Walk of Shame (43 page)

"This is ridiculous,"
Chloe said. "There's supposed to be one perfect guy out there for each of
us. Are you trying to tell me you've found two?"

"Maybe. And, I mean, who
says there's only one guy out there? What about people who find their match,
marry him, he dies, and she finds another one? If those people get two, why
can't I have two?"

"But you can't marry two. At
least not in this country."

"What the hell am I supposed
to do!?"

"Why are you forcing
yourself to make this decision before you have to? You're obviously not
ready."

"Because this is tearing me
up inside. I can't eat. I can't sleep. I'm not okay. I can't drag this out
another week. And if I'm like this, I can't imagine what the guys are going
through."

"Okay, so, if they're both
Mr. Perfect, then does it really matter which one you choose?"

"What if I only think
they're both perfect. What if one really is, but the other one only seems like
he is, but he's not, and we end up divorced? That kind of thing happens all the
time. And I'll have thrown away the real Mr. Perfect."

"You're making me
dizzy."

"You're making me
frustrated. Help!"

"Okay! All right... All right...
Uh... Oh! How do you feel in Mike's arms?"

I took a breath and imagined
standing in his arms. "He re-centers me. The world falls away, and my head
becomes clear. And then I get distracted and turned on."

"Okay. And how do you feel
in Liam's arms?"

"Safe, protected. Like the
rest of the world just doesn't matter. And then I get distracted and turned
on."

"Isn't that just about the
same thing?"

"Yeah. Look, I need you to
work some sort of magic here. Figure out how to make this decision click in my
head for me."

"Okay! Okay... Oh, I got it!
I got it. Ready? What's the one thing you want to be able to look at one of
them and say to yourself?"

Without thinking, I opened my
mouth and answered. "I'm so...ld." My mind flashed back to the night
of the limos.

Chloe laughed. "I knew you
were going to say that."

I gave the phone a disbelieving
look. "How?"

"Do you read your own books?
At some point, the heroine always thinks about the hero and uses the phrase,
'I'm sold'."

"Seriously?"

"Yes. Do you remember your
first impressions of Liam and Mike?"

"Yeah."

"How do you even
remember?"

"Do you know how many times
I've watched that footage? How many times they've gone back and asked me to
view highlights of each guy, beginning with our initial meeting, and outline
the progression of each relationship for them?"

"Okay, you remember. Aaaaand?"

"One of them made me say
'I'm done'. The other made me say 'I'm sold'."

"'I'm done' sounds like you
don't want to debate anymore. But 'I'm sold' sounds like there's nothing left
to debate."

"I can't believe you just
broke that down and made it so simple."

"Yeah, but I'm twenty-one
and just a big flirt. Plus, your initial responses to them weren't based upon
anything but a gut-reaction. You... you know who you need."

I sighed. I knew who I needed,
but I wasn't sure how to make it happen. "Is she home?"

"Yeah."

"Is she still mad about
this?"

"She's still cleaning. The
house sparkles."

I sighed. "Put your phone on
speaker and hold it near her."

Chloe snickered. "I love it
when you let me be a fly on the wall."

I listened to Chloe hit a button,
get up, and open the door. "Mom," she called into the other room.
"You got a minute?"

"Yeah," I heard Mom
say.

"All right, go," Chloe
said.

"Mom," I called into
the phone. "Mom, I need you. I know you don't approve, and I'm sorry I'm
making different life choices from anything you'd have ever considered. I'm
sorry that I'm not the daughter you wanted and I'm all kinds of nontraditional
and un-rooted. But I need you. For five minutes, please, I need my mommy."

I could hear someone handling the
phone and tapping a button, taking me off speakerphone. "I've never not
wanted you," Mom said, to my relief. "I just don't feel like I
understand you."

"It's the same for me, too.
But I still love you with all my heart," I said.

"You know that goes both
ways," she said.

"I do. Which is how I know
that you'll give me sane advice."

"What's the matter?"

"I've got two great guys
left. I mean, really great for me guys."

