Kissed by Reality (5 page)

I
wasn’t neglected
as a child. I had a normal, average life, with normal, average parents who had loved me just the same as any other person who had a normal, average family. Sure, they had their bad parenting moments and I’d had the usual temper tantrums in my teenage years. But my life had been good. Normal.

I say this because that was one of the first things the media attacked when my relationship imploded in front of the entire country, splayed out in six-page spreads any Sally Homemaker could browse on her trip through the grocery store checkout line.

Going on Mr. Right, and then Right Now Island, had nothing to do with wanting attention, with feeling neglected in my youth. Flirting with Ian had nothing to do with my daddy issues.

Sure, he’d left my mother and I when I was in my freshman year of high school. We were sad, but we’d moved on. I didn’t harbor any resentment towards him or his new family, we still spoke, just not often. Like I said, normal, average childhood. Tons of kids grew up with divorce and survived perfectly well. Thrived actually.

On Right Now Island, I’d simply put my trust in the wrong people, been too naive about the beast that was this reality TV franchise, or show business in general. I thought that I’d always be the franchise darling, that they’d give me good cuts and I’d be able to fall in love. That they were happy for Finn and I.

But Mitchell, Chuck and their minions were teddy-bears with razor sharp teeth and poisonous smiles. Their venom and cruelty were masked behind supportive hand holds and gentle coaxing.

I had been in love with Finn by the time they asked me to start flirting with the other men on the show. I didn’t think they’d give me a bad edit. I didn’t they’d use it all against me, only to bring my relationship, and my world, crumbling down around me.

So I flirted and teased. I shook my ass and scampered around in teeny tiny bathing suits while Finn slept, probably dreaming of our life after the show. I let the show and the producers make me the person I never wanted to become.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved being on each show, being part of this franchise. I’d never really had anything I wanted to pursue, anything I was good at. And suddenly I was. I was great at being Leighton Aldridge, superstar of Mr. Right fame.

Only too late did I realize that this all meant fucking nothing. That without Finn, without love, my entire life was pointless.

That’s why I was back. Why I would make myself look desperate and crazy to the American TV audience. Why I would take all of the insults Finn slung at me, why I would trudge through the shit with him.

I needed Finn. Wanted him. Loved him. I’d found the person I was put on this planet for, and I wasn’t giving up until I was bruised, beaten and bloody.

Plus, my mother wouldn’t allow it.

I’d showed Finn my cards earlier than I would have liked, but I needed to move into the next phase of Operation Win Finn’s Heart. We needed to work through our issues, all of the hurt and unspoken baggage between us. Finn knowing the reason why I came back? It was a good thing, even if I wished I could have kept it closer to the vest for a little while.

Today was another one-on-one date, and you could cut the tension and jealousy in the house with a knife. After Finn sent two women, whose names I’d already forgotten, packing three days ago at the Charm Ceremony, the girls were skittish.

This week would feature the single date between Alexandra, a slim redhead who worked in pharmaceutical sales, and Finn. There was another group date with four women, as well as a group date with 10 of the ladies. Only three women didn’t get a date this week, and Erin, my roommate and one of the only girls I respected here, and I were two of them.

“I’m definitely not getting a charm this week.” She swirled her wine glass as her feet skimmed the water of the pool.

Erin had the kind of body I’d always wished for; slim and athletic with a round little butt and boobs. She looked like a shorter version of Candace Swanepoel, but with brunette hair and the same iridescent green eyes as one of the most famous Angels.

I rolled my big brown ones, pushing my sunglasses up on my nose as my float made its way to the other end of the infinity pool. While competing against 20, well now 18, other women was exhausting, at least the perks were good. Nothing to do all day but primp, drink wine and tan on a hill overlooking Los Angeles in all of its glory. The months that I got to do this were nice indeed.

“You’re going to stay. The second week dates are always for girls the lead isn’t sure about. It’s a good thing if you don’t get a date, it means he’s so sure about you that he’s going to keep you. Have you never watched this show?”

I flicked a pink manicured finger into the water and splashed her. Readjusting, my strapless lilac one piece twisted and gave me a wedgie, my hands reaching under me and burning on the hot plastic of the float. The sun was ingraining itself into my skin, and I couldn’t have been happier in that brief moment. Well, except for if Finn was in here with me.

“I’m a teacher from rural Illinois, of course I’ve watched this show. My friends were joking around when we went to Chicago and filled out applications at the casting booth. I never thought I’d actually end up here. Or that I’d actually feel a connection with Finn…”

I felt a pang of jealousy and hurt when the words left her mouth. A beat of silence passed as I circled my arms in the cool, sapphire water of the pool. This was the hard part, befriending these women when you were all after a common goal, a common end game.

