RHETT
We had a good day at the beach despite the fact that we were having to pick up trash. I have to say that was something I had never done before in my life. Coming from a family of wealth, we didn't even handle our own trash. We had “people” for that.
My parents had people for everything. They had people to cook for us. They had people to watch over us while they were at work or on one of their vacations. They had people for the yard and people for the cars. I'm glad that they could employ people, but at the same time, it left me with an unrealistic view of the world.
Watching Savannah pick up trash like it was nothing was interesting. She enjoyed the day and her first time at the beach. I have to say that it was inspirational to watch her at the beach. She was so awestruck. It was like watching a little child experience something for the first time.
That was something I had never witnessed in anybody. I've been all over the world. I've seen all kinds of things, but I don't think I've enjoyed seeing something as much as the look on Savannah's face when we came over that bridge onto the beach and she saw the ocean for the first time.
The rest of the day was spent as free time. Because Savannah is so social, we talked to just about every one of the other contestants, which is not something I would normally do. I can be friendly when I need to be, but I'm not a person who enjoys meeting others or small talk. I'm not sure why that is.
Still, we talked to Zara about her travels around the world. We talked to Maggie about losing her husband and how she had started her life over again. We talked to Nate about his family tradition of baking. We also talked to Tanya about her kids and her catering business.
Getting to know all these people wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Of course, we avoided Connor and Lainey like the plague. We all had lunch and dinner together, so there was plenty of small talk. It wasn't as bad as I thought, either. We learned a lot about each other.
Of course, I didn't say much. I didn't talk about my job, even though I got asked a million questions about it. Connor kept eyeing me during these conversations as if he wanted to say something. I'm sure he did. He always wants to say something stupid. Thankfully, he refrained.
Now, it's our second night chained together. We have to go to sleep. Everybody's in bed, and Maggie, as usual, is already snoring. We asked the producer to unchain us so we could get into our nighttime attire before they chained us back together. Tomorrow is the last day of this.
I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad about that. I never thought I would enjoy being chained to another person for days at a time. We both lie down and turn off the light.
"Goodnight," Savannah says softly. She sounds tired. It's been a long day. We did a lot of physical work this morning.
"Goodnight," I say, knowing I won’t fall asleep.
We lay there for a while before Savannah sighs, the same thing she did last night.
"I can't sleep."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I guess I'm thinking about the competition. I'm thinking about my sister. I'm thinking about the ocean," she says, looking over and smiling. She has the best smile.
"I have an idea if you're up for it," I say, smiling back at her.
"Okay. What is it?"
"Well, why don't we go downstairs and do a little late-night baking?”
"Late-night baking?" she asks, laughing. “Is that a thing?”
"Yeah. We'll have the kitchen all to ourselves, and we can bake up some goodies to share with the others tomorrow."
"Rhett Jennings wants to share with others?" she says, rolling over onto her shoulder.
"Okay, well, maybe it's not really for them. I just like to bake, as you can probably determine."
She laughs and sits up, pulling my arm along with her. "In our pajamas?"
"Well, I'm not going to get dressed in formal wear for it," I say.
"Okay, let's go."
We get up and jog downstairs. I'm surprised we don't trip on the staircase as we go. Is this what giddiness feels like? Maybe I'm just overly exhausted.
We get down into the kitchen and start looking around for ingredients. For some reason, they always lock up the pantry at night, making it much harder to find what we need. But we do find enough to bake a batch of cookies. Maybe two.
"Okay. I want to make pecan praline cookies," I say, starting to look around on the counters.
"You think we're going to be able to find all of the ingredients for pecan praline cookies?" she asks, with her free hand on her hip.
"Okay, maybe you're right. Chocolate chip it is," I say, reaching over and grabbing the large canister of chocolate chips from the counter.
We move around the kitchen in perfect sync. We're getting used to this thing, this being chained together. This must be what married people feel like, the old ball and chain and all that.
Once we put the cookies in the oven, I pull myself up onto the counter and sit there, Savannah leaning against it below me.
"So, do you do a lot of late-night baking regularly?”
"Not really. Since I work at this all day, I’m not in the mood to bake at night. Plus, it's not a lot of fun to do something like this all by yourself."
"Well, you're not all by yourself on a yacht. Tell me some of the celebrities you've worked for," she says, looking up at me, her eyes bright.
