When the commercial break was over, Bea stood at her mark at center stage. Behind the mansion, the sun was setting over the Pacific, and the whole set was bathed in a soothing pink glow, accentuated by the warm lights.
Bea smiled placidly as her first suitor walked toward her.
He was backlit at first, but as he came into focus, Bea took in his broad shoulders and narrow waist, his muscles rippling beneath the perfectly fitted fabric of his Italian wool suit, his thick golden hair, warm brown eyes. He was looking at her with distaste—or maybe, worse, disgust.
“Hi,” he said tentatively, well mannered but clearly perplexed. “Are you … Bea?”
“Yes, hi, I’m Bea.” She struggled to maintain composure even though her heart was pounding. “What’s your name?”
“Brian,” he replied. “So, you’re the person we’re going to be dating? Sorry, I’m just a little surprised.”
That makes two of us, buddy, Bea thought—this guy didn’t bring a new look to the show in any way whatsoever. She smiled wider.
“Yep, that’s me! I guess you should head over there, and we’ll talk later?”
Bea nodded toward the risers behind her where the men were meant to stand and wait as the rest of them filed onstage. Brian wandered off, looking dazed—Bea felt the same way. Was this just ratings bait, throwing out a stunning Adonis before Bea got to meet the diverse range of men who might actually look like they had any interest in dating her? That must be it. Of course that was it. Bea squared her shoulders and mentally prepared herself to meet the next man, someone she could sell to the world as her Prince Charming. She could do this. She was ready.
Then the second man appeared.
He was imposing and Latino with powerful arms and pillowy lips, like a young Javier Bardem with a mischievous smile. He wore fitted jeans and a button-down, but the ten-gallon Stetson made the outfit.
“Well, howdy,” he greeted her warmly with a thick Texas accent, and Bea was momentarily so captivated that she forgot to be horrified.
“Hi, I’m Bea.”
“Bea? Jaime. It’s a damn pleasure to meet you.” He kissed her hand. “Can I say damn? I don’t know the rules.”
“Who cares about rules?” Bea blurted, and Jaime let out a full laugh, a great laugh—the audience appreciatively joined in.
“Talk more soon, I hope.” He gave her hand a squeeze and headed off—Bea didn’t bother not to stare at his ass as he left. Talk about damn.
Except—wait. That was two men who could just as easily have been Calvin Klein models as contestants on this show. But before Bea could think too much about what was happening, the third man walked onstage: He was young and Black with a broad, muscular frame, a thick mustache, and a dazzling smile, the spitting image of Michael B. Jordan. No. This wasn’t happening. These were all the same men you always saw on Main Squeeze—more diverse by skin color, sure, but so far, Bea thought these men looked far more likely to give advice on weight-lifting technique than give her the time of day.
Bea needed to talk to Lauren—crap, they were on live television—could she maybe signal a producer? Get someone’s attention? She turned to see who might be around, which of course was the exact moment the third man extended his arms to give Bea a hug hello, and poked her directly in the stomach instead. Bea closed her eyes and imagined the moment replayed in slow motion on YouTube, an unflattering GIF of her mid-section shimmying up the list of trending topics on Twitter.
“Oh no, I’m so sorry, I was trying to hug you—”
But Bea didn’t care what Mustache Man had to say, she just needed to get through this, needed to get to the next break so she could talk to Lauren.
“It’s fine,” she insisted through gritted teeth. She willed her facial muscles to relax. “I’m Bea. What’s your name?”
“Uh—Sam,” he sputtered, thrown off by her bizarre behavior.
“Great!” She tried to sound normal, but her panic was bleeding through. “See you soon, Sam!” She gestured toward the risers, and off he went.
Two more until commercial, she thought. Keep it together. Two more.
The next man was already walking toward her, a laid-back guy with a golden tan.
“Hey, am I in the right place?” he joked. A few audience members laughed uncomfortably.
“I hope so!” Bea smiled. “I’m Bea, and you are?”
