Walk of Shame (18 page)

It was nearly
one in the morning when Trevor dropped me off at my doorstep with a goodnight kiss
...or maybe two, before I went upstairs to crawl into bed.

Mike was already out on the track
by the time I got down to start running the next morning.

"Late night?" he asked.

"What makes you ask
that?"

"You're already wearing
sunglasses."

"I'm just sooo not a morning
person. I'll rise, but most mornings I refuse to shine."

"So skip the workout."

"Are you kidding me? Between
all the filming, bikinis, and skin-tight clothes, I can't just skip a workout
unless the date for the day involves massive amounts of exercise. America is
supposed to easily believe that sixteen guys would trip over themselves to try
and woo me."

"How much weight have you
taken off for this?"

"None, whatever fat I've
worked off has been replaced with muscle. I just look more toned."

"Do you normally run?"

"Mostly it just depends on
what's around at my given location. I prefer to bike around towns and hike
trails. But if I want the cameras to back off me here first thing in the
morning, I have to stay on-property, be up early, and be busy tending to
mundane things like exercise."

"Ah. I do it this early just
to get a mental break from the guys."

We continued to talk as we ran
laps and racked up mileage. I found myself telling him about the promotional
photo shoot they had lined up for me that morning. And about how I was then
going to be dolled up to do an interview where I would be asked questions that
network shows would be asking on my experience so far. So when the show
actually airs, they would then have sound bytes and footage to answer the
standard questions. The shows could then use my recorded answers for quotes.

And what struck me with the
situation was that I didn't tend to share my day with any of the other guys. I
didn't tell them about any of my behind-the-scenes stuff anymore than they told
me about theirs.

When I'd finished rambling, he
told me that the guys were supposed to each go through on-camera interviews
where they'd be shown clips of things they had each said or done, to remind
them of the specifics, and then give their own reactions and reflections of
what they had seen. That way, America could know what the guys really thought
of each other, instead of just seeing the cheery reactions you give to someone
at the time, out of politeness.

But, once they
finished, the guys were planning a poker night. They'd found a poker top for
the pool table and were going to gather barstools around and play. They were
all tired of both swimming and billiards, and since they didn't think they
could pull off everyone sneaking off-site, they were going to organize their
own alternative entertainment.

I waited until the sun went down
before I walked up the path to the main house. I was bored. So, it was either
work on my outline for my next novel some more, or crash the poker game. Since
I had to send someone home tomorrow, and I wasn't sure which one should go, I
figured spending more time with them could only help.

I heard a cheer coming from the
game room through the closed door. I went up to it, followed by the camera crew
assigned to follow me, when I told Troy that I was considering popping in on
the guys that evening.

I could hear Drake's voice
speaking, but I couldn't make out any of what he was saying. Then his audience
made various hooting and hollering noises. I didn't know what the hell was
going on in that room full of testosterone, but it sure didn't sound like poker
to me.

I considered backing away and not
going in. If Troy or someone else from production was giving them instructions,
or some sort of presentation, I didn't want to interrupt. But then my phone
buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out to find a text from Troy, 'There's
still a camera crew inside that room and production is monitoring what is going
on, from the trailer. They have sent up a request for you to open that door.'

And yet, I still hesitated.

My phone buzzed again.
'Production says, pretty please, open that door.'

The cycle of Drake's undertones,
followed by hoots and cheers had continued during my hesitation and receiving
of the texts. I decided to turn the handle on the door slowly and nudge it
open.

I couldn't see Drake, but I could
hear him talking, "'She shifted her body over him to better access the
other side, causing the edges of her robe to graze over his nether regions and
he groaned louder, squeezing his eyes shut. She smiled, removed the robe, and
began to graze the tip of his manhood with her nipple. Rusty's eyes opened to
see what was going on. The sight was even better than the sensation.
"Jesus, woman," he ground out.'"

Then the guys cheered, and all I
could think about was how I'd left Drake and Ardent in my rig the other day.
I'd been so concerned with putting the press kits together, I'd forgotten all
about the opened box of proof copies for my next, about-to-be-released, romance
novel.

I could look at this one of two
ways. One, they took something from my home and are now using it for personal
amusement. Or two, I'd gotten three of them to show me into their world this
week, now they were taking a look into mine. Either way, I could go in and be
upset that they'd taken it, or I could go in with a sense of humor about it. It's
not like they'd stolen a diary. They took a copy of a novel that was going to
be distributed for public entertainment, anyway. If anything, I should charge
them for the copy.

As I pushed the door open, I also
remembered the trio of guys' reactions yesterday when I told them I'd been
working on a novel draft. "Good evening, gentlemen."

They cheered me. All except
Drake, the man's cheeks blushed red through his dark skin.

