by Lisa Suzanne
I discard the queen, ten, and three, and Danny discards only one card.
Fuck. I’m fucked.
Melanie deals our cards, and I peek at each one individually, one at a time. The first one is a two.
The second is a four.
And the third is a seven.
I have to bank on three sevens. Danny only drew one card, which could mean he’s trying to fill a straight or a flush. I say a silent prayer that he didn’t get the card he needed.
“Dax, show your cards,” Melanie says.
I set them down, and Danny curses.
“Danny, show yours,” she says.
He sets his cards face up. He was going for a flush, and he didn’t get it. He didn’t even get a pair.
I won.
Holy shit, I won. Eden told me last night she’d choose me back. She confirmed that again on today’s short date.
A frisson of fear races down my spine as I think about what’s going to happen in just a few minutes.
It’s suddenly all too real.
Despite her reassurance that she’ll pick me if I pick her, I’m starting to feel the fear that she’ll go back on her word.
What if she picks Danny?
It won’t just be about the money or losing the girl I don’t know well enough yet to say we could have a future together.
It’ll be another time a woman chose a different man over me.
My past catches up with me, and I think back to the pain I felt when I found out Vickie cheated on me and the hurt that ripped my chest apart when Piper decided she wanted to be with another man.
I don’t love Eden—not yet. I don’t even know if I could sometime down the road. I’m too caught up in my feelings for Kylie right now, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t have something valuable in the future with Eden.
And it also doesn’t mean it won’t be another painful blow to my chest to come in second place.
She’ll pick me. I’m confident in that. I push away the nagging thoughts that she won’t.
I’m minutes away from nearly two hundred thousand dollars and a potential new relationship with someone I could really see myself liking down the road...provided Danny didn’t do anything stupid to fuck up my chances.
“With three sevens, Dax is our winner,” Mel says. “Congratulations!”
I smile tightly at the woman I hate and shake Danny’s hand, who I just lost a shitload of respect for, and then Jarrod places us back in front of the fireplace.
The women return, and I try to catch Eden’s eye. I know mine are sparkling, yet I’m nervous as all fuck that she’s going to pick Danny. It all rides on this moment—everything I’ve been working for over the last five weeks.
“Welcome back, ladies. Tonight is going to work a little differently. Instead of writing the name on a slip of paper, our man in power tonight is simply going to announce the woman he has chosen. So without further ado, I’m pleased to announce that Dax Hunter is the winner of our final challenge. Congratulations, Dax! Now please, tell us the woman you have chosen to stand in the final spot tonight.”
I nod at Mel in thanks and then turn to the women. “Lexy, Eden, I’ve enjoyed our time together so much. I can only choose one woman tonight, and I have to go with my heart. I have to choose the woman who I can see in my future. With that said, tonight I choose to keep Eden.”
“I’m sorry, Lexy, but neither Dax nor Danny has taken your heart,” Mel says for the final time. Lexy hugs me first then turns to Danny. They embrace for a few beats.
We all turn our attention to Eden, and my heart starts racing.
“Eden, the power now lies in your hands,” Melanie says.
I glance at Eden, whose eyes are fixed on Melanie, and I think she may be glaring. I’m not sure, but it can’t bode well for me.
“Tell us, who has taken your heart?”
Eden clears her throat. She’s facing Melanie and avoiding eye contact with both Danny and me. “I’m surprised to admit that I made connections with both men during this process. But I can only choose one.”
I stare at her hopefully as she makes her speech, my pulse kicking up speed as nerves race down my spine.
“I woke up this morning knowing who had taken my heart, but hearts are funny things,” she continues. “Sometimes someone takes it, but we have the power to pull it back at any time. And I’m exercising that power tonight.” My heart drops as I listen to her words. I know what’s coming next before she even says it, and despite my own actions and my own admissions that I didn’t find love here, her next words still break my fucking heart. “Tonight I choose to give my heart to Danny.”
Danny grins, Eden presses her lips together to keep from crying, and I stand there in shock. Confetti explodes all around us, champagne is poured, and Jarrod ushers me out of the room so the happy couple can celebrate.
I lost.
I fucking lost.
I lost the money, I lost the girl, and somewhere along the line, I lost myself in this whole process.
What a goddamn waste of five weeks, and I even managed to get on Kylie’s bad side.
“Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose,” Jarrod says to me.
“Is that supposed to make it better that you fucking leaked the shit about Mel and me to the press?” I hiss at him.
He shrugs. “Wait ‘til you see the ratings, man. See what this does for you. It doesn’t matter who won the girl or the money in the end. You got your plugs in.”
“But you made me look like shit in the process.”
He shakes his head and laughs. “You did that all on your own. We only work with the material you give us.”
Those are his final words to me. The guy who was supposed to be here to help me through this process somehow became an enemy. I don’t even get the chance to confront Danny to ask him why the fuck he couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut before I’m ushered out to a car that immediately starts, gets on the highway, and heads on toward home.
25
It’s a little after midnight when I arrive home. All four members of my band are in the family room along with twenty or thirty other people. A party is in full swing, but I’m not in a party mood.
