Page 3 of Most Eligible
“This is it, ladies. Good luck!” He retreats to the hallway, leaving us with a few camera operators and our pooling sweat.
We hear the footsteps of our future husband before we see him. The tapping of his shoes on the polished wood floors quiets when he gets to the carpet. He rounds the corner, and the hushed gasps turn to laughter as we see that it’s not Roland, but someone else.
Red-brown hair, tan skin, adjusting his cuff links like he just stepped out of a motorcycle photo shoot in the desert. Cowboy boots instead of Oxfords like Roland was wearing.
My eyes zero in on his face and something flickers in my stomach.
He is certainly not Oprah.
“Ladies,” he says smoothly, the faintest hint of a Southern drawl swirling in the dregs of the word. “Nice to meet y’all.”
He looks around the room, taking us all in. His eyes land on me, and when he blinks, I feel it as deep as a bass drum pounding through a crowded room.
“I’m Rhett,” he says quietly, eyes locked with mine. The flicker in my stomach turns into a pulsing knot. “Rhett Auburn. And I’ll be your host this season.”
“He was the lead two years ago!” Brooklyn whispers as someone else gasps, “Have you heard his new album?”
Rhett’s eyes move on, passing over Brooklyn and Olie, and he gives the cameras a wink.
The other women melt, but I’m still sitting up straight as the memory hits me with full force.
A dark club, bodies pressed in on all sides, and the band dared everyone to kiss a stranger. It was a blur. The club, the music, the moment in the early, early morning when we fell into my bed.
Now, my eyes find his beneath the too-hot TV lights. The green flecks in his irises sparkle and my stomach somersaults. He clasps his hands together and smiles at the sea of women hanging onto his every word, but he directs the next line right to me.
“Welcome to theLove Shack.”
Rhett’s speech might be metaphor-stuffed clichés about everlasting love, or maybe he’s telling us thatLove Shackhas adopted an elimination-by-death policy. I have no clue. My head is buzzing too fast, my heart slamming against my ribs, and all I can think isHe shouldn’t be here.
Roland finally enters the sitting room, looking far too shiny to be legal, but I can’t focus on anything he says. It’s nothing that hasn’t been said on previous seasons: He wants a wife, someone to share his life with, family is everything to him, and… I think I’m going to die in this overheated room.
When the cameras finally cut, I allow myself a single glanceat the spot in the corner where Rhett had been standing, but he’s vanished.
Brooklyn pokes my arm, peering carefully at me. “You okay? Want some?” She holds out her champagne glass, and I take it, slosh the entire thing back, then clutch my stomach.
“Oh no,” I mutter.
“What—what’s wrong?” she asks.
“She’s probably just lovestruck,” Olie says sagely. She reaches around Brooklyn and thumps me so hard on the back that my teeth smash together. I stumble to my feet, the room spinning around me.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” I run from the room as fast as my heels will allow. Once I’m in the hall, I careen into the nearest bathroom, bolt the door behind me, then sink to the floor, my eyes straying to the ceiling corners to see if my breakdown is being filmed.
No cameras, but for some reason, a defibrillator next to the door. Do hearts often stop in this mansion? Or do they simply break, like Brooklyn said?
I’m so lightheaded from the alcohol and the smell of fresh paint on the walls that I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire mansion had suddenly turned into a Tilt-A-Whirl.
When I close my eyes, I’m back at the Pink Iguana club last year, Rhett’s hands on my waist as we swayed to the indie music beating from the speakers. His voice in my ear, sweet and smoky, as if whiskey had a sound.
I scrape my nails over the tiled floor and ball up my fists, sinking deeper into that night, seconds ticking by until we reached midnight, oneAM, twoAM, stumbling into my apartment. The way his eyes widened when he listened to me, like he really cared where in Reno I’d gotten my vintage LPs. The way he studied me. Carefully, gently. Like we both wanted to savor the eventual, delicious tumble into my bed.
That night, I’d told him things I’d never spoken aloud—how freelancing barely covered my rent, how I missed home and was lonely in LA. Secrets that spill faster when they’re spoken to a stranger. When he asked my name, I whispered in his ear like a debutante telling her suitor she’s not wearing panties.
“I’m Gracie Hart,” I said. A secret and a lie. The pseudonym I’d concocted to publish my investigative work under—the name only Serena and I knew.
That morning, waking up and finding him gone, as if I’d imagined him. Staring at myself in the dirty bathroom mirror, eyes zeroing in on the mark his lips left on my throat. Wondering if I’d done something wrong, or if this was the inevitable outcome of spending the night with someone whose boots cost more than my car.
He’s a celebrity, I told myself.And celebrities don’t want women like me. Not for more than one night.