"Emmaline Jacobs. I never
realized before how perfect a name that is for a romance author," Mitch
said between his chuckles.

Eight of the guys were in the
room. Some sat around the poker table, a couple at the wet bar at the end of
the room, and others in a seating area by the fireplace. A few had cigars they
were puffing on, and pretty much everyone had drinks.

"Em, I'd consider it a
personal favor if we'd go back to the beginning of that scene and you read it
to us," Jared said with the biggest smile on his face that I'd ever seen.

I walked over to Drake and took
the book from his hand while staring him down.

"It started out that we were
proofing it for you," he stammered.

"We found a typo," Liam
announced. "We marked it and drew an arrow in the margin."

"Yeah," Trevor added,
"we marked a couple other places where you might want to add stuff in. If
you still have time, that is. We only wrote in the one copy."

I looked around the room and
spotted the other four copies in various locations. Then I flipped through the
copy in my hand and looked at some of their 'notes'. "Some of you have
issues with my vocabulary choices, I see."

"Well," Jared said,
"it's just that we feel if you were a little more... blunt, in certain
scenes, it might add a little more... color to you work."

"Yeah, and, with your
alternatives, would land me in the erotica genre."

"What's wrong with
that?" Mike asked.

"Nothing, except that's not
a genre in which I've built a following." I flipped until I found the
arrow pointing to the typo and gave them all a wicked little smile. "That
typo isn't a mistake."

"What?" Jared stood up
and looked over my shoulder, reading the sentence in the first love scene
again. He stepped back and grinned, "I knew it. You
are
a dirty,
filthy girl."

"Yeah, maybe," Stephen
challenged. "The question is do you dirty talk with your romance writer
language, or would you talk more like our suggestions?"

I walked over to him and
whispered a little something in his ear.

His eyebrows shot up and his eyes
danced before he cleared his throat. "Yeah, that'll work."

"What I want to know is, how
much do you write from imagination and how much comes from experience?"
Liam asked.

I turned my smile on him.
"What I wonder, is which one of you gets to be the one to find out?"

Phillip and Tyler walked in,
carrying plates of various deep-fried foods and placed them on the bar. Phillip's
eyes swept around the room when he saw me in there. "I told you guys you
were going to get caught with those."

"Don't let him fool
you," Mitch said. "He was reading it, too."

I gestured at
the poker table, ready to let the subject of the book go. I'd been prying into
their lives, it was only fair to let them pry a little into mine. "Deal me
in?"

Handkerchiefs and ties had been
given to the guys this week. Production had footage of the guys opening the
boxes the items were delivered to each one of them in. Everyone had figured
that the guys would be on to the game if they'd simply been handed
handkerchiefs. This way, they didn't know if the handkerchiefs counted, or the
ties, or maybe both.

Drake was the one I felt sorry
for at the moment. He was wearing a white tie. It had been done at my request,
my little payback for reading my sex scenes aloud to the group, and for having
stolen the books in the first place. Little did he know, the color of the ties
counted for nothing.

"Good evening,
gentlemen," Troy announced, once production signaled that they were ready.

"Good evening," my ten
lovely suitors echoed back.

"This has certainly been
another action-packed week here at the house. We had a group date on a yacht,
where in which you all broke the rules and turned it into a series of short
dates. But, I hear tell from all of you who were there, that the time was more
beneficial in reaching your end goal than spending the day as one large group
would have been. Then Emmaline had the small mishap with our stowaway dog that
we've let roam the grounds, for which the dog apologized profusely for by
moping around for hours. Then, a few of the men visited Emma later that evening,
to make sure she was doing well."

Troy paused while the guys who
hadn't been in on the dinner that night all looked around at each other,
wondering who'd been in on that particular conspiracy.

"Then there was Drake's
one-on-one Art Walk date. And then Ardent's date to Vasquez Rocks Natural Area
Park. And Emma tied up the week with crashing the poker game, catching all of
you in the act of a pretty cheesy recitation of her work, and basically stole a
group date with everyone."

Troy paused while we got our
expressions under control again. "I thought maybe it was just Emma who
liked to make up her own rules. But I'm quickly finding out it's a trait you
all share."

We exchanged soft chuckles,
patient with the recap Troy was providing for the viewers, yet anxious to get
on with what we were here to do.

"All right, Emma, it's time
to say goodbye to one of your gentlemen. Do you know who is going home tonight,
or will it be done by spur of the moment, gut instinct?"

"It was a hard decision this
week. I had a few ideas running through my mind, but I've settled on what I want
to do," I said.

"All right, then we'll
proceed. The floor is yours."

"My red gentlemen for this
week. Please step forward, Michael."

He smiled and moved to stand on
the line along the side of the room, wearing his red handkerchief.

"Jared, would you please
stay for another week?"

He nodded and went to stand on
the sideline.

