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There was another set of gasps from around the table, and I realized that one had come from me. I knew Nico had done badly, but the worst out of everyone? We’d been together a little over two years. Clearly I had been paying attention at some point during that time, long enough to salt away enough information for a bunch of lucky guesses, anyway.
And what did this mean for the show? Was Nico—
But then my stomach seemed to drop. No. Absolutely not. There was no way Nico could be… going home? My results had to count for something, didn’t they?
“Nico,” Camille was saying, and now she looked compassionate and, something else, something close to a little nervous, I thought. “Nico… I’m so sorry.”
“What?” Nico said, interrupting.
“You’re going home.”
“What?” He looked from me to Camille, his expression genuinely confused. “But—you can’t. I’ve only just got here.”
“I’m sorry, Nico,” Camille said again. I could see the cameras zooming unforgivingly in on Nico’s face. “It’s time to go.”
“I’m—no,” Nico said flatly. He gave a little laugh, as if this might all be a huge gotcha. “I mean, no. I’m not going.” He folded his arms as if to prove his point. “What about all the stuff I got right? You have to give me another chance.”
“I’m sorry, Nico,” Camille repeated. She glanced at the camera crew and nodded, and one of them, a big guy with powerful shoulders, put down the fluffy boom mic he was holding and moved forward.
“Is this real?” Nico asked, this time with a tinge of real outrage creeping into his voice. “Are you seriously kicking me off the show?”
I felt a sense of panic grip me. This was not the plan. This was never the plan!
“Nico?” I said blankly, and he turned to face me.
“You stupid cow!”
I recoiled.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Honestly, what the fuck were those answers! A paneer what the whatever it was fuck? How was I supposed to guess that? And Keanu Reeves? He’s old enough to be my dad!”
“Paneer cheera is what I always get!” I felt my temper flare, not helped by Camille making stop swearing gestures behind Nico’s head. I didn’t need reminding that this was all on camera. “Every single time! It’s not my fault if you always leave me to order. And Harry Styles? Seriously? How could he have been my childhood crush?”
“You sabotaged me,” Nico said. His face was suddenly ugly. “You did this deliberately. What game are you playing?”
“What the actual fuck.” I knew Camille was signaling, and I didn’t care. The more I swore, the less likely they were to use this footage of my relationship imploding. “Are you serious? I don’t care about your stupid little—” Fuck fuck, no. I had enough self-control to backpedal from what I’d been about to say, which was stupid little reality TV fantasy. Whether or not Nico went, I would still be stuck here for another week. Insulting the show in front of people who were presumably happy to be on it wouldn’t go down well. “S-supposed games,” I finished, stumbling over the words as I tried to recover. “I’m not playing anything. I tried to say things I thought you’d guess. It’s not my fault if you guessed wrong.”
It’s not my fault if you haven’t paid attention to anything I said the entire time we’ve been together, was what I really wanted to say, but that felt like I would be crossing a line. Whatever he’d just said to me, I wasn’t ready to dump my live-in boyfriend on national TV.
I remembered Joel’s words on the boat. If they succeed in breaking one of the couples up… it’s going to be car crash TV. A real long-term relationship ripping apart on-screen.
And now that car crash was Nico… and me.
“You’ve humiliated me,” I heard from Nico, but two crew members were leading him away. He was still shouting over his shoulder. “You set me up. This wasn’t what was supposed to happen. This wasn’t what we agreed!”
And then his voice faded between the trees, and he was gone.
There was a long, stunned silence. The thing that kept rattling around my mind, absurdly, was how upset my mum was going to be when I told her what had happened. She loved Nico. He was the son she’d never had—handsome, charming, a little bit cheeky. But for myself, I felt… nothing. Only numb. Was I in shock?
Angel silently slid a bottle of wine across the table to me, and I forced a smile and filled my glass, knocking it back with a hand that was still shaking.
“Well…” Dan drawled, leaning back in his seat. “At least you didn’t accuse him of not being able to tell the time.”
There was a sudden gale of laughter, the nervous, explosive laughter of people with pent-up emotion, relieved to channel it into humor rather than anger.
“I’m glad you’ve forgiven me, darling,” Santana said. She moved round the table to thread her arm around him, poking him in the ribs, and he snorted and tickled her back. I wondered in that moment whether the producers could possibly be fooled. They were so obviously more like brother and sister than girlfriend and boyfriend, with their physical, bantering antagonism. Was this going to be the next big reveal—Dan’s boyfriend coming on with folded arms to denounce Dan as a traitor? It would certainly make good TV.
