Walk of Shame (27 page)

We'd been given a little lecture
by production to stop talking about the rule breaking. They wanted footage they
could use. Nearly every bit of conversation on the way over had been unusable,
except for snippets here and there. If it got out that there were a number of
encounters off-camera going on, there'd be hell to pay from the fans. So when
we got back into the car, we steered to more appropriate conversation topics.

"All right, let's get down
to the nitty-gritty," I said.

"Shoot."

"Would we live in my fifth
wheel, or your travel trailer?"

"Your fifth wheel. There's
more square footage because you have slide-outs. And you have higher ceilings. That'd
be nicer with two of us living in it."

"Okay. So now flash forward
in time. What do we do with a baby?"

He scrunched up his face a bit.
"We can get a fifth wheel custom made. Put us in the larger bedroom with
two slide outs and have it double as an office. We'll have to separate the
space to keep little fingers off of cameras and paperwork."

"What was the face
for?"

"How set are you on the idea
of kids?"

"It's a deal breaker for
me."

"How many do you have to
have?"

"I get that, especially with
our lifestyle, the more you have, the more difficult life can get. I could deal
with having only one, but I would prefer having two."

"I could do one," he
said.

"If you don't want a child,
then you shouldn't have one."

"I like kids. I just don't
like the idea of all the life changes that come with having one."

"And I understand that. I do.
And if you don't want to make those changes, you shouldn't have to. You
shouldn't have children."

"Yes, but one child is more
manageable than two. And the years where we'd be so limited because of young
ages would be less because it would be one and done, not one and then start
over a couple years later."

"So you could really do one
and not resent it?"

"As long as you can be
satisfied with just one."

I nodded. "Deal."

We took a turn off the highway
toward a small airport and I gasped. "Where are we flying?"

Stephen laughed. "Not gonna
tell you. You're a smart and well-traveled girl, I'm sure you'll figure it out.
Hell, I'm sure you've been there before."

"Then why take me?"

"You'll see."

We climbed into a helicopter once
we got there. This time production was prepared and they had dash cams set up
in addition to the two-person camera crew getting into the backseats.

I don't know what favors or
strings production had to pull to make this happen, but Stephen flew me to the
Grand Canyon. And as gorgeous and picturesque as it was, I didn't have the
heart to tell him I'd done a helicopter tour before, on one of my five or six
trips here over the last few years. It didn't matter though, not really. If I
didn't love the scene laid out before me so much, I wouldn't keep coming back.

But then we did something I'd
never done before. We dipped down into the canyon and landed on a cliff ledge
about three-quarters of the way down to the bottom. There were a couple picnic
tables set up and Stephen pulled a picnic basket out of the back of the craft.

"How the hell did they get
tables down here for you?" I asked.

"They didn't. There's a
company run out of Vegas that flies people over and back for lunch here. We
just needed permission to use their spot."

I must admit, it was a relaxing
and peaceful place to share a meal. It was a hell of an impression to make on
me, too. "How long have you been cooking this little plan in the back of
your mind?"

"Since I found out that I'd
be coming on the show," he answered with a smile.

We lifted off the ground just as
the sun was setting and I got to see the sky light up with colors from above
the canyon. That was a beautiful sight. And by the time we got back to Los
Angeles, all the city lights were lit up and made for a pretty sight as well.

"If you don't mind," he
said after he'd shut down the chopper, "I have one more surprise for
you."

I tried not to show my
disappointment.

He didn't look happy with my
fallen expression. "Do I have a shot, at all, of making it past
Sunday?"

"Of course you do. It's just
that there was something I was hoping to see tonight, and it's starting
soon."

His eyes narrowed and he smiled
with that same simmering intensity that had drawn me to him to start with.
"What are the odds that what I plan to show you is the same thing that you
want to see?"

I let my eyes dance as I regarded
him. "I'm hoping pretty high. I'm curious to know what else you have up
your sleeve, but I don't want to miss out on my plans for tonight,
either."

"How would you feel about a
little wager?" he asked.

A smile spread across my face.
"What did you have in mind?"

"Well, you made it pretty
blatant that I was the least favored of the five. But then I also found out
that the other four have been stealing time. And, our official date time is
over. Let me steal this extra one-on-one time with you, and let's see if we
really have a compatible interest in certain things or not."

"Here and done, down and
dirty?"

"If our plans match up, I
don't go home on Sunday and I stay another week. If our plans don't match up,
I'll go ahead and leave when we're done. I'll be spared the
Walk of Shame
,
and you won't have to agonize over whether or not you're making the right
decision."

