Fairytale Love - Becca & Brian (22 page)

“I
s everything okay?” Gavin asked nervously as Brian walked down the dock.

“Yeah,” Brian said, making his way down the pier to where the crew was setting up.

“All right.” Gavin clapped his hand above his head as a look of relief washed over him. “Let’s get you mic’d up.”

Brian didn’t kid himself for one minute that the relief Gavin was experiencing had anything to do with Brian’s dad. He knew that the producer only cared about whether or not Brian was going to remain on the show.

Last week, after the live elimination show, Becca had told Brian that her parents had seen his dad at the shop and he hadn’t looked like he was doing well. Brian had immediately called his mom, and sure enough, his dad had been at the shop every day since Brian had been up at Whisper Lake. When Brian said that he was coming home that night, his mom had pleaded with him not to and his dad had gotten on the phone and guaranteed that he wouldn’t go back into the shop if Brian would just stay and finish the show. He knew that the decision to leave was a big one, but the consequences if he stayed could be even greater.

Brian had been torn. He hadn’t made any promises to his parents either way. When he’d gotten off the phone, he’d told Gavin and Sabrina that he needed to talk to Becca without cameras, without mics. They’d fought him on it, at first, but finally agreed when he’d explained that, if he didn’t talk to Becca, he was leaving that night. If he did, there was a chance he’d stay.

He and Becca had gone for a walk in the back of Stone Castle property—no mics, no cameras following them—and they ended up sitting on the drop-off overlooking the lake. He could have stayed there forever. The moonlight shining down over the dark waters, causing the surface to sparkle. Becca sat next to him, looking so good that it had taken his breath away. Her hair had been pulled up in a ponytail, and she’d been wearing black sweats that were rolled up on her calf, a White Sox T-shirt, and black flip-flops; she’d never looked more beautiful. He honestly had no idea how he’d spent so many years looking at her and not
seeing
her like he did now.

They hadn’t gotten to talk as long as he’d wanted. After what seemed like a few minutes but had probably been an hour, Jennifer had been sent to find them and bring them back. After talking to Becca, he decided to stay. She listened, like she always did. Then she’d made a few really compelling points.

Becca had pointed out that, since his dad had promised to take it easy the rest of the time Brian was away, how much could he really do for him if he went home? It wasn’t like the shop would fall apart without him. Josh was doing a great job. Brian knew that his cousin had everything under control. But if Brian stayed, even if he only received the guaranteed twenty grand, it would help, and he had a chance at a much larger sum than that. And if something happened and he needed to get home, he was only a few hours away.

He’d known that Becca was right. She usually was. Still, it felt wrong not to be with his parents.

Brian had agreed to stay but on the condition that he checked in with home several times a day. He knew that the only way he’d be able to stay and, even remotely, have his head in the game was if he heard his dad’s voice for himself and knew he wasn’t at the shop.

As he reached the end of the dock, Jennifer took his phone as the sound engineer began putting the mic on him and taping the wire down on his skin. He saw that Jax, Madison, Natalie, Andrew, and Becca were all waiting at the end of the pier. He and Colton were the only two getting wired up.

“You a’right, man?” Colton asked with genuine concern.

He wasn’t trying to be an asshole. He was being a nice guy, but it bothered Brian to think that he might know what was going on in his life. Had Becca told him? No, she wouldn’t have done that.

Would she?

“I’m good,” Brian answered, his tone tense and clipped.

Colton gave him a strange look and then nodded his head.

As Brian waited for these guys to finish up, his eyes did what they always did—they found Becca. She really was the flame and he was a moth. He was just drawn to her. Even before he’d had any kind of romantic feelings for her, he just wanted to be around her all the time.

As a matter of fact, that undeniable attraction was how they’d met in the first place. It was the first day of school, and Brian remembered that he’d been so excited. The entire summer before, he’d been planning all the things he was going to be able to do when he made a bunch of friends at school. Most of the things four-year-old Brian had envisioned were sports-related. He planned on playing baseball, football, soccer, and basketball with his yet-to-be-met friends.

But the second he’d laid eyes on the dark-haired, porcelain-skinned, red-lipped Becca Sloan, all desire to get to know anyone else in his class had fallen by the wayside. He remembered that he followed her around the playground at their first recess, just trying to figure out a way to talk to her. He had just about given up when fate had stepped in and her yellow-polka-dotted dress had gotten stuck in the slide. Using his mad ninja skills, he’d been able to stop and free her and they’d been joined at the hip ever since.

Now, he wanted to be joined to her hip in a totally different way.

She was talking to Natalie about something she was happy about. He could tell because she was using her hands in big gestures. Becca only did that when she was really excited or happy about something. As he watched her with the rest of the cast, he realized that there was something different about her—a confidence she didn’t have even two weeks ago.

She was standing in a two-piece,
red
bikini in front of a camera crew, the rest of the cast was about to shoot a segment she knew would be televised, and she couldn’t have looked more relaxed and…happy.

It wasn’t that Becca was timid or shy, necessarily; she was just sheltered. To Brian, it made sense—she’d grown up with three older sisters and five older male cousins. Seeing her now, exuding so much confidence, made him fall in love with her even more.

He felt like he was witnessing her become the woman she was always meant to be. His heart swelled with pride. Lower parts of his anatomy filled with something else.

The bikini she was wearing was not even close to as revealing as the ones Madison, Natalie, and Brooklyn were wearing, but it was about a thousand times sexier. His eyes followed the line down the slope of her waist that dipped in right before the swell of her hips. He continued his visual journey across the line of fabric that lay perfectly against her flat stomach. His eyes then ran straight up over her belly button, between her ribs, then on to the triangles that covered her full mounds.

