Shailene leans her elbow into the top of the seat behind her and her face into her palm, staring at me, a slight smile playing at her lips. “Marcus and I made our peace. I just want him to be happy,” she says to me. She never breaks character; that’s one of the things I grew to admire the most about her. There’s no way she wants to be within ten feet of Marcus, much less talk with all of the girls he’s dating. But you would never know from watching her.
“So,” I say tentatively, “what kind of girl do you think would be right for him?”
Shailene tilts her head to the side, giving me an assessing look as if deciding how honest to be. “Marcus is an easy person to love,” she tells me finally. “Bentley will be jealous to hear me say that, but there’s something that’s just giving about him. He wants people around him to be happy; he pours himself into them.” She studies me closely. “Our breakup was hard, you know?”
“Sure.” I nod. Shailene had been on the floor, begging Marcus to stay when he decided to leave. Some had said he was cold and calculating; others had thought that Shailene simply hadn’t emotionally given him what he really needed.
“But that’s because we’re both the kind of people who feel things all the way, even if they’re the wrong things,” Shailene says. “What are you thinking?”
I swallow. “Scared that sometimes I half-ass feel the wrong things.”
“Nah,” she says. “Not you, I can tell. After the show, the thing I really realized I had learned about Marcus is, he wants you to want him. He’s always excited about that.”
“That’s not a problem,” I say. “I want him.”
“I feel that,” she says with a nod, but in a way that makes me sure she stopped herself from saying something else. “Hey!” Shailene suddenly shouts, looking from me to the producers. “I’m starving. Can I get some food?”
Charlotte sighs, crossing her arms over her protruding stomach. “Fine,” she says, “but we’ve got to do a couple more of these.”
“Of course,” Shailene agrees, looking to me conspiratorially. “Jac, walk with me?”
They’ve brought in catering for Shailene—a stipulation, she tells me, she made production agree to before she would come to the mansion. Together, we walk, blessedly, out of view of the cameras.
“They wouldn’t have let you come if I hadn’t asked so pointedly,” Shailene tells me, piling her plate up with sandwich quarters and chips in the front dining room. “The crew is going to love me though,” she says, piling several pickles on top of her haul.
I grab a pickle myself and follow her to a corner, where she sets her plate down on an end table and grabs up one of the sandwiches, eating and standing there with me. “Why did you ask me to come?” I ask her.
She shrugs. “It’s what I would’ve wanted if it were me. A break from the monotony.” Her eyes travel around the room. “God, I do not miss this place.”
I give her a feeble laugh.
“Do you like Marcus?” she asks me.
Curiously, I answer, “What I know of him, I like.”
“Sure,” she agrees, slurping down a pickle. “Marcus is plenty likable. Very plausible. What about the other girls?”
I shrug noncommittally and she laughs. “Girl. Watch out for the producers if you’re digging that hole.”
“Which ones?” I ask her.
She smirks at me. “All of them.” She eats a chip and offers her plate to me. I take one. “Which ones are you worried about?”
“Jac!” Henry calls my name in the hallway, and our eyes meet as he hurries by. “We need you back on set in five!” he yells and then disappears. Shailene doesn’t miss it.
“What was it like for you?” I ask her. “Not on your season, but when you were a contestant? How did you deal with it?”
Shailene shrugs. “I had my fights, but I was lucky enough that they wanted to set me up as a lead. Though to be honest, they made me look so good that my season was kind of a relief—some people turned on me after it aired, but at least the girl I saw onscreen felt like she had some relation to who I truly was, flaws and all.”
“I liked you better after,” I say, even though I hadn’t seen much of her season as a contestant.
“See, I knew I liked you.” She eats another sandwich quarter. “Some girls weren’t as lucky with their edits. You’ve got to suck up a little, and if you have to resort to being a villain, you should cut a deal with your producer before you do anything too bad to get on 1 in the sun. Work with them, not against them.”
“Play into the storyline they want,” I say.
“Sure. It’s all about the followers you pick up, the deals you can cut after the show. I quit my job recently. Just didn’t make any sense with the amount of money I have coming in from sponsored content.” She eyes where Henry just disappeared. “You want to know about Henry?” she asks me, tilting her head to the side as she watches me.
It was something I noticed about Shailene on her season. She was perceptive. The only time she wasn’t was when it came to Marcus abandoning her.
“Henry’s good at getting me to say things I didn’t mean to say,” I admit to her.
She grins. “I bet he is.” She takes another bite of one of her sandwiches. “Do you know how many girls on my season wanted to fuck Henry? On all the seasons?” She dabs mustard from her face, and I watch with jealousy at the gusto with which she eats the food. “One of the girls on a different season—she told me this at some event we were doing together after she got a little too drunk—she made a pass at him. Actually went for it, right after the season was over.”
“And he was into it?” I prompt.
Shailene laughs. “Henry? Nah, I don’t think he’d ever touch a contestant. But what I’m telling you is that’s how he operates, Jac. You spilled too much to Henry? We all did. Who wouldn’t spill their souls to a man who looks like that who you know you can absolutely never have?”
My cheeks burn, and I feel strangely called out. I slept with him before I knew, but he’s been consistently manipulating me since well after we both knew, and that’s how he did it.
You want to give Henry whatever he wants.
“Besides,” Shailene says, “when Rachel tried it with him, he was engaged.”
I stumble over that, momentarily forgetting my role. “Henry was engaged?”
Shailene taps her manicured fingernails against the table. “Yeah. His ex looked like a supermodel. Actually, you know what? She might have been a supermodel. I think they broke up while we were filming last spring.” She glances up at me. “But we’re here to talk about Marcus, right?” She gives me a knowing smile, and I wilt at the sight of it. Right.
Right.
