Walk of Shame (32 page)

The next morning, I was up super
early. I showered, dressed, and made breakfast for the guys. Scrambled eggs,
bacon, toast, and home fries waited for them as their noses had them drifting
over to the campsite. And, since I was the only one of the six of us that was
hooked up to utilities, and we were all still being filmed, they all took quick
turns in my shower to get cleaned up for the day.

I was cleaning up the kitchen
when Mike got out of the shower, waited for Jared to go into the bathroom, then
stole a kiss from me before grabbing pots and pans to wash for me.

We broke camp and were back on
the road by nine o'clock. With all the interviews done, I spent most of the
trip stretched out on the couch in Troy's RV, reading a new novel by one of my
favorite authors. Goldie found a comfortable spot on the floor and snoozed.

When we finally pulled onto the
lot for the full hookup sites, Chloe was standing in the center of them all,
tapping her foot and smiling at me. I threw open the door, feeling nothing
other than relief at seeing her, and ran to get a hug and pull her out of the
way.

Men descended to start the
process of making the necessary connections to settle the rigs in. They'd found
someone else, someone who actually knew what they were doing, to drive my truck
and he took over hooking everything up. He'd backed the fifth wheel into the
spot like a pro, so I felt okay letting him handle it.

We still had a few hours of
daylight left, so while men busted their butts, Chloe and I decided to pull out
my foldable boat and take it out onto the lake to talk. That left production
scrambling to scrounge up another boat to send out a camera crew to follow us.
Chloe got the experience of having a microphone and power pack taped to her so
we could be heard from a distance.

We paddled out into the middle of
the lake before laying our paddles down to drift for a while.

"Okay," Chloe said,
reaching into her pocket to pull out a piece of paper and a pen. "So, I
copied these out of a magazine. I'm going to ask you a series of questions and
you have to give me a name for each one. Each name gets one point, and the one
with the most points wins. Okay?"

I stared at her in disbelief for
a moment, but then shrugged my shoulders because at this point, a stupid
magazine quiz couldn't hurt. "Sure."

"Who intrigues you?"

I let my eyes roll. "They
all intrigue me, that's why they're still here."

"Emmy, you have to try."

"Well, what do you want me
to do? They all fit the bill."

"Okay, no more than two
names per question."

"How am I supposed to narrow
it down?"

"Can you justify being
intrigued by each one with specific reasons?"

"Um..."

"Exactly. So, give me a name
and a reason for your intrigue."

"I'm intrigued by Mike and
what pushes him to constantly do more, be more. And I'm intrigued by Phillip
and his desire to actively seek out a wife after his first one died."

"Okay, who impresses
you?"

"Mike, because of all he's
overcome. And Jared because his manners and thoughtfulness are impeccable,
despite wading around in reptile infested waters, it's all very contradictory
in my mind."

"Who surprises you?"

"Jared surprises me by how
much I like him, even knowing what he does for a living. And Stephen because he
just comes out of nowhere and calls me out on ignoring him and then tells me he
has a skill like piloting."

"Who stands out to
you?"

"Liam, because how could he
not? And Mike, maybe because he makes himself a part of my day with the
workouts."

"Who makes you smile?"

"Mike. He's made me frown,
but the smiles always seem bigger and better."

"Who is your typical
type?"

"I think it's the idea of Phillip's
maturity and sweetness that I'm always chasing."

"Who isn't your typical
type?"

"Jared."

"Who is your fantasy
man?"

"Liam."

"And who are you most
relaxed with?"

"Mike, I guess because we've
spent so much time together. And Liam, because there's just something about him
that shuts down all my defenses."

"Okay, last question. If one
of them snuck into your bedroom tonight, and you knew that no one could find
out about it, which guy would you want it to be?"

"My gut reaction says Liam.
And then it says that a question like that wasn't in a magazine."

She smiled. "Maybe I added a
question or two of my own. Okay, let me count these up..."

