Instead, she buried her hands into her pockets. “She’s right.”
Tristan’s mouth opened and closed as his posture stiffened. He snatched the microphone from his chest and threw it into the dirt, his breath forceful as he turned from them.
Linda watched the scene unfold and understood at once: Tristan and Marion were fucking. As her head went light, she laughed at the fact that she didn’t notice before now.
“What’s funny?” Tristan asked, kicking dirt over the microphone like a child throwing a fit. “Why is everyone always laughing at me?”
“Oh, I don’t even know why I care.” As Linda spoke, her hands traveled to her mouth, tracing her lips as they moved free from the script. Even as she tucked her elbows into her sides, she tightened her fists, her knees shaking as fear and anger warred inside her.
“Care about what?” Marion said, moving toward Tristan as though he might protect her from the tension that hung in the air.
“That you’re going to win. That this thing is rigged. That you’re already together in every sense of the word.” Linda leaned on this last phrase, letting it form an innuendo. “Why are we, the others, here?”
“Hey, hey.” Tristan stepped forward, palm outstretched, and Marion pouted as their shades uncrossed on the ground. He placed one hand on Linda’s shoulder, but his grip was tighter than usual, his knuckles white. “It’s not rigged. I care about you. My affection for all y’all girls is different, sure, but my attraction to you is no less strong than my attraction to the other ladies here.”
When Linda shook her head, her hair slapped against her cheeks. It wasn’t his lack of affection that irked her. When she studied Tristan, she felt a whirlpool of emotions, but none of them made her want to press herself into him until she disappeared. Sabrina’s eager hands healed wounds and deserved the simple comfort she sought in the country boy, and Charity must want Tristan if she stayed on this long And didn’t she deserve whatever she longed for? What was making the vein on Linda’s forehead pulse was concern for them, not herself. Linda hoped these two women could have everything they desired, but they were being set up for heartbreak, and with broken bones to boot.
“You don’t even care about him!” Marion said, stepping forward in a cat-fight stance, hands on hips, head cocked in challenge.
“She’s right. You don’t give a shit about him, do you?” Deja said in Linda’s ear.
“I do, too.” Linda slid back into the game.
“Prove it,” Deja said. “Tristan needs a woman who can fight for him.”
Linda stood off against Marion and made a conscious decision to let down the gates that held back her rage. She cracked her knuckles. “You don’t get to tell me who I do and don’t care for!”
“You talk more to that fat nurse and the lesbo than you do to Tristan,” she said.
“Excuse me?” And without thinking, Linda lunged forward, and in a single flash she remembered how good it felt to let fury take over. She pushed Marion backward, and Marion stumbled, landing on her ass in the patchy grass. She cried out. “Calm down!” But Linda was ready to do whatever she needed to do to shut the woman up.
Stepping between them, Tristan pushed against Linda with one outstretched hand. His force kept her back, and the distraction of his hand landing on her tit morphed her fury into twisted confusion. She moved away from him, repulsed by the display of masculinity and disappointed by his insistence that she calm.
Without another word, Linda turned on her heel, tossed the ear piece into the grass, and trudged back into the manor.
Chapter Fifteen
Linda
Linda found Sabrina wrapping Charity’s foot in a living room full of antique chaise lounges and couches with curved arms. She flopped into a dusty red chair as the gravity of her behavior settled over her. Leo rotated the camera, zooming in on her face.“You’re not going home anymore,” Linda said to Charity, her head lolling back, her neck stretching so long it felt like her air was restricted. “That honor is mine.” As she said it, she felt bigger, longer, her reclining form insisting on its space like a lion in the sun-drenched savanna.
“Nah, it’s me.” Charity propped her jaw on her folded hand. “I guarantee it.”
“Did you attack Marion?” Linda shifted her head back in line with her spine and took in her friends with the sides of her eyes. Charity touched Linda’s arm as Sabrina whipped her head around. “Didn’t think so.”
Charity’s mouth had been stuck in a grimace, but now her grin showed all her perfect teeth. “You didn’t!”
Outside, Tristan’s loud voice met its upper pitch as he yelled at Deja about something safety something. The others paused to eavesdrop, too.
“Shit, you might be going home,” Sabrina said.
“You guys, no way. I bet if we went into the shrine room, my photograph would already be turned the fuck over and marked with that X.” Charity shook her head, then winced at her foot. The two gestures were unrelated.
Linda frowned. “The shrine room?”
“You’ve seen the show, right?” Sabrina said.
“Of course,” Linda said.
“The shrine room—the room with all our photographs lined up with candles, where Mr. Farmer’s Tan decides which wifeys he wants to kick to the curb.”
“Oh, the interview room?” Linda’s stomach fluttered even as she barked a laugh. “Where the traveling shelf lives. Where the host and the groom chat.”
“Uh-huh. That’s the one.” Standing, Sabrina offered her hand to Linda. “Let’s have a look in the light of day, shall we?”
As Linda grabbed her hand, she was unsure whose was clammier. The palms slid against one another as Sabrina pulled her to her feet. Linda let go and wiped the sweat onto her pants.
“There’s not a whole lot of that light-of-day stuff to go around in this place, though, is there?” Charity’s crumpled body still pulsed against the faded room. “Are you coming?” Her breath caught as she spoke.
Charity moved her ankle in a circle, lips pursed. “I guess.”
“I’d advise against it,” Sabrina said.
“I take your advisement and raise you an I don’t care.” When Charity began struggling to her feet, Linda rushed to help while Sabrina assisted from Charity’s other side. Charity laughed at their concern, pushing them away. “Don’t fuss over me! I’m okay. Seriously.” She stuck out her foot and put a little weight on it. “It doesn’t feel worse than it has before. I’ll be fine.”
Charity waved Leo in front of them. “A shot from the front seems advisable, yeah, cameraboy?”
He stood at attention and slid the camera from its standing rig. “I don’t even know where you people are trying to go.”
