Page 57 of Heart to Heart
“It’s in the past, Tristan. All that matters is what’s in the future.”
I let out a breath, my eyes drawn to her lips, the same shade of red as her dress. “And what’s…what’s in your future, Avery?”
“I don’t know. But for the first time in my life, I’m okay with not knowing.”
Hand still cupping her cheek, I leaned in, desperate to claim her lips with mine, stopping short when I was a breath away, my heart pounding a hole through my chest. There were no guidelines for our alliance. Nothing that said we couldn’t take our fake relationship to a whole new level of intimacy for the cameras. Besides, I’m an actor. I know how to fake almost any scenario. And shouldn’t we be putting on a show for the viewers at home so there was no wondering why Avery had made it so far in the competition?
Except, when it came to me, I knew I wasn’t faking anything. And maybe there was some semblance of a chance that Avery wasn’t either. Armed with that thought, I leaned in, closing the gap, our lips brushing together, only to be pulled apart by a scream from the ballroom.
CHAPTER 30
AVERY
“Oh my God! No! No! No!”
Tristan and I pulled away from each other, rushing back inside to see Eleanor hunched over, one hand clutching her stomach and the other hand secured over her rear as she stumble-ran from the ballroom, with Daisy hot on her heels.
“The bathroom is mine,” Eleanor shouted when Daisy surpassed her, speedwalking at an only slightly faster rate than Eleanor’s stumble-run.
“The hell it is,” Daisy called back to her, knowing damn well she had Eleanor at a disadvantage. “You’ve already shit yourself. I haven’t yet. By my calculation, it makes more sense for me to get the bathroom. You can use the one off the parlor.”
A burst of energy overcoming her—or maybe a burst of something else—Daisy threw open the door and all but threw herself inside the bathroom, slamming it shut and locking it in the face of Eleanor who let out a squeal of fear, anger, and discomfort as she kicked off her heels and hauled ass down the hall, still clutching her stomach.
“What in the ever-loving hell in a handbasket?” I asked no one in particular just as Brittney L., clutching her stomach in much the same way Eleanor had been, ran from the room.
“I need to go check on them,” Tristan said next to me, almost apologetically. Heat still lingering in his eyes, he glanced at me before taking off down the hall in the direction of the others.
Within a minute of Tristan leaving, Jacqueline, Macie, and Charlie none-too-discreetly ran from the room, clutching their stomachs as they ran-walked down the hall, clenching everything they could clench. They resembled a trio of tin men with their stiff lower limbs. Macie stopped to bang on the bathroom door, shouting a cornucopia of swear words in combinations I’d never heard used before.
With the four-letter words flying, it only then occurred to me that Sasha wasn’t in the room. If she had been stricken with the same digestive issues as the others had been, I hoped she’d been able to make it somewhere in time.
“I don’t know what an ass-licking cum twat is, but I know for sure I never want to be one,” Taylor said, joining me where I stood stunned in the middle of the ballroom.
“You’re still standing, too, at least,” I said, inspecting the others who remained in the room. None of them seemed to be feeling sick, which meant maybe they wouldn’t.
“Yeah, I didn’t eat one of those brownies.”
The brownies. Of course. I thought back to the tray loaded with them that Eleanor had brought out to us. I hadn’t eaten one and, apparently, Taylor hadn’t either. But neither had Sasha and she was nowhere to be found.
“Are you sure it was the brownies?” I asked.
Taylor shot me a look as though I’d asked the dumbest question she’d ever heard. “Yeah. What else would it be? The only thing it can be is food poisoning. The stomach flu doesn’t travel that fast.”
“But Sasha didn’t eat one, and she’s not in here.”
“Huh,” Taylor mused, looking around the room. “I guess she’s not. Maybe she snuck one while you weren’t looking?”
I knew she hadn’t. Not with the way she’d been acting. She’d looked sick, but it wasn’t the same sickness that was gripping the women in the house. “Well, I’m not just going to stay here and wait around while she’s in the house alone somewhere. I’m going to go find her.”
“I’ll come with you,” Taylor called after me, quickly catching up to me, stride for stride. “I don’t want to be in there if someone has some sort of delayed reaction.”
Sounds that shouldn’t be able to come from any human emanated from the bathroom as we passed by. “Whatever caused this is brutal,” I observed. “I just can’t believe food poisoning would strike everyone all at the same time. Doesn’t that take some time after eating to develop?”
“I don’t know.” Taylor shrugged. “All I know is if it is, in fact, some super stealthy, ninja stomach bug thing, then thank God the floor is marble because it’s about to be a crime scene in here.”
The lingering smell of the brownies greeted us when we passed by the kitchen adjacent to the parlor. A thought occurred to me; I grabbed Taylor’s arm and pulled her inside. Spotless, aside from the smell of one of the world’s best-baked goods, you couldn’t even tell anyone had been baking. The center island, with its marble countertop that matched the flooring, was immaculate and had been recently cleaned, as the smell of the antibacterial cleaning solution still lingered in the air.
“What are we doing in here exactly?” Taylor asked.
