“Good. Then I’ll leave you to it.” She tossed him a condom. He caught it before he realized what it was. His jaw hung open as she shut the door behind her.
“Your sister’s crazy,” he said to Sabrina as the door clicked into its frame. “Fucking nuts.”
Sabrina shook her head, beaming. “She’s not. She was born to be brilliant. She looks after me.”
Alex set the condom beside him. “No, dude, she’s bonkers.”
Sabrina’s stomach twitched. She hated hearing him diss her sister like that, but she wasn’t supposed to talk back to men in a way that would turn them away from her.
“Maybe you’re bonkers,” she whispered.
His laugh was a loud sound. She laughed in time with him, until they were both cracking up and rolling on the floor.
“We’re all bonkers,” he finally said. “Isn’t that the lesson of high school?”
“I guess.” Sabrina blushed. She didn’t feel crazy. She felt pretty and lucky—and eager to kiss the boy in front of her.
“Hey, I didn’t mean it as a bad thing.” He rolled closer to her and rested his hand on her outstretched leg. “I meant it as a compliment.”
Before she lost her nerve, she leaned in and pressed her lips to his. He pulled back, surprise registering on his face.
“You want this?” he asked.
“I do.” She waited, and he hesitated only a moment before he returned to her, his hands cupping her cheeks as his lips tangled with hers. They breathed into one another until her body relaxed, and the rest was eager and rushed, but at the same time, it was intoxicating in its adultness. The strange sensations were otherworldly if unsettling. After he fell apart, he folded into himself, then pulled back on his clothes as though in a hurry.
“Well, thanks,” he said as he hurried from the room, then from the house. Sabrina peered out her window at him waiting for his brother’s car. She imagined their life together: they might hold hands as they sprinted down the hallway; kiss under the football field bleachers; rub their feet together under the lunch tables. They might be known as cutest couple, voted homecoming king and queen. Sabrina pressed her palms to the window until her sister came in and pulled her away.
“Now you forget him,” she said to Sabrina, so Sabrina did.
Day Two
Chapter Thirteen
Sabrina
At the breakfast table, Sabrina waited for Tristan to come down. When he ventured into the kitchen, he poured a scoop of protein powder into a glass of water and downed it in one gulp. Sabrina pushed a bowl of cereal and the bottle of milk toward him, but he ignored it and left.
“For me?” Linda slid into the chair behind Sabrina and poured the milk, then frowned at the colorful cereal loops. “No wonder he ignored you. These colors are against nature.” Her gaze gleamed, then faded. “Or maybe I’m too tired to be hungry.”
“Late night?” Sabrina asked her, imagining Tristan climbing into her bed, then going down the hall to Linda’s. Her stomach twisted at the idea that they might be tunnel sisters already, before the private nights for three of the women in the penultimate episode: the sanctioned bedding of the potential brides. People fucked outside that episode—rumors abounded about prior seasons’ Lotharios—but it was frowned upon. This year, Tristan had chosen her to take off-camera. Sabrina smiled at the thought.
“Nah. I was out like a light.” Linda ran her hand through her hair. “Why? Were you up until the wee hours?”
Sabrina folded her hands in her lap and lay her head against the table. She closed her eyes. “I tossed and turned.”
“Did you now?” Linda raised an eyebrow.
As Sabrina breathed in, she caught the scent of wood, but something else behind it: the smell of sweating skin, odor after a long, frightened run. It was a particular smell: fear. She knew it from those moments in her life she didn’t wish to recall. It was the smell that she caught from her armpits after sweating out a fever; waiting on a pregnancy test; pulling to the side of the road when she saw those flashing lights; walking home alone at night; running home alone at night. Her head spun as a nervous trill moved through her. She lifted her head and scowled.
“Do you smell something?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Skin? Blood?”
Linda’s eyebrows bunched together. “You should make sure you sleep,” Linda said. “We’ll need our energy to fight off all these ghosts.” Sabrina tried to smile, but Linda’s expression portrayed something that Sabrina didn’t like: a brief meanness that flashed in and out. It was that judgment that irked her: Sabrina shouldn’t eat the cereal, and she should get more sleep, and under no circumstances should she let Tristan into her room. As competitors, it was their curse to judge everyone. Thus far, Sabrina and Linda had formed an alliance, but Linda wanted to win, and eventually, they would need to tear each other apart.
Chapter Fourteen
Linda
After breakfast, the production team gathered the contestants and lined them up outside the manor. The only information that Deja had given them was to dress for activity, and Linda shivered in her gym shorts and tank top.
Tristan removed his hands from the pockets of his cargo pants and paced back and forth as the cameras followed him.
“Growing up on a ranch, I learned to be active at an early age. Fitness was instilled in me, and I expect any lady of mine to follow me on adventures of a physical nature.” He winked. “Today, we’re going to rappel down the side of the manor!”
One of the cameramen leaned over the roof’s edge and waved.
“How the hell are we getting up there?” Charity said. “There is no fucking way.”
“I’m glad you asked! Inside Matrimony Manor, there’s a secret staircase that leads up to the top of the roof there. Ladies, to get to the top, we climb!”
Marion jumped up and down, while Charity’s face drained of its color.
“I’m afraid of heights,” she said, and flexed and unflexed the hand that lay at her side, beside Linda’s steadier hand. Linda let her skin brush Charity’s, sharing a brief warmth that Linda hoped might calm her. Charity didn’t seem to notice.
“Well, now is your chance to face your fear. This is an important challenge, because tonight—you guessed it!—is an elimination ceremony.” Tristan tried to look somber, but it was like a puppy dog pretending at guilt.
