Fairytale Love - Becca & Brian (13 page)

Becca’s heart began pumping so fast that you would have thought it was a sprinter in the Summer Olympics going for the gold. What—in the name of all that is holy—was she going to tell him? One thing was for sure, it wasn’t going to be the truth.

If she did that, then Brian would feel responsible for her decision. And she couldn’t let that happen. Brian had enough weight on his shoulders between his parents’ health issues and Brit’s tuition needs. Not to mention that, if this show didn’t go well (meaning Brian didn’t win), then he’d have to officially bury his dream where dreams go to die—in the responsibility graveyard under the no-options soil.

No, she needed to come up with some
other
reason why she’d made the decision that was making it feel like she had an ulcer the size of a grapefruit eating away at the lining of her stomach.

Biff’s voice from
Back to the Future
popped into her head. “
Think, McFly, Think.”

“Same as you. The money,” Becca lied through her teeth, staring straight ahead, careful not to look to see if Brian ‘bought’ it. That would be a classic liar’s move.

If lying were an art form, growing up, her sister Krista would easily be a master in its practice. Her redheaded older sister didn’t lie often, but when she did, it was truly something to behold. Most of her sister’s tall tales had centered around trying to spend
alone time
with her then high school boyfriend, now fiancé, Chase.

Whether her sister was saying that she was going to be spending the night at a friend’s house, when really she was going camping with Chase or that he hadn’t been in the house when their parents had been gone, the key Becca had observed to pulling off a whopper of a fib was to have total, complete, and unwavering confidence in what you were saying. Basically, you had to subconsciously convince yourself that the words you were saying were true.

Becca didn’t think she’d be able to pull off that master level of deceit, but she was hoping to at least reach believable status and squeak by without any more questions on the unwanted topic of her motivations.

“The money?” Brian repeated, clearly not picking up what she was laying down.

“Move along. There’s nothing to see here,
” she heard the Stormtrooper from
Star Wars
say.

Why couldn’t he just drop it? She knew the answer to that; because it was Brian. That’s why.

“Yep,” Becca confirmed, nodding for emphasis. Then, even though she knew she shouldn’t elaborate, she continued, “Stanford is not cheap, and my parents have already ponied up a
lotta
dough putting Haley, Krista, and Jessie through school. I’m not trying to win this thing. Obviously, I’m rooting for you to win it. But the guaranteed twenty Gs will help.”

Becca forced herself to stop talking. First, she wasn’t talking like herself, which was her biggest ‘tell’ when it came to lying. “
Ponied up,
” “
lotta dough,
” and “
twenty Gs
”? For some reason, whenever Becca lied, instead of growing a long, wooden nose like Pinocchio, she would try to sound “cool” or “hip” and end up sounding like an idiot. She wished her nose would just get larger. It would have been much less embarrassing.

“Beckles.” Brian’s voice was soothing and calming, the way it always was when he was trying to talk her off the ledge.

She couldn’t count the number of times she’d heard that tone. And each time, whether it was because she was
sure
she was going to bomb on a huge test, scared to get on a plane, or afraid to walk on the stage at graduation to deliver the valedictory speech, it had had the desired effect. Becca would immediately feel centered, calmer, steady.

More than once, she’d told Brian that he should consider being a hostage negotiator for the police. She felt a little guilty that his talents were wasted on her. He could probably talk jumpers off ledges and convince hostage-takers to surrender.

He didn’t need to say any more. The rest was implied. Becca knew that he was calling her on the fact that there was no way she was doing this for the money.

Okay…what would Brian believe? What…what…what…

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
She had it.

Becca’s hands grew damp as she began the big-fat-whopper-of-a-lie story she’d come up with on the fly. “I just… I always do what everyone expects me to do. I don’t ever take chances or…go out of my comfort zone. I thought that, even though, or actually because, this scares me like nobody’s business, I should do it.” Taking a breath, she paused and looked over at Brian’s profile.

He was listening, and she saw that his shoulder’s had relaxed. Whenever he was worried, they tensed up.
Yes
. Hook. Line. And big-fat-lie sinker.

Figuring she was on a roll, she kept on rolling like Tina Turner. “I mean, let’s be honest. My life has a fairly predictable path. After I graduate and complete my residency, I want to start my own, settle down, and have a family. When would I ever get the chance to do something like this?”

She was still turned, looking at Brian when his eyes cut over to her. She didn’t look away, even though that was
exactly
what she wanted to do. She held her lying ground like a pro. Krista would be proud. She, however, was surprised that her pants hadn’t spontaneously caught on fire because she was definitely a liar, liar.

Brian looked back at the road in front of them. Becca hoped it was because he actually believed what she had told him, but it could just be that he needed to keep his eyes on the road. Either way, she thought that this would be a good chance to change the direction this conversation was going.

“Is your mom excited that you’re going to be on a reality show?”

Maggie Scott, Brian’s mom,
loved
reality television. Growing up, Becca always remembered Maggie talking about her ‘shows.’ She’d loved
Days of our Lives, General Hospital
, and
One Life to Live
. But when reality shows splashed onto the scene, Brian’s mom had definitely caught that wave and ridden it.

“Yeah, she is.” Brian smiled, a
real
smile, and Becca realized that it was the first one she’d seen from him since he’d picked her up at the airport the day before yesterday.