Even if Erin wasn’t of the bitch variety, and I already knew her not to be, she was too sweet, she still wanted Finn. I’d watched them together, heard her and the other women’s stories from their group dates and time with him. He liked her. He liked a good amount of them.

And while I wished I was a good enough person to walk away and let him have a chance with one of the ladies I thought might be worthy of him, I wasn’t. Yes, Erin and some of the women were people I could actually see myself being friends with. But I would not let that get in the way of winning Finn’s heart. And sadly, neither would they.

“What do you think they’re doing on the date?” Erin changed subjects, sensing my distaste in her last statement.

I glanced at her as she picked at her emerald bikini top.

“I think it has to be like a drag racing thing from what the date card said.” Monica plopped down next to Erin, her feet disrupting the water as they splatted into the pool.

She was drunk, and noticeably so. That’s what girls did here. They dated Finn, or sat at the castle giving each other facials and consuming their weight in Pinot Grigio.

Monica drawled on. “You know, it said, ‘Let’s take to the track and race for my heart.’”

Erin rolled her eyes and hopped into the pool, her wine splashing over the edge of the glass as she tried to escape from Monica.

“We all heard it when Kennedy read it, stupido.” Eva, the Latino woman Finn had talked to on the patio on that first night, turned over on her lounger, the red thong bottoms riding even further up her incredible backside.

“What do you think he’s going to do on his one-on-one with Alexandra?” Monica slurred, a camera-man catching every drunken motion, each tipsy giggle. Poor girl, but I wasn’t nice enough to stop her. If it meant America seeing me in a better light, if it meant getting Finn back, I was going to sacrifice whoever or whatever it took.

“Probably took her on some cliché hot air balloon ride or something. She’s in sales, so boring.” Eva yawned and examined her cuticle, the mansion’s turret towers rising up in all of their glory behind her.

This girl’s idea of fun probably involved liquor and something illegal.

Erin swam over to me, resting her arms on my float. “Have you heard from your mom?”

Since we couldn’t talk about one of the most common topics women usually conversed about, our love lives, we talked about everything else. My mother’s illness was one of them.

“They let me talk to her almost everyday.”

Thankfully Chuck and Mitchell hadn’t objected to my terms when I’d signed on. Unlike the other girls here, I was earning a salary, which I sent home to pay for someone to run the coffee shop in my absence. And to cover whatever medical bills I could.

I was also allowed to access the outside world. The other women had to go without cellphones, television and internet for two months. I was allowed a 20 to 30 minute call with mom every day to check up on how she was doing.

I swore I could feel an ulcer of guilt forming in my gut for being here instead of with her. But she’d pulled the it’s-my-dying-wish-to-see-you-with-Finn card, and so here I was.

Floating in a pool with women I refused to get to know, waiting on a man who could either fulfill my wildest dreams, or shatter the organ in my chest into a million tiny pieces.

T
he girl kept snorting
when she laughed.

That was all I could focus on, even though she’d had her hand practically jerking my dick for the last 10 minutes of the gondola ride. I removed it from the seam of my jeans for the third time as I tried to remember her name.

Alyssa? Alicia? Jesus, Mitchell had already refreshed my memory twice on this date…ALEXANDRA! That was it.

Not that Alexandra seemed to care to get to know my name, or anything about me, either. Some women thought the key to “winning” this show was to get down on their knees and say AHHH. Or to get on their backs and spread it wide.

And although my eager dick liked the sentiment very much — I was a man after all — I was looking for a wife, not a winner.

This cliché date was already grating on my nerves and we were only half an hour into it. We were taking a gondola ride at Gondola Amor’e Romantic Dinner Cruises in Redondo Beach, and it couldn’t be further from the perfect evening.

Alexandra was hot, a stunning redhead who was also smart and had a kickass job to back it up. But it seemed that the draw of national television brought out the uber slut in her. Don’t judge me, I don’t think of women that way. But when the woman has been trying to swallow my cock on this boat as the camera crew and the gondolier all watch, I’m going to call it how I see it.

“So Alexandra, tell me about your hometown.” I try to steer our conversation onto a different course.

“Well, I’m originally from Connecticut, but now I live in New York City. I’m just such a city girl, you know? Manhattan is always just
on,
there is no need to ever leave the island. In my opinion, its just a place where people are more elite, have more drive, more everything.”

She grinned at me and batted her eyelashes as if she hadn’t just insulted the entirety of the country.

She reached for my thigh again. “Tell me about your time at war. It must have been
so
rough
. Also, has anyone ever told you that you look like Chris Evans?!”

