Page 78 of Unscripted

Callum and I were quiet as the van filled with chatter. Despite the drama of the afternoon, everyone was still buzzing at having been out of the villa all day.

Harry slipped into the driver's seat, and Ben into the passenger’s.

Ben turned around to all of us, “What are we all going to talk about on the drive back to the villa?” he asked in singsong, knowing that the answer had been drilled into us.

“Nothing ace!” everyone called out, laughing.

“And what do we save the important conversations for?” Harry asked as he pulled onto the main road that would lead back to the villa.

“Camera!” everyone said again in unison.

No one noticed that Callum and I didn’t chime in, didn’t yell out, didn’t contribute to the chatter around us. We sat quietly in the back of the van, both lost in our own thoughts, staring out the windows on either side of us.

It wasn’t until we got back to the villa, until the van pulled to a stop, that I realized we were still holding hands.

34

Iwoke up the next morning and immediately sensed a change in the air. Jess’ loud voice yelling out “good morning” to the room was missing and, in its place, an eerie silence hung in the air.

Rolling over toward Callum, I found that he was already awake, laying on his back and looking up at the ceiling.

“Hi,” I said, my voice soft with sleep.

He turned his head towards me and smiled.

“Hey, how’d you sleep?” he asked.

“Good, better than expected.”

“Good,” he said.

“Are you ready for today?” I whispered, keeping my voice low. We weren’t wearing our mic packs yet, but Harry had let it slip about a week ago that production had microphones hidden in every bed’s headboard. It was a piece of information I was glad to know so Callum and I didn’t blow our cover.

Callum grinned, as though the game we were playing had finally become fun.

“It’s showtime, baby.”

I laughed and rolled onto my back, trying my best to ignore the flutter in my stomach that broke out at his use of the word “baby.”

Starting today, I needed to get my head on straight and ignore the warm, fuzzy feelings that had started to pop up now and again around Callum. We had come dangerously close to being sent home. I needed to remember that he was my ticket to a longer stay in the villa. I couldn’t let a few nice moments mess with my head and interfere with our goal.

I sat up and looked down at Callum, still laying on his back and looking up at me.

“Game on,” I said.

***

For the next three days, Callum and I were disgustingly, over the top, all over each other. It was PDA on steroids. Hand holding, cuddling on the daybeds, hanging on each other in the pool. If it was a form of physical touch, we were doing it. The public vote had been a shock to us both and, as a result, we dove right into being the perfect couple England wanted to see.

If anyone thought it was suspicious that we went from being passingly nice to each other to being entangled at every possible moment, they didn’t say. Things moved quickly in the villa anyway, and it helped that everyone, at all times, was really just thinking about themselves. No one batted an eye at Callum and me suddenly sticking together like glue.

The producers were certainly loving it.

“Ben told me we’re back in the public’s good graces, at least from the blogs he’s read online,” Callum filled me in one afternoon as we lounged on a daybed, our legs entwined and bodies pressed up against one another. He had been playing with my hair, and I had been resolutely ignoring the chills shooting down my spine as a result.

At his words I sat up, surprised he was speaking so freely about what Ben said.

Callum merely grinned and motioned down to our mic packs. Looking at them, I realized they were both clicked to ‘OFF’. I must have been enjoying his touch so much that I didn’t notice he had turned them off.