She tallied the points up and I
sat waiting to see if it would shed any light on the problem for me.

"Okay," Chloe said.
"Mike comes in first with five points."

"Wow."

"Liam comes in next with
four points."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"Jared has three, Phillip
two, and Stephen has one."

"Well, they line right up
there, don't they?"

"Did it help?"

"Yeah, it did, but I don't
like that it did."

"Why?"

"Because, they're all great,
and to favor a couple over the others, it means being great isn't enough and
I'll have to let them go."

"I'm sorry."

"You know, I thought this
was going to be so fun. I had no idea how crappy this was going to start
feeling once I got down to this point. How am I supposed to look at someone
every week from here on out and tell them that I like them, that outside of
here they could be the one, but sorry, you gotta go for no good reason?"

Chloe just frowned and shook her
head. "I don't know. I never realized that this was going to suck so much
for you."

"And I still come back to,
if there is only one guy meant for me, and I screw it up because my mind is
spinning with all of them, what do I do then? I could get rid of the right one
and end up with a guy that I'll break up with Five months later. That's my
worst nightmare, Mr. Right slipping through my fingers because I didn't have
the good sense to grip on tight when I had him right in front of me. I'm not kidding.
This is starting to keep me up at night."

"Em, I -"

I raked a hand through my hair. "And
the guys! They like me. I mean, they really like me. They're over there making
plans for babies and how we can blend our lives together. I have to break four
hearts, and I don't know how to do that! I've already broken one, and once I
realized I'd broken it, I felt like shit. I don't know if I can do this."

Chloe was shocked over how upset
I genuinely was over the situation. "Emmy, I've never, ever seen you not finish
something once you've committed to it."

"I don't want to quit. I
want the guy at the end of this. I really, really want this to work. But I'm
just at a loss as to how to make that happen."

"Come on, let's paddle back
and start figuring this out."

We got back to the shore and drug
the boat up onto dry land to park it for the night.

Jared walked over to us in the
fading light with a big smile on his face. "Chloe, the others have a
campfire going so you can join them and start getting to know everyone."

Chloe's eyes swept over him.
"And where will you be?"

His smiling eyes swung over to
me. "On the lake, wooing your sister."

She covered a giggle. "Well
someone certainly should. Good job." She pranced off to join the others.

I watched her go and then turned
to Jared. "All right, what's the plan?"

He pointed over to a rowboat.
"We're going out in that."

"Yours?"

"Rental."

We headed over and he had the
boat packed. "How long are we going to be out on the lake?" I asked
with a laugh.

"A couple hours. Just go with
it."

Now I understood why the camera
crew that had been out in a boat, following Chloe and I around, had stayed out
there. We floated the boat out and climbed in. Jared grabbed the oars and
started paddling me back out to the middle.

He chuckled. "You're really
having a hard time with this aren't you?"

"With which particular
aspect?"

"Letting go of the control
over where you're taken."

I sighed. "See, when I was
calling the shots, each of you was pulled away once or twice a week. Reverse
that and I'm being pulled over and over again, in whichever direction the wind
blows. And, yes, it gets a bit overwhelming, so I have a hard time."

"Do you need to hole
yourself up for the rest of the night to decompress?"

"No. I just needed a moment
to wrap my mind around coming back out. I was planning to sit around the
campfire, with the group, but I did that last night. I'm glad to get back to
spending one-on-one time, and I'm glad it's you tonight."

He smiled. "You would have
said that no matter which one had grabbed you."

I returned the smile. "Yes,
but I mean it more with you," I said with a wink.

"Okay," he pulled in
the oars, laid them along the side, slid off his seat, folded down the seat
back, pulled a lever, and slid the whole seat to the end of the boat. "Now
you," he said with a gesture towards my seat.

Amused, I slid off and fumbled my
way through repeating his actions on my seat.

"Okay, now sit back up on
that folded chair," he instructed as he started unrolling a length of foam
and then laid a couple sleeping bags over it before placing two pillows on the
floor of the boat.

