Love in Reality: A Contemporary Romance (The Blackjack Quartet) (22 page)

He mentally calculated when the show would be over and he could be with her for an entire night. Hell, an entire week wouldn’t be nearly enough.

He got dressed and flicked a hand through his hair. Lissa was in the bathroom doorway holding the hairdryer in one hand, working to dry that spill of dark hair.

“I don’t need it completely dry,” she said, “But a wet pillow would be suspicious, you know?”

He checked his watch. “We have time.”

“Not enough,” she said as she went back into the bathroom. He couldn’t argue with that.

When she came out again, she was nude but her hair was a charming tangle of waves. She moved around unselfconsciously, collecting her odd mix of clothes.

She noticed him staring. “What? Oh, yeah, my hair. A hairbrush would have been nice, I guess, but then I thought that this look was much more realistic for someone asleep,” she grinned, flicking at the ends of her hair.

“I went to the Emmys once,” he said. God, he hadn’t thought of this in years. “I was young, maybe seventeen. It was in Pasadena, I remember that.” He tried to recall the scene. He’d gone with his parents. With his dad’s show nominated in four categories, they felt it would be good to go as a family. Rand had been fitted for a tuxedo that his dad insisted on buying for him, even though he outgrew it within months.

“Anyway, it was surreal to see up close all these actors I’d watched on TV. But here’s what I realized. They weren’t real when I saw them on TV—they were acting their parts—and they weren’t real on the red carpet in their fancy gowns and borrowed gems.”

Lissa stared at him, her hand holding a zori halfway to her foot. She waited for him to continue.

“I had a crush on Claire Danes, but all dressed up she wasn’t what I’d expected. She looked like what she was—a pretty actress. I didn’t want to meet a pretty actress. I wanted to meet Angela, her character,” he said. “I knew they were different people. I knew that, but it didn’t really hit me until I saw her with makeup and everything.”

“That sounds sad,” Lissa said. She went back to getting dressed.

“Not sad. Disillusioning a little bit, maybe, but more educational than anything. I haven’t made the same mistake since.”

“What mistake was that?” Lissa asked.

“Assuming that what you see in Hollywood is real.”

“Now that really does seem sad,” she said, laughing.

He smiled. “Right now I agree with you. Because you are more real to me today than any other woman I’ve met. You’re not hiding anything, or pretending to be something glamorous or exotic. I can’t tell you how miraculous that is.”

As romantic speeches went, it wasn’t perhaps the most eloquent, but even so he thought she’d appreciate the sentiment. Instead, she ducked her head and bundled up her hair to put on the baseball cap he’d bought her.

“Thank you for that compliment,” she said in an odd tone. “But we’d better be going if we don’t want to piss off Debbie and the CSI dead body guy.”

On the drive back to the studio, he wasn’t sure what to say. There’d been a moment just as they were leaving when he thought she was going to cry, but then they were out the door and heading to the car. Whatever that moment had been, it was gone, and now Lissa was chatting happily about nothing at all.

No. It had been a wonderful escape. He was silly to worry.

Libby stifled a yawn at the breakfast table. The conversation swirled around her. She avoided Kai’s look and ate her bowl of Fish Food. Really, shredded cardboard was too kind a description. Thank God the Fish who lost the food competitions were allowed tea and coffee, otherwise they would sleep all day.

No competition that day—which was a relief. As long as Greg was the Shark, Libby wasn’t too worried about keeping her guard up. Like her, Greg was playing a cagey game, not sucking up too much to the Chris-Susie-Dylan alliance while still staying on their good side. If he put Dylan and Chris on the hook as she suggested, she was safe. If he put Kai and Jim up, there was some risk she could go home, but she didn’t think that was likely. Clearly Greg had dismissed her as a weak player in the game even before their conversation the night before.

She got herself another cup of coffee, keeping half her attention on the other Fish’s conversation. Jim and Susie were talking about their favorite movies. Libby could contribute one of Lissa’s opinions, but it wasn’t a topic that needed a lot of her attention. Here, too, she was easily ignored.

True, she didn’t give anyone much to work with. The only Fish she really interacted with were Kai and Jim, and she didn’t tell them anything of substance. No one—not even Kai or Jim—thought “Lissa” had the chops to make it to the end. Maybe she acted the ditz, but she was flying neatly under the radar.

