Page 32 of Heart to Heart
With Bianca detached from his person, Tristan scanned the room, his eyes landing on me and staying put for a beat just past what some would consider to be a casual glance. This was it; he was going to choose me so that I could redeem myself. Everyone loved a good redemption story. And this was going to be mine. My lips curved into a tight smile, probably mirroring six-year-old me at Christmas.
“Jacqueline.” Tristan smiled at the woman standing next to me.
Wait. What?
His expression had hardened a second before he turned his attention to the petite brunette who could easily pass for Halsey’s twin sister. In another lifetime, I may have chosen Jacqueline myself, but this about-face on Tristan’s part was confusing.
That confusion followed me as I watched Jacqueline link arms with him and walk through the door, like something out of my worst adolescent nightmares. The popular jock, not wanting to be seen with the girl on the debate team, chooses the perky cheerleader, instead.
Although I knew absolutely nothing about Jacqueline, she had one hundred percent been a cheerleader in high school. Nothing would change my mind otherwise. Still, what was with that look on Tristan’s face when his face found mine? The intensity. I’m pretty sure I’ve never had anyone look at me that way before. If I had, I would have remembered it.
I stole a glance around me to make sure no one was looking in my general direction, discreetly sneaking a whiff underneath each arm. Nope, surprisingly, not offensive. A shocker, considering how much I’d been nervously sweating all day.
What if he isn’t the least bit attracted to you?A voice I hadn’t paid too much attention to since high school expressed her opinion in my head, making my stomach turn.In a room full of glamorous women, I stuck out like a frumpy sore thumb, albeit polished up a tad. The women here were cut from a different cloth. The crème de la crème from their respective hometowns. Meanwhile, I’d been left by Guy for a woman who looked like she would fit in just fine in this room.
“If she isn’t back in five minutes, I’m going out there,” Macie announced. She must have ditched her handcuffs somewhere after her introduction to Tristan. Good thing, because I had a feeling she may actually use them if something set her off; consequences be damned.
Bianca rolled her eyes. “That still won’t make him choose you tomorrow, you know.”
Macie’s eyes narrowed. If it were possible for a human being to breathe fire, Bianca would be a kabob right about now.
“Ten bucks and first dibs on the bagels tomorrow morning that those two are going to throw down sometime this evening,” Sasha mused as though secretly hoping what she spoke would somehow come to fruition.
“If it were anyone other than Bianca, I would agree with you,” I replied. “Bianca strikes me as more of the type to light the match and toss it in a puddle of gasoline as she walks away while the world burns to the ground behind her kind of girl.”
Sasha nodded. “Okay, I’ll give you that. But someone is definitely going to end up in Macie’s handcuffs tonight.”
“Oh, for sure.”
“That’s it, I’m heading out there,” Kennedy announced, setting her wine glass down on the mahogany coffee table. She stood up, ignoring the sudden chill in the room from the women shooting daggers at her. I’d never seen anyone walk with quite the cool confidence that Kennedy had as she threw open the French doors and strutted outside.
“And so it begins,” a tall woman with curly red hair I believed was named Daisy, observed. She’d been quiet up to this point, a casual observer quite possibly waiting to make her next move. Either that, or she was scared shitless like me. “From here on out, it’s going to be a free-for-all.”
“I’m surprised it took this long, quite frankly.” Sasha looked around the room at all the anxious and determined faces, their eyes trained on the French doors like they were a magic portal, there to whisk them away to their Prince Charming, who would magically make all their worries and cares go away. “In Russell’s season, the contestants didn’t even wait for him to choose first. They attached themselves to him like Velcro. He was prying them off all night.”
Daisy slid her feet out of her sea-glass green heels and kicked them underneath an end table, much to the astonishment of both Sasha and me. “All I know is if you want your chance, you’d better take it, ladies.”
Daisy’s words proved to be prophetic, as approximately three minutes and twelve seconds later—as proclaimed by Jennifer D., the new resident timekeeper in Kennedy’s absence—Daisy showed us all that she was no shrinking violet when she bounded for the door the second Courtney stood up to proclaim her intentions of being the next woman to spend time with Tristan. Daisy flew out the door with such haste that I waited for a trail of dust to follow in her wake like a cartoon. Sasha shrugged, the expression on her face reflecting the same shock and awe I felt.You couldn’t even really be mad at Daisy. That had actually been quite impressive.
Sasha nudged Daisy’s discarded heels with the toe of her Manolo. “I guess we should have seen that coming.”
Moments later, a frustrated Kennedy walked back inside, muttering something about cheap bottled hair dye under her breath. I wondered whether she was just as pleasant with her patients as she’d been with us here so far. If Daisy’s power move worked to curry favor with Tristan and the show’s producers, she would one hundred percent have a target on her back, and Kennedy struck me as a good shot.
All hope for casual conversation had faded with the sound of Daisy’s bare feet slapping against the brick patio and was replaced by suspicious stares and a tension in the room that could be cut with the claymore brought by a twenty-something named Charlie as her prop, representing her love of cosplay and Renaissance Faires. Like the handcuffs, I hoped the sword was in a secure location, or the parlor might turn into a crime scene.
Taylor stood up from the settee, where she’d been lounging near the fireplace, in turn forcing all eyes to focus on her, whether directly or out of our peripheral. We’d been silently daring each other to strike first, like coming across a rattlesnake on a dirt path. Our bodies were rigid with tension, our concentration on our perceived threat unwaning. It was a rather intense game of musical chairs, except we’d skipped ahead, and there was somehow only one seat left for twenty-five of us. This wasn’tHeart to Heart, it was, in fact,Squid Game.
“Just grabbing my wine glass,” Taylor proclaimed, holding her hands up in the air. “See.” She pointed to the glass of Merlot sitting above the fireplace. “It’s on the mantle.”
With all eyes on Taylor, no one had been paying attention to Amelia casually making her way across the room. And she probably would have continued going unnoticed if not for herballet flat catching on the heel of Daisy’s discarded shoes, causing her to stumble and strike the end table. The force of her thigh knocking into it sent a lamp crashing to the floor. Its ceramic base struck the marble, shattering it into pieces.
I remember learning about ‘The shot heard round the world,’ in American history, referring to the opening shot made in the battle of Lexington and Concord that ultimately led to the American Revolutionary War. The sound of that lamp shattering to pieces, shards scattering across the room, was, in essence, the shot heard ‘round the parlor.
Fiona, Jennifer D., Macie, and a brunette named Melinda all barreled for the door, reminding me of all the times Josh would come home from school, making a break for the bathroom the second he stumbled through the door because he couldn’t bring himself to use the bathrooms anywhere else. Except, instead of a tall, gangly teenage boy in a vintage AC/DC T-shirt fumbling all over himself, I watched limbs thrashing in a blur of jewel-toned satin. Fingers reached for and grabbed fistfuls of hair; bony hips were used as weapons, preventing their competition from approaching the door.
Sasha and I backed away as Genevieve and Hadley were roped into the fray in their quest for the door. Half the room had completely lost its mind, while the other half, minus Bianca, stood gaping in shock at the insanity unfolding. Bianca, instead, remained calmly seated on a couch, and I could have sworn I saw her stifling a yawn.
“We need to do something,” I raised my voice to Sasha over the melee.
