You’re not a virgin?”
“Oh no!” I find myself tittering. Why are we even discussing this? Am I insane?
“All right. Then you gotta know, right? You have a boyfriend? You ever get him hot?”
“Well.” I trace my finger over the sheet, picking at a loose thread on the blanket. “I’ve only had one. And he isn’t really the type to . . .”
He closes his eyes. “Wait. Let me get this straight. You’ve only been with one guy in your whole life?”
I nod. Is it getting warm in here? “Gerald. He’s a doctor. He’s . . . brilliant, handsome, kind . . .”
“And a shitty lover.”
“What? No. How can you . . .”
“Are you still dating this asshole?”
“He’s not an asshole!” I say, not sure why I’m defending him. “We broke up almost nine months ago.”
“Okay. So . . . this guy has taught you everything you know about sex. And yet the woman I see before me hasn’t had sex in almost a year, blushes whenever she looks at something she really wants, doesn’t want anyone to touch her, and can’t even say the words fuck or cock.” He shrugs. “He made you frigid. So, in my book? Asshole. Shitty lover.”
I gape at him. “I’m not frigid!”
“Hey. It ain’t your fault.”
I want to smack him, but I can’t bear to have contact with his naked parts. Oh god, maybe he’s right.
I flip on the light and sit up in bed. “I kissed you, didn’t I? Was that terrible?”
“No. That was fucking hot as hell. But I think you’ll need about a thousand more of those to undo the number that that asshole did on you.”
I stare at him, scowling. “You know,” I say, pulling the covers up to my chest, “I think you’d better sleep on the floor.”
He grins lazily at me and starts to pull the blanket off the bed. I tug it back, and he just laughs at me. “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”
He lies down on the floor with just a pillow and doesn’t make another sound the rest of the night. I try to fall asleep, but I can’t.
Because I have a very strong feeling that he might be right. About Gerald, but most of all, about me.
Luke
Penny’s shocked we got this far. I’m not. I always said I was in it to win it. And yeah, she can’t stand me. We’re different. But somehow, we’re making it work. Who knows, though. This might be the end of the road for us.
—Luke’s Confessional, Day 7
We’ve been in the game for a week.
After Colorado, we traveled down to Texas, where Erica, the type A, and Steven, the weaselly guy, were eliminated after a challenge where one of us had to build the biggest haystack, and the other had to carry hay bales across a farm. Supposedly, Steven didn’t want to do either, and Erica was all-out screaming at him to choose one, so he just told her to screw off and walked away from the set.
We did okay on that one because we didn’t need to be near each other.
Then we went to Charleston, South Carolina, where we had to spend the night at a haunted plantation. We stayed on opposite sides of the mansion and ended up getting our fucking wires crossed, each thinking the other had gone and made the sweetgrass basket we were supposed to make. After that, a second Marriage Test, where—surprise surprise—we again got all three questions wrong about each other. Like I was supposed to know her favorite way to relax was going to fucking art museums? I’d said shopping, because I thought all women loved shopping. I thought it was ingrained in their heads. I might as well have called her a cannibal, from the eye daggers she gave me.
My favorite way to relax, according to her? Vegging on the couch. My favorite way to spend a night? Hitting on women. My favorite place to hang out? A strip club. I can tell she thinks I’m a dumb, horny asshole.
The result of that shit? We nearly came in dead last.
The only people who screwed up worse than us were Cara, the dancer, and Zach, the father, who missed their flight. So they got eliminated.
And now we’re the last of the five remaining couples.
We’re in pea-soup fog, up on a pier near a lighthouse in cold-as-hell Lubec, Maine, which is supposedly the easternmost point of the United States.
The only thing colder is Penny.
The girl can hold a grudge. Ever since we had