His heart beat wildly in his chest as he drank in her physical perfection. Damn. She was like a walking wet dream.

“She’s pretty amazing.” Colton’s voice sounded strained, which told Brian that the cowboy had probably been doing a little visual inspection of his own.

“Yeah, she is,” Brian agreed.

“Whoever ends up with her is one lucky SOB,” Colton said with reverence.

“Yeah.” Brian couldn’t argue with that.

Whoever got to fall asleep and wake up next to Becca would, by far, be the luckiest man alive. Stealing a glance at Colton, he realized that, as much as he hated the thought of Becca being with anyone, Colton really wasn’t a bad guy. In fact, if Brian had met him under any other circumstance, he was pretty sure they would have been friends.

“All right. You guys are live.” The sound tech gave them the thumbs-up sign before moving back behind his equipment cart and putting a large pair of headphones on.

Brian and Colton joined the rest of the cast for today’s challenge. When he took his place behind Brooklyn, Becca’s eyes caught his and she smiled widely. The kind of smile that healed his pain, restored his faith and saved him from any darkness he might feel. And he knew in that moment that, yes, they both might end up with other people. Yes, he might, someday, even be able to love someone else, but Becca was his
one
. His soul mate. His other half. His light.

She was his heart.

B
ecca’s palms were a little sweaty, but her heart wasn’t racing nearly as much as it had the first time she’d had to do this. Each time, it had gotten a little easier. A little less scary. A little less intimidating.

The lights still weren’t her favorite and she didn’t love answering questions about herself, but what had paralyzed her with fear before was now just a little uncomfortable.

“Are you surprised at the number of tweets and messages you and Colton have received?” Gavin, who was sitting beside the camera pointed at her in the ‘confessional’ room, asked.

“Yes,” Becca’s answered honestly as her eyes widened. “I mean, there are some very colorful characters here, and the fact that anyone notices
me,
at all, is shocking. Honestly, I think it has a lot more to do with Colton than me. Who can resist a cowboy?”

Gavin grinned before he asked, “So things are going well between you two, then?”

Well, she hadn’t said that, but things were going well between her and Colton. He was funny. Smart. Attentive. Gorgeous. And from the little bit she knew about him, he seemed to have a really big heart. There was really only one area he was lacking in. He wasn’t Brian.

“Things are great. He’s a really great guy.” Becca heard the tension in her voice. It felt like her throat was closing off her air passages.

With every day that passed, she began feeling guiltier and guiltier. Last night, at the second elimination show, Natalie and Andrew had been sent home. Yes, it was partly because they’d come in dead last in the waterskiing challenge. Each couple had to ski side by side as a boat pulled them through an obstacle course. In Lance’s intro, he’d said that it was to prove that you could maneuver successfully through the harsh waters of life. Natalie and Andrew hadn’t made it halfway.

Jax and Madison had come in third, she and Colton had come in second, and Brooklyn and Brian had claimed the number one spot. She’d been happy for her friend until he’d picked his blond ‘princess’ up and spun her around, after which she’d planted a big, sloppy kiss right on Brian’s lips.

Brian’s perfect, full lips. The lips Becca had phantom dreams about. Had a ghost of a memory of kissing. Those lips.

It had been hard enough to watch Brooklyn’s hands roaming all over Brian like she was blind and he was her favorite book in Braille these past couple of weeks. Watching them do something as intimate, as personal, as kissing had made her want to cry, scream, and basically, lose her ever-loving mind.

But she hadn’t. She’d clapped for their victory, keeping a tight rein on her facial expression, masking the pain she felt as her heart was breaking wide open in her chest. Reminding herself that if it weren’t Brooklyn, then she’d have to get used to some other girl in Brian’s arms. Some other girl kissing his perfect lips. Some other girl feeling the rough callouses on his fingers as he slid them up—

“So there are only three couples left. What do you think of your competition?” Gavin asked.

“I think that everyone here deserves to be here.” She’d given the answer her sister Jessie, who was in PR, had told her to give. After Becca’s first confessional experience, she called her sister practically hyperventilating. She hadn’t been expecting half—no, eighty percent—of the questions that they’d posed to her.

Thankfully, her sister was like the rock star of PR and told Becca not to worry, that she’d put her through a crash course in media training, and she had. After one fifteen-minute conversation with Jessie, Becca felt much more prepared to handle whatever they threw at her. Within an hour, her sister had emailed her a spreadsheet of questions they’d most likely be asking her and several different safe responses.

If there was one thing Becca was good at, it was studying. She’d stayed up half the night committing to memory the entire document. And her sister had been batting a thousand so far. Not one question had been asked of her that Jessie hadn’t prepped her for.

She’d even advised her what colors would look the best on screen. How
not
to wear her hair. And she reminded Becca that anything she said could be edited and taken out of context, so she should be mindful when speaking so that nothing could be misconstrued.

To most people, that might have made them feel more overwhelmed, but not Becca. It actually made her feel empowered. It had given her a direction to focus her nervous, panicked energy.

Her sister Krista might be marrying Chase, who was a bona fide rock star, next weekend but in Becca’s mind Jessie was the real rock star. She’d never really given a lot of thought to what Jessie did. Her sister Haley was a lingerie designer and Becca loved getting care packages with pretties from her sister’s line—Tempting—in them. Krista was a physical therapist, so of course since Becca was pre-med she had a fairly good idea what Krista’s job entailed.

Now she had a little more of an understanding of what it was her sister Jessie did, and it was kinda badass.