"Liam, if you would join
them?"

The red ties were starting to
look a little doubtful as I called only men with red handkerchiefs.

"And Phillip, please
stay."

Phillip gave me a wink before he
proceeded to take his place on the line.

"And my one pink man this
week, Trevor."

Trevor made his way over as the
remaining men realized that, for better or worse, their ties were meaningless,
and they were all now fair game.

"Ardent, please stay another
week with me."

His smile was wide has he made
his way over.

I'd have rather just announced
all the names of those I'd like to see stay, but it was all about drawing out
the suspense for the audience. So I plastered a bigger smile on my face and
kept plugging my way down the list. "Drake, I'd like for you to
stay."

He nodded at me, without much of
a smile. I had to wonder if he realized my little bit of revenge with the white
tie, thought maybe it was a warning for next week to watch himself, or if maybe
he had just as many doubts about him staying as I did.

"Stephen, if you'd like to
stay, I'd love to keep you."

He broke into a wide smile, and I
could tell he was starting to worry that he'd be the one packing his bags
tonight.

I looked at my two remaining men,
Mitch and Tyler, and gave them a sympathetic smile. I turned to Troy, "I'm
good."

Troy was a little taken by
surprise and did a double take. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," I said with a
firm nod, "I'm good with these eight."

"All right." He stepped
forward, to my side. "Mitch, Tyler, I'm sorry, but your time with us has
come to an end."

Tyler gave me a look that told me
he was unsurprised by my letting him go. He shook a couple hands on his
Walk
of Shame
and exited quickly. Mitch gave me a look of consternation,
obviously not understanding why I was making him leave, too, and shook
everyone's hand as he made his way down the lineup.

I was told that Mitch's exit
interview had not been a happy one. He'd said that we'd had a connection, and
that he thought it was all going well. He claimed complete and utter shock that
I would send him home so early in the game.

Silly me, I hadn't realized it
was a game. And if it was, his strategy to buddy up to the guys instead of
cozying up to me was riddled with faults. I spent fifteen minutes that next
morning in an interview with Troy, summarizing my reasons for letting Mitch go.

Then I spent another ten minutes
defending my decision to eliminate two men instead of one. And it all came down
to one thing, I wanted to spend the time I had here getting to know the men who
at least had a chance at being the one man I've been looking for. I at least had
some connection with everyone I had left. I'd had no connection with any of the
men I'd sent home so far.

"What do you think it will
be like, sending someone home at the end of this week? Troy asked.

I sighed. "It'll be harder
from this point on. While it's true that I haven't yet had romantic feelings
for two of the men, I still have friendly feelings for them. And no one wants
to have to send their friends home. So, I think I've seen the last of my easy
eliminations."

"By sending one of the men
home early, do you view that as a way of shortening this whole process, or do
you intend to leave yourself open to a week of no eliminations?"

"I don't know," I said
with a shrug. "I might get stuck later on as to whom to get rid of and want
another week. I'm not trying to rush it. I'm just trying not to waste anybody's
time. People have dropped their lives to come and be here with me. And as much
as I'm flattered, I'm also not going to keep them tied down here if there's no
chance for us."

"You said you didn't have romantic
feelings for two of those who remain. I think the viewers are wondering, how
torn are you with the other six? Are there frontrunners? Are you doodling any
names on notepads when the cameras aren't around?"

I laughed at him. "How torn
I am depends on the day. How recently was the interaction that impressed me?
Did you have an individual opportunity to talk with me, and how did you use
that time? My frontrunners still change with the wind, at this point. And no,
I'm not doodling any names, yet."

"Are you falling for any of
these guys?"

"I think I'm still too
overwhelmed by the sheer number of them, my focus is too divided. But I do see
the potential to fall for a few."

"I guess the viewers will
have to stay tuned."

I gave a bright smile. "I
guess so. I'm just as anxious as the viewers will be, to see how it turns
out."

Troy laughed. "Me,
too."

Troy nodded to the camera crews
that the formal part of the interview was complete. "You ready to tell me
who is getting which date this week?"

"Yep." I reached into
my pocket and handed him a folded piece of paper with the list of men and their
assigned date."

He looked at it and nodded.
"Is there a particular theme for who you chose for the one-on-ones?"

"Yep. Now it's time to start
looking closely at the ones I really like and figuring out if our lives and
personalities really would mesh well. Once I do that, I'm hoping some obvious
eliminations can be made."

"Got 'cha. It's no longer
about who you can make a connection with, it's about how deep those connections
you've established really run."

"Exactly."

"Well,
good for you. You're making progress with the process. I think we're done here.
Wardrobe is waiting with this week's outfits."

Production was inside the main
house that afternoon, recording everyone's reactions to my choices last night.
And if you were one of the guys, and not actively answering their list of
standard interview questions, you were free to be working, calling home, or
doing whatever you wanted to be doing.

