Walk of Shame

by Gregory, O. L.

  "I'd love to sit." I headed straight for the bench that was hiding around the next bend.

  He dug into his deep pocket and pulled out a bottle. "I brought you a beer along," he offered.

  I gave him a broad smile. "Thank you! You guys have been eating and drinking this whole time and I've been out here."

  "I noticed that. We've all kept you pretty busy."

  "You guys are like a day-long workout, let me tell ya."

  I was so happy to see my little pool house. The day had been exhausting and I was glad that I had the evening all to myself.

  I spent some time going through and answering some emails. I checked my blog to make sure the program had loaded the saved entry for the day onto the site. Then I made a salad and took it outside to sit in a lawn chair by the pool and enjoy the sunset.

  I hadn't seen Goldie anywhere. I figured people around here, somewhere, were keeping her busy. If they kept it up, the dog wasn't going to want to go back to living in fifth wheel with just me.

  The sun had just disappeared when my cell rang. It was Chloe. "Hey, Sis, what's up," I answered.

  "I want to hear about the group date, duh. Actually, I want to know the rankings, post group date, I'm thinking about keeping a chart."

  "Would you be serious?"

  "I am! How else am I supposed to keep track of them? I had to take notes during our last conversation, as it was."

  I laughed in her ear. "Well, Liam gets top ranking for handling the activity. But Drake gets top ranking for being a gentleman and attending to my needs."

  "How many were on the date?"

  "Five."

  "Okay, so who else was there?"

  I heard what sounded like a notebook page being flipped. "You're seriously taking notes?"

  "Yeah. I just said that I was."

  I could only shake my head. "Trevor takes the number three spot, I guess. He did pretty well with the activity, and then there was the nighttime swim last night..."

  She let out a soft squeal. "Who snuck over to who?"

  "He snuck over to me. There's no way I could sneak over there and get away with it."

  "So you two just swam in the pool?"

  "And talked. He seems like a descent guy."

  "Okay. So who are the bottom two?"

  "Tyler and James, I didn't even mention them the other night. There's just nothing that grabs me about them."

  "They can't all be winners."

  "No, I guess I just hoped that getting them into a smaller group would help. I talked to them both, but I'm just not feeling it. I don't think circus stunts are their thing, either."

  "I can't say that I thought they'd be your thing."

  I shrugged. "It was something that I'd never done before."

  "Hey, do you remember-"

  "Shhh!"

  "What?" she whispered.

  There was a noise out by the connecting path again. I whispered into the phone, "I think one of them is sneaking over."

  "Why are we whispering like you're about to be caught breaking curfew?"

  "Shhh!"

  The familiar figure stepped out of the shadows and into the patio lighting.

  I giggled into the phone. "It looks like Trevor is trying to climb up the rankings again."

  "Oh, he's such a little cheater!" Chloe said.

  "I know," I said as I kept an eye on him and he crossed over to sit in the lawn chair next to me. "But he's such a cute cheater."

  Trevor raised an eyebrow.

  "I gotta go," I told Chloe.

  "Have fun," she said before I hung up.

  "So," Trevor said, holding up a small plate, "I know you got breakfast. And you had, what I'd consider to be, appetizers for a very late lunch. I figured you'd be too tired from your day to cook for yourself, so I snagged you a hamburger off the grill."

  "Hm, I did manage to throw together a salad..." I eyed the burger on the plate.

  "Not to throw the spotlight on another guy, but Phillip cooked. If you don't eat it, you're missing out."

  I held out my hand for the plate. I figured that if I ate one man's cooking while talking to another, I'd be getting to know them both a bit better.

  He smiled and handed the plate to me.

  "You kept your one-on-one time with me nice and short today," I observed.

  "Yeah, well, I figured after talking to you last night, I'd let the other guys have a chunk of my time."

  "I'd like to think that you're just trying to keep it fair."

  "They know we already met. If they found out I was sneaking over here, too, I'd be on their hit list."

