Love in Reality: A Contemporary Romance (The Blackjack Quartet) (18 page)

“I’ll think about it,” Debbie said. She made it sound like she was reluctantly considering one of her son’s plans to hang out with his friends.

“Thanks, Mom,” Rand teased.

Three days later, Greg, aka Sgt. Pepper the Band Geek, surprised everyone by winning the sixth Shark Fight. When he moved into the Shark Tank, Rand couldn’t help thinking that Lissa sleeping alone in the blue bedroom could present an opportunity for them. Now, how to take advantage of it?

Libby enjoyed the illusion of having the bedroom to herself, even if anyone with an Internet connection could watch her sleep. Curled up in the dark by herself, she tried to see how Greg’s being the Shark could make it easier for her to be with Rand.

On Greg’s second night in the Shark Tank, Rand changed things up and called her second to the Journal Room. When Libby got there, Rand told her to please sit down, like he always did. His voice surprised her. It sounded like he was holding back laughter.

“That’s so mean of you,” she said.

“What?”

“You sound like you’re going to crack up at any moment, but I have to keep my voice perfectly ordinary.” Hah. That was ambiguous enough for the editors not to know what she was referring to, but Rand wouldn’t be able to respond. He still had to ask her his questions. She gave the smoky window her best Ditzy Lissa smile.

She thought she heard him choke, cough, then clear his throat a couple of times. Good. Let him deal with controlling his voice, too. She deliberately relaxed against the sofa cushions and waited. Excitement heated her blood—it always did when she was summoned to the Journal Room—but she channeled it into beating Rand at this game of audio chicken.

Finally he got his voice back to its usual calm. He asked her fairly standard questions about that afternoon’s luxury challenge, the implications of Greg as the Shark and who he would put on the hook, and an argument between Jim and Dylan. Libby dutifully talked about each situation and then waited. Sure enough, there was a pause, then the door to the booth opened. Rand crooked his finger at her.

She was surprised by the rush of sensation just from seeing him. It never got old. Every night—that flash of heat tightening her skin followed by the liquid undertow tugging at her, urging her into Rand’s arms. Pavlov knew all about this—just seeing that door open turned her insides to hot goo.

When she got to the open doorway, Rand pulled her in with him. “We can’t stay—I have to do the rest of the interviews. But I have something planned for later, okay?”

“What?” she asked, disappointed they weren’t going to have the usual twenty minutes or so of kissing and fondling.

“You’re going to have to trust me. And I need to warn you, this may be very late, so don’t wait up. Go to bed at the normal time, okay?”

She squinted at him in the dim light. He was grinning, clearly pleased with himself. That was a good sign—by now, Libby had no doubts that Rand and she wanted the same things, even if her open microphone limited their desires. His expression reassured her that she’d like whatever he had planned for them.

Finally she shrugged, nodded, and said, “Okay.” He kissed her hard but too quickly, and pushed her back into the Journal Room.

Libby spent a few minutes talking with Kai. She wandered up to the Shark Tank after she saw Dylan go outside with Jim. Jim knew Greg would put him on the hook and was lobbying hard to prevent that. Greg was hanging out with Susie and Chris. The beauty of not being in an alliance was that Libby didn’t have to worry about what she said and to whom. Greg and Chris greeted her warmly, while Susie smiled vaguely in her direction.

Greg probably wouldn’t put her on the hook, but Libby could never be too careful, so she chatted vaguely before mentioning that Dylan was talking to Jim outside. Given the fight they’d had earlier in the day, no one was quite sure what this meant. “They weren’t yelling. In fact, they looked like they might be plotting something,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

Just as Libby predicted, this nugget of information got Susie and Chris buzzing with possibilities. Before long they left to check on Dylan, who was in their alliance. Libby was pleased with her skill at slipping in a tiny suggestion just as the rampant paranoia waned. Hard to tell for sure, but no one seemed to notice her doing it. Whenever someone carefully explained strategies and plans to her, she tried to look surprised. Really, she thought as she settled onto the end of the bed opposite Greg, she had to look like an idiot. But then idiots never won. Everyone knew that. Her plan to look safe might just be working.

