my favorite yoga pants
and an off-the-shoulder tee before heading back into the Power
room.

Brodie was there, sitting on the edge of the
bed, waiting for me.

I tossed my towel in the laundry basket and
headed to the bed, sitting on the edge next to him. “What’s
bothering you?”

He regarded me for a long moment and then
leaned backward and propped his head up on one hand, laying on his
side. His fingers traced a pattern on the blanket that reminded me
of the touches he’d given my inner thighs last night, and I clamped
my legs shut in memory.

And he still said nothing. I nudged him with
my hand. “Something’s bothering you. It’s not like the infamous
Brodie Short to be silent and pensive.”

I was hoping he’d laugh at my joke, but his
mouth only cocked in a half smile and he continued to trace
patterns on the blanket with his other hand. “I saw Jendan throw
the challenge. He picked that ball up, looked at you, and then
tossed it down. Two seconds later, you grabbed it.”

So he’d noticed that? I nodded. “I know. He
let me win.”

“You want to tell me why Jendan would throw
away twenty-five grand?”

“Because he doesn’t need it? I imagine
stuntmen are paid pretty well,” I said, and ran a hand through my
wet hair again, oddly nervous. I felt like a kid that had been
caught with a hand in the cookie jar.

“Yeah, but I don’t think that’s it. Is there
something going on between you two that I should know about?”

I gaped. “Are you kidding me?”

He shrugged, trying to seem all casual. “I
know you and I are pretty cozy. I know you’re also cozy with him.
I’m just wondering if it’s the same kind of cozy.”

I sucked in a breath. How dare he? I shoved
him and began to push off the bed. “Fuck you—”

Brodie’s arms grabbed me and hauled me back
down on the bed. “Oh no you don’t.”

“Let me go!”

“Not until we talk.” He wriggled over my
flailing body until his weight pinned me onto the bed. Brodie
looked down at me. “I want to know what’s going on.”

“Nothing’s going on, you suspicious turd,” I
told him, glaring up at him over me. “You’re the only one I’m
fooling around with in this house, and I question the wisdom of
doing that as it is.”

“Do you, now.” A slow, wicked smile curved
his mouth. “You find hooking up with me unwise?”

“Horribly unwise,” I said, my voice breathy.
I was still angry, but that anger was giving way to desire faster
than my brain could process his nearness. I was so close that I
could reach out and lick his perfect chin. Not that I wanted to do
that, of course. Not that licking Brodie was wise. In fact, it was
downright stupid.

And stupid was going to end up costing me in
this game. I just knew it.

He wiggled his eyebrows at me. “Wanna do some
unwise stuff right now?”

I shoved at him. “No.”

“That’s cool,” he said, and his hands
tightened on my pinned wrists. “That just means you can tell me all
about why Jendan just gave you twenty-five grand instead of trying
to get it for himself. You homeless outside of here or
something?”

To my horror, tears welled in my eyes. Man,
he hit the nail on the head pretty close there. “Not exactly.”

The look on Brodie’s face turned from
calculating to concerned. He rolled off of me and then hauled me up
until I was sitting upright. “What is it? Talk to me, Kandis. We’re
partners.”

I swiped at the tears running down my face.
“It’s stupid. I mean, everyone has their reasons for being here,
don’t they? Mine are no more important than everyone else’s.”

“You let me be the judge of that,” Brodie
said, and he reached out and brushed a stray tear off my jaw. “Now,
spit it out.”

“It’s my mom,” I said in an anxious rush.
“She’s a gambling addict. She goes to the casinos every weekend and
spends every dollar she has. I don’t know how long it’s been going
on, but I do know that at this time, she has two mortgages on her
house and is behind on both of them. She’s about to lose her house.
Her credit card debt is insane, her car was just repossessed, she
has no grocery money, and she still somehow finds money to go to
the casino. I don’t make enough at my job to help take care of her.
I’ve been trying to, but it’s not working.” The stress of it all
just made my eyes brim all over again.

“And what is it you do outside of this house?
You said you were a student, but I’m guessing that’s a lie.”

A wry smile curved my mouth. “I’m a Zumba
instructor at a fitness club.”

His eyes widened with appreciation, and he
gave me one of those heart-melting grins. “That explains why you
have an ass that won’t quit, then. Damn. That’s hot.”

I sniffed. Why was it that Brodie’s
commentary could always bring a smile out of me no matter how sad I
was? “So what do you do outside of here? Other than show up on
reality TV, of course.”

“I wait tables.” He grinned. “Actually, I
wanted to use the shows to springboard my way into Hollywood.”