"You really want to do
this?"

"Yeah, because it will put
me out of the misery of not knowing. Unless... you were going to steal time
with someone else."

"No. I was going to go back
to the main house and drag all five of you guys out. I was going to steal a
group date. But, I'm curious as hell now. You got yourself a deal."

We shook hands and got out of the
chopper.

Stephen spoke with the driver,
consulted a map on his phone briefly, and then brought over a piece of paper
and a pen to me that he'd gotten from the driver. "In the interest of
fairness," he said, "write down what you planned on seeing. That way
there's no twisting this one way or the other about whether our plans were the
same."

I smiled at his thoroughness.
"All right." I took the paper, wrote down two words, folded the
paper, pocketed it, and handed the pen back. "I don't want to chance you
seeing it," I told him.

He winked at me, returned the
pen, and we all piled into the vehicle. There were some twisty-turning roads
involved, and a rise in elevation as we neared our destination.

I wasn't sure how I wanted this
to turn out. On one hand, in the back of my mind I'd already decided that
Stephen was going home this week. But, because of our early connection, I
feared that I was making a mistake in doing that. The idea of the bet was
intriguing to me because if we both viewed the same thing as being a good way
to pass the time, I didn't really think sending him home would be the best
option. On the other hand, the thing I was planning to see might be something
he hadn't even heard about and might have chosen it had he known and now would
be going home, more or less, mistakenly.

I sighed and then smiled because
I noticed that the turns in the road had gotten sharper and our elevation was
getting higher. We were outside the city and up a mountain. We got out of the
vehicle and walked up a path that opened into a clearing. Production had a
blanket spread out, and waiting for us was a bottle of wine chilling in an ice
bucket.

I was in a state of awe. I smiled
like an idiot and pulled the piece of paper out of my pocket to hand to him.

It was a little hard for him to
read the paper and used the glow from his phone's screen to read it.
"Meteor shower," he read and then gestured to the sky. "Meteor
shower. I win."

"Yes, you do," I
murmured and leaned into him for a hug.

He encircled
me in his arms and leaned in to share a kiss.

"So," Mike said on our
run the next morning, "Did Steve redeem himself last night?"

I shrugged in deference to the
idea that he wouldn't want me raving about another man. "He certainly did
his best to throw down the gauntlet and recapture my attention."

"So it's no longer a given
that he's on his way out the door?"

"No. He did exactly what
Drake didn't do and should have. He heeded the warning and changed tactics. In
fact, I can guarantee that he's not going anywhere this week. "

"So do you know who
is?"

"I have absolutely no idea.
There's nothing wrong with any of you guys. "

He smiled. "Well, you better
find something wrong with four of us, because we aren't into being brother-husbands
for you."

I broke pace laughing at him. And
I totally noticed Mike's butt as he bounded three steps ahead before stopping
and turning around to wait for me to start again.

I started running. "I have
no desire to juggle that many men for the rest of my life, thank you."

"Good." We ran for
another couple of minutes before he spoke again. "So, I saw how Goldie
flipped out over recognizing your father."

"Yeah..." I said, not
willing to elaborate on the why of her reaction.

"You know whose room she's
been sleeping in lately, don't you?"

"No, actually, I
don't."

"Jared's."

I quit running again. "That
son of a bitch! He's trying to steal my dog."

Mike laughed. "You need to
put a stop to it if you're not going to end up choosing him."

I shifted my eyes to his. "I
can't possibly know that yet. Damn it," I said and started running for the
main house. "I can't have her getting that attached to one of you yet."

I ran into the house, past a
smiling Phillip on his way to the kitchen, up the stairs, and barged into
Jared's room. Goldie's head lifted from its resting spot on Jared's side and
her tail thumped. I snapped my fingers and pointed to the floor by my feet.

She whined.

I snapped and pointed again and
she reluctantly got up and came to me. I stepped back into the hallway as Jared
was beginning to stir. Goldie followed and I shut the door before Jared turned
over to see who had claimed the dog.

"Let's go," I whispered
to Goldie. I walked back down the stairs and was halfway to the door before I
realized she had stopped and sat just outside the kitchen. "Goldie,
now," I said.

She whined at me and looked
towards Phillip, who was looking amused over the situation.

"Now."

She let out a woof and stayed
put. It dawned on me that her desire to be in the kitchen probably meant that
the guys had taken to feeding her table scraps when she was around. That
thought did nothing to quell my irritation.

I snapped my fingers and pointed
to the glass door. "Goldilocks Jacobs. Right. Now."