Her eyes heat on the word rough. Jesus, she’s a shark. I’m not going to bleed even one drop into that water. Because I know as soon as I start talking about Afghanistan, not only will the demons I’ve locked away start beating on my chest to get out, but then she’ll ask about my leg. And her reaction will be the same as every other woman I’ve ever revealed my prosthetic to.

Except for one woman.

I’m sure Leighton had known about my injury before we signed up to do Right Now Island, that she’d watched my season of Mrs. Right and heard my sob story that the producers pulled out of me for better ratings.

I remember the first time she ran down the beach in her bikini, her black curls trailing behind her in the wind, a child-like smile on her face as she took those first leaps into the ocean. We’d been talking and she had just taken off like a bat out of hell.

“Come on!” She’d yelled. And I remember almost stripping down, but my insecurity had stopped me. She’d nodded to my right pant leg and asked if I wasn’t getting naked because of my bionic status. All I could do was burst out laughing and shed my clothes down to my boxers.

As she’d stood at the water’s edge, her eyes climbed my body, heat licking at her dark pupils.

“So that’s how you get the girls, huh? You flash the metal at them and they go all weak-kneed for your Megatron status,” Leighton had said.

I think I fell in love with the woman that very second.

Leighton had never let me pity myself, and she had never made me feel like I was different. Like there was something wrong with me. Ever since I’d come home two years ago, I’d felt like there was some sign in the middle of my forehead that read “Damaged Goods,” or “Wounded Veteran.” But she had never seen me that way.

I brushed the question off and turned the conversation back to her. The rest of the ride went as expected, with Alexandra trying to maul me or brag about her superior intelligence.

I grinned and beared it. We were brought back to a restaurant where authentic Italian food was set in front of us, but per filming requirements, we weren’t allowed to eat. I was more interested in the spaghetti and meatballs than I was in the date.

Which lead me to a harrowing thought. What if none of these girls could erase Leighton from my memory? What if none of them even came close to distracting me, to cleaning up the mess she’d left of me?

It was starting to be a problem. Because for the entire date, and for that matter, all of the dates I’d gone on so far, I couldn’t get Leighton out of my head, or my heart.

I
nsomnia has been
my middle name since I was 10-years-old.

Something about the night intrigued me, woke up my mind, made me think and question. Since I couldn’t shut my thoughts off, I would read. Or watch movies. Or make intricate playlists on my computer. I even had a phase where I would create whole towns in The Sims video game, toying with the characters’ emotions while the whole world slept.

Ever since Finn had left, I slept even less. Usually I had to drug or drink myself into a stupor, stumbling toward my bed for a few precious hours before waking at dawn with dry mouth and a headache.

Which was why, at 1:30 a.m., I was propped up at the kitchen counter, eating peanut butter with a spoon while I read the latest John Grisham novel.

It was dark, nothing but the under-cabinet lights illuminating the paperback. I liked it like this. Alone, quiet and masked in shadows. If anyone was to pass this room, they probably wouldn’t even see me. I’d be left in peace.

I was just getting to the good part, reading about the sexy rogue lawyer, when I heard a familiar gate across the tile floors of the mansion. I’d know it anywhere. Sturdy, but one foot dragging just a second behind, with the indiscernible click of metal.

Finn entered the room shortly after and I stayed stock still, watching him walk to the fridge. He wore grey sweatpants that rode low on his hips and nothing else. Those incredible abs, sculpted like only a former Marine could have, were on full display as the fridge light flooded the room, lighting up his body.

I could make out the lines leading down beneath the band of his pants, a place I’d been up close and personal with, a place I’d worshiped. A place that had supplied me with more pleasure than I’d ever had in my life.

His back muscles flexed as he bent down to grab something, and that spectacular ass pushed against the thin heather grey material. Finn stood back up and I could make out the blonde hair plastered to the side of his face. Only then could I see the sweat rolling down his neck, the way his free hand fisted and un-fisted. If he turned around and looked me in the eye, I would bet anything that a haunted, frightened look swam in those indigo pools.

“You’re still having nightmares?” I said quietly.

Finn startled. “What the fuck, Leighton! I didn’t even know you were there.”

I eyed him. “Looks like your military precision is starting to slip. So, they’re back?”

Finn put the turkey and mustard down on the counter. “What are you even doing…oh. Insomnia, still?”

I forgot he knew me. “Always. So the night terrors, they’re back?”

Finn sighed, turning to the cabinet for bread, and I knew he was probably too exhausted to fight with me. “They never really left, only subsided when we were sleeping…”

He caught himself, but I knew where his train of thought was going. “Sleeping in the same bed? I know, my insomnia calmed down too.”

