Page 7 of Changed By You
“You just need an entire team of me,” he quips.
“I wouldn’t complain about that.”
JP edges closer to her, a fish who has bitten the hook and is about to be reeled in. “So, where are you originally from, Farrah?”
“I grew up in a small town. Pella, Iowa. I still love to go back when I can for the tulip festival.”
“Tulips, huh?”
“What can I say? We Dutch girls love our tulips.” She brushes her fingers over his forearm and laughs lightly. “What about you--where did you grow up?”
“My family is originally from St. Louis, but we moved to Atlanta when I was in sixth grade so I’d have the best shot at a football scholarship.”
From everything Farrah and I read about JP, he’s one of the good ones. He started a charity to raise money for families who need help making their homes accessible for a family member with a disability. JP is considered one of the hottest, most eligible bachelors in pro sports, but he’s selective about who he dates. He hasn’t had a girlfriend for more than a year.
“Farrah, I’m Dalton Lorenzo.”
The aggravated nose exhale from someone sitting near me is almost inaudible. Dalton buttoned his Hawaiian shirt up, losing most of his porn star cred. Farrah turns her megawatt smile his way.
“Hi Dalton, I’m Farrah.” She shakes his hand and then pretends to sip her champagne. “So we have a hockey player and a football player. Is there a rivalry between those sports?”
“Nah,” Dalton says. “We leave those guys to play with their balls.”
JP shakes his head and smiles good-naturedly. “At least I still have all my teeth.”
“I’ve only got one crown,” Dalton says, pointing at one of his teeth. “And I didn’t even chip that tooth playing hockey.”
“How’d you chip it?” JP asks.
“Boxing.”
JP lowers his brows. “Ooh, ouch. You don’t have enough extra brain cells to be boxing, Lorenzo.”
June comes over to join the group, gushing to Farrah about the cosmetics line Farrah is working on. I stifle a yawn. It’s been a long day of travel. As soon as filming wraps for the day, I have to get Farrah’s ice bath ready for her face and do some prep for tomorrow.
I glance at my phone screen, seeing a text back from my mom.
Mom: He’s having a good day. Therapy went well. Hope Malibu is sunny and beautiful!
The text makes me smile because I can picture her sitting at the little round oak kitchen table of the ranch house where I grew up in Newton, Kansas, as she wrote it. The white porcelain salt and pepper shakers passed down to her from her own mom always sit on a round tray in the center of the table, along with a stack of napkins.
The show’s director, Alan, films the cocktail party for more than four hours, making some people pretend to meet for the first time several times so he’ll have options to choose from for footage. Some of the contestants are more than a little tipsy by the time Alan finally calls it a night.
I’m relieved. It’s one thing to watch Farrah filming a movie, which is obviously fiction. All this fake chemistry seems pointless to me.
I slip away as soon as I can, knowing Farrah will want her facial ice bath as soon as she gets to her room.
“Didyou think he was really interested in me, though? Like seriously interested?”
Farrah leans back from her spot in front of the sink in her bedroom’s bathroom, her brows hiked up in question. I smile wearily.
“Of course he’s interested.”
“Don’t do that thing where you just tell me all men are interested in me. You know what I’m asking.”
“JP was practically drooling over you. He couldn’t look away from you, even when you were walking away or talking to someone else. He is definitely very interested in you.”
She walks into the bedroom, rubbing cleansing cream into her face. Her hair is pulled back with a terry cloth headband for her nighttime skin routine.