  "Do they have a hit list?"

  "Not yet. Give them a few weeks and I'm sure someone will pop up on everybody's radar."

  "I hope you don't want to swim tonight. Because I'm quite comfy where I am."

  "Well, good. We were all beginning to wonder if you ever wore out."

  We sat and talked, and tried to see the stars. Mostly we listened to crickets and the shouts of the guys horsing around the big pool. He went back over after awhile, and I went upstairs to fall into bed.

  Thursday

  I slept hard and was slow to wake the next morning. I kept hitting the snooze button on my alarm app. I took solace in the fact that I'd be running later, so it really would be okay for me to skip my morning workout.

  It was week one, and already I was having issues.

  I finally rolled my butt out of bed so I could grab a shower, throw on some workout clothes, and be over at the house by nine.

  I trotted over the path that separates the houses and landed in their kitchen with two minutes to spare. Ardent gave up his barstool at the island counter, and Phillip sat a BLT in front of me. Drake poured a glass of juice and slid it down the counter to me. Hey, as long as I got those names right, then studying the pictures is paying off.

  "I love coming here for breakfast!" I said with a beaming smile.

  "So," Mike asked, looking over my outfit, "what are we up to today?"

  "There's another group date happening, but we have about an hour before we have to make the drive," I answered.

  "Which poor fools are you going to torture today?" Liam asked with an adorable lop-sided grin.

  "Phillip, Mack, Jared, Mitch, and Ardent." Like yesterday, I'd memorized the list so I wouldn't screw up the names by having to look around at faces and chance getting them confused.

  There were groans from the guys I'd named. I didn't know if it was because they were stuck on a group date, or if it was because they had rightfully guessed that I was going to give them all a run for their money today.

  A couple of them stood to go change.

  "I wouldn't wear anything too nice," I warned.

  They all groaned again.

  "A 5K Mudrun?" Mitch asked, incredulous, as the van carrying all six of us crept through the crowds and the large banner advertising the event came into sight.

  "Can't handle it?" I asked.

  "I never said I couldn't handle it. I just don't see this as being a date," he answered.

  "I'm guessing it's a benefit run. What's the charity?" Ardent asked.

  "Cancer research," I answered.

  "Individual or teams?" Mack asked.

  "We're all a team," I told them.

  Jared clapped his hands together and rubbed them in anticipation. "Let's get out and do this."

  By the end of the run, I'd had to give all the guys credit. They'd all made it through. Mack had slowed us down a bit. The man was used to sitting behind a drafting table, working on whatever architectural design he was aiming for at the time. The last hill threatened to do me in, but Jared, our resident swamp boy, who was as happy as a pig in mud, picked me up and carried me over his shoulder the rest of the way.

  The ones I felt sorry for were the two cameramen who had to trail behind us. They had to carry their cameras, catch our antics, keep enough of a distance so that they wouldn't be caught in the shots of the other cameras lucky enough to be stationed on t
he sidelines, and still weave and wade their way through the course with us. I'm sure editing was going to love trying to remove their voices and remarks whenever one lost his footing or came up on an obstacle they'd have rather gone around than through with a camera worth thousands of dollars.

  A member from production waved us over to the water trucks. I was handed a hose and felt a wicked gleam come into my eyes. I had a ball hosing all the guys down. I tried to be thorough and quick, switching to the next guy as the last one was turning to give me another side to rinse. When they were fairly clean, Phillip took the hose from my hands and turned it on me. I squealed, but started rinsing my hair out under the stream.

  We then climbed back into the van and drove to the beach. We all changed into bathing suits and collapsed onto the sand. I lay on my back across a beach towel and closed my eyes behind the sunglasses wardrobe had packed for me.

  "How is it that no one else is out here?" Mack asked.

  I waved a hand at the hotel behind us without opening my eyes. "It's theirs. Production rented the beach for a private event for the next couple of hours."

