It's Called Sabotage

Round Four. Ten Nine Contestants Remain. Appearance Fee: $15,000.

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Right. Left. Step.

There were benefits to being stuck on the dating show for this long.

Step. Step. Dip.

With only a third of the contestants left Jules could guarantee that he’d now have a bedroom all to himself. That meant a roommate couldn’t walk in on him if he wanted some privacy.

The door to the bedroom swung open. “Hey, Jules. Did you… what are you doing?”

Jules was sure he looked foolish. He was standing on a single leg, an arm pointed straight in the air. A laptop screen was resting on his bed and playing a heavily choreographed dance from an older film.

Of all the times for Craig to come in!

“Yes?” Jules wheezed. “What is it?”

Craig looked like he had questions. But he pushed past them for the moment. “Did you hear about Warren? He’s been eliminated. Poor guy’s packing his stuff right now.”

Jules was surprised that sort of thing hadn’t happened earlier. Not the part where Warren was the one going home. After all, it was a fifty-fifty between him and Hans getting tossed at that first challenge. But he’d been taught to expect contestants to get eliminated in all sorts of ways. As far as he knew, Warren was the first to get the boot during a date.

Nine men were left standing and they’d go down to seven in the next round.

“Why are you posing like that?”

Jules didn’t realize he’d been staying in that position the whole time. He finally relaxed. “Practicing for later.”

“Ah. Right, you’re going to go on your own one-on-one date soon,” said Craig. “Just be careful. I heard from Diane that they’re going to start letting some of the other bachelors try to intrude on those.”

Jules chewed on that while Craig let him be. Those two had gotten along really well at the beach. They’d make a cute couple.

Wait a moment. Was Craig supposed to know that bachelors were going to make run-ins on one-on-one dates now?

Jules thought back to the list of bachelors and their reasons for coming on the show he’d found in Craig’s room. That was something production would’ve guarded tightly. It getting into a contestant’s hands would seriously imbalance the game.

He was starting to understand who tried to feed Craig that list. And why.

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Kristina had only a short period of time to switch out of the outfit she’d worn to the luchador matches and into a dress for her dinner with Ryan. She always gave thanks to the costume and makeup crews but they pulled through for her here.

She stepped out of the limo in a backless black dress that cut off mid-calf. Dresses never felt like they had enough material. But Kristina was never sure if that was because she preferred pants or because she had a hard time fitting into some dresses with her size.

Again, a big thanks to the costume crew. She’d buy them all pizza or something after tonight.

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Ryan adjusted her tie in front of the bathroom mirror and clipped a few errant bangs with some small scissors.

She’d set up everything perfectly. Dinner at a five-star steakhouse with the best seats in the house. Lit candles with a perfect view of Santa Monica Bay as the sun set! She’d planned every last detail of this, down to the cut of the suit jacket she was wearing.

The alarm on her watch went off. Time to go. Ryan stepped out of the bathroom –

And straight into a waiter carrying a glass, its contents splashing all over her suit jacket and hair.

Ryan winced as she saw the orange liquid soak into the jacket. “What the?! Wait…” She recognized the goatee on that waiter from anywhere. “Parker! What the hell are you doing here dressed like a waiter?”

“Sabotage.” He smiled.

“This has to be against the rules,” Ryan grimaced. “They’ll boot you from the show for this.”

That was when a pair of hands landed on her shoulders. One hand belonged to Zach, and the other to Christian.

“No they won’t,” said Christian. “Not when you having a disaster of a date makes for great TV.”

“Get. Out.” She turned on Zach and Christian, poking the latter in the chest. “Or I’ll take a page from Warren’s book.”

Christian and Zach took their hands off of her. “Did you really think we’d lose to a girl?”

Ryan froze. They knew?! How did they know?

“No wonder you felt off to me,” teased Zach. “Looking forward to seeing how it turns out!”

Panic started setting in. Ryan had only minutes before Kristina arrived. She’d never have enough time to dry out the jacket. What was she to do?

Ducking back into the bathroom, she looked at herself in the mirror again. Her hands pulled out those small scissors again.

She had a plan. She’d need to make these minutes count.

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Kristina took her seat at the dinner table and waited.

The ambience was impeccable. The smell of steak wafting through the air was perfect. All that was missing was Ryan.

She heard footsteps come from down the hall and cameras move to catch who was coming. “Hey, hope everything is –”

That was Ryan coming towards the table. But that was an odd outfit for… him… to wear. His tie was twisted to the side around his neck, and his jacket had been cut into a small and unbuttoned vest.

Most confusingly of all, the shirt had its sleeves cut off and had been slightly unbuttoned to reveal cleavage. For Ryan’s ample chest.

Kristina knew what she was seeing but it didn’t make sense with what she’d seen. But that was Ryan’s head on that woman’s body.

“Sorry,” apologized the strange Ryan. “This isn’t how I pictured telling you this. But here we are.”

Every moment she’d spent with Ryan was twisted on its head. Suddenly it made sense why Ryan’s soft face and pixie cut was appealing to her.

“Is Ryan your real name?” Kristina finally got out.

Ryan nodded. “I wouldn’t have bothered dressing up like one of the guys if I wasn’t interested.” She cracked open the steakhouse menu with a smile. “And you wouldn’t be at this table if you weren’t.”

Kristina had broken out into a deep blush the moment Ryan arrived and was still a dark shade of red.

The two quickly ordered their food and returned to the matter at hand. Ryan leaned forward, making sure her chest was nestled between her arms. An older trick but one that drew Kristina’s undivided attention.

One that she eventually shook out of. “Have you done this before?”

“Seduced women or been on a dating show?” Ryan sipped from a cold glass of water. “Yeah. I’ve been with my fair share. That’s why I wanted to be on a show.” She took another sip and admitted, “I’ve never had a relationship that lasted longer than a breath mint. But I bet someone like you has.”

Kristina slumped in her chair. “Less than you’d think. There’s not a lot of opportunities in Wyoming. And then I came out here and there’s not a lot of good opportunities. I went from cowboys looking for a woman to be barefoot in the kitchen to tech bros peddling ‘pump and dump’ schemes.” She watched a waiter place a bowl of bread, taking a piece for herself.

Ryan only did the same after staring the waiter down. Weird. Waiter looked happy to be here.

The conversation continued, with Ryan being a shameless flirt and Kristina helpless to resist. It only broke off when their dinner arrived.

Kristina hadn’t had a steak this juicy or perfectly cooked since she’d been home. And this was easily the best date she’d been on the entire show – or at least tied with Christian’s tour of the movie set.

She found herself leaning in to catch more of Ryan’s charm.

As the two sipped at glasses of red wine, Ryan frowned. “They’ll never let me win the show, you know.”

“No?”

“No.” Ryan swirled her wine in her glass. “They’re not going to let a woman win the show. They’ll find a way to remove me now that I’m being myself.”

Kristina rolled her eyes. “What a shame.”

“Listen, if it doesn’t work out with whoever you pick at the end.” Ryan reached across the table and took Kristina’s hand. “Would you like to go out with me some time?” She pulled herself up from her chair and gently kissed that hand.

Screw it.

Kristina pulled Ryan into herself, grinning before going in for a kiss. For once Ryan was the one left blushing. The editors could have a field day exploiting that for all she cared.

She dragged Ryan out of the steakhouse and towards the limo downstairs with a grin. The producers had been pushing for her to do this kind of thing all show. Well, they could enjoy this curling of the monkey’s paw.