She loved Brian’s smile. It wasn’t just because of the deep dimple in his right cheek. It was also because of the way his eyes lit up with joy and no matter how old—or
manly
—he became, when he smiled, Becca still saw the four-year-old boy who had saved her from certain embarrassment when she’d gotten her dress stuck in the slide in pre-kindergarten.

The first day of pre-K, Brian had been coming down the slide right behind Becca when she’d gotten stuck. Instead of crashing into her, he’d stopped himself by positioning his gym shoes on the sides so he was wedged in place. Then he’d gently held her arm so that she didn’t slide any farther down the slippery steel slide and carefully pulled the hem of her dress from the crevice it had gotten stuck in. Once they’d slid down, she turned to tell him thank you. The sun had shone through his long, straight, light-brown hair, and he smiled at her and told her that it was no problem, that it was his job to help because he was a ninja. Then he asked her if she wanted to swing. She wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to swing with a ninja (her own personal hero!), so she happily agreed. It had been one of her ‘handful’ moments.

They’d been inseparable since that day.

Until they’d left for college. That first year, she’d honestly thought that the hardest part of being away from home would be that she’d miss her family. Which she had. A lot. But to her surprise, the thing she’d cried herself to sleep at night over, had felt like an open space of deep ache inside of her chest, had caused her to totally lose her appetite, had been the fact that she’d missed her best friend. She’d missed Brian so much more than she’d ever known it was possible to miss someone.

And that was before she was head over heels in love with him.

Or was it?
Becca thought.

Before she could delve any deeper into that particular line of questioning, Brian said, “After she got over the shock of you agreeing to be a part of the show, she started talking to me about strategy and how I should
play
the game.”

“Strategy?” Becca asked.

Sure, she knew that this was a reality show and that there was a lot of money on the line, but strategy had never even crossed her mind. Maybe because the last thing she wanted to do was actually win.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too. It’s a dating game. How much strategy could there possibly be?” Brian let out a forced laugh before continuing. “But believe me. There is a lot. It all depends on what the elimination process is. If it’s challenges, if it’s pairs, or if it’s individual. If there is voting. If the voting is from the other contestants or TV viewers. I couldn’t believe it when she started breaking it down.”

“Wow,” Becca breathed out. She hadn’t thought of any of that.

As she looked out the window, her stomach dropped when she saw the ‘Welcome to Whisper Lake’ sign on the side of the highway. She wasn’t the competitive type. Her head felt like it was a balloon about to pop. Pairs. Individual. Internal voting. Viewership voting.

What had she gotten herself into?

“W
hoa,” Brian said as they pulled into what could only be described as a three-ring circus.

There were people everywhere carrying various pieces of equipment, four large Star Waggons, and several large production trucks parked in front of Stone Castle, which sat on a bluff overlooking Whisper Lake.

Brian had to admit that he was happy he’d finally get to see the interior of the castle. Growing up, he’d always been curious about it. The stories of the massive castle that overlooked not only the lake, but also the town, were legendary. He knew that it was owned by the Stone family. But that’s about all the concrete knowledge he had. Of course, he’d heard things growing up, especially around the campfire.

The one he’d heard the most was that an English Duke, William Stone, had built the castle when he’d been banished to America in the late 1800s. The story went that he’d been in love with a chambermaid and refused to marry the woman his family had chosen. He’d smuggled the young maiden he’d fallen in love with, in a crate on the cargo ship he’d sailed over in. They’d lived happily as man and wife for over a decade before, one day, like any other, he’d returned home to find the gruesome discovery that his wife, Emilia, his one true love, had been brutally murdered.

The story went that William Stone, mad with grief, searched the woods, the town, and the lake surrounding the castle day and night, looking for her killer, until he finally dropped dead from malnutrition and exposure. Supposedly, his mother heard of what had happened and, feeling guilty for having sent William into exile, bought the land and the castle in order to keep the last piece of her only son. And no one had lived in it since, except the ghosts of William and Emilia, who roamed the halls searching for each other in the afterlife.

Once, when Brian was up at the lake during the summer before sixth grade, he and a few of his friends had scaled and then climbed over the large, brick barrier that lined the property up to the drop-off of the bluff. When they’d snuck up next to the house and were about to look in the windows, large, white lights had shined down on them. Before you could say, “Boo,” he and his friends had been back up over that wall, and they ran all the way down the hill without stopping until they reached their camp.

As an adult, Brian realized that the lights that had shone on them were probably just motion sensors, but as a kid, he and his friends had been convinced that William’s or Emilia’s ghosts had been chasing them.

Now, driving up behind one of the large trucks to park, Brian was still not able to shake the feeling that he really shouldn’t be here.

“I can’t believe
this
is where we’re filming,” Becca whispered in awe as she looked out the window at the massive structure before her, her sentiment mirroring his thoughts exactly.

They both looked out the windshield then turned to each other. Becca’s large, blue eyes stared up at him. If he had to venture a guess, he would say that she was pretty close to equal parts terrified and overwhelmed. Every protective instinct in his body sprang into fighting stance, ready to take action.

Reaching out, he placed his hand over hers. Her fingers, her knuckles, her tiny wrist felt so little compared to his. Brian did everything in his power to push down and ignore the caveman way that made him feel.

“You don’t
have
to do this, Beckles. I can get you out of here, take you back home,” he offered as he motioned down the road they’d just taken to get up here and rubbed his thumb across her knuckles.

Her face flushed and her lips parted as she just sat there, staring at him silently. That was enough of an answer for Brian. The fact that she didn’t immediately say that she wanted to stay told him that she
wasn’t
really sure about this.