All in the Game (16 page)

And was not disappointed. She flung open the door.

“Surprise,” said Ty. “Or not.”

“You're three for three!” Shannen exclaimed, throwing her arms around him and hugging him tight.

Conveniently he had no food or wine tonight and his arms were free to pick her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist and their lips met in passionate fusion.

This was no tentative, preliminary kiss. His tongue entered her mouth and probed intimately, and she responded with an urgency and need that matched his. Instantaneously they were swept into fiery passion, their emotional connection so strong and so natural there could be no denying it.

However, they were not alone.

“To think I thought today couldn't get any worse.” Lauren's voice, sardonic and cross, made her presence known. “Ha! The laugh is on me, because it just did. I landed the dreaded role of unwanted third wheel.”

Shannen stiffened and Ty tensed. Their private little interlude had come to an abrupt end. She wriggled to be free, and he let her go, though he held her tightly against him, turning the release into a long, slow body caress. Both reluctantly stepped apart.

“Hello, Lauren,” he said with commendable geniality. “How are you?”

“Not overjoyed to be playing chaperon,” she replied baldly. “If you two want to be alone, you'll have to go
somewhere else. I'm not being driven out of my room.” She purposefully stretched across the bed on her stomach, her book in front of her face.

“Let's take a walk, Shannen,” suggested Ty. “Unless you'd rather stay here?”

“A walk sounds good.” Shannen grabbed his hand and fairly dragged him from the room. “We've been cooped up in there most of the day,” she confided as they strolled along the long corridor. “Lauren's…in kind of a mood.”

“Tactfully stated.” Ty grinned. “Want to know who was voted off the island?”

“That's how you got the boat again. You offered to bring the loser over!”

“I didn't offer, I said I was going to do it. Rico is checking into his room right now.”

“Rico!” exclaimed Shannen. “How did that happen?”

“Whoever caught the first fish would win the immunity contest. Konrad had a tug on his pole and immediately handed it to Cortnee. Sure enough, there was a fish on the line, which made her the first to catch one.”

“So she won immunity. That is, Konrad gave it to her,” Shannen amended, surprised. “That's unexpected, isn't it?”

“Nobody saw it coming. Cortnee and Konrad cut their little deal out of camera range. They both voted Rico off, but he took it like a good sport.”

“And Konrad and Cortnee are the two finalists.” Shannen didn't care. She and Ty were together, headed toward the beach on a beautiful tropical night. Whoever won the
Victorious
game, she felt like the
truly
victorious one.

They held hands and walked along the beach together.

“I'm guessing that things didn't go well for Lauren and Jed?” Ty asked. “She didn't look or sound like someone who'd spent the day in romantic paradise.”

Shannen appreciated the opening. She guessed that Ty couldn't care less about the alleged Lauren-Jed relationship,
but he knew
she
did. And he was willing and ready to let her confide in him.

They walked and talked for a long time. After exhausting the topic of Lauren and Jed, they moved on to others. Sometimes they paused to discreetly steal a kiss; they were never not touching, either holding hands or wrapping their arms around each other's waists. It was a blissful idyll that neither wanted to end.

But after running into some of the
Victorious
contestants well past midnight, Shannen and Ty recognized it was time to call it a night. They declined the invitation to “join the gang,” and Ty walked Shannen back to her room.

“This is kind of like an old-fashioned courtship,” he said dryly. “Leaving you at your door with a chaste good-night kiss, my whole body aching with frustration.”

“Who said the good-night kiss has to be chaste?” teased Shannen, and initiated a kiss that was anything but.

“Now I'm not only aching with frustration, I'm burning up with it.” Ty held her tight, waiting, hoping for the tension to drain from his body. “Shannen, I wanted to tell you—I'm thinking of using the name Howe again.”

His tone was deliberately casual, but she was too attuned to him not to know his family name was something he could never be casual about.