“Confused,” he retorted. “This is Main Squeeze, right? I’m on television right now?”
“If you’re not, I’m not totally sure what all the cameras are doing here.” Bea fought to maintain a light tone. This guy needed to move the hell along.
“Cool. Um. I think I’m gonna go?”
Bea’s heart stopped, and all the noise of the set—the hum of the generators, the grind of the cameras, the whispers of the audience—fell suddenly silent.
“What?”
“Yeah, I gotta—it was nice to meet you, though.”
And with that, he turned and walked offstage, passing man number five on his way. Bea closed her eyes, seized by a sudden compulsion to burst out laughing. What kind of a waking nightmare was this? What would happen if she left too? How would Lauren fill the rest of the hour?
“Hello, Bea. I’m Asher.”
Oh, the fifth man was here. He was really attractive—Asian American with black glasses and thick salt-and-pepper hair.
“Fantastic. The risers are right over there—or you can just leave now if you prefer?”
“What? Do you want me to leave?” Asher looked perplexed.
“Makes no difference to me!” She flashed him a grin that she was sure bordered on deranged, but she was fresh out of fucks to give about who these men were or how they saw her. Asher tentatively backed away and headed over to the riser, and then Johnny was onstage to close out the segment and take them to commercial, saying something about this dramatic season being off and running while Bea smiled and gazed blankly ahead.
“And we’re out!” a producer called as they cut to commercial. “Back in a hundred and twenty!”
A hundred and twenty seconds—Bea didn’t know what Lauren was going to say to force her to continue this torment in two minutes flat, but she was already rushing toward her.
“Bea! Bea, what the hell?”
“Are you kidding me?” Bea didn’t want to freak out in front of all these people, but she no longer felt above it, not after what had just happened. “These men hate me!”
“Bea, no—shit, shit, shit.” Lauren put her hands on her head, looking a little panicked herself. “I told that guy to walk off, okay?”
“What?” Bea was flabbergasted. “Why would you do that?”
“Ratings, Bea! People are going to vilify him and love you. They’re going to think you’re the bravest person on the planet, and they’re going to be desperately invested in you finding the perfect guy you deserve. But that must have felt awful—you had no way to know it was fake. I’m sorry, I should have told you beforehand.”
Something clicked into place in Bea’s mind—
“This was your plan to make America love me? To humiliate me on TV?”
“I’m seeing the flaws now.” Lauren grimaced.
“It was a bad plan!”
“Back in ninety!” the producer called.
“What about the others?” Bea demanded.
“What others?”
“The other men! You saw how they looked at me. Why would you set me up to be mortified?” Bea asked bitterly.
“You’re wrong,” Lauren insisted. “Jaime, Sam, Asher—they’re good guys. You’ll see.”
“Sixty seconds!”
“I want to walk off this set right now,” Bea rasped, her voice breaking.
“Your contract prohibits that pretty expressly,” Lauren pleaded, “but even if it didn’t, I still believe in this show. In all the lives you’re going to change—including yours.”
“Thirty out!”
Lauren looked into Bea’s eyes, her expression desperate—
“Bea, by the time this is over, you’re going to be the most beloved woman in America. But only if you stay and fight. Can you do that? Forget me, forget the show. Think of your career—your future. Think of all the women at home, glued to their televisions, who know if you find love, that means they can too.”
Bea pressed her lips together and nodded. Lauren sprinted offstage as the producer counted them back to air in five, four, three, two, one.
“Welcome back, everyone!” Johnny said brightly, as if completely disconnected from the mess that had recently played out before him. “What do you say, Bea, are you ready to meet your next five suitors?”
Bea lifted her chin and did her best to put on a good-natured expression.
“We’ll see, Johnny. If they keep walking out, maybe they’ll save me the trouble of having to hold the first kiss-off ceremony!”
Johnny looked rather like a deer in the headlights as he faked a laugh at Bea’s joke. “Okay, then! Up next, please meet Wyatt.”