A cheer rises up from the group gathered when I walk through the doors, and I almost turn and bolt. I don’t want to deal with this shit right now. I’m not up for a party, not when I lost the money, lost the potential girl, and lost a potential friendship with someone I thought was a cool dude but ended up being a douchey backstabber.
Noticeably absent from the group of people gathered is the only person I was really hoping to see tonight.
“Did you win?” some girl I recognize as a usual at our shows asks. I don’t know her name, and right now, I don’t care.
“I’m not allowed to talk about it,” I mutter.
“What?” she yells over the music.
“I’m not allowed to talk about it,” I yell.
She looks like she’s about to talk some more, but I turn away and beeline for the fridge. I’m about to pull out a Miller Lite when I realize I need something a fuck of a lot stronger to get through this night.
I close the fridge and move to the pantry, where I pull down a fifth of Jack from the top shelf. I stride through the house and to the stairs then head up to my room. People try to stop me on my way, try to talk to me, but fuck it all. I don’t want them here. I realize being an ignorant asshole is probably projecting the fact that I lost, but I don’t give a fuck. It’ll air on Monday, just five short days away, and then everyone will know anyway.
I slam my door and collapse on my bed. I stare up at the ceiling for a few seconds, the music pounding beneath me and giving me a headache already. I finally sit up and settle against my pillow. I unscrew the cap from the bottle and take my first comforting sip. The whiskey burns going down, but the burn is a welcome relief from the anger pulsing through me.
I hear a knock and the door opens before I get the chance to swallow the whiskey in my mouth to tell whoever it is to go the fu
ck away.
“Sorry to just barge in,” Brody says. “I couldn’t hear you over the music.”
I glance at him and take another sip of whiskey without responding.
“What happened?” he asks.
“Fucking Fisher told the women I slept with Mel. I had final power and chose Eden, who came to my goddamn hotel last night to tell me she’d pick me if I picked her, and then she chose Danny.”
Brody sighs in disappointment he doesn’t try to hide. He shakes his head a little. “I’m sorry.”
I shrug. “It’s life. I just need a night to be angry. I wasn’t expecting all this shit when I got home.” I nod toward my door to indicate the party.
“We thought you had it in the bag. Well, we hoped.”
“I’m sorry I fucked it all up.” I take another swig from the bottle.
“You didn’t.” He settles into the chair in the corner of my room. “You went on the show to get our name out there, and you did that. Has Kane mentioned our sales figures to you?”
I shake my head as my brows furrow.
“They tripled when you first started on the show, and now they’ve fucking quadrupled over that in the last two weeks—ever since Poppy’s blowie. So despite losing the big payday, sex sells.” He shrugs. “Our numbers are solid proof of that.”
“They made me look like a douchebag.” I say the words quietly.
He laughs, and I feel slighted by the laughter, like it’s an insult when I just bared my vulnerability.
“When have you ever cared about that? You’ve been a douchebag since the day we met.”
His words elicit the first smile from me since Eden said Danny’s name.
“So now what?” I ask.
“We get through the finale, you film your reunion show, and then we’re going on tour with Vail. Fucking Vail.”
I nod, my mood lifting just a little at my best friend’s words. “You’re right. I just need a night to be pissed off, you know?”
He clears his throat. “Are you pissed because of the show or are you pissed that she’s not here?”
“Who?” I ask carefully. I take another sip from the bottle so he can’t read my expression.
“You know who.”
I clear my throat. “I’m not in the mood for games, Brody.”
“Neither am I, yet you’ve been keeping all these secrets and acting like somebody I don’t even know anymore. When are you finally going to confess how you feel about Kylie?”
“What?” I ask sharply—too sharply, I think, for him to really buy my confusion.
He rolls his eyes. “Dude, you’ve wanted her since the second her long legs stepped into the interview for managers. It’s why Kane made us take that oath. I’ve seen the way you look at her and I can’t figure out why you agreed to go on Take My Heart when someone has clearly already taken it.”
I study the bottle in my hands and take a bolstering sip before I answer. I wince at the burn and take a deep breath. “It was her idea. If she wanted me, she wouldn’t have pushed me into doing a reality show designed for me to fall in love with someone else.”
“So you do have feelings for her,” he says.
“I think I might be in love with her.” My confession is flat and quiet.
“Tell her.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. We’re going on tour, and she’s gonna be there, and she works for us...and the No Bang Oath. I just can’t.”
“Fuck the oath, man.” He pushes to his feet and stands in front of me. His voice is an impassioned plea. “If she’s what you want, if she’s the one who can snap you out of this shit and bring my best friend back to Earth, then fuck that goddamn oath and go get the girl.”
He gives me a meaningful look then disappears out my door with those words hovering between us.
I pull out my phone to text her. Maybe he’s right—maybe I need to make this confession. I try to envision it either way. If I don’t tell her, I have to agonize over living on a tour bus with her for the next two months, loving her and wanting her but not able to have her when she’s so close to my grasp.
