I squint at him. “Don’t go quite that hard, Marcus. It’s not a good look on you.”
He laughs.
The crew starts to clean up their mess and go. Henry and I watch each other more openly than we should.
Then Henry leaves. Everyone leaves. The door closes, and it’s just the two of us and this suite.
“Finally alone,” Marcus says, leaning casually back against the door he’s just closed, looking over at me. “What do you want to do first?”
My heart is pounding. I’ve waited for this for so long. To finally, finally be alone with Marcus.
“What in the ever-loving fuck is your game here?” I ask him.
He pushes off the door, shrugging casually. “I’m not much of a planner.” He puts his hands in his pockets. “You’re still doing it, aren’t you? With Henry?”
I turn red. “What do you care?”
“C’mon, Jac,” he says, approaching me, his hand pushing my hair from my face. I don’t think to flinch away; the intimacy all day feels like a given. “You used to like me, remember?”
“I liked someone like you, didn’t I?”
“Sure.” He pulls his hand away without my prompting. “We all do. Someone like someone we could love. That’s the 1.”
“Shailene was never really your type.”
He shrugs. “Am I supposed to know?” He narrows his eyes at me. “Are we going to have sex?”
“No,” I say. “You already knew that, though, right?”
“I liked it the first time,” he says. “You certainly seemed to like it.”
“Right,” I say. “We had a good time.” I hedge my bets; the conversation seems to be going well. “And we’re no longer having a good time. Send me home, Marcus.”
“Henry,” he says. “It had to be fucking Henry. Why couldn’t it have been Brendan, or, like, a lighting technician? I’m not picky about who you fuck, Jac.”
“So this is personal? Because it’s Henry?”
He frowns. “It is. You’re just caught in the middle, and I’m having fun.” He thinks about it for a minute. “You could just confess on camera and get out of all of this. They’d love that.”
As he says my own idea to me, I realize exactly how bad it sounds. “You’d love that. Your ratings would be through the roof and people would feel bad for you.”
“You’ve just made a very compelling case for exposing you.”
I sigh. “Just do it. Whatever you’re going to do, do it and put us both out of our misery.” I know he won’t; I picked someone over him, and Marcus would never want the world to know that.
He sits down on the bed, starts taking off his shoes. “I haven’t decided exactly what I’m going to do.”
“You’ve got two girls who want to be with you and you’ve got me. What’s the decision?”
He leans back on the bed, folding his arms behind his head, elbows pointed out to the side. “I’ve got Kendall who is here only to win and honestly doesn’t do much for me, and Shae—let’s just say, I was very nicely asked to keep her around so she’d be in line for the next lead. Gotta get those brownie points. You’re easily the most interesting person left.”
“So, what makes the story more satisfying? If I get my heart broken or . . .” I trail off, avoiding saying it and allowing it to become real.
“Or the two renegades ride off into the sunset together,” he finishes for me. “I know you say you don’t like me anymore, Jac, but we think a lot alike.”
“Henry has enough self-loathing to power a small country. You don’t really need to go to such extremes to get back at him.”
“Don’t need to do anything,” Marcus says casually. “Don’t need to do any of this. Nor do you. Look at us. We’re both good-looking. We’re not having trouble finding romantic partners, so why are we doing it?”
“Desperation,” I say flatly.
“Money,” he answers. “I can’t believe Henry’s got you fooled into thinking he hates himself. It’s all of us he despises. He’s spent like fifteen years thinking about how much smarter he is than the rest of us, and then we leave and make more money, get more attention than he does. That’s why they want to keep bringing us back for more shows, to see if they can actually ruin our lives for good the next time. Fuck him. If you had half a brain, you’d be on my side.”
“Yeah, that condescension is really winning me over,” I say, but the words get under my skin. Marcus is wrong, but he’s not wrong.
“What happened with you and Henry anyway?” I can’t help but ask. I want to hear it from Marcus.
“Come on, surely he’s told you,” Marcus answers, but he smiles to himself after a moment. “No, I guess not. Not his style. He still blames me for everything with Shailene, right?”
“That pretty much sums it up, yeah.”
“Shailene can keep running her mouth however she wants; we both know what happened. But Charlotte and Priya promised me the lead if I said we had sex on camera, and I had no interest in becoming some small-town Midwestern husband. I don’t know why Henry is still so mad about it. I mean, I do, but it’s because he thinks he gets to do whatever he wants, but the second I become an active participant in the game, things suddenly aren’t fair.”
When I don’t answer, he keeps talking. “Don’t think for a minute this is real,” he says. “Henry. You might see me as the enemy right now, but it’s us against him. I guarantee you know more about who I really am than you know about him.”
“Mm” is all I mumble as I move away from him, tugging my sweater over my head to expose my black bra. Marcus raises an eyebrow at me.
“You know his playbook, right? He’ll tell you his dad is an alcoholic and kind of a hard-ass. We bonded over that. He’ll bring bourbon outside to drink with you at the mansion at the pool, so just the two of you can have a conversation. He’ll tell you about his band and convince you you’re friends.”