  "Do we have food coming?" Ardent asked from his facedown position on his towel.

  "Pizza and beer, any second now," I answered.

  Jared chuckled as he continued to sprawl in the beach chair he'd claimed. "I swear to God, if I'm still in this at the end, I'll freaking propose. You're a girl after my own heart."

  I opened my eyes to the sky and laughed. "That would be the whole point to all this," I said as I continued to chuckle. "I gotta find me a man who can keep up, but then knows how to sit back and relax."

  This group actually let me eat and drink a full meal before anyone made a move to draw me away from the group. Though, admittedly, I didn't know if it was because I'd worn this group out more than the other one, or if they were just more considerate of my needs and were milking it to gain my favor.

  The cameramen on the sidelines seemed glad for the reprieve as they, too, took turns sitting and eating their pizza and drinking their sodas as quickly as they could. They had to be ready to grab their cameras if we started to separate into smaller groups.

  "Take a walk?" Ardent asked as he held out a hand, once I seemed to be full and a bit rested.

  "Sure," I said as I took hold of his hand and let him pull me up.

  Cameramen swung into action, to make sure the guys staying put were covered and the duo heading away were filmed, as well.

  We'd walked a bit away from the group before he said, "Glad to see you don't mind getting dirty."

  I shrugged. "I don't mind the dirt so long as I can get clean before bed. There's a reason why I travel around with all the amenities."

  He chuckled. "I can respect that. I tend to shower at night, myself, especially after digging around in the dirt all day. But I guess I figured you for the kind that holed up in the RV day and night, parked somewhere pretty."

  "Well, I do like to park somewhere pretty," I admitted. "And I do spend a lot of days sitting in the living area, on my laptop. That comes with the job. But I don't see a point in parking somewhere pretty if I'm not going to go out and enjoy the pretty. I write for a couple of travel companies, so I have to go out and adventure a bit. I write reviews and articles of tours, events, and activities in the area. I can't do that if I don't go out and participate."

  Mack took his turn next, followed by Mitch.

  Philip went fourth, opting to lead me out to wade in the surf, after we'd gotten a bit down the beach, away from the others. "So, why cancer research?"

  I shrugged. "They just happened to be the ones hosting a Mudrun this week."

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. "I'm not buying it. Who'd you lose?"

  I shifted my eyes away. "My grandfather. And my Mom fought and won a few years back." I looked back up at him. "How'd you know?"

  He shook his head. "I didn't. It's just that odds are we've all been affected in some way."

  "So how were you affected?"

  He was quiet for a moment, the sound of the gentle waves the only noise around us. "I lost my wife," he finally said.

  "Hmm, I knew you were too good to have gone this long and not have been snatched up by some intelligent woman."

  He smiled.

  "Any kids?"

  He shook his head. "We never made it that far."

  He walked me back up to the group and Jared stood, ready for his turn. Jared took my hand and walked me in the opposite direction than the others had taken me. "You're just a dirty girl at heart, aren't you?" he asked with a grin.

  I laughed. "Not really. But I don't mind getting dirty, if there's a shower in my immediate future."

  "But work hard, play harder?"

  I smiled at him. "My play is work. I'll be writing articles about the Mudrun and yesterday's circus school session. I'll leave stuff about the dates out of it and submit them to the travel magazines I write for."

  "The network is letting you make money off things they've paid for?"

  "Yes. Only because I'll separate them out in my writing, and it'll give you guys all a feel for what life with me will be like. Plus, they want me to write up blog entries for the show's website, as well. And I know or a fact that the businesses are more eager to accommodate us, the more advertising they get out of the deal. So I'll be killing a few birds with the same stone."

  "So, if you spent a few days in the swamp with me..."

  "I'd write about it. The plants and wildlife, check out any swamp tours that might be around, that kind of thing. My play is research for my work."

  He nodded to himself, reached down to pick up a perfect shell, and handed it to me. "Okay. Then maybe I should give you a little insight into what it's like to live with me."