I grinned down at the sight.

"What?" he asked.

"I'm just trying to figure
out if we're stargazing, or if I'm about to rack up a first for myself."

That got a full smile from him.
"Don't tempt me to tempt you, because I'd do it in a heartbeat."

I let my eyes connect with his.
"Ah, then we must be out here to stargaze." I slid back down off my
seat and picked a side to stretch out on.

He laughed and lay down beside me
and I turned to snuggle into his side before gazing upward. "We're a
little early for all the stars. We'll have to give the planet a few more
minutes to keep spinning around," he said.

I turned back to him, reached a
hand over to turn his face toward mine, then lifted up on an elbow to lean over
him and kiss him once. "Oh, damn," I said before kissing him again.
"What could we possibly come up with to do while we wait?"

He lifted up to kiss me, then
turned us so that he was leaning over me. "You are a little
temptress," he whispered in his southern drawl, before I pulled him down
to me.

Hands got a little unruly before
we came up for air and realized that the night sky was on full display for us.

"Maybe, in a month or so, we
can make that first happen for you," Jared whispered after about twenty
minutes of staring into the sky and discussing thoughts about aliens and other
habitable planets out there.

"Well, if this boat keeps up
its gentle rocking with the waves, it's gonna happen tonight."

He turned his head to look at me
with raised eyebrows. "It happens that easily for you?"

I smiled into the darkness, fully
aware of the soft chuckle that came from the crew boat floating about twenty
feet away, still listening to our conversation through their headsets.
"I've never been one to have any difficulty with it."

"Well, yeah, but... We're
not talking about the same thing, are we?"

I giggled at him. "I'm
talking about falling asleep and spending the night right here, floating around
in the boat."

He snorted. "Oh, hell. We
could do that. The other guys can't get mad, we're out here in full view of
cameras and anyone else who paddled through the dark."

"You just want to be able to
brag about it."

"Hey, that's just a side
benefit to it. And I have to admit, I've never done it, either. The idea is
interesting, and I don't know why."

I laughed and snuggled in a bit
closer. "I guess if production doesn't like it, they can come out here and
fetch us themselves."

He wrapped his arm around me a
little snugger. "So, because now I have to know, have you ever... in a
rowboat?"

"You don't really want to
know that."

"Yeah, I do. I want to know
what kind of girl I have to look forward to," he teased.

I smiled into the dark and let
out a single chuckle under my breath. "Yes, I have."

"Really? How'd that go?"

"Cramped. His seats didn't
slide back out of the way like this one's do."

He laughed. "Poor girl. Were
you at least on top?"

"Hell, no. I was on the
bottom, getting my head banged into the built-in bench seat."

He laughed a little harder.
"Oh, no!"

"I got a splinter in my ass,
too."

His laughter echoed across the
lake. "Sounds like he was completely unprepared."

"We were sixteen. Prepared
was making sure you had a condom that wasn't expired."

"Oh, Lord," he said,
still laughing, "yes, it was." He calmed down as we fell silent, but
moments later, he broke the silence. "How'd you get the splinter
out?"

I grinned. "That's what
having a little sister is for."

"Ha! Poor Chloe."

"Poor Chloe, my ass. I had
to pay her twenty dollars to do it, and another thirty to keep her mouth shut
after I told her how I got it. If I had been older, I'd have known enough to
lie to her about it."

"Sounds like you two had a
lot of fun growing up."

I grinned. "I got my money
back two years later."

He was already laughing.
"How?"

"She snuck off to make out
in the woods with a guy our Mom hated. And while she was out there, she got a
tick that I had to remove for her because she couldn't see it well enough to
get it off herself."

"Was it on her ass?"

"No, the underside of her
boob."

"I feel so sorry for your
Dad, having to raise the two of you." He nuzzled my neck, nipped at my
earlobe, and whispered, "Naughty little girls."