The conversation had shifted to television shows, and which ones they particularly admired. Not much of a TV viewer, Libby struggled to say something. Then she remembered Lissa’s favorite show from middle school.

“I really loved
Sweet Cherry
,” Libby offered.

“Which one was that?” Susie asked.

“Before your time,” Jim said. “All about a group of teens, but smarter than
90210
. We watched with our kids. It was pretty good. I don’t miss it, but my oldest daughter was addicted and still watches the reruns on cable.”

“I had such a crush on Danny,” Libby admitted dreamily. Of course Lissa had the crush. Like Jim’s daughter, Lissa watched every episode. Libby had preferred reading her latest Sweet Valley High book. Susie gave her a look, then went back to discussing
The Wire
with Jim. Libby pursed her lips to keep from smiling. They really did think she was a ditz, didn’t they?

Less attention on the game meant more attention on Rand. Gamely chewing away, Libby relived the preceding night and mentally counted the hours until she would see him again. Was smuggling her out a one-time deal? Would he want to do it again?

God, she hoped so. Because she really wanted to be alone with him again. Only maybe with more talking this time. And more kissing, particularly without clothes. Oh, and more mouth-to-skin contact. Definitely kissing more of his skin.

She sighed.

She had to face the truth. She wanted more than stolen time with Rand. She didn’t care what they did, but this business of being together for only twenty minutes here or a couple of hours there just kept ratcheting up the frustration.

Libby tried to work it out—Greg probably wouldn’t put her up, so she should survive this week. That left less than four weeks to the show’s finale. She’d have a couple of days after that before the start of law school, though she might stretch it out a bit longer. At least in theory, then, she and Rand could have some time together after the show was over.

“You look lost in thought,” Kai said, settling next to Libby at the breakfast table. “Strategy?”

Libby did a quick glance around the room, but Jim and Susie had left without her noticing. “I was just figuring out how many more days before the game ends.”

“Eager for the money?” Kai asked.

“No way am I winning, that’s for sure,” Libby said.

Kai quirked an eyebrow. “That’s not the spirit they’re looking for.”

Libby clenched her jaw to prevent another yawn. She could hardly claim to be sleep deprived when there had been a body in her bed all night. “Oh, I fully admit I’m the most boring person ever to play this game.”

“Yeah, so I wanted to ask you about that. Everyone else is salivating over the money but then they play stupidly, which is when they screw up and get fished out. You play smart, which is why you’re still here. Only it’s not the money that motivates you.”

Libby shrugged.

“So what’s driving you? That’s the question.”

“I just don’t want to leave yet. I don’t expect to win, although I wouldn’t tear up a check for a million dollars. But I’m sure I was cast as the player most likely to be kicked out first. You know, like—oh, what was her name?—you know, the blonde from the third season? Anyway, she made the mistake of taking the ten grand in the first challenge, and next thing you knew, she’d been booted out. I’m this season’s dim bulb.”

“Hey, there is no way you’re a dim bulb, that’s for sure,” Kai said.

“Okay, so what about you? What drives you?”

Kai mimicked Libby’s furtive glance around the room. “I belong to a tribe on the Arizona-Utah border. I work in Phoenix but my extended family, well, a lot of them are still on the rez. If I win the money, it’s going into services for them. Business services, like better Internet connections. There are some amazing artists there, but they end up selling their stuff to middlemen for a fraction of its worth. And the middlemen aren’t native, either, so the money they make leaves the rez. Pisses me off. I figure with a little ingenuity more people can sell direct on the web.”

How embarrassing to be mooning over Rand when this amazing woman was working so hard to improve the lives of her tribe. Libby looked down at her bowl of Fish Food. “Well, so much for plotting to get you fished out. Is that your secret weapon, to guilt-trip everyone with your philanthropy? ’Cuz I got to tell you, I don’t think Dylan will fall for the ‘plight of the artists on the reservation’ ploy,” Libby said drily.

“My secret strategy is secret for a reason,” Kai said. She arched an eyebrow. “Hey, you’re not telling me yours, so I won’t tell you mine. My business here is done.”