  "Go ahead," I said with a smile as I took hold of the shell.

  "Water samples, sometimes small animal life, and scientific equipment spread out on the kitchen table, and stored on windowsills. And sometimes stranded baby swamp animals come into the RV, until I can get them to a rescue."

  I just nodded as I took a moment to process that.

  He chuckled at my expression. "You're not going to start searching for a white flower to hand me now, right?"

  "...No, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around caring for an infant alligator while you go out and collect one last round of water samples. And now I'm thinking about the turn my articles would take."

  "I could show you a couple field magazines that you might start wanting to submit articles of our adventures to."

  "Hmm."

  "You don't work at the kitchen table, too. Do you?"

  I shook my head. "Not usually. I tend to set myself up on the couch where I can either put something on TV for background noise, or gaze out the windows, depending on my mood. I have one of those lift-top coffee tables to use as a desk, and a couple lap boards to put my laptop on."

  "Perfect."

  I smiled as he led me back to the group. We started gathering our stuff to go back to the houses. I was starting to realize that while my immediate picture of hosting science equipment, test tubes, and swamp creatures wasn't pleasant, I knew that was just this guy's job issue. No matter who I choose, I'd be choosing to live with someone who would be working out of the same small space I was. Each one of these guys would have not only personal possessions, but stuff for their work, too.

  It might be true that all I had to have for my job was a laptop and an internet connection, but I also knew the reality of what the living room looked like after staying put for a month. Flyers for activities I'd found, pamphlets from places I'd gone and things I'd done, and then there were the color-coded sticky note accumulations. Then I pictured my rig that week I got caught in a blizzard. I had stuff for articles spread out all over the bed, stuff for the novel I was working on spread out in the living room, and then stuff for an upcoming book signing spread out in the kitchen, I spent the week catching up on some things and preparing others ahead of time. That's when I realized that there wo
uld be times that I'd be hard to live with, too.

  One thing was for certain, as we drove back to the property. I was more curious than ever to see inside these guy's rigs. Because, at least when I packed up to move on to the next place, I had the ability to condense everything down to a notebook and a couple folders. Now I was beginning to wonder if they all had room for me in the midst of their own work paraphernalia.

  I was glad to leave the guys at the main house and go back to the cottage for the evening. For all my worry about someone else's job boxing me in and limiting my nomadic life, I hadn't thought about how his work would affect our home. And I should have. It was such a glaringly obvious thing to consider.

  My clutter was paper. After I finished an article, I scanned a copy of the pamphlets and flyers and threw them away. Any sticky notes I still had to contend with went into my notebook, on pages labeled with whatever project they were a note for. Sure, I had a sticky note program on my computer, but it was too basic for everything I used them for.

  The idea that whichever guy I chose possibly not being able to condense their work clutter down was bugging me simply because space in any kind of RV was at a commodity. How far spread out did swamp boy's work get? Would that interfere with cooking in the kitchen? The table was one thing, but did it spread over the countertops?

  And right about now, in my mind's rambling wonderings, I figured I was harping on the topic because I was so freaking tired, though not as much physically as I was mentally. Trying to talk and keep up with the flirtatious banter that some had thrown at me, and talking about meshing two lives together that others had brought up, was exhausting. Repeating myself about my life, because I was having individual conversations about things they all wanted to know, was irritating as well. Relationships took work, and I was trying to launch twelve of them.

  I rolled my shoulders and stretched my neck in an effort to shake off the thoughts circling around in my head. I needed to get some notes down for the two articles, and write up a draft for the blog on my week so far.

  I worked for a while, made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner, and climbed into the bathroom Jacuzzi. Later, I curled up in bed with a movie on the TV that I fell asleep a quarter of the way through. At one point, I thought I heard a knock on the front door. Production would have let themselves in and then called out for me, but this person didn't. So I figured it was probably Trevor. I needed some downtime, so I didn't climb out of the tub to answer the door.