Greg was sprawled on his Shark-themed bed—the pillows had dorsal fins and white shark-tooth buttons. So cute. He stared at her. She expected him to comment on one of the ongoing conspiracy theories in the house.

“I know what’s going on,” he said.

See? Libby smiled at him encouragingly. “You mean about Jim and Chris’s alliance?”

“No, I mean about you. You’re such a dark horse, but I know what’s happening.”

Libby goggled at him. She found she slipped into her Lissa “I don’t know what you mean” innocent routine with alarming speed these days.

“Oh, come on, we share a bedroom. You hum when you come to bed,” Greg said.

“Oh, lord, do I? How annoying. Throw a pillow at me to make me stop, okay?”

“Lissa, it’s not the noise. It’s your mood. You are the picture of a woman in love. So what the hell is going on? It can’t be Dylan because he says the nastiest things about you and he is
not
a good actor.” Gone was the bumbling, happy-go-lucky booster for the “Show Me” state. Greg was acting very Shark-like.

Libby chose to match his “let’s drop the bullshit routine” demeanor. “Maybe Dylan’s not a good actor, but I’m beginning to think you might be. What happened to the ‘Missouri is the best state in the union’ rah-rah band geek routine?”

“Oh, it takes too damned much energy to keep up,” he told her, flipping over onto his back. “Never mind me, what’s with the humming? Who’s revving your engine?”

Libby wanted to confide in someone, but she remembered all the microphones and cameras just in time. What was she going to say? She couldn’t say it was Dylan—no one would believe the two of them as a secret couple. Plus, Marcy must see enough raw and edited footage to know there weren’t any secret liaisons between her and any other Fish. She had to come up with a plausible lie. Jim? No. Kai—? Didn’t think she could pull that off.

She was tracing the pattern of the bedspread’s elaborate stitching, stalling. She kept her eyes downcast.

Then she had it. “I’m so embarrassed, Greg. I didn’t realize it showed.”

“Well, then you really are the idiot Dylan says you are. Nearly every night you come to bed flushed and throbbing with female hormones. Damn near gives me nightmares. I’m surprised I’ve been able to get any sleep at all.”

“Oh, this is so awful. I should have said something to you sooner,” she cried, still not meeting his eyes.

“What? What are you talking about?”

Libby strained to think of the least idiotic euphemism for this newest lie. “Greg, I have feelings…” She let her voice trail off.

“Lissa, what the hell are you talking about?”

“It was the second week, I think, and you were so nice to me after I nearly got fished out. Then one night…” she paused deliberately. She nearly gasped with relief when she remembered something that had actually happened. Gotta add that verisimilitude. “One night, I walked in to our room and I’d forgotten to knock.” She waited for him to remember the night in question.

“So? I was butt naked, but it’s not like you saw—Oh, no, Lissa, do not tell me you think you, that we—”

“I’m so embarrassed,” she whispered.

“Lissa, I’m gay,” he told her.

“What?” Libby looked up, truly surprised.

“I’m gay.”

Libby resisted the urge to look at the cameras. She wanted to know if Rand knew about this. Had Greg forgotten that everything they said was recorded? There was no such thing as keeping a secret in the ’Bowl.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” It made no sense. There had been gay Fish before. In fact, in past seasons the gay guy was always out and proud. Usually the lone gay Fish ended up having long heart-to-heart conversations with a straight guy. In the Journal Room, the straight guy would claim it showed how open and fair-minded he was. Lissa’s theory was that the straight guy was bi-curious or else was so narcissistic that if the cute gay guy was attracted to him it proved he was irresistible to both sexes. In the seven seasons, Libby couldn’t recall anyone being gay and announcing it midway through the game.

“No one ever asked me,” Greg said. “I don’t sound particularly queer, and I didn’t make a point of it in my audition, where all they asked me about was the band.”

He shrugged. “It’s such a cliché on this show, the ‘token gay guy.’ I just decided not to volunteer anything. My boyfriend at home is cool with it.” Greg grinned. “He even told me I could make out with a girl, if I wanted to keep it under wraps.”

Libby pulled back suddenly. Oh, crap, now her body language screamed,
Not with me you’re not
. Which was stupid, given that she was supposedly attracted to him. That was going to make her look like the worst homophobe around, unless… “I had no idea you were in a committed relationship,” she said with feigned regret. “I feel horrible. I shouldn’t even have thought about you that way.”