I can't tell her the truth. There's no way I can tell her the truth because I wouldn't just be telling her. I'd be telling the entire world, and I'm not ready for that yet.
“I told you I have to sign non-disclosure agreements. Sorry, I can't say it, especially not on television."
She nods and shrugs her shoulders. "Yeah, I guess I understand. So what will we do while we wait for these cookies to finish?"
"We could go sit outside."
"No, I don't like leaving them in here unattended. It would just be like us to burn the whole place down. We couldn't even use the kitchen sink without an entire fiasco."
I laugh, thinking back to that moment.
"Okay, well, we could ask each other some questions."
"Wow. I like this side of Rhett, who wants to talk and ask questions. You go first." She pulls herself up beside me on the counter.
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Ocean blue,” she says, smiling. “Yours?”
“Emerald green.”
“Interesting. My turn. What’s your biggest fear?”
“Oooh, a deep one.” I think for a moment. “Not being good enough.”
She looks at me for a moment. “Good enough for who?”
I shrug my shoulders. “Honestly, I don’t know. What’s your biggest fear?”
“Spiders.”
I laugh. “You must not love Halloween.”
“I hate Halloween.”
“Me too,” I say, struggling to think of another question to ask her. "Do you like to dance?"
"It depends. Fast dance or slow dance?"
My heart speeds up a bit. "Either."
"I'm not so good at fast dancing. I don't think I was given the gift of rhythm, but I love to slow dance. It's been a long time since I've gotten to do it, of course. What about you? Do you like to dance?"
"I have to say I'm pretty good at fast dancing."
"Really? Rhett Jennings is good at fast dancing? I feel like I need to see proof of this."
Am I brave enough? Apparently so, because I jump down off the counter and walk over to the small radio in the corner of the kitchen. I don't know why it's here. I guess it gives us something to listen to without our phones, although it only goes to music channels. Somehow, they've managed to make it so that you can't access any of the news channels because they want us sequestered from the outside world.
I turn it on an 80s station until I find a song that meets my need for dancing. Ironically, the song is Whitney Houston's “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”.
"Come on, you have to try it with me," I say.
She shakes her head. "Absolutely not."
"I'm not going to dance alone."
"Fine," she says, jumping down. “But, I warned you, I'm not a good dancer."
"It doesn't matter. If I'm doing it, you have to do it."
Finally, she relents, and we start dancing around the kitchen. The more I dance, the more she dances, and the more we laugh. Every time I'm around her, I laugh.
I wonder how I went through culinary school without realizing that Savannah is very fun and nice. Maybe I was just too focused on myself. Maybe I was just too focused on school. But for some reason, being chained to her has been the most fun I've had in years. I'm kind of dreading them taking us apart. I know she doesn't want to hang out with me twenty-four hours a day. Who would? So she will go back to talking to everybody else, and I will be by myself yet again, trying to fit in a world where I don't think I really fit in.
I try not to think about any of it while we continue dancing and laughing. She's really not a bad dancer. She might think that she is, but I think it's cute.
Lord, I have got to stop saying things like this to myself. Am I really convincing myself that I'm falling for Savannah? I'm trying to have a fake relationship with her, even though she hasn't agreed to that yet.
It's not real. It's not real. It’s not real.
I keep telling myself that over and over. This is all pretend on my end, and she's just being nice. I can't think of it as anything else. In a few weeks, if we're lucky, when we leave this house, I probably won't ever even talk to her again. We don't live in the same area. We don't do the same kinds of things. We don't hang around with the same kinds of people. Well, I don't really hang around with any people. I can't convince myself that this is going somewhere.
Maybe it's better that we don't have a fake relationship. Maybe she's right about that, but I can't tell if she's pretending or just being nice. It's definitely not that she has real feelings. She's told everybody who will listen that I'm her rival, that we hate each other, but do we? Maybe I'm overly tired, but the lines are becoming blurred. Finally, the song ends, and we're both breathless and laughing.
"I told you I couldn't dance!”
"I thought you did a pretty good job. I mean, I don't think you'd win any competitions for that, so it's probably a good idea that you can bake well."
As soon as the song ends, “Careless Whisper” by Wham comes on the radio. A slow song. I don't know what to do. Before I can decide, she reaches her hand out.
"Let's see if you can slow dance."
* * *
SAVANNAH
I don't know what I was thinking. My heart races as I look at Rhett, this ridiculous man I’m chained to for a reality show. I keep telling myself that he's just acting, playing a game to win over the audience back home.