Bea turned to the edge of the stage, where the next man was walking toward her. If Lauren had called Central Casting and asked for an all-American football hero, Bea didn’t think they could have done any better. Tall and muscled with blond hair, Wyatt wore jeans and boots and a charcoal flannel shirt buttoned smartly, as if this were a cozy business meeting instead of an appearance on live television. Ducking his head shyly, he looked even more nervous than Bea felt, and she warmed to him immediately.
“Hey—um, hey. Hey, Bea.” His voice shook, but he brought her into a hug that was kind and sure.
“Hi, Wyatt.” Bea felt her temper melting away. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Wyatt stepped back to meet her eyes. “What that guy did before, walking away like that. I don’t think that was right. Not right at all.”
“Me neither,” Bea said softly.
“I really like your dress.” He smiled. “Actually, I guess it’s pants. Is it pants?”
Bea laughed. “It’s a jumpsuit.”
“Well, whatever it is, it looks beautiful on you.”
Bea suddenly felt tears behind her eyes—totally disarmed by this small act of kindness, this show of support. Wyatt looked at her with concern.
“Are you okay?”
Bea nodded. “I think so.”
“Good.” He leaned in to kiss her cheek, and as the shadow of his tall frame blocked the hot lights for just a moment, Bea closed her eyes and exhaled. This was possible. All she had to do was keep going.
After Wyatt, the second group of men was pretty similar to the first: a parade of athletic men with bulging arms and narrow waistlines, perfectly symmetrical faces that soured with displeasure as they laid eyes on Bea. The second man in the group stopped short when he walked onstage, but recovered with relatively little awkwardness.
The third veered toward incredulity: “Uh … seriously?”
The fourth said “Wow” over and over again. “Wow. Wow. Wow.”
“Wow?” Bea ventured.
“Wow,” he parroted back.
“Who are you?” asked the fifth man.
“I’m Bea,” she replied.
“No, but I mean, who are you, like, on this show?”
“I’m the woman you’re here to meet. That’s why you’re meeting me.”
“I don’t understand.”
She told him they’d talk more soon, then attempted to take deep, cleansing breaths during the commercial break.
The third group included a grungy blond surfer named Cooper, a thickly muscled trainer named Kumal, a chilled-out stockbroker named Trevor, and a political consultant named Marco who burst into a broad smile when he saw Bea.
“Gorgeous,” he whispered.
“I’m sorry?” Bea wasn’t sure how to react to being greeted this way at all, let alone on live TV by a man with dark hair and olive skin who looked like he ought to be lounging on a beach in Capri, his muscles glistening in the Mediterranean sunlight.
“No, I’m sorry.” He took her hand and grinned, showing off his blinding white smile. “It’s just—you’re so beautiful.”
“Okay, um, thanks? I guess?” She laughed uncomfortably. Bea didn’t know if Marco was putting on an act, but she doubted very much that she could figure it out during his allotted thirty seconds of airtime, so she made polite chitchat and sent him on his way.
She turned to greet the final man in the third group, who turned out to be the first man of the night who wasn’t trim and handsome: Jefferson Derting, a Missourian with a roundly protruding belly and bushy ginger beard. In dark jeans and a gray button-down topped with an orange tie and tweedy vest, he put Bea in mind of a hipster bartender who would insist on being called a mixologist. Physically, though, his body type was much closer to most of the men Bea had dated in the past—and to Bea herself—and she felt a sense of relief as he approached her.
“Salutations, little lady.” His smile seemed friendly enough, but Bea couldn’t tell whether this was his usual mode of greeting or a barb at her expense.
“Fancy meeting a gent like you in a place like this,” Bea replied in kind. If he was just doing a bit, she didn’t want to ruin it with undue paranoia.
“Seriously, though, I think it’s awesome that you’re going to be the star of the show this year. About damn time they cast a gal who looks like you.” He raised his hand for a high-five, which Bea awkwardly returned. “See you soon, I hope?”
Bea nodded and smiled. “Definitely.”
As Jefferson took a walk toward the riser and Johnny took them to commercial, Bea took a moment to steady herself: more than halfway through now. You can do this.