Now it was Greg’s turn to look embarrassed. “I didn’t realize you’d—I mean, I was really trying to go for the asexual vibe, you know?”

Libby laughed. This was getting to be amusing. “Well, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but I saw enough that night to know that ‘asexual’ is not a good fit.”

Greg chuckled. “But really—I’m the reason you’ve been humming?”

“I like our conversations,” she said simply. That was true enough, as it went. Greg was a nice guy. Libby frequently thought how lucky she was with him as her roommate.

He puffed up a bit at the implied compliment that she had been lusting after him because he was
both
well-endowed and a good guy. Men were predictable. Say something nice about them and they quickly lose the thread of the conversation.

“Why didn’t you say anything to me?” he asked. “I mean, for the game. We could have been allies.”

Here was the rub. She kept ducking Greg’s efforts to talk strategy when they were alone in their room. What reason could she give for not conniving with the guy she was supposedly secretly in love with?

“I was afraid to. I mean, it’s one thing to be rejected and another to put myself at risk of getting kicked off. I know I’m not the strongest player,” she said. “But my strategy has been to play a defensive game. If I’m seen as unthreatening, but I keep rescuing myself when someone puts me on the hook, then I have a chance. Plus, by not being in an alliance, I won’t alienate people by voting against an ally.”

Libby looked at him with her eyes wide, trying to appear hopeful. She wanted him to buy her story, sure, but she also wanted to reinforce her image as a ditz.

“So you’re not in an alliance with Kai and Jim?”

“No. I just hang out with them because they’re clearly going home sooner rather than later. They’re both proving to be strong competitors—you know, opponents everyone else will want to get fished out sooner than me. I figure that gives me a couple more weeks in the Fishbowl. A little bit of luck, and I might make it to the final three.”

Greg took this in. Then he shook his head. “You actually have been thinking about all this. I have to tell you, the others—” Libby figured he meant Dylan, Chris and Susie “—are convinced you’re a sleeper in this game. In fact, Susie has this pet theory that you’re a mole put in here by the producers.”

Libby’s heart stopped at this news. She asked as casually as she could, “That’s crazy talk. What makes her think that?”

He waved his hand. “Oh, she says your Journal Room interviews are longer than anyone else’s.”

She was having trouble breathing. This was a disaster. She had to come up with more lies to explain the discrepancies in her interview times. At the same time she couldn’t help thinking how weird it was that Greg hadn’t put two and two together. Longer Journal Room interviews, and she comes out humming and blushing? There goes the stereotype that gay men miss nothing.

“That’s absurd. I think the guy who asks the questions is so desperate to get me to say something interesting that it takes him twice as long,” she said with a shrug. Then she scrunched her face in thought. “Also, I keep forgetting that I’m not supposed to answer just yes or no, but to incorporate the question into my answer,” she said in a singsong voice, like it was a familiar and boring lesson.
Forgive me, Lissa. I’m lowering your IQ by the minute here.

“I told her she was imagining things,” Greg reassured her. “That guy? The one who asks the questions? He’s chatty enough, but no one would stick around to talk to him.”

Libby made a hasty investigation of her cuticles, keeping her face impassive at this impertinent description of Rand. She had to remember all the cameras in the room. She didn’t want Marcy noticing that she even knew much about their inquisitor. “Oh, I don’t know. He doesn’t seem so bad. He’s very patient with me,” she said.

She watched as Greg just subsided back on his shark pillows. It looked like he had bought it. Maybe she could start breathing again. That would sure feel good.

“So, Lissa, who should I put on the hook this week?” he asked after a while.

“Well, not me, of course,” she smiled.

“Of course,” he agreed.

“Honestly, I think you should target the guys, like Dylan and Chris.”

“You mean, put them up and hope that neither of them wins the Get Off The Hook competition?”

“But even if they do, you can take out Jim as a last resort,” Libby argued.

“Well, I’ll think about it,” Greg said.

“Okay.” Libby got up to leave the Shark Tank. It was just a matter of time before the others trooped back in to discuss strategy with Greg.

“Oh, and Liss?” Greg said when she had her hand on the doorknob.