I traipsed up the path between
our houses with a cameraman in tow. I grabbed a raft and hopped in the pool. The
cameraman picked the angle he wanted and hunkered down. I was setting myself up
as bait, just to see who could be lured out by my very presence.

Stephan was the first to appear
in one of the windows. He smiled and disappeared, coming outside a few moments
later in his trunks.

"Did you tell the rest of
them I was out here?" I asked as he made his way to the pool's edge.

"I'm not stupid," he said.
"When a few saw me walking through in my suit, I just told them I felt
like swimming." He hopped in and swam over, coming to fold and rest his
arms on the side edge of my raft. "What 'cha doing over here?"

"I don't think a couple
one-on-ones and a couple group dates are going to cut it. So, I'm over here to
spend more time. Plus, I was bored."

He let his eyes sweep over me a
bit before settling their intensity on mine. "We should move this over to
your pool. I swear I can keep you occupied."

I raised my eyebrows and smiled
at him. "I'm sure you could. But my intention was to spend my time with
whoever all spotted me and came out."

"Most of them are buried in
their laptops and cell phones catching up with work in the house and down at
the RVs. A couple are still waiting to do interviews."

"Why aren't you busy doing
one of those things?"

"Because I caught up this
morning with my work, and I've done my interview. Now it's time to play,"
and he flipped me off my raft.

That started a splashing war
between us.

Liam ventured outside a few
minutes later, after the commotion caught his attention. "Are you two
having fun?"

Stephen and I stopped splashing
long enough to look over at Liam, then at each other, and then we both started
splashing the water up at Liam as much as we could, to soak him. He laughed and
jumped in.

Jared joined us when he was done
interviewing, followed by Ardent, who'd come back up from the RV parking lot.
Add in a little pool basketball, and it was a good way to spend an afternoon.

That evening, the guys lit up the
fire pit and we all gathered around. The cameras had been around, but they had
refrained from getting in anyone's face, and just let us have some down time.
I'm sure their zoom lenses were being worked overtime, though. For the first
time, aside from breakfast, we'd been together as one large group, and had been
able to relax.

Production brought up beer and
supplies for 'smores. A toasted versus burnt marshmallow debate began, and the
beer flowed. There'd been drinking around the house before tonight, for sure.
Alcohol was available in abundance. But they'd refrained from getting plastered
in front of me, until now.

They kept handing me beers, and I
kept sitting them under my chair. I nursed two throughout the night. Eight guys
surrounded me, all vying for my attention. There was no way I was getting drunk
and coming anywhere close to risking finding myself waking up with someone else
in my bed. I'd have zero respect from any of the rest of them from that point
on. And, I'd have no respect for myself for having that happening and letting
them all down.

Besides, you can learn a lot
about a person by how they handle their liquor. I decided to settle back and
watch how it all unfolded.

Drake got quiet and took to
staring off into space, the more he drank. Ardent seemed normal, except the
more he drank, the louder he got when he was talking. Jared, I swear, seemed to
get more and more intelligent the drunker he got. He started rambling, but it
was highly intelligent rambling. Trevor got to the point where he couldn't walk
a straight line and stumbled off back into the house to sleep it off. Stephen
would nod and laugh, but couldn't string two sentences together to save his
life. Liam's Scottish accent got so thick that the other guys were too drunk to
understand him. Mike started on comedic riffs that had me laughing so hard, I
nearly wet myself.

Phillip had joined in with the
fun, but I'd noticed he hadn't drank that much. When we all stood to break
apart the group for the evening, he and I watched the others crawl or stagger
inside the house.

"I can walk you back
over," Phillip offered.

"Afraid I might get
lost?" I teased.

"No, I'm afraid if I don't
take the opportunities when I can, I'll miss out and kick myself for it
later."

I smiled, amused, and reached out
for his hand. He took it and led me down the path with cameramen scrambling
behind us.

"I don't suppose you're
going to let me in?" he asked when we'd reached my door.

"No, I don't suppose I will,"
I answered, my smile flirty.

He leaned in and backed me up
against the door. "One night, I'm going to show up here and cook you
dinner."

"I think you already did
that."

"Yeah, but this time I won't
bring an audience."

"Except for the
cameramen?"

"They don't hit on you, so
they don't count," he whispered and started nuzzling my neck.

"You cook for me all the
time. I've had more of your cooking the last few weeks than my own. Don't you
want to do something different?"

"Okay," he said against
my ear. "How about I cook with you, instead?"

"You must really like
cooking," I whispered as I molded myself against him.

"It's my favorite hobby. I'd
like to see if we could share it." He drew his lips closer to mine.

"I'm going to make that
happen," I promised.

He smiled
gently and closed his mouth on mine.