"And we don't think Goldie likes being with Troy too much," he went on to say.
"Why not?" I asked, trying not to sound too concerned.
"She spends more time over here and over at the main house than she does at Troy's trailer."
"Is there a theory as to why?"
"We think maybe she's trying to attach herself to one of us, to claim a new owner."
"Ah, which explains why she almost seems to belong to everyone."
"Right, and because she shares her affection with everyone, she's been given free reign. Nobody seems to turn her away."
"Poor dog, I hope she adjusts when half the people leave after the season is done."
"Half of us up at the house are willing to take her with us when this is over."
My mouth dropped open. "You can't just take the dog."
"We wouldn't just take her, but she's an active dog. She needs to be with one of us where she'll have plenty of chances to run. She's not a housedog. She's in her glory running around the estate at will. Troy can't take her back home and keep her locked up in a house."
"Maybe he has a yard."
He shook his head. "Not big enough. She needs freedom. And she's obedient as hell. You whistle and she comes running, whether you whistled for her or not. That's a dog you can take up into the mountains and be confident that she'll come back down them with you."
My smile was smug. I always knew I had an excellent dog, but it was sure nice to hear someone else praise her, too. "So who all wants to take her with them at the end of this?"
"Me, Mike, and Jared."
"Hmm." Liam and Mike, sure. But Goldie wouldn't step foot in muddy water. It freaked her out ever since she went bounding through puddles near a creek bed and three frogs jumped out from under the murky surface and scared the hell out of her. And was it telling that I was disappointed that Phillip wasn't openly willing to take her?
Saturday
I snuck up onto the rooftop the next morning to play with Mike. One of us had the brainy idea to do sunrise yoga on the rooftop patio. The only problem was that the military man had never done yoga in his life. I'd started off trying hard not to laugh at him, but it didn't work for long. Then he brought up more daring poses on his phone and challenged me to do them. You know, it's hard to hold a pose while giggling so hard you end up snorting. My hip hit the indoor/outdoor carpeting and my foot bounced off the wall when I crashed onto my side.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"I don't think I was made to stand on my head."
"If that half-wall didn't run around the edge, you would've fallen off the building."
I didn't know why, but that set off another bout of giggles. "You do it."
He looked at the screen of his phone again. He put it down and did a handstand before lowering himself down to stand on his head.
"Show off."
He laughed and almost lost his balance.
Barking, off in the distance. Something had set Goldie off and I stood to look and find out if I could see what was going on.
Mike broke the handstand and came to stand beside me. "Sounds like it's coming from the main gate."
"Yeah, it does."
Her barking changed to yelping and I almost took off for her right then and there. But then she started letting out a high-pitched whine in between enthusiastic barks. Daddy!
I let out a squeal. Mike turned towards me in question. And I put my fingers to my mouth and let out the loudest whistle I could muster.
Goldie came running up the path, barking like a crazed dog. I called out to her and waved. She spotted me and started whining and scratching at the nearest door to the house. Dad and a camera crew made their way up the path at a slower pace.
The sound guy opened the door when he got there and Goldie made a beeline up the flights of stairs to me. By the time Dad had made his way up to the roof, he was panting and sweating.
I flew to him and hugged him. "What are you doing here?"
He took a minute to catch his breath before answering. "What do you think? I'm here to check these guys out." He knelt and started petting and rubbing Goldie, who'd started whining all over again.
I was so relieved, I was thrilled. I gave him a huge smile and a happy sigh. "Thank you."
"You sounded like you could use a little help when we talked the last time."
"You just instantly made me feel better about this whole thing."
"How?"
"Because you're Daddy. You make everything okay."
He was struck speechless.
"You'll help me pull the weeds out, so I won't mess this up."
"Oh, kid. Don't put that kind of pressure on me. This is your decision, your blame to hold if it doesn't work out."
I shook my head. "Nope. If I end up alone after this, after you and I have both narrowed it down, then none of them were meant to be."
He rolled his eyes and looked at Mike. He gestured from Mike to me, "This is what you want to live with for the rest of your life?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out, sir," Mike answered, extending his hand to Dad.
Dad accepted and returned the handshake.
"Mike, my father Nathaniel. Dad, this is Mike," I said.
"Which one are you?" Dad asked, though Mike was wearing shorts and Dad had certainly figured out which one he was.
"National Park Service."
Dad smiled big. "The one who'll only kiss her on the forehead? Good man." He turned to me, "This one, I like."
I was shocked. "I didn't tell you about that."
He shrugged. "Your sister likes to talk on speakerphone, and I can hear you two talking through the office wall."
"Oh, my God! Wait, what else have you heard through that wall?"
He leveled a look at me. "Plenty, over the years."
"Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Were you still home last night when I was talking to her?"
"No. She said she was going to call you after she got home from dropping me at the airport. Why?"
"No reason."
"So," he said before clapping his hands and rubbing them together. "When do I get to meet the rest of these guys?"
"You can go downstairs and meet them all as they wake up and make their way down to the kitchen to find food."