"What do you want from
me?"

"How can I choose? If they
both seem like I could be happy with either one, if they're both so great and
wonderful. If I'm certain that if I'd met either one of them in my normal life,
I'd still have known he was the one. If I can come up with no reason to
eliminate either one of them, how do I know which one I should leave behind?"

She held her silence for a moment
before letting out a sigh. "You're looking at it all wrong."

"I'm begging you to
enlighten me, please, Mom."

She let out half a chuckle.
"Love and marriage isn't about finding someone you can live with. It's
about finding someone you can't live without. Who is it going to devastate you
to say goodbye to? And if the answer is neither one, then you still haven't
found a husband yet, no matter what that cockamamie show claims."

I thought about it for a moment,
picturing saying goodbye to each of them, and measuring the ache in my heart
with each vision. Then I smiled into the phone. "Thank you, Mommy."

She softly grunted. "You're
welcome, baby."

I said my
goodbyes and went to go climb into my bed. Finally at peace, I drifted off to
sleep moments later for a much needed power nap.

"Are you all set?" Troy
asked from my doorway.

I turned from my laptop where I'd
been typing up a quick draft of an article about the resort we'd been using.
"Sure am."

He did a double take.
"You've decided, then."

"Yes."

"And you feel
confident?"

"I feel wonderful."

"Awesome," he said with
a broad smile. "Just remember that production is going to want to see both
of these guys propose."

I was already shaking my head. "I'm
not letting the one I'm sending home propose. I will not subject him to that
kind of humiliation. It's too cruel."

"Em, it's what they both
signed up for."

"I don't care. Dress them
up. Bring them onsite. But I'm not letting them both get down on bended
knee."

"Will you at least wait
until he starts to get down on a knee?"

"If he doesn't back me into
a corner, looking for a decision before he's willing to do it."

"Okay, then by all means, let's
get you over to makeup and wardrobe. They want you to come to them this time,
so they have all their stuff on hand as they doll you up for tonight."

I chatted with the staff as they
did my makeup and hair. I even joked around with them. The sense of relief in
me was light and freeing. Not only did I know whom I was going to choose, but
this would also be the last time these people ever put me in five-inch, strappy
heels.

The
Walk of Shame
for
tonight was a pier that led to a wide dock. When I got onsite, I looked out at
the dock and saw a guy out there with a shop vac.

"Is that guy vacuuming the
dock?" I asked.

Troy grinned. "Yes. And this
is only after he vacuumed the pier and the grass leading up to it. As soon as he's
done, set design will hustle out there to set up the tables and candles. Now,
they're going to line the pier and dock with flower petals. So, when you walk
down the pier, don't put any weight on the heel of your shoe because you won't
be able to see the cracks between planks. But the dock is covered with a top
layer of ply wood, so you'll be okay once you're out there."

"Troy, is that dock freaking
floating?"

"Yeah," he said with a
sigh.

"The shoes have to go."

"I knew you were going to
say that."

"I'll break an ankle and
fall in the water!"

"I told them that."

"And what did they
say?"

"They said beauty
hurts."

I drew my lips into line.

"Do whatever you're going to
do, just don't tell me your plans. I'd like to be able to claim ignorance,
please."

"Wish granted."

"Perfect. I'm going to go check
on a few things. Stay here and try not to look so sour."

I lifted the corners of my mouth
into a grin and tried to have it not look conniving.

The guy with the shop-vac came up
the pier and prop masters descended. In a matter of minutes, they'd transformed
a dock that was usually covered with boaters, swimmers, and sunbathers into an
elegant, romantic oasis.

They sicced the photographers on
me to take beauty shots with the dock in the background. Producers ran me
through a series on on-camera questions to get me talking about how I was
feeling at that moment and how confident I was in my choice. Anything they
could think of to help capture the moment of anticipation, that fluttered
around in the air and in my stomach, they asked.

Troy came back to get me.
"We have a two hour window before a storm rolls in, they'd like to get
this moving along." He held his arm out to lead me down to the dock.

