Page 10 of Down and Dirty Celebrity Edition

By the time they reached the mat, the same pink highlighter-haired PA came running toward them and quickly snipped the rope around their ankles. Savannah staggered forward toward a large table at the edge of the mat where a single, terribly weak lantern hung over their heads.

After they both upturned all the pieces onto the table, Amy stepped in beside Savannah and asked, “How much of this can you see?”

“I’m staring at a pile of charcoal biscuits,” Savannah said honestly.

Amy exhaled, then stepped close enough to Savannah that the heat radiating off her bare shoulders bled straight through Savannah’s top. Before Savannah could even think to add space between them, Amy’s hands found her waist, anchoring her in place as she slid slowly behind her to reach for something on the far side of the table.

Savannah held her breath. Not only had she cupped Amy’s breast earlier, but she could now feel Amy’s perked nipples against her shoulder blades. Her own nipples hardened beneath the sports bra she donned. Savannah wasn’t sure she could handle Amy getting any closer.

Savannah quickly coughed and concentrated on the table in front of them. “Okay, what are we looking at?” she asked, hovering her hands over the pieces.

Amy slipped back to her side. “I think it’s the Outlast Her logo and Brazil’s national flower beneath it. There’s also a palm tree and some birds flying overhead.”

“What flower?” Savannah asked, not seeing anything that vaguely looked like a flower.

“The orchid,” Amy replied. “Cattleya purpurata. The queen of the orchids.”

Savannah nearly asked if it was one of the many facts Amy had googled for her books, but instead held up a puzzle piece she’d picked up earlier. “Is this an edge?”

“No, that’s a centerpiece. Give it here.”

Savannah reluctantly passed it over just as Naomi called out, “KATE AND LUNA ARE ON THE PUZZLE! EZRA AND SLOAN ARE HALFWAY THROUGH THEIRS, WHILE AVERY AND BRENDA ARE CLOSE BEHIND.”

With her vision gone, Savannah’s hearing was supersonic. She overheard Luna and Kate, two tables away, bickering. “You’re terrible at puzzles,” Kate shot, a wooden piece clattering loudly. “You’ve literally had a puzzle sitting on your coffee table for the last six months, and you’re not even halfway done.”

“Do you know how difficult gradient puzzles are?” Luna shot back.

“I’m looking for a triangle with the letter S,” Amy said.

In that moment, Savannah realized the pieces were intricately engraved. The letters and flower patterns were carved deeply into the wood. This might just work to her advantage. She quickly used her fingers to blindly track the raised ridges until she felt the smooth snaky curve of an S. “Got it,” she said, pressing the piece into Amy’s palm. Amy snapped it into place.

Then she did it with the next piece Amy requested, and the next, handing them over to Amy, who was working on the flower. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Amy slammed piece after piece that Savannah passed to her, and soon they were down to just one. Amy grabbed it like it was the last chocolate chip cookie on the plate and slammed the final piece into place. “DONE!” she shouted, just as Avery and Brenda shouted, “DONE!”

What followed was an agonizing moment of silence. Had they been a microsecond too late? Naomi walked by each of the puzzles with her hands behind her back as she inspected them. Savannah felt sick with anticipation. Ugh! Naomi was taking longer than Vivian ever did.

Then, finally, Naomi’s arm shot up. “WE HAVE A TIE!” she announced gleefully. “CONGRATULATIONS, BRENDA AND AVERY, AND SAVANNAH AND AMY. YOU’LL BE ENJOYING TONIGHT’S REWARD.”

Chapter Seven

Amy could still remember every tiny detail of the first and only reward she’d won during her first season of Outlast Her. She could still feel the plush towels, the heady, sweet smell of frangipani body oil, the tangy taste of the buttery lobster and fresh watermelon salad, and the massage that had remained superior to every other massage she’d had since the show.

But this reward was on another level.

As soon as they stepped out of the trees, Amy’s jaw hit the sand and stayed there as she took in the scene. Out in the shallows was a massive glowing movie screen, reflecting perfectly on the inky-black ocean. Set on the powdered-sugar sand facing the water were four cream-colored poufs that looked soft enough to swallow them whole. Scattered all around the beach were dozens of flickering glass hurricane lanterns that not only brightened the beach but Amy’s inspiration. And there... Oh. Em. Gee. To the right was a table. And not just any table. It was a concession bar that held no less than ten retro red-and-white striped paper bags overflowing with hot popcorn. The popcorn was glistening under a heavy drizzle of liquid butter, and Amy found herself moaning. Movie popcorn was her literal weakness. Next to the paper bags sat a tiered display neatly packed with classic movie-theater candy. There was everything from Sour Patch Kids to Milk Duds to Twizzlers and Raisinets. Amy’s eye caught the chocolate-covered cookie dough bites she used to eat as a kid until she was sick to her stomach.

“You can see all of this, right?” Amy asked, leaning a little to the side toward Savannah. They were no longer joined at the ankle, but she couldn’t help but stand close. “Because this is what I always thought heaven would look like and I’d feel really bad if you couldn’t see it.” Amy had never met a person with night blindness before, so she had no idea whether the many lanterns providing light were enough to cut through the darkness for Savannah. She hoped they were. In front of them was heaven on a beach.

Savannah chuckled. “I can see it,” she said. “Every little bit of it.”

Amy smiled just as Brenda made a dash for the refreshment cart, which held two slushie machines. “This is literally my childhood fantasy,” Brenda said, already pulling down the plastic lever and letting a stream of frozen slush rain into a cup. One was a churning blue raspberry and the other a deep, bleeding cherry. On the cherry dispenser was a picture of a bottle of Grey Goose vodka. A spiked slushie. How very Outlast Her.

Back when Amy was a teenager, she and her best friend Frankie Whitly, who was married with three kids by the time she was twenty-six, used to sneak a flask of Burnett’s under their hoodies whenever they went to the Ritz Theater over in Muskogee. They would dump the vodka straight into their extra-large blue raspberry slushies, and by the end of the movie, they’d be so plastered that they’d crawled up the aisles on their hands and knees.

“Bottoms up,” Brenda said, handing Amy a plastic cup.

Amy accepted and took a sip. The vodka hit her throat like liquid fire, cutting straight through the syrupy sweetness of the cherry. She puckered her lips just as her cheeks flushed. “That’s at least a double shot,” she remarked, coughing.

“Then we’d better drink carefully,” Avery said, winking. “We wouldn’t want to lose our inhibitions. Wait, is that...” The doctor pointed excitedly toward the movie screen, which suddenly came to life.