Finn hesitated, locking eyes with me and then slowly grazing over my body, which was barely covered in my tiny shorts and oversized tee. Or, his oversized tee. I knew he realized it when his eyes, the color of dark denim, turned into saucers. His head immediately snapped back down to focus on his late night snack.

Silence descended over us as he spread mustard on the wheat bread, lathering each corner of the doughy surface.

I tried again. “You didn’t want to go down to craft services? We don’t have pickles for you to put on that.”

He knew I knew he was missing his favorite ingredient. Still looking at his sandwich, Finn answered. “I didn’t want to see anyone. I thought I’d be alone here. In the quiet. Clearly I was wrong.”

His little dig of this battle. I got it, he needed to make his anger towards me known. Didn’t mean I couldn’t ignore it.

“I get that. It’s nice to be here at this time of night. It’s actually pretty beautiful and peaceful when production and drunk girls aren’t running around.”

Finn’s full upper lip twitched and I could tell he was fighting back a smile. He moved to the stool across the kitchen island from me, and I saw him wince as he slid on, taking the weight off of his right leg.

My heart twinged. He was in pain from wearing his prosthetic at all times, and was too insecure and proud to take it off in front of these girls.

“You know you’re only hurting yourself by wearing it all day, every day. If these girls don’t want to see the real you, they shouldn’t be here.”

Finn held his emotion in, but I saw the tiny flinch as he situated his body on the stool and took a bite of his sandwich. “I’m fine.”

I stood, sliding the last lump of peanut butter from the spoon and into my mouth where it stuck to the roof. I walked to Finn, “Take it off.”

His body went rigid, and he continued to face forward instead of acknowledging where I stood on his right side. “What?”

“Not your clothes, sweetheart. Although since we both can’t sleep, we might as well be doing something fun. But really, take your leg off.”

He still ignored me, taking a slow bite and chewing. I saw the dimple in his right cheek move with the motion, and a rush of heat filled my core. I could just remember that face, those dimples widening before descending on my lips, his body pressing into mine…

I shook my head, physically trying to clear the daydreams clinging like cobwebs to my mind.

“Finn, you will either take your leg off yourself, or I’ll be forced to attack a self-pitying cripple. Your choice.”

He grumbled and threw down the sandwich, his eyebrows rising in condescension as he turned to face me. “You don’t quit, do you?”

And even though he bitched the whole way through it, he rolled up his grey sweats, exposing his prosthesis. The metal was like some futuristic contraption with silver, orange and blue steel ending in a blade runner foot. I found it sexy as hell.

Finn looked up at the ceiling as he undid the suction cup and braces that attached the prosthesis to his leg. He didn’t want to see my reaction, even though I’d told him countless times I loved him even more so because of his unique characteristics, because of his past.

I helped him pull it off, the quiet pucker of the suction cup dislodging from his limb echoing in the quiet kitchen. Placing the prosthetic on the counter, I got on my knees in front of his outstretched right leg.

The amputation, or so he told me, was a picture perfect one. Nearly a clean sever after the bomb exploded.

Just below Finn’s knee, a neat scar ended the human flesh portion of his leg. It was like someone had tied up all of the bones, tendons and skin in a nice bow. There was barely even a ripple, the scar so perfect it was nothing more than a straight line joining two flaps of skin together.

I ran my thumb over it, massaging the scar ending like I knew he loved.

Finn audibly groaned, a husky growl in the back of his throat and I couldn’t help the tingle of lust that crackled straight down my spine. There was an angry red ring circling around his skin from where his prosthetic connected, and I knew it must have been uncomfortable spending so much time on his feet with these ladies.

I started up at the top of his thigh, not far enough that I’d be touching him too intimately, but enough that I could feel his muscles in knots.

Both of his legs were roped with muscle and built in the way only a Marine could be, but his right quad bulged just a little more than the left. He had to work twice as hard on this leg, and it showed.

I moved my fingers and hands up and down his quad, from the knotted muscles to his knee-ending. I applied pressure in the spots that looked extra overworked, and was rewarded with growls, grunts and hisses of appreciation.

I was happy just to be touching him, to be bringing him some amount of joy. Even if his head was tilted toward the ceiling, his eyes closed in pleasure. Finn’s posture was the same one he used to assume when I would close my lips around his cock and run my tongue up and down his shaft.

That image had my slit dampening to the point of squirming. I wondered if he was doing the same.

After a while, one of his hands came down on mine. “Thank you.”

It was sincere, and I couldn’t help the small smile that spread across my lips. But I knew when I was being dismissed. And I was leaving before he could say anything else.

I rose quietly and backed out of the room, our eyes locked until I had to turn the corner.