Runaway Groom (I Do, I Don't 2)

Paisley gives me a slight eye roll, but I notice all of her attention’s on Eden and LeAnn’s conversation, as though taking mental notes of the competition’s game plan.

I pick the sunscreen off the floor and start applying it to Paisley’s back. The girl’s skin is gorgeous, but it’s alabaster white. She can have Gage slather a second coat over all of her if she wants, but no way am I letting her out into the tropical sunshine without a base layer.

The unmistakable smell of sunscreen immediately adds to the already scent-drenched room. Four women living in a small space with two sets of bunk beds (Paisley and I are on the top bunks) and a tiny connected bathroom means that the place smells constantly like perfume, hair spray, mouthwash, shampoo, and now Coppertone.

It’s as noxious as it sounds, although most of the girls seem to think the unobstructed view of the Pacific makes the cramped quarters worth it. Me? Not so much. I realize I’m going to sound like a spoiled brat here, but I grew up in San Diego. My mom’s apartment didn’t have a waterfront view—far from it—but weekends spent at the beach are pretty much par for the course.

In other words, it’d take a hell of a lot more than a great view to make this situation more tolerable.

One more day. I can do this.

“Okay, so here’s what I’m thinking,” LeAnn says, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, even though the door to our room’s closed. “When I was in high school, I used to spend Saturdays at the pool at my parents’ country club. There was this super-hot lifeguard, and all my friends and I had like, the biggest crush, but he never noticed us—”

“Shocker,” Eden says cattily, studying her pink-tipped nails.

LeAnn, bless her, doesn’t seem to notice Eden’s bitchiness. Actually, if I’m being honest, LeAnn doesn’t seem to notice much. She’s a curvy brunette, with great curly hair and huge blue eyes, but there’s something just slightly off about her social skills. At dinner last night, her laughs usually came five seconds too late, and her jokes were a touch too off the wall. Adding insult to injury, she’s a close-talker—you know, one of those people who stands far closer than necessary when speaking to you.

“So anyway,” LeAnn is saying, “my friend Karen, she’s always been super-clumsy, and one day she slipped and fell at the pool and hit her head—”

My hand stills in the process of smearing sunscreen on Paisley’s back. What the…?

“Anyway, she totally ended up being fine, but she got all the attention, especially from the hot lifeguard,” LeAnn says, grinning as she looks around the room.

We all stare at her. “Please tell me you’re joking,” Eden says.

For once I agree with Eden. “LeAnn, you can’t be thinking of pretending to slip and fall as a way of getting attention.”

“Why, you’ve heard someone else is already planning that?” she asks, sounding crestfallen.

“Oh my God, I can’t,” Eden mutters, shimmying into a teal cover-up. Though cover-up’s a strong word. What she’s got on is more like a pile of string that does nothing to actually cover the tiny white bikini. “I’m going over to talk with the girls in Room B. See you all at the pool.”

Paisley waits until the door’s shut behind Eden before going to sit beside LeAnn. “Sweetie, promise me you won’t intentionally fall at the pool today.”

LeAnn pouts. “But it’s the only way he’ll look at me. You were there last night. I was the only one he didn’t seek out during cocktail hour.”

“Not the only one,” Paisley says soothingly. “He didn’t have any one-on-one time with Ellie either.”

Ouch.

She’s right, though. Though filming doesn’t start until today, there was a casual cocktail hour preceding dinner last night, and Gage made a point of pulling aside all of the women to chat with them privately. Except not all the women. He hadn’t sought me out once. Nor LeAnn, apparently.

LeAnn looks between me and Paisley for a moment, chewing her lip nervously, before she gets a mutinous look on her face and stands, marching to the door. “You girls are just jealous you didn’t think of my plan first. And I’m not actually going to hit my head, just pretend.”

“LeAnn—”

Paisley’s objection is met with a door slam. We look at each other for a moment before Paisley sighs, plucking a hair elastic off the dresser and pulling her long red hair into an artfully messy bun atop her head. “I’ll go try to talk some sense into her. See you down there.”

Paisley leaves to follow LeAnn, and I glance at the clock. I have ten minutes until the cameras start rolling. Not much, but it’s the first time I’ve had the room to myself since we’ve gotten here, and I take advantage, hurrying to my suitcase in the closet and pulling out my iPhone, which I’ve hidden in the inner lining of the pocket.

I turn it on and wait impatiently for it to start up. I know, I know, I totally told Gage that I’d turn it in, but I lied and—

I frown as the phone starts, my messages starting to load. There’s one from my mom, another from Marjorie, which is the reason I’m checking my phone in the first place, but the most recent is from a 323 area code…

I click on the text, my eyes narrowing as I read. Wear one of your precious T-shirts to the pool today. Bet it looks great wet.

My mouth drops open.

Only a handful of the women know about High Tee, and I’m betting none of them give one crap what it looks like wet. Gage Barrett, on the other hand, is exactly the sort of grown-up frat boy to know his way around a wet T-shirt contest.