Phillip and Mike started
laughing.

Goldie put her head down and
growled in her grumbling way, but got up and walked to the door.

I opened the door, she passed
through, and I made her sit on one of the patio chairs with me. I took her
furry face in my hands to talk to her. "You're my dog. I know you've been
having your run of the place, and I'm happy you've found so many new friends.
But you are my dog. Mine. You have to start sleeping with me again, girl.
Almost everyone you've met here is going to disappear from your life. I have to
remain your number one."

She looked at me with her big,
brown, puppy-dog eyes and suddenly lifted her head from my hands, lunged
forward, and attacked me with slobbering wet doggy kisses.

I giggled at
her and tried to get my head turned far enough away to keep her tongue out of
my mouth.

I returned to the house after a
shower and an unscheduled interview with Troy about my date with Stephen the
day before.

"Where are you off to
today?" Stephen asked.

I put the container holding the
remaining four names on the table. "The zoo has a couple tiger cubs, and
I've been invited to go play with them. They've also offered me a feeding tour.
Giraffes, pandas, elephants, whatever else they'll let me feed without
endangering my life."

"And we're leaving it up to
the bowl again?" Liam asked.

"Yep. That's my story this
week and I'm sticking to it. If you wanted a second one-on-one this week and don't
get it, blame the bowl. If you get stuck feeding baby tigers when you'd have
rather a more daring venture, blame the bowl."

"I'll pick it," Stephen
said, "my name's no longer in there."

No one objected, so he reached in
and pulled out a paper. "Jared," he read before looking up,
"you're bottle-feeding babies today."

Jared smiled. "All right!
I'm ready if you are."

I smiled in return, but I wasn't
happy with the bowl's choice.

A couple of the other guys
exchanged questioning eyebrows in reaction to the expression on my face.

Jared held his tongue until we'd
made it outside. We got up to the car before he turned to me. "Do you not
want a second date with me?" he asked. "Because I thought we were
doing well. I know I haven't been exercising with you or jumping in your hot
tub, but I thought we were building something here."

"You guys are getting so
touchy," I said. "Are they giving you guys extra testosterone in
there?"

He sighed and gave a wave toward
the house. "This situation is bringing out our competitive sides. You said
the game had changed and that you had an interest in each of us and now there's
this edge running through everyone's attitude."

I looked away and sighed,
unsurprised that we had all gotten to this point.

"Do you not want to go with
me?" he asked.

I looked him in the eye, to
reassure him. "I want to go on another one-on-one with you. I do have feelings
for you. I want to spend time with you. I just wouldn't have put you on a date
with animals because that's what you do all day. I was trying to get people out
of their professional lives."

"Hey, I work with scaly
things. You're talking about feeding furry things. We don't even have to walk
past the reptile house if you don't want to," he promised with a smile.

I sighed and decided to go with
it. "I could still send out a text and try to get production to take us
somewhere else."

"No. You were all set to
feed the cubs and that's exactly what we're going to do." He opened the
car door. "Now get in here before we miss their feeding time."

I smiled and got into the car.
Maybe this whole thing was getting to me, too. Who cares that things weren't
going exactly according to my plan? I was going to be able to spend the day
with the yumminess of a man that was Jared.

We met up with the guide that had
been assigned to us when we got to the zoo. He took us over to the building
that housed the tiger cubs and I found myself in a little piece of Heaven,
holding the tiny newborn cub and bottle-feeding her. And when I lifted my eyes
to look over to see how Jared was enjoying the cub he was feeding, his eyes
were watching me and there was a smile softening his face.

It was small moments like this
that made me consider a future with Jared. Everything about the man made me
melt inside. And he was so willing to talk about the future and describe how
things could be between us. I had no complaints about the man, except for the
annoying fact that he was tied to swampy marshlands. I admired his profession
of ecology. I enjoyed the fact that he kept going back to a family business,
when other obligations didn't consume his time, and worked to educate people
about the care and lives of typically unloved creatures. Hell, I could enjoy
getting involved in a business like that. I just didn't care for the location
of his specialty and how much of my time would be spent there. If I could just
get past that, this whole thing could maybe be tied up within the week.

Our guide took us around to feed
many other animals, including baby zebras and adolescent pandas. And the ones
we couldn't safely feed ourselves, zookeepers walked us through the process and
we observed the meat-eaters enjoying their lunch. Then we ended our tour by
holding baby koalas.

I couldn't care less about the
dilemma of my pending decision while in the presence of such utter cuteness.
But Jared brought me back down to Earth with a simple request.