“I think it's a good idea, Ty. You're not the one who disgraced it. I think you're going to be the one to make it a name to be proud of again.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I hope so. But it won't be as a cameraman, Shannen.” He leaned back and gazed down into her warm blue eyes. “If I resumed my law career, I'd take clients who needed me as an advocate but couldn't afford to pay exorbitant attorney fees. I don't want to practice law to become rich and famous.”

“Good!” Shannen said succinctly. “There are already too many lawyers like that.”

“Anyway, if I opened a law office, it could be anywhere
I wanted to live. That's an option a network cameraman doesn't have.”

Shannen nodded, shaky with excitement. Was he trying to say something she hadn't dared dream of?

If so, he never got the chance. Unexpectedly Lauren opened the door. Shannen and Ty, partially leaning against it, were thrown off balance and nearly fell into the room.

“Shannen, I feel like Gramma flashing the front light on and off when we stayed out on the porch too long back in high school,” scolded Lauren. “She wanted to go to bed and couldn't, as long as we were out there. Well, I can really relate to that now. Say good-night already and come inside.”

Shannen grimaced. “You even sound just like Gramma, Lauren.”

“Good night already,” Ty quoted lightly and touched Shannen's cheek with his fingertips. “Tomorrow, sweetheart.”

 

The ten contestants who'd been previously ousted filed into the tribal council area, which was lit by hundreds of candles and tall flaming torches placed strategically to ensure the best camera lighting.

Ty waited for Shannen, who was one of the last to come in. She was followed by Lauren and last of all Rico.

Surprisingly, both twins were dressed alike in pale-pink sundresses. Their hair was styled exactly the same way, too, pulled back into a neat thick French braid. They looked like duplicates of each other, though Ty still knew which was Shannen. He just knew.

He also knew that the twins hadn't dressed alike during the entire Victorious shoot. Shannen had confided they'd stopped wearing identical clothing in elementary school unless they were plotting a switch.

Ty was curious and kept his eyes fixed on Shannen, willing her to look at him, to provide even a hint of a clue.
But she never made eye contact with him. Was she avoiding doing so?

It was as if they were back in the early days of
Victorious,
when Shannen had pretended she didn't know who he was, when she'd resolutely followed the game's guidelines “to treat the cameras and crew as if they weren't there.”

“Can you believe it? This is our last night of filming!” Heidi whispered to him.

Ty brightened, drawing an odd look from Heidi, who was visibly saddened that the shoot was over. Now she would have to find another job on another show, the fate of production assistants when production wrapped.

Of cameramen, too. But he was an ex-cameraman after tonight. A kind of bittersweet relief surged through Ty. He felt like a refugee who'd decided to return to his native country after a self-imposed exile.

The jury was seated on a three-tiered riser with four of the ex-contestants on each bench. Shannen, Lauren, Rico and Jed sat on the lowest one. Ty noted that Shannen was seated next to Jed, which he knew wouldn't please her. But she'd made the sacrifice to spare Lauren from sitting there.

He wondered if he and Shannen would ever know what, if anything, had transpired between Lauren and Jed, and conceded that basically he didn't care.

Both twins tried to extend the coverage of the very short skirts of their pink dresses over their thighs, the struggle faithfully filmed by Reggie. Despite a valiant attempt, a major expanse of their slim, tanned legs remained exposed.

Ty drew in a deep breath. This was going to be a long night.

Konrad and Cortnee entered next, with Bobby Dixon between them. He motioned the two finalists toward two high-backed chairs. The pair took possession of their jungle thrones, and Bobby began to talk.

“As you know, this is our last night here on the island,
and the winner of
Victorious
will be crowned tonight. We have assembled a jury along with the surviving two contestants in the game.” Bobby varied his inflections, perhaps in an attempt to create suspense?

If so, he was not succeeding. Ty was bored. He commiserated with the viewing audience who would have to endure the speech.

“Konrad, Cortnee, it's time for each of you to address the jury and tell us why you should be the one voted Victorious. Who wants to go first?” challenged Bobby.

