“What?” I ask.
She gives me a foamy grin, then spits and wipes her mouth. “Tonight, with Eden. And every other night you sneak out.”
Toothpaste foam is now oozing down my chin, so I spit and rinse, and turn to face her. “You knew?”
“Yes, and you’re lucky it’s me who figured it out and not the Wicked Witch,” Paisley says, wagging a playful finger at me. “It’s to see him, isn’t it? You and Gage are having a secret affair.”
“No!” I exclaim. “I mean, yes, it’s Gage, but no on the secret affair.”
Her nose scrunches. “Then what are you doing?” I glance toward the open bathroom door, but she waves a hand. “Eden’s off gossiping with Aurora. Spill.”
I shut the bathroom door just in case Eden comes back in. “Okay, but you can’t tell.”
“I ugly-cry when I’m insulted, so you’d better stop that. Of course I won’t tell anyone.”
I take a deep breath. “I’m sort of…spying for him.”
Her eyes go wide. “Oh, that’s wonderfully scandalous. That’s how he seems to get rid of the ones with the crazy plans. You haven’t said anything about me, have you?”
“Of course not,” I scoff. “You’re my friend.”
“A spy,” she says, tapping her fingers against her mouth. “This is perfect. How do we get rid of Brooklyn?”
“What’s wrong with Brooklyn?”
“Um, did you not see what I saw tonight? She’s your competition, babe. She’s playing him exactly right, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her at their little balcony rendezvous that the rest of us had to watch from a distance.”
I flinch before I can help it. I’ve been trying to tell myself all night that it doesn’t matter. That I don’t care that he picked Brooklyn, or that they seemed so perfect together. But the knot in my stomach still hasn’t loosened.
It’s not so much that he chose her as that he seemed to enjoy being with her. I know the guy well enough to know by now when he’s got his fake laugh and smile firmly in place, and as I watched him and Brooklyn laugh over champagne, it was clear that it was for real.
I don’t care. I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care.
“Okay, first of all,” I tell Paisley, “I’m not going to sabotage anyone. I mean, yeah, I told him about Maria’s plan to turn him into a baby daddy, and that Naomi was married, because he deserved to know. But I’m not going to bash the contestants just because.”
She sighs. “Fiiiiiine. What’s the second of all?”
“What?”
“You said ‘first of all.’ That implies a second thing.”
“Oh, right. Second, Brooklyn’s not my competition, because I’m not competing.”
“We all are, hon. It’s why we’re here.”
I shake my head. “Not me. I don’t want him. I don’t want to win. In fact, I’ve been trying to go home since the very beginning.”
She studies me for a second. “You know, I sensed at the beginning that you didn’t want to be here. You did it to promote your company, huh?”
I nod.
“But are you sure that’s why you’re still here?”
“Well…he and I did make a deal. That I would stick around and help him out with the weirdos, and in exchange he’ll help me pimp my business.”
“And yet”—she holds up a finger, then gestures at my dress—“what are we wearing today, hon?”
I glance down at the strappy white sundress that Marjorie bought me when she found out I’d been accepted on the show. “So?”