"I want to take you to the
reptile house," he said.

I took a breath and handed the
ball of fluff back to his keeper. "I figured."

"I need you to come to terms
with what I do."

"I know you do."

"They have babies over there,
too."

"You promise?"

He smiled. "Cross my heart
and hope to die."

I nodded and he handed me the fully-grown
sloth that he'd been holding and went to speak to the guide.

It wasn't long before I found
myself looking into a tank holding hatching snake eggs. Slithering infants
inside, fighting their way free. I know my face wrinkled in distaste, I
couldn't help it. "I just want you to understand the supreme effort I'm
making in standing here without doing the high-pitched squealing girl
thing," I said to all who were in the room with me.

"Do you want to hold
one?" the keeper asked.

"God, no," I answered.

Jared grinned and nodded.

The keeper retrieved one that had
hatched before we got there and handed it to Jared, already having been
informed of what Jared did for a living and which business his family ran.

Jared turned to me with the
squiggly little thing in his hands and I took three steps back.

"I won't throw him at
you," he assured me as he kept his tone calm and even. "Just come
over here and get a good look at him."

He waited for me, but I didn't
move any closer.

"He can't hurt you," he
said. "He's not poisonous and he can't squeeze a finger off or anything.
You'll be fine."

I breathed in and out and forced
myself to walk back over to him.

"Good, now touch him."

I reached up and touched Jared's
upper arm.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm touching the person
who's holding him, that's good enough for right now."

He laughed. "Are you sure I
can't get you to hold him?" he asked without moving the snake any closer.

"Look, I appreciate how calm
and patient you're being. It's the whole reason I haven't freaked out yet. But
if you put that little baby in my hands, or if it touches me, I will
scream."

"You have a fear of
snakes."

"I have a fear of
snakes."

"Okay. What about petting a
young alligator with his mouth taped shut?"

"Now that I'll do."

Jared raised a questioning brow
to the reptile keeper.

"We don't have any young
ones right now. But we do have some tortoises you can feed, if you'd
like," he said.

Jared turned to me.

"That sounds right up my
alley."

We spent the rest of the
afternoon discussing which animals I deemed okay and which ones I didn't. It
didn't turn out to be quite the date I had been envisioning, but it led to
actions and conversations that we needed to have. I'd ended up putting Jared in
his comfort zone and pulling myself completely out of my own.

Later, when we were back in the
car, he turned to me. "Can I spoil your dinner plans to prove something to
you?"

"What is it with you guys
and taking charge this week?"

"We're upping our
game."

"Okay. If you want to feed
me some other way, I'm in."

He started texting production and
the driver turned our car back towards the compound a few moments later. He
kept right on texting until we reached the gates, then took my hand when we got
out and led me back to my cottage. There was all manner of ingredients laid out
on the island.

"I know Phillip has come
over and cooked for you before, so this idea has already been done. But, you
like to make mention of how you appreciate a man who can cook. And I can cook.
I have a few specialties, but I thought I'd stick to something tried and
true," he declared.

"Awesome. I'd love to sample
your cooking."

Later, after we'd joked and
carried on in the kitchen as he went about making dinner, we sat at the dining
room table with plates full of chicken parmesan.

"I want to take you home
with me," he said. "I want to show you what I see in the swamp. I
think doing it in the relative safety of the animal sanctuary we run would be
better than hands-on in the swamp. But maybe getting you on a boat ride through
the swamp might help you start to see the beauty in it, too."

"Maybe we can start with the
plant life and work our way up to the animals. I can totally deal with the
gorgeous plants that grow and bloom out there."

He flashed a smile. "That
sounds like a plan."

I smiled back at him from across
the table. I decided to treat his profession like I had RVing, back in the
beginning. Living on the road sounds all exotic and exciting, but there were
definite downsides to it. Things like having to empty your sewage tank, and not
having a secure enough connection, that caused you to have it leak and splash
onto your shoes and pants, or worse, your bare legs. Dealing with sponge baths
for a few days, only to still run out of clean water while boondocking. Having
your home be stranded along the side of the road because your vehicle broke
down and had to be towed to a garage. These were the things you had to deal
with and overlook, in order to enjoy all the good things about the lifestyle.

My approach to the swamp was
going to have to be the same way. The only problem was that I was working
backwards. With RVing, I thought of all the good things first, making the bad
things seem tolerable. With this, I was aware of all the bad things first,
which made the good things seem as though they didn't exist. I was going to
have to figure out how to turn my thinking around, if Jared was to have a fair
chance at being with me at the end of this.