Page 21 of Changed By You
It’s the morning after our one-on-one date, and I’m tired but felt like I needed to be here anyway. Now that I’ve been here several mornings in a row, it would look bad if I just quit coming. And this is my chance to get Alice alone and apologize.
The date with Farrah last night was...fine. I can’t think of any other word for it. She’s incredibly beautiful; no one can deny that. But she talked about herself for two hours at dinner and for two more when we went bowling.
The producers rented out the entire bowling alley for our date, and when the woman who worked there started crying over meeting Farrah, Farrah was great about it. She hugged her and posed for pictures. But when the woman was telling Farrah how much one of her movies means to her because she and her mom watched it together while her mom was terminally ill, Farrah cut her off.
She said, “Aw, I love that.” And she didn’t let the woman finish what she was saying. I saw the flicker of disappointmenton the woman’s face when Farrah interrupted her, said she loved it and then walked away.
I can’t stop thinking about it. I might not have cared about something like that at age twenty. I hope I would’ve, but I was different then. At twenty-nine, I’m wiser. My mom had a breast cancer scare a few years ago. I thought I lost my sister in a plane crash. I’ve seen how much it means to terminally ill kids to meet their athlete heroes.
That woman was shaking with excitement, and Farrah wasn’t even truly listening to her. She wasn’t listening to me, either, the few times I was able to get a word in edgewise on our date.
I played it off. Smiled and showed interest until the very end, when she kissed me outside her bedroom door. I could tell she was going to invite me into her room, so I said good night and left.
“Hold it,” Farrah calls out. “Come on, guys, you can do it!”
We’ve been in a side plank position for a solid three minutes. I glance over at Alice. Her hand that’s in the air--pointing toward the sky as she holds the side plank--is flipping the bird.
It makes me smile. Alice tries to be plain wallpaper, just blending into the background and not really being noticed, but she’s got personality, and she’s anything but boring.
“Okay, good.”
Farrah moves her arm down and Alice lets herself collapse onto the sand, chest down, with a groan.
“Your body is thanking you, Al,” Farrah says.
“Yeah, right. Eat shit, body.”
“Hey guys, sorry I’m late.” JP approaches us, shirtless.
His athletic shorts hang down on his hips. I want to make a quip about him stepping up his game, but I don’t. He was pissed I outplayed him at sand volleyball and got the date with Farrah. He ended up on a date with Melanie Tillman, a contestant who’s a self-made billionaire businesswoman.
I’m guessing he had a better evening than I did. But then again, his bare chest tells me he’s competing harder than ever for Farrah.
Whatever. It hasn’t even been a week and I’m already over this show. We all have to go on a sunset cruise tonight, but what I really want is a break from the damn cameras. They’re always there, from eight a.m. on.
Farrah leads us the rest of the way through yoga, giving me a few flirty smiles. I’m relieved when she finally says we’re done.
“Ten-minute break before the workout?” she says.
Alice is already walking back toward the house. She skips the workouts, instead using that time to prepare Farrah’s lemon lavender water for the day and straighten up Farrah’s bedroom.
“Hey, no workout for me today,” I tell Farrah. “Okay if I steal Alice for a little bit?”
She arches her brows and smiles. “Is someone trying to find out all my deepest secrets from my assistant?”
I grin, not missing a beat. “You caught me.”
Alice is still walking away. Farrah calls after her.
“Al, Dalton wants to talk to you.”
Alice heard me. She just doesn’t care. It was kind of a dick move getting Farrah to make her talk to me, but otherwise, Alice wouldn’t have wanted to. She also wouldn’t have time because she’s busy every minute with Farrah’s shit.
When Alice turns around, her expression is a combination of annoyance and resignation.
“Let’s walk,” I say because I don’t want to have to talk to her in the kitchen while she’s working.
She’s carrying her slides, because we all do yoga in bare feet. With a slight sinking of her shoulders, she walks toward me.
