Walk of Shame

by Gregory, O. L.

  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?"

  Sunday

  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.

  Chapter Ten

  Week Three - 8 Men Left

  Monday

  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?"

&
nbsp; "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.

  Tuesday

  Mike joined me out on the track the next morning. He was slowly proving to be someone I could easily talk with. I found out he came from a slew of brothers. And I had begun to wonder if my indiffe
rence to his leg is what seemed to make him self-conscious about it. The brothers constantly threw challenges at him, to make him prove he'd maintained his worth. And if he did run into a difficulty, they came together to figure out a solution so he could manage to do it, after all. They challenged him in his recovery, helped to make him better, and refined him.

  "I'm used to people caring, and showing that caring by slapping a harness on me and making me climb a mountain," he said.

  "But, from the way you talked, I knew you could climb a mountain. From your job and lifestyle, I knew you were out there doing whatever you wanted. I didn't feel the need to test you. I took you at your word, and I liked what you had to say. And I'm not indifferent about your leg. It's that I'm not worried about it. You've overcome it. You don't let it hold you back. No, I didn't know your brothers helped you do that by way of trial by fire. I just knew that from everything I was seeing, you'd adapted and moved on from it. There wasn't a need for me to make a big deal about it."

  "Yeah, I get that now. At the time, I just took it to mean you were avoiding the issue."

  "I can't afford the luxury of avoiding the issue."

  "Not unless you had already cast me aside in your mind and were just letting me stay along for the ride until you'd narrowed it down enough that I had to go."

  I stopped in mid-run.

  He stopped and turned back to me. "I know you wouldn't do that, now. I guess my brothers just had me geared up to come on here and prove to everybody that a one-legged man could still do everything he could do before."

  "And is that all you're here for?" I asked, still not having moved.

  "No, Em. But you have to keep in mind that when all of us guys came here, we were one of sixteen. The chances of being the last man standing were what, six, seven percent? To put yourself in that situation, you almost have to be able to tell yourself there's something else you can accomplish with your time in the house, so you can be okay when you're sent home."