Libby had to laugh at Kai’s parody of the absurd sneakiness the game promoted.

“Happy to oblige,” Libby called as Kai walked off. It was hard withholding the truth from Kai, who felt like a friend. No way in hell could Libby tell her what was going on. Even if she did, no way would Kai believe it.

As her fellow Fish went into the Journal Room that evening, Libby’s excitement built each time Rand called someone else’s name. She tried to calm down and keep her expectations low. He might not be able to spend any time with her. She had to be prepared for disappointment.

All sensible advice, but when her name was called last, she really struggled not to smile. Think about the game, she told herself sternly. Think what he’s going to ask for the tape piece. She couldn’t be grinning while talking strategy. Good advice, but so hard to follow.

She needed a sad enough memory to kill this ear-to-ear grin she was fighting. How about the guinea pig they’d owned in third grade. Dusty, was that his name? She remembered the way she felt the day they took him to school for show-and-tell, and then forgot to bring him home. R.I.P., Dusty. That always bummed her out. It even managed to wipe away most of her irrepressible “How soon before I get to kiss him again?” smile.

Libby sat down on the sofa, opened the water bottle—her hands needed something to play with—and waited.

“Hi.” There was a chuckle in his voice.

Libby closed her eyes for a moment. She must have a Mona Lisa smile on her face—she certainly felt like the cat-with-the-cream.

“Hi,” she said to the window.

“Let’s get the job done first, shall we?” he drawled.

“You rat, you get to keep a silly grin on your face. I’m reduced to thinking about our guinea pig, Dusty. Or was he named Dizzy? Anyway, it was a very sad chapter in our childhood.”

“I promise I’ll think about Dusty too, okay?”

After one last review of the hideous moment when Lissa and she had to confess to Mom that Dusty had been left all weekend at school, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and said, “Okay, I’m ready.”

He asked about the food competition, Dylan’s latest act of craziness, even about her and Kai’s conversation that morning. Libby slipped into her slightly vague game persona easily enough, but she could barely contain her eagerness for Rand to finish the taped interview so she could be Libby again. When she was around him, she drifted further away from channeling Lissa. It was a relief when he told her they were done.

Within a minute, he was in the Journal Room with her. He had her pressed against the soundproofed wall, her arms around his neck. She could feel herself getting lost in his kisses. She enjoyed the piquancy of silence, sexual frustration, and sneakiness—it tasted good. After a few minutes he tugged her into the Control Room and checked that her mike was still turned off.

“Hi,” he said softly, his smile audible again.

Her grin was in full force. “Hi.”

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said.

“My loss?”

“The guinea pig? What happened to him?”

“Dusty. Yeah, that was sad. We were so proud of him. Or was he a girl? Daisy? Never mind, it was a precious and much loved animal,” she said.

“And clearly well remembered,” he teased.

“Yes. Well. We took him—or her—to school for show-and-tell. Mom had fashioned a temporary cage for him, and we had strict instructions on how to care for him, including to bring him home with us. Only it was a Friday, and Mom had a board meeting at the museum, so as a special treat Uncle Jack picked us up. He was on break from college, I think.”

“And Uncle Jack didn’t get the memo about leaving no comrade behind.”

Libby pursed her lips. “I believe Uncle Jack was subsequently acquitted on all charges of animal cruelty,” she said primly. “My sister and I—well, let’s just say it’s a very sad memory for lots of reasons.”

“You have my condolences.”

“Thank you.” Libby paused. “Um, what’s the etiquette here? Would it be rude to say I had a lovely time last night and can we do it again, please?”

He laughed. “Not rude at all. Me too, and yes. But not tonight.”

She made a show of pouting. Maybe her Lissa persona came more easily than she realized.

“It’s a huge imposition on Debbie and A.J., who didn’t get a lot more sleep than we did. Plus, Debbie told me today that the only reason we could do it last night was the cleaning crew were on a midnight shift. They’re on the early morning shift tomorrow, so there’s a risk of running into them. They don’t work for Marcy, but I have no way of knowing who they might know or talk to.”

“No, I get it. It’s just that I did have a really great time last night. And I do want to do it again. Greg’s only gonna be the Shark for so long.”