But on the other hand, if I do tell her and she doesn’t reciprocate, I still have to go on tour with her, and then I have to face the heartbreak of being inches away from someone I can’t have. I’ll be risking not just our personal friendship, but my entire band’s professional relationship with her.
I’ve confessed to Kane, and I’ve confirmed it with Brody. Kane admitted Adam and Rascal already figured it out, too.
But ultimately, I fear it’s just too big a risk to take. We depend on her, all of us, and if I fuck this up because I have these sudden feelings for her, I’m not sure what MFB will do without her.
Yet I can’t help wanting to see her right now, even if it’s just to be a friendly ear to listen to how the night panned out.
Before I can stop myself—and with the bolstering effect of whiskey on my tongue and burning my chest—I send her a text.
Me: I’m back and stepped into an apparent afterparty at my own house. Why aren’t you here?
It takes her a while to reply, and by the time she does, I’m a third of the way into the bottle and probably not in the right place to see her.
Kylie: Out with a friend. On our way over.
I’m about to ask if it’s a female or male friend when I realize that would be a bad idea. Despite the whiskey, I have enough good sense left not to ask.
But if it’s a male friend—maybe even the same one who called her name the other night when we were on the phone...I’m just not sure I’m in the right frame of mind to handle another letdown right now.
With that thought in mind, I make the choice to stay in my room.
I’m surprised when I hear a knock on my door a half hour later. I’m still awake, and in fact I had just started sketching out some new t-shirt ideas in a little notebook when I hear the knock. “Yeah?” I yell.
Kylie peeks her head into my room, and she takes my breath away. Her cheeks are a little rosy—maybe she’s been drinking, too, and her hair cascades in loose waves around her shoulders like a halo. She’s wearing shorts. It’s early December, a little chilly for shorts, but it’s San Diego so she can get away with it. She wears a long-sleeve, low cut shirt that I want to rip off her body.
“What are you doing up here all by your lonesome?” she asks. She looks at my bed, where I’m sitting, and then over at the chair in the corner of my room, like she’s debating the best place to sit. She finally bounces onto the foot of my bed with a smile. I think she might be a little tipsy.
I clear my throat and focus on a spot on the wall just past her rather than on her even though she’s right in my line of sight. I stretch my feet out so they’re pressed against her thigh. “I’m not really in a party mood.”
“Brody told me,” she says softly.
“That I fucked everything up and lost?”
She shakes her head. “That Eden promised she’d pick you then went back on her word. That Danny stabbed you in the back.” She rests a friendly hand on my shin for a beat before she seems to think better of it and moves it. “I’m sorry, Dax.”
I lift a shoulder. “It’s my own fault.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she says. “You did what you went there to do.”
My brows draw in. “I went there to win. I didn’t win.”
“You went there to get MFB’s name out there. You did that. You went there to get America to fall in love with you. You did that.”
“I did?”
“You didn’t see how Twitter blew up after the episode with the boys aired?”
I shake my head and lean back to stare up at the ceiling. “I stayed off Twitter. I didn’t need to see people slamming every little detail from the way I cut my hair to the mistakes I made.”
“The mistakes show you’re human,” she says softly. I can’t help when I glance at her. Our eyes lock. “And I like your hair. I think it’s perfect.”
It takes literall
y every ounce of my self-control not to crawl down the bed to her.
She looks away first. “Did you fall for her?” she asks. Her voice is laced with a vulnerability I never expected.
I shake my head. “No,” I say. I couldn’t fall for her when my heart belongs to you.
She nods. “You two seemed like you’d be good together.”
I shrug. “Maybe we could have been. I don’t know, and I guess we’ll never know now.”
“What are you thinking about the reunion show?”
I chuckle. “I want to ask Danny when he became such a little bitch, for starters.”
“Okay, I may need to coach you a little on what’s okay to say.”
I laugh, and I realize it’s the first actual laugh I’ve had tonight. Brody got me to smile a little, but nothing could’ve lightened my mood the way Kylie has the potential to.
“That’s probably a good idea,” I concede.
“Next week’s going to be busy,” she muses.
I nod. “Between tour prep and heading up to LA to film the reunion...yeah, it’s gonna be crazy.”
“When do you need to go to LA?”
“Monday afternoon. It’ll air Thursday so I don’t know if we’ll get to watch it.”
“You need some coaching?”
“Come with me,” I say.
She glances at me, and then she shakes her head. “I can’t on Monday.”
“Why not?” I ask.
She clears her throat. “My friend that’s in town leaves Tuesday morning.”
“Who’s this friend?” I ask, raising a brow and trying to act like it’s not a big deal when my entire being feels like it hinges on her answer.
“Just a friend from college I haven’t seen in a long time.”
“Is she here?” I ask, relief coursing through me that it’s just a friend from college.
“Um...” She clears her throat again. “Yes, he is.”
“He?” I ask, the relief that just coursed through me freezing right there in my veins.
She nods. “His name is Archie. We met our freshman year and became inseparable, but he moved to England after graduation. He’s only here until Tuesday and I haven’t seen him in over a year.”
“Archie from England. Does he have an accent?” I go for a light tone, but it’s a horrendous failure as even I can hear the bitterness.