But he took my invitation to slow dance seriously. I don't know why I said it. I just suddenly blurted it out. I think I'm getting way too comfortable here. He slowly pulls me toward him, and I can feel the lines between reality and make-believe starting to blur.
"So you think you can slow dance better than me, huh?" Rhett says with a teasing smile. His warm breath tickles my cheek.
I can't help but notice how his eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles. I have the urge to reach up and smooth away the laugh lines. There's something so disarming about his expression right now, and I can feel my stomach fluttering.
"I know I can," I say, trying to keep my voice light and playful, hyper-aware that people at home are watching us right now. Deep down, I want nothing more than to get lost in his embrace, to feel his strong and steady presence. But there's something different about him at this moment that I’ve never seen before: a softness, a vulnerability. I wonder if he knows it's visible.
As the music fills the kitchen, he begins to sway gently, his hand resting on the small of my back. Electricity shoots through me as I feel him touch me, and I resist the urge to lean in closer and closer to press my body against his.
I can feel the warmth of his skin through the thin fabric of my pajama top. I wonder if he can feel my heart jackhammering against my breastbone. We move together in perfect sync. Our bodies fit together like puzzle pieces even though he's twice my size.
He looks down at me, his eyes warm but intense. I feel myself drowning. All the thoughts of the competition and the cameras are fading away. I needed them to keep me in reality, but they're gone. In this moment, it's just the two of us lost in a private world we created.
I'm playing a dangerous game. I know it, but I can't seem to stop myself from falling deeper under his spell with every passing second. I know he doesn't feel the same. He wants a fake relationship to win the show. That's it. That's Rhett. Rhett is all about competition.
I keep trying to remind myself of that, but I feel like I'm losing it. I wonder if he can sense the shift in my emotions, how my breath quickens, and how my pulse races the closer he gets. There's some kind of undeniable connection between us, but is it real or make-believe?
I feel like a spark ignites every time we're this close. The song continues, and he pulls me even closer. I can feel the steady rhythm of his heart against mine. I inhale the crisp, clean scent of his cologne, and it takes all my willpower not to bury my face straight into his chest. I want to lose myself and forget everything else that exists. The competition. The fact that I miss my sister. Big Thelma. Wait. Why is Big Thelma in there? I'm not going to let her ruin this perfect yet fleeting moment.
His hand slides up my back, sending shivers down my spine. I find myself tilting my head up to look at him. His eyes are filled with an intensity that takes my breath away. I can feel myself being drawn in like a moth to a flame. I don't know if this is real. I don't know if he's faking it for the cameras.
In the back of my mind, I know I should pull away, that I'm only setting myself up for heartbreak. But at this moment, I don't care about any consequences. All I can think about is this man and how he makes me feel, which shocks me.
He was my rival just a few days ago. He was the guy I would tell everyone I hated from culinary school, and now I'm slow dancing with him in the kitchen in front of a television audience. As the song starts to reach its end, Rhett twirls me around. His movements are graceful and effortless, as if he's been taking dancing classes his whole life.
I let out a breathless laugh, my inhibitions melting away as I just surrender myself to the music and his lead. For a minute, I forget we're being watched and that this is all just a game. I'm allowing myself, for once in my life, to enjoy being lost in the sensation of somebody showing me attention because they want to.
Once the final notes of the song fade away, Rhett pulls me close. His lips are just mere inches from mine. My breath catches in my throat, and my pulse pounds so loudly in my ears that I wonder if he can hear it. I really want him to kiss me. I want the lines blurring between reality and fantasy to meld into one. But just before our lips are about to meet, he pulls away, leaving me suddenly cold.
"Looks like you've still got a few things to learn," he says, a teasing look on his face. I'm momentarily disoriented like I had oxygen, and then someone took it away from me. He releases me, and I think I've never felt such a void in my life.
* * *
RHETT
That was hell. Holding Savannah in my arms was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Letting her go was painful.
As much as I want the home audience to believe there’s something going on, I don’t know if I could play pretend. Not with her.
When I let her go, I wanted to immediately pull her back and kiss her like no one’s ever kissed her before. It took every bit of strength I have in my large body to let go of her hand.
Now, I can’t hide. I feel like she sees me. And I never let anyone see me.