He nodded. "All right, I'll head down now. You should go back to your cottage though. I want to meet them without you, see what I can get out of them."
I sighed before nodding in agreement. "Okay. I'll see you this afternoon." I gave him another hug and let Mike walk me down to the door.
"He seems cool," Mike whispered as we said goodbye.
"He is," I answered with a smile.
"You're a Daddy's girl."
"Yep, and proud of it."
He chuckled. "Should I go warn the guys?"
"No. Let them suffer," I said with a wink.
"You got it," he said, and kissed my forehead before turning away to go back upstairs.
I shook my head and assumed he was about to go back up to Dad and further his good impression.
'I like Phillip,' Dad's text read.
I rolled my eyes before replying. 'You can't marry me off to him just because he fed you breakfast.'
'It's a hell of a breakfast.'
'You do understand that if I marry him, he'll be making breakfast for me, not you.'
'He can cook for me when you come visit.'
I snorted and went back to banking blog entries for the show's website.
Some time passed before my phone buzzed again. 'Drake seems like a good catch.'
'He's on his way out the door.'
'Why?'
'No spark, no chemistry.'
'Good. You're not a city girl.'
'But you knew this before you said he was a good catch.'
'He is a good catch, just not for you.'
'Dad, ugh, omg.'
'You know you love me.'
I ignored that and went back to work.
'Liam is too damned
much man for you,' he wrote a bit later.
I smirked. 'Maybe that's what I like about him.'
'He'll squish you.'
'Ah, but it would be a hell of a way to go.'
'But, daughter dear, if he hurts you, he's too big for me to kill.'
'So, you'll hire a hit man.'
'Oh, great. Now there's yet another thing for me to have to save up for.'
I laughed aloud and turned my focus back onto the draft.
'Stephen's not for you.'
'Why?'
'There's no challenge with him.'
'Wouldn't that be a good thing? And make for an easy transition?'
'You've never done easy in your life. You need challenges. You thrive on challenges. The two of you would mesh too well together and end up more friends than anything else. I don't see a spark of electricity between the two of you anywhere.'
I let that thought roll around in my head for a moment. He had a point, even in the few weeks we'd been getting to know each other. There'd been an attraction at the start, but as I'd gotten to know some of the others, the spark of interest had begun to fizzle out for me.
'But, Daddy,' I typed, 'have you smelled him?'
'No, I haven't smelled him.'
'You should, he smells really yummy.'
'I have no desire to sniff a yummy man, thank you.'
I giggled and moved on to writing drafts for articles on the activities I'd done with the guys that week.
'Jared is... interesting.'
'Yes, he is,' I answered.
'He deals with things that slither.'
I sighed. 'Yeah.'
'You don't like things that slither.'
'I know.'
'Swamp, mud, mosquitoes, things that don't smell yummy.'
'You said I needed a challenge.'
'Kid, there's challenge, and then there's challenge.'
'I get it, you don't like him.'
'I like him just fine. Hell, I'd go hang out with him. But I'm not you. I don't know if you'd want to go hang in the swamp for weeks on end.'
'Point taken.' I put the phone back down and went back to work.
Time started to pass, morning melded into afternoon, and I'd heard nothing more from Dad. I kept glancing at the corner of my computer screen, looking at the time, wondering what was going on over at the other house.
Another hour passed, and then another.
My phone finally buzzed and I picked it up to read a text from Troy, 'Get over to the main house, now.'
I saved my work, closed the laptop, and took off at a jog, not knowing what to expect when I got there.
Most of the guys were by the pool when I came up the path. Jared pointed up, "They're on the roof."
"What happened?" I asked.
"Don't know. More camera and production people went running up there a little bit ago and we were asked to stay down here." Liam answered.
I took a head count, Mike and Trevor weren't there. I went inside and up the stairs.
I had to push my way through the group of production people lined up in a semi-circle around the small group in the center of all the camera angles.
Dad looked up at me from looming over Trevor. "I don't know your depth of feelings for this one, but this is no longer the place for him to stay."
I nodded my head, accepting his words as fact. I looked down at Trevor, "Let's go talk."
Mike took two steps closer before Trevor could move, "You done swinging? Because if not, you aren't going anywhere."
"I'll stay with the two of them," Troy told Mike.
I gestured at Trevor to follow me.
Trevor, Troy, Dad, and two camera crews followed in my wake, down the stairs and along the path to my patio area. I waved Dad and Troy into two chairs off to the side. I directed Trevor to sit in one seat at the small table as I sat in the other.
"Okay, spill. What's your deal? I'm tired of guessing and waiting to hear about it."
Trevor let out a long, tired sigh. "I have PTSD."
"Has it been diagnosed?" I asked.
Another sigh, "Yes."
I let out a frustrated sigh of my own. "What in hell were you thinking in coming here?"
"I was thinking I could come here, win you affections, and move my life on to happier things."
I just stared at him for a moment.
"It's not like I was waiting for you to become my salvation," he muttered.
"Uh, you kinda were. And you did it under the worst possible circumstances. You invited all kinds of stress into your life with this show."
