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At least I had been able to come here. I’d had my ranch uniform and badge in the trunk of my car and come straight here, parking on the far side of the lot, behind the school bus they use for excursions. I’d gone in through the kitchen, had avoided other staff and slipped into Wesley’s room undetected. And no one, including Bojan, knew that I volunteered here.
I was safe for now but had to go back to the mansion in the next few hours. Once the 6 a.m. morning shift started, there would be people everywhere.
I closed my eyes. Or, maybe, I could just stay here forever.
45
#hey
CASH
I was in bed when Emma came into my room. I heard the door click open and rolled over, expecting to see a crew member, and half-sat up when I saw her delicate profile move through the darkness.
She sat on the edge of my bed. “Hey,” she said softly.
I said nothing. Underneath the sheet, I was naked, which was unfortunate, but I’d jacked off sometime around three a.m. and hadn’t bothered to pull my underwear back on.
She reached over and gingerly touched my jaw. “I’m really sorry.”
I turned my head, pulling away from her touch. “It’s fine. Doesn’t hurt, though I’ll probably bruise.”
“I didn’t—” she paused. “I shouldn’t have hit you. I’m really sorry. I swear, violence is not my go-to. I just… I just got confused.”
“We thought it might have been part of your script.”
At that, she flushed. Looking down at her hand, she shook her head. “No. Absolutely not. That was all stupid me.”
“You might want to look into anger management.”
“I need to look into a lot,” she admitted. “Anger management being trumped by a list of things.”
“Like what?”
Her eyes met mine. “Like…” She paused, and I could feel the war of emotions in play. What to admit, what not to, how truthful to really be, during this moment of peace.
I wait and mentally urged her to just spit it out. If I was ever going to stop hating this woman—I needed her to open up with me.
She swallowed. “Like insecurities. A need to be seen. That probably trumps my anger issues, which I swear—aren’t that bad.”
A lock of her thick blonde hair fell in front of her eyes, and I reached over, then paused when she stiffened, withdrawing slightly.
“It’s just your hair,” I said quietly. “Here.” I carefully tucked it behind her ear. “You’re always seen, Emma. You don’t have to do anything extra for that.”
“Ha.” She looked away, and the moonlight from the window illuminated her profile. “You’re so wrong about that. You were born into the circus, Cash. You don’t know what life is like outside of it.”
She looked down and picked at the fabric of the sheet, and I shifted away, aware of how thin the material was between us.
“I should go.” She went to stand, and I grabbed her hand, keeping her in place.
“Don’t punch me,” I warned.
She smiled, and I think it was the first, genuine smile that I had seen since the night of my party. “I’m not going to punch you.”
“Stay here for a minute.” I scooted back on the mattress and patted the space. “Lay down.”
“That’s a joke, right? I’ve seen the way you look at me. You hate me.”
She hadn’t seen the way I looked at her—not if that is what she thought. Though, I could see how things could be a little confusing. Because I did hate her—or rather, what she had become. But I could also, at times, see glimpses of a different girl. This girl.
And she—the girl from the party—was why I was here, in this ridiculous house, with two dozen strangers.
‘It was ingenious, really, pulling all the camera crews off and leaving the front gate open. We were ready, of course, when she came in. We already had hidden cameras in all of the smoke alarms and vents, but I don’t think any of us expected her to go into the guy’s room. And when Cash invited her into his bed, I swear—the four of us huddled around the computer screen in the monitor room all held our breath. We didn’t know what she was going to do. Matt thought she was going to punch him again. But she literally laid down next to him. Emma Blanton! Laying next to Cash Freaking Mitchell. Oh my god