If he was trying to start a conflict, it didn't work.

“She can go first,” said Konrad.

“Really? 'Cause I don't mind if you do, Konrad,” replied Cortnee.

Bobby looked vexed. “All right, all right, go ahead, Cortnee.”

Cortnee jumped to her feet and gave a perky little speech about the fun she'd had and how much she'd learned during the game. She ended by saying she would like to win, but if her good friend Konrad was the winner, that would be okay with her.

It was Konrad's turn and he remained seated, holding a piece of paper in front of him. He began to read the same speech Cortnee had given, though there was nothing remotely perky in his delivery. He read in a monotone and replaced his name with hers in the appropriate place, but otherwise it was verbatim. Clearly a collaborative effort, with the actual writing undoubtedly done by Cortnee.

Bobby heaved a sigh, displeased by the lack of both drama and suspense. Ty saw the beleaguered announcer glance at Clark Garrett, who stood a few feet away from him. He saw Clark nod his head twice. Two emphatic nods.

Some sort of code? Ty was pondering that when Bobby started talking again.

“I guess everybody remembers that in the past, certain reality shows followed a format from beginning to end.
After the two finalists in the game told us why they should be voted for, each member of the jury would ask a question to be answered by the Final Two.”

Ty panned to the jury members, who were listening intently…or at least giving the impression they were.

“Those questions usually were versions of ‘What have you learned about people as a result of being on this show?' or ‘What is the most important quality a winner of this game should have?' Am I right?” Bobby whirled around to face the jury, a move so unexpected a few of them gasped.

“Expect the unexpected!” Bobby proclaimed. “Because from now on, we're blazing our own trail. After the questioning on those other shows, everybody on the jury would then vote on who they thought should get the money. The votes were read and the winner crowned. But here on
Victorious,
it's going to be different. Because we're different. We are no blatant rip-off of any other show. We're
original!
”

“Bobby's a better actor than I ever thought,” Heidi murmured to Ty. “He sounds like he actually believes
Victorious
isn't a blatant rip-off.”

There were guffaws among the crew, including Ty.

“We're going to have one final contest to determine the winner,” Bobby announced, sounding more and more like a carnival huckster. “In the unlikely event of a tie, we'll use the standard method of tiebreaking—that is, the contestant who's already accrued the most votes against them will lose.”

The jury members were talking among themselves. Some appeared annoyed, probably because there would be no TV camera time for them in light of Bobby's declaration.

Ty was a bit perplexed himself. Until this moment the crew had been told the game would be played out in the exact way Bobby had outlined just before repudiating the plan.

“Will our twins, Shannen and Lauren Cullen, please come over here?” Bobby asked, but it was really an order.

The twins exchanged confused glances, which Ty filmed while Reggie captured Konrad's and Cortnee's reactions. The two finalists appeared equally baffled.

“Come on, girls,” urged Bobby when neither twin moved. “You see,
you're
the final contest! To win this game, Cortnee and Konrad are going to have to tell you apart. Not unreasonable, since you spent so much time together, true?”

The twins looked appalled. Shannen finally looked directly at Ty, sending him a “Did you know this was coming?” glare. He was glad to be able to honestly shrug his shoulders and shake his head no.

Bobby walked over to the twins, clearly ready to pull them from the risers if they didn't get up of their own accord. Perhaps sensing his determination, Shannen and Lauren rose together and reluctantly followed Bobby to stand in front of Cortnee and Konrad.

Shannen opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say a word, Bobby jumped in with, “No talking, girls. Just stand there and stare into space.”

“It's not enough we're the freak show, but we're supposed to stand here like a pair of dummies, too?” complained Lauren, sounding so like Shannen that even Ty had to look twice to make sure it wasn't.

No, it was definitely Lauren who'd spoken.

Bobby frowned his displeasure at the display of disobedience. “Cortnee, Konrad, here are your pens and cards. Write down which twin is standing on the left. For one million dollars, is it Lauren or Shannen?”