"But the show was how to get you."
"But the stressors make you too much of a bear to keep letting it slide. Dad's right, this is no longer a place for you to be. PTSD isn't something to play around with. You're going to end up hurting someone or yourself."
He started to say something and then stopped himself.
"You don't have to leave while everyone watches. You can hang out until they all go to bed, then go over and pack your things."
He looked at me as though I'd betrayed him, then got up and dove into the pool without saying a word. He started doing laps.
Troy and Dad nodded to each other and stood. Dad took Trevor's seat and Troy drug one of the other chairs over and sat down.
"All the guys started telling me about the stuff that Trevor sometimes does," Dad said. "And the more the guys laid out what they'd seen for me, the more and more it sounded like what your uncle Rick went through after Vietnam."
"I remember the stories Grandma used to tell about how he acted when he first came home," I answered.
"We didn't know he'd been diagnosed with anything, or we wouldn't have let him come on the show," Troy said.
"Which is exactly why he never said anything," I said.
"And now that he has?" Dad asked.
"Believe it or not, one of the reasons why we continued to let him stay was not only to let Emma make her own decision, but also to let our resident therapist observe him on the cameras. She was trying to gather clips and enough observational notes to confront him about seeking help. And then we would have set him up with good quality help so he could get the treatment he needs," Troy said.
"Except he's already been diagnosed and then hid it. So, what now?" I asked.
"The network has employed Trevor for over three years now, without incident. He's considered to be one of our own. It's possible that he was doing so well that he'd been released from care, but this show has triggered a setback. Or, maybe merely getting him out of this particular situation will settle it back down. Either way, the PTSD came about from defending our country, and the network respects that. We'll see that he is re-evaluated, and that he is getting the best help possible. We'll also make sure whomever was working with him before is informed of the impact the show has had on his recovery," Troy said.
"Who did he take a swing at?" I asked.
"Mike," Troy answered.
"What triggered that?" I asked.
"He overheard Mike telling me about some of the things he'd been doing," Dad said. "Mike actually voiced a concern that it could be post-traumatic stress. As soon as the words left Mike's mouth, Trevor came barreling in with arms swinging. Mike blocked the blows and a camera crew put down their equipment to stop Trevor before Mike decided to beat the shit out of him. "
I smiled, I knew this had more to do with the Trevor situation, but the fact that Dad was of the opinion that Mike could take him was telling. Yes, Mike had a physical job while Trevor sat and either drove cars or stared at a computer screen, but still, his confidence in Mike meant that Dad liked him.
I turned to Troy. "Will he still have his chauffeur job?" I asked.
Troy nodded. "Once he's cleared by a few doctors, it's my understanding that, yes, he can go back to his regular job. Again, he's never given anyone cause for concern. We'll just want to make sure that the job won't trigger episodes for him after being here."
I looked over at Trevor doing laps and s
hook my head at his lot in life. "It sucks, what war does. I don't know which one has it worse, Mike without the leg, or Trevor with the scars you can't see."
"He can't stay here, Em," Troy said.
My head whipped back around. "I know. It wouldn't be good for him."
"Well, that, and now he's swung at another cast member. He has to go. I hope that doesn't make you want to walk away from your opportunity here," Troy said.
Troy and I shared a long look.
Dad's eyes moved back and forth between the two of us. "If she wants out, I'm putting her butt on the next plane to Philly."
"That's not what he's asking," I told Dad. "He's asking if I was thinking that Trevor could be the last man standing at the end of this."
"And?" Troy asked.
"And... I think, no. I don't think he would have made it into the last four, with the way things have been going lately."
"Good," Troy said. "You don't really want him thinking that this is why you're walking away from him, either."
"No," I agreed. "It's just a shame that, because of this, I won't get to see how it all could have evolved, especially seeing as how my opinions on frontrunners change and shift from one week to the next. Trevor and I were getting there slowly, but we were getting there. "
"I just wanted to make sure you understand why he has to go," Troy said.
"Oh, yes. I get it. It's a matter of safety. I agree. He needs help, not more stress over being here," I said.
When Trevor finally decided that he'd swam enough laps, he came out of the pool and Troy went over to talk with him before returning to the depths of the production trailers. I stepped over to Trevor and invited him to stay for dinner with Dad and me, then Troy offered to have the makings for steak, baked potatoes, and veggies sent over that we could grill.
"I don't know," Trevor said.
"Sure you do. You could go pack and get out of here, if you want. Or, stay, talk, have dinner, and let them all wonder what the hell is going on."
That got him to smile. "By now they'll all know I took a swing at Mike. They'll be expecting me to come crawling over to pack my bags and leave with my tail tucked between my legs."
We shared a smile. "Exactly," I said.
"But why would you do this to help me save face?"
"One, because you are my friend. Two, because I respect and appreciate your sacrifice in service. Three, because I care, I give a damn about you. And four, I want to know how they all feel about it when you don't come home tonight, but yet your stuff is still there."
Walk of Shame Page 24
