Page 47 of Alice Chen's Reality Check

“Sounds like a tall order.” He looks at me with an expression that I’ve never seen before. There isn’t even a hint of a smirk, and his gaze holds mine for too long.

“What are you doing?” I ask, unsettled.

“I’m working on our chemistry,dear, just like you wanted,” he says.

I groan. “This is the worst kind of group project.”

The second those words leave my mouth, my brain kicks into overdrive. Of course, this is what I’ve been missing. Ever since I caught Chase in the shed, I’ve been playing defense, simply reacting to what’s happening around me, and it’s made for some pretty bad interview footage.

If I want to make this work, I have to approach it the way I approach every important project in my life—by crafting a highly detailed plan to play up our strengths and address our weaknesses. This really is a group project, one that just so happens to involve dating Daniel. We can overcome the obstacles of faking a relationship—a lack of shared background knowledge, our nonexistent chemistry, the fact that this is all for show—if we just make a plan of attack and stick to it.

“You okay there, Slayer? You look like that time during Mock Trial when you came up with an application of the plain view doctrine at the last minute.”

“I have an idea for how we can improve our chemistry.” I pause to consider fully what he’s said. “And how do you know I came up with those arguments at the last minute?”

“You’ve got a tell.” He taps the space above his eyebrows. “You wrinkle your forehead when you’re thinking really hard. It’s cute.”

I snort.

“Anyway, I’m all ears,” he says. “Please tell me this brilliant idea of yours.”

I say, “What we need is a point-by-point plan to tackle the key facets of a relationship. If we cover all our bases, we’ll be unbeatable.”

Daniel laughs.

“You disagree?”

“It’s not that. It’s just a very Alice idea,” he says. “That’s a compliment,” he adds when I make a face at him. “It makes sense to treat this like a school project. If there’s one thing I know we can do, it’s nail anassignment.”

“Absolutely,” I say, pleased. He gets it.

“Now how are we doing this? Should we make a syllabus?” He raises an eyebrow, and I’m not sure if this is a joke or not, but I take it seriously.

“In an ideal world, yes,” I say, and he laughs. “But I don’t think we have time for that. We’ll have to settle for a big-picture plan of attack. I wish I had my laptop or my phone or even paper and a pen. Are we honestly just supposed to wait around doing nothing until they need us for filming?”

“Yeah, Selena said it would be like this,” Daniel says. “They want drama, and one good way of manufacturing drama is to make us desperate for entertainment. Either that, or they assumed that we would findother waysto keep ourselves occupied.”

I know exactly what he means. On the surface, the island is the perfect setting for romance, with its pristine beach, deep-blue ocean, and summer villa. But given that Chase and I have been sleeping on cots alongside the other contestants, I haven’t found the setting all that much of a turn-on. I guess Chase felt differently, though, considering he managed to hook up with someone else in a tiki bar shed. My heart twinges at the memory, but the pain is duller than I expected. Things have just been happening so fast that I haven’t had time to process.

“Well,that’snot happening,” I snort. “Whatever. I don’t need paper. It’ll be easy to remember. We’ve got three things we need to work on—intimacy, information, and entertainment.

I tick off the items on my fingers. “First, there’s intimacy. We must convincingly hold hands, kiss, and act like we can’t keep our hands off each other. Then there’s information. We need to know the things that people in a relationship typically know about each other. What we like, dislike, what we studied in school, our goals in life, et cetera. Finally, there’s entertainment. We’ve got to satisfy our audience and give them what they want. That means coming up with the perfect soundbites and providing romantic moments that will play well on screen. Myvote is that we start out with information. Make sure we have everything we need to know about each other.”

“I think we should start with intimacy,” he counters. “People know we’re a new couple, so we can get away with not having a dedicated mental file on each other. And it’ll be easier to pull off soundbites and act like a real couple if you can touch me without acting like you want to challenge me to a duel.”

“I don’t act like that,” I grumble.

“Remember that time we got stuck eating lunch together at the science fair, and you challenged me to an arm-wrestling match?”

“It was a strategic maneuver.” I’d seen him charming the judges with his presentation on hydroponics that morning, and all I’d wanted to do was wipe that smug grin off his face. I try not to examine why that manifested in a demand to arm-wrestle. “Anyway, what about you? Canyoueven stand to touchme?”

Daniel doesn’t answer. Instead, he steps into my space, close enough that I catch the scent of coconut from his sunblock. He lifts his hand, and I find myself tracking the movement, waiting to see what he’ll do next. He brushes my cheek with the lightest of touches, and my pulse immediately ratchets up. I step back, my foot bumping into the bed behind us.

He smirks. “You were saying?”

Well, I walked right into that one. Point to Daniel.

“Okay, fine. We’ll work on intimacy first,” I concede.

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