Page 87 of D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding

Tanisha stood to her feet as Kris walked near her and the crowd started booing.

“Aye, y’all chill out!” Kris called out, shaking her head disappointedly as I hung my head in shame. I felt like it was partly my fault that Tanisha had been painted as a sort of home-wrecker, and nothing Kris said had been able to get that thought out of my head. Using the side of her finger, Kris tipped my chin up and I lifted my head just as Tanisha opened her arms wide.

My mouth fell open as Kris stepped right into the circle and they embraced, rocking left and then right before Tanisha kissed Kris’s cheek and pulled away, winking at me before taking a seat on the couch opposite the one Kris and I were headed for.

“Well,” exclaimed Ansel, “that was quite a reunion!” He’d taken the words right out of my mouth.

Tanisha shrugged. Kris laughed. I eyed them both.

“Hold up, hold up, hold up! We all saw that clip from week three, and the blood was very bad, honey, so what is this? Are y’all friends now?” Diamond would always have my heart for asking the question that sat heavy on my tongue.

Lifting a shoulder, Tanisha shook her head. “We just came to an understanding, is all.”

Diamond sat forward. “Which is?”

Kris smirked. “That what’s mine is mine, and mine alone.”

Like a band of instigators, the audience oohed right along with half of the contestants. I might’ve swooned a li’l bit. Just a tad. No falling over or anything like that though.

“Tanisha is a home-wrecker!” someone shouted from the audience.

“Oh my!” exclaimed Ansel at the outburst, his hand to his chest in faux scandalization.

“I’m not paying them no mind. Go ahead, Ansel.” Crossing her legs, Tanisha smiled widely.

Ansel chuckled and tapped the sheaf of cards in his hand on his thigh. “After every episode we polled our viewers via the Instant I Do website and texting. We like to know what they thought about what they saw, and it’s always fun to go back and take a look at early predictions, don’t you think?”

The audience collectively shouted, “Yes!” Ansel’s unnaturally straight and sparkling white grin widened.

“I thought so too. Let’s take a look at some of those, shall we?” Twisting in his seat, he swept an arm toward the large projector screen on the wall behind us. Everyone fell silent as we turned our attention to the screen.

The opening montage from season three played before several clips from episode one. The audience showed their own biases for the contestants with their responses to the clip of each of our entrances to the party the night before we were matched. I cringed at the terrified look on my face as I moved at a turtle’s pace down that hallway, and the collective “aww” from the audience didn’t make me feel better. If they all pitied me, did that mean I was the season’s weak link? There was one every year. The person was a fumbling mess, who couldn’t get anything right. Had that been me?

Whistles and the audience murmuring “ooh” made me blink out of my reverie. Kris had walked in on the screen and a large chunk of the audience—of all genders—had a visceral reaction to her presence. Thankfully, the camera cut before I’d started choking. I shot up a prayer for small favors. After every contestant was shown, clips of us finding out who we were paired with began to show. Some of the reactions were...rough to watch. Others were hilarious, and a couple were tooth-achingly sweet. My heart pounded as I waited for Kris’s to show, but when it did I felt my eyes sting a little. That sexy, slow grin of hers bloomed across her face and she nodded. Even without saying a word, it was clear that she was pleased.

“I told you that I wanted you from the beginning.”

Dropping my gaze from the screen, I turned to my wife. Her eyes were on me, as if she’d been watching me watch her on the screen. Warmth crept up my neck and settled onto my cheeks. There was a knowing look in her eyes, but she didn’t seem annoyed. After being together all of this time, she had a pretty good idea of how my brain worked and likely figured what I’d been thinking.

I nodded. “You did.”

“I always knew we’d make it here.”

She’d told me that too.

“I know.”

“Good.”

She wanted to kiss me; it was all over her face. And I wanted to be kissed by her right then. But we’d been instructed by the e.p. backstage to keep the PDAs down. The way the show was edited, it wasn’t clear who ended up married, and they didn’t want us to give anything away ahead of time. So, instead of taking my mouth, she winked at me and returned her attention to the screen. After a moment of taking her in, I did the same.

When the recap of episode one came to an end, screenshots of the different poll questions popped up. Ansel read along as they appeared.

“We asked our viewers which pairings they thought would make it to the finale. The top answer was Kirk and Jerri, with Kris and D’Vaughn coming in at a close second!”

That surprised me. After showing a clip of my Jitter Cam where I focused on Tanisha, I’d expected that we’d be in the bottom. I should’ve known that Kris’s sex appeal could take us anywhere.

“We also asked which contestant was their favorite so far. They said: Kris, Diamond, and Bryce.”