I shrugged in response, “It’s Marissa; she always is.”
The contestants finished displaying their work at around midnight and it was time for the judges to compile their scores. The last thing I wanted was to be in the same vicinity as Mark again but I had to bear it for the sake of the competition.
We had to go backstage to discuss it and it was a shocker to no one that Mark was the only one who had scathing reviews. Each time we discussed a person, he had nothing nice to say at all.
“You do know that someone has to win, right?” Emilia asked after a while, “Because if we continue like this; we might as well cancel the entire thing.”
“Good to know I’m not the only one who feels that way.” I muttered under my breath.
Emilia chuckled slightly and I saw Mark frown which made me realize that I wasn’t as quiet as I thought I was but it was too late to regret it. Mark already hates me so why not set it in stone?
It took another thirty minutes before we were finally able to come to a conclusion and Emilia went to deliver the results to Francine. I made my way back to my seat and Nathan shot me an inquisitive look, silently asking if I was okay.
“You do not want to know,” I groaned, “I am just about ready for this to be over.”
We officially finished with the show at a few minutes after 2 and I was about ready to call it a day. There was supposed to be an after party but I told Francine that I had an emergency and had to be home quickly. She seemed slightly disappointed but thanked me for coming and promised to keep in touch.
I met Nathan at the door and I thought the paparazzi would have reduced considering the time but boy was I wrong. Nathan guided me to the car with a firm hand at my back and it wasn’t until we had settled into the car that I realized that his bodyguards and crew members were nowhere to be seen.
“Where is your crew?”
“I sent them home early; most of them have families and I had promised they would be home before morning.”
“You were supposed to leave early as well,” it wasn’t a question so he didn’t respond but I knew I was right, “I’m sorry I made you wait for me.”
“You didn’t make me do anything.”
We started the ride in silence but after a while, he handed me the aux cord so I could put in music. I was shocked considering that most men I have been around never let me take charge of the music in their car.
I don’t know how long we drove with just the music between us before he spoke, “Did you like the book?”
“Which one?”
“Kiss the sky,”
“I did,” I admitted, “And I actually went back and got the other books in the series.”
“So what I’m hearing is a thank you,”
“You know, you don’t always have to ruin the moment,” I rolled my eyes, “You could have just left the conversation to flow normally but you just had to add that last part.”
“Thank you is just two syllables and it is definitely easier to say than the whole speech you just gave.”
I buried my head into my hands in annoyance, “This is exactly why I don’t like you; you are so annoying.”
“I wasn’t aware that being truthful classified as being annoying. If anything you-,” he trailed off as the car came to a slow stop in the middle of the road.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” he tried to start the car but it wouldn’t come on, “Can you check if you have signal?”
I picked up my phone but it had zero bars. I checked his too but it was the same.
“Okay, if this is to make me say thank you, I will, but stop.”
“It’s not a prank, I don’t know what’s wrong.”
He got out of the car and popped the hood and I let my head fall backwards as I took steady breath to calm myself. It’s not like we are stuck in the middle of nowhere at the ungodly hours of the morning with no idea of where we are and no signal to reach civilization.