* * *
SAVANNAH
We walk back upstairs into the room where Maggie is still happily sleeping. She lets out a loud snort and then turns onto her side. Thankfully, she’s not snoring like a freight train when she’s on her side. Do freight trains even snore? I don't know what to describe it as, but it's pretty rough.
Thankfully, once I'm asleep, I'm a pretty heavy sleeper. I don't know about Rhett because I never wake up in the middle of the night to check. I just know that he’s looking at me every morning when I open my eyes. It's kind of unnerving.
What's even more unnerving is that slow dance we just had in the kitchen. I don't know what I was thinking asking him to do that. It just played right into his plan to make everybody think that we're in a relationship. I know that's what's happening. I know I can't let my mind run away with the idea that Rhett is somehow interested in me. I don't even know if I'm interested in him. I just know I'm not playing a game.
But Rhett has told me in no uncertain terms that he wants to have a fake relationship. So I know he's pretending. He's putting on a show for the cameras. All the women at home probably enjoyed that dance. I really enjoyed that slow dance in the kitchen, but I can't make it into more than it was.
We lie back down in our beds, staring at the ceilings as usual.
"I guess we should get some sleep."
"I guess so," I say. "Although I'm pretty hyped up on cookies and dancing."
He laughs. "Yeah, it probably wasn't the best idea to eat a bunch of sugary chocolate chip cookies right before we went to bed. We might be up all night."
"We can't be up all night," I say. "We have things to do. I don't know what they are, but I'm sure we have things to do tomorrow."
"You know they'll have us do some kind of public service thing since we have a few more days before the main challenge."
"Yeah, the main challenge. I wonder who will win this time."
"I don't know. I prefer not to think about it," I say. "It just gets me stressed out."
“When we were in school together, I always thought of you as somebody who couldn't be rattled."
I smile. "That's what I want people to think. I had to behave that way as a kid."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I've told you that I was brought up by a single mother who had addiction issues. I basically had to raise myself, and when you have to raise yourself, you become an adult pretty quickly. I always wanted people to think I was okay. I didn't want anybody to feel sorry for me. So I probably came off that way because of that."
"But now I see you get rattled on a pretty regular basis. Why the change?"
"This is an unusual situation," I say, laughing. "I never expected to be stuck in a house with strangers away from my sister, being watched by cameras all day. I think it's reactivated the anxiety I thought I had put away years ago. What about you? Do you find yourself acting differently in the house?"
He looks over at me for a moment. "I find myself acting differently with you."
"You have to stop saying things like that," I say, my face serious.
"Why?" He leans up onto his shoulder. "I'm just telling you the truth. I thought you liked that."
I push up onto my elbow and face him. "I do like that, except when it's about a hippopotamus. You know what I mean." I'm sure that people at home are completely confused by this comment, but Rhett knows what I mean. He knows that's our code word for fake relationships. It's a stupid code word, but there it is. "I know you’re just doing things like a hippopotamus would.”
"This is the silliest conversation I've ever had," he says, chuckling.
"Well, either way, you have to stop saying things like that.”
“Well, I'm not going to. I do feel like myself when I'm around you, Sunny.”
“Let's change the subject. What was your upbringing like?"
He falls back onto his back. “Yikes, what a terrible way to change the subject. I don't really want to talk about my family."
"Come on, I've told you about mine. I mean, there wasn't much of it."
"Well, I come from a very wealthy family, as I've mentioned. Doctor mother. Attorney father. We never wanted for anything. We had everything we could have possibly wanted. A couple of houses, the best schools, brand new cars when we were old enough to drive, family vacations."
"Wow, I can't imagine a life like that."
"Yeah, it looked good on the surface. I'm sure there were many people around us who were jealous of our family."
"But they shouldn't have been?"
"No, not really. What I learned from all of that is that none of it matters. None of that material stuff is what actually makes you happy."
"So what makes you happy?”
He sits there for a moment, quietly pondering. "I think being here with you."
"What?"
"That is what has made me the happiest that I can think of. Being here with you."
I fall onto my back and stare at the ceiling, unsure what to say. He's got to be pretending. There's no way that Rhett Jennings is saying these things and being serious. He must be the world's best actor. I consider what I can say in return, but then I hear a breathing sound. I turn and look, and Rhett is sound asleep, with a smile on his face. He fell asleep? This guy who never sleeps, who has terrible insomnia, is lying beside me, chained to my arm, sleeping peacefully with a smile on his face.