I took his arm as the four camera
crews assigned to film from different angles and distances started rolling. I
walked with him until we reached the pier. Then I paused to slip off my shoes.
"Just so I don't trip on the pier," I excused, and held them in one
hand as I took Troy's arm again.

Troy held his smile as we made
our way down towards the dock. Once we were down there, I pretended to trip
over the leg of one of the tables. In my stumble, where Troy actually clutched
onto my arm to make sure I didn't fall off the dock, I let my arms shoot out to
'catch my balance', letting go of the shoes, and then watched in feigned horror
as they splashed into the water.

I turned and looked up at Troy in
conspiracy-tinged stupefaction.

He tucked his lips in between his
teeth to keep from smiling.

My mouth dropped open as I turned
to the onsite producers. "Oops," I breathed.

The producer sighed, pulling out
her phone. "I'll text wardrobe."

"You know," Troy said.
"If they don't have anything on hand in the trailer, it could take a while
for them to run somewhere to get something. And that storm is coming. What's
the harm in letting her go barefoot?"

"It's about the ensemble of
the outfit," the producer said.

"I thought it was about the
character of our girl," Troy countered. "And isn't it more in tune
with her nature to be barefoot, rather than in five-inch hooker shoes?"

"They are not hooker
shoes," the producer said.

"She thinks they are,"
Troy said.

The producer looked at me and
sighed. "Do you approve of the gown, or are you going to jump into the
water when I turn around?"

I smiled. "The gown is fine.
And without those heels to keep my balance on this dock with, I'll have no
excuse to fall into the water."

"Well, good," the
producer said as she straightened the table I'd nearly taken out with my 'fall'.
She glanced at the sky and then her watch, "Fine, let's roll, we have the
shoes in the promo photos and your gown hangs to your feet as it is." She
turned to the crew, "Places, everyone. Let's get this show on the
road."

People scattered and my eyes
followed Troy as he went back up the pier to greet the first guy that was being
driven over in a limo. There was another camera crew waiting up there to
capture his arrival.

Troy greeted Liam with a
handshake as he got out of the car. Liam didn't know if he was arriving first
or second, had no idea whether I was picking him or not. Only knew that it was
time to either put up or shut up. He was here either to propose, or to call the
whole thing off.

I was confident in both of these
guys. But the truth remained that if the guy I wanted wasn't ready to propose,
the whole season we'd just filmed would become a wash and I'd walk away
empty-handed.

And I'd spend the next year
hiding as the entire country watched my wasted efforts unfold.

Liam looked so damned handsome in
his tuxedo, as I watched him walk down the pier. He was smiling at me and
looking confident with himself. He hugged me as soon as he got down to me.
"Finally," he whispered in my ear, kissed my cheek before he pulled
away, and held my arms out to our sides as he gazed at me from head to toe.
"You look gorgeous."

He got a gleam in his eyes as the
cameramen adjusted their lenses to capture their angles better, and sound guys
moved ever so slightly to catch our words. "I've been pacing since we
parted on Tuesday, waiting to get to this moment," he said. "I've
known for weeks that we were meant for each other. You're adventurous,
outdoorsy, and fun to be around. You like people but yet like to retreat into
solitude. You like to get out there and enjoy life, but then like to hole up
somewhere to work. I think we can balance each other out perfectly. I think
what we have can last."

He locked eyes with me and
smiled. "I have fallen so hopelessly in love with you over the last two
months, that I don't have the words to express it. I want absolutely nothing
more in this moment than to spend the rest of my life with you."

He dropped down to one knee.
"I -"

I dropped my hands to his
shoulders, my eyes tearing up.

"Emmaline, I -"

"Stop," I whispered,
tears starting to run down my face.

"Emmaline -"

"Stop, please," I
whispered, closing my eyes to his shocked expression.

He closed his mouth and moved his
head ever so slightly to the side, looking over my shoulder before closing his
eyes to gather his thoughts.