“Bea, we have a special surprise with your fourth group of suitors,” Johnny gushed when they came back on air.
“Are you sure I haven’t had quite enough surprises?” Bea joked weakly.
“In this next group”—Johnny lowered his voice dramatically—“every single one of the men …”
Is an astronaut? Is a nice, kind, normal dude? Is a time-traveling wizard possessed of the power to make this night be over?
“… is named Ben.”
“What?” Bea asked, unsure why this merited mention, let alone a grand pronouncement.
“Yes!” Johnny clapped his hands. “Meet the five Bens!”
And so she did: Ben G., a Birkenstock-clad kindergarten teacher who brought his guitar and forced Bea to join him in his class’s good-morning song (on. live. television.); Ben F., a personal trainer; Ben K., a personal fitness coach (“So, like a trainer?” Bea had asked, and apparently this was very much the wrong thing to say); Ben Q., a dental student; and finally, Ben Z., who, at six-foot-six, was known by the group as “Big Ben,” and whose occupation remained a mystery—there seemed to have been a collective decision that his height was information enough.
Once the parade of Bens ended, they cut to commercial and Alison rushed over—theoretically to check Bea’s wardrobe, but really to give her a quick hug.
“Just one more group,” Alison whispered in Bea’s ear. “You’re doing great.”
As Alison hurried away and Johnny announced the arrival of the final group, Bea finally started to relax—there was light at the end of the tunnel. It didn’t matter whether these men really liked her, didn’t matter that this last group seemed the most indifferent yet, didn’t even matter that the second-to-last man presented her with a cupcake that he’d scavenged from Craft Services upon hearing that Bea was, quote, “a larger lady.” As if Bea hadn’t endured thousands of judgmental stares eating sweets (or burgers, or fries) in regular old restaurants, let alone on television. As if her fatness were the essence of her personality, butter and sugar paving the pathways to her heart.
“Thanks,” she said curtly to the cupcake-bearer, a smarmy property broker named Nash who struck Bea as a locker-room bully, “but I think I’m going to leave this with you. A snack for the riser!”
She faked a smile as he walked away, then turned to meet her final man, taking a
deep breath and insisting to herself once more that it didn’t matter who he was or how he reacted to her.
Which was a lot tougher to believe when she realized he was the most attractive man she’d ever seen in her life.
Plenty of the other men were conventionally handsome, but this man was absolutely devastating: dark hair long enough to brush his neck, crooked nose, full lips, crinkly brown eyes, incredibly strategic stubble, geometric tattoos peeking out beneath his shirtsleeves along his muscled forearms.
And he spoke with a throaty French accent. Because of fucking course he did.
“You do not ’ave a sweet tooth?” he asked as he approached—a reference to the cupcake she’d just refused.
“I’ve been known to indulge,” she murmured, “under the right circumstances.”
He took her hand as if to shake it, or kiss it, but instead he just held it, his thumb tracing deliberate circles inside her palm, turning her insides molten.
“Well, I am a chef,” he quipped, “so perhaps I will discover the sweetness you desire.”
“I think I might like that.” Her face warmed with a genuine smile, this dazzling man temporarily erasing her ability to feel self-conscious.
“Pardon me if I am forward, Bea.” He dropped his voice and looked directly at her. “But I think you should have everything you want.”
“What’s your name?” she asked, the words little more than breath escaping her body.
He smiled and finally raised her hand to his mouth, brushing his lips against it.
“I am Luc,” he answered. “Enchanté.”
The moment should have been cheesy, but it was the opposite, somehow—it felt almost too intimate to be shown on camera. The barest touch of Luc’s lips on her skin was pure sex, and in that moment, all Bea wanted in the world was to leave the set with him and make everyone else disappear.
“And that’s the ball game!” Johnny interjected, reminding Bea her fantasy was impossible—and probably unwise. “When we come back, we’ll find out what Bea thinks of these men—and what they think about her—so stick around!”
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