Page 68 of Most Eligible
“Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” Olie says enigmatically. “Anyway, I thought you wimps wouldn’t go for that, so I have a backup.” She rifles through her bag and, once she’s elbow-deep, grunts, “Here it is,” before pulling out, of all things, a book.
Shacking Up: The Definitive, Unauthorized Guide to WinningLove Shack.
I frown. I read that same book cover to cover while prepping to come here. It’s filled with advice like “show off your good boob” and “be sure to bring up personal trauma on night one.”
“Is that mine?” Chloe shrieks.
“Did you actually bring it with you?” Olie asks.
“No,” Chloe says. “Of course not. I just thought for a second…”
I look between them, confused. “Then whose is it?”
“Addison’s,” Olie says mischievously.
“Really?” I’m shocked that Addison would be careless enough to bring it here. She may not be my favorite, but she is smart.
That book, according to my research, has been the end of many buddingLove Shackrelationships. While it’s silently accepted that most contestants at least flip through it, bringing it with you to set is a huge faux pas. It means you’re here for the followers, not the fiancé.
“Well, not really,” Olie says. “But we’ll make it seem like it is. During paintball later this week, I’ll sneak into her room and plant this in her stuff, then tip Rolie off about it.”
“I don’t know,” I say slowly. “What if you get caught?”
Olie shrugs. “Then I get caught. But it’ll be worth it. She’s got to go, and I think Rolie…” She goes pink in the face. “I don’t think he’s using his best judgment about her.”
“Easy there, tiger.” Philippa snorts, patting Olie on the shoulder. “He’s thinking with his dick, and we all know it.”
I flop down on the bed beside Chloe, who rests her head on my shoulder. The weight of it there feels soft, safe—like what it might be like to have a sister.
“In the meantime…” Olie holds the tattoo gun back up. “Friendship tattoos?” Despite the usual slightly unhinged gleam in her eyes, it’s the gentlest thing I’ve ever heard her say. She shrugs, blushing to the roots of her hair. “I don’t—I don’t have a lot of lady friends, ya know? And I know we might not stay in touch after all this, but… I just thought it might be fun. Once we’re back to real life, I’ll get ahold of Nina so she can have one too.”
As she trails off, Brooklyn wraps her arms around her. “Friendship tattoos! I love it, Olie.”
Philippa joins the hug and looks back at me. “You in?”
I sit up, but hesitate, my deception weighing heavily on me.
“Don’t worry,” Olie says. “I was a tattoo artist for a few years after high school.”
Philippa rolls her eyes. “Of course you were.”
Olie’s tattoo skills aren’t what’s worrying me, though. I know how I’d feel if I got a friendship tattoo with someone, only to realize they’d been lying to me for our entire relationship.
But I can’t refuse. “Definitely.”
I can only hope they’ll forgive me.
“I made the best friends in the world [onLove Shack]. I’d die for any one of them in a heartbeat… except Addison.”
—Olie Hoovastank III, season 20 contestant onLove Shack, in a postseason interview withUs Weekly
Chapter Twenty-Three
Something about the silence of this house unnerves me. Back at my apartment in LA, I always had the street noise to lull me to sleep, plus Presley’s snuffling. Even in the Malibu mansion, I had the other women’s snores to fall asleep to. But since Brooklyn left three days ago, there’s nothing to dull the sharp, ominous silence.
“Sheesh,” Olie says when I head downstairs into the foyer for paintball. “Did you just wake up?”
According to the large clock on the wall it’s eleven forty-fiveAM, so I’m fifteen minutes early for our group date prep. I shrug, crossing my arms. “I didn’t get much sleep last night… or the night before.”
