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As I flicked through the pictures, even I had to admit it was not just a filter making this place look good. White sand. Palm trees. Water so clear you could see the fish swimming through it. A scattering of little straw-roofed huts… four or five? Maybe six. It was hard to tell, as they were mostly identical and were cleverly situated among the palms so that each looked completely private. Only one stood out—a villa like ones I’d seen in pictures of the Maldives, out over the shimmering water on wooden stilts. Hammocks swung from porches, and inside were white beds scattered with rose petals and immaculate pebble-tiled bathrooms with rainforest showerheads. It was a stark contrast from bleak, rainy east London.
“Holy fuck, Nico. It looks incredible.”
“Doesn’t it?” Nico was smirking. He knew he’d scored a hit with the pictures. “It’s elimination, so we have to commit to minimum two weeks, maximum ten, plus the winner has to agree to do PR on return to the UK. I don’t totally understand the format, but from what I could make out, each week there’s some kind of challenge, and I think the loser is out, and the winner can pick who they couple up with, so the couples shake up every week.”
If there had been a soundtrack to our conversation, this would have been followed by a record scratch.
“I’m sorry, what? You very much did not mention the recoupling part.”
“Didn’t I?” Nico looked a little uncomfortable, and more than a little guilty. Judging by his expression, Baz absolutely had mentioned it, and he’d deliberately failed to tell me. “I mean, it’s not a big deal. It’s just for the cameras.”
“Are you telling me this is Love Island, only the twist is wife swapping?”
“I mean, I don’t think anyone taking part is married, so technically—” Nico began, and then saw from my expression that this particular argument was not the one that was going to win me over, and hastily changed tack. “But the point is, it’s just to mix things up. You don’t actually have to shag the person you’re coupled up with. It just means you’re a couple within the show’s format. You could choose to stay coupled with the person you enter the show with, but obviously they’re not going to want everyone to do that. I imagine couples who stick together too closely are going to find themselves eliminated in the tasks.”
“You mean they’ll rig the outcome to get rid of faithful couples?” I knew my voice sounded shocked, and I could hear the primness, but somehow I couldn’t stop myself. Nico rolled his eyes.
“Lil, these things are always rigged. It’s not Jeopardy!—nobody’s watching this to see how good your general knowledge is. They want drama. They want big characters. They want screaming arguments and people shagging in the Jacuzzi for the cameras. Anyone boring is going to get the axe.”
“So is that what you’ll be doing after I’m gone? Shagging in the Jacuzzi?”
“What? No! Stop twisting my words. I didn’t say that. I said it has to look like that. I’m not going to be shagging anyone. But yeah, maybe I’ll shed a few tears after you’ve gone, talk about how you were my soulmate, cry on some girl’s shoulder while she strokes my hair. I’m a fantasy first boyfriend, remember? That’s what they’ll want from me.”
“And I’m girl-next-door fuckable,” I said with a touch of bitterness. “So what does that leave me doing? Fucking the guy in the next villa?”
“Over my dead body,” Nico said, and now he gripped me by the waist, kissing the side of my neck. “Seriously, Lil, this is an acting job. That’s why they’re contacting acting agents. You’re not an actor and they know it—they’ll be fine with you failing the first task, maybe the second—you’ll be on a plane home within a fortnight. And I’ll melt everyone’s hearts with how broken I am after you’ve gone, make a strategic friend-zone alliance with some heart-of-gold influencer, and lose with good grace in the final. And then I’ll come home as the abs that launched a thousand TikToks.”
“Ugh.” I pulled myself out of his grip and picked up the tea he’d left on the side, nursing it as I walked to the window, more to give myself time to think than because I really wanted it. “Nico, I don’t know. I really wish you’d explained all this before I spoke to Professor Bianchi.”
“Wait, you spoke to him?” Nico’s face lit up. I nodded, almost reluctantly.
“I did.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said I could have two weeks, if I wrote up the chikungunya results while I was there.”
“You’re kidding?” Nico’s face had split into a wide, exuberant grin, and now he advanced towards me, his arms held out, and an expression that made me hold out my brimming cup of hot tea.
“Do not even think about bear-hugging me again. I don’t want third-degree burns!”
“But you’ve got the time off? We’re really doing this?”
“Wife swapping?”
“Going on the trip of a lifetime, you idiot!” Nico said. I tried not to smile, but it was impossible not to—Nico’s excitement was so transparent and so infectious that I felt the corners of my mouth twitch in spite of myself.
“Lyla?”
“I don’t know. I need time to think.”
“Think about what? About an all-expenses-paid trip to paradise?” He fished his phone out of his back pocket and held it up in front of me; the tiny island, white and green, glowing like a pearl-crusted emerald in a sea of blue. “Are you really going to turn this down, Lil?”
I turned my head away from the screen, away from Nico’s pleading face, but it was a mistake—what faced me instead was the soot-streaked skylight lashed with rain.
Why was I holding out on this? What did I really have here other than a shitty job and a shitty commute and absolutely fuck all to look forward to? I couldn’t even hold up Christmas as a carrot to myself—it was January, and the gray London winter stretched out in front of me like a prison sentence—a prison sentence with the unemployment queue waiting at the far end.
Could this really solve everything? If it actually got made—and I was doubtful about that; Nico had been in enough “sure things” for me to know how shaky these promises were—then Nico was right, this really could transform his prospects. And if it didn’t… well, it would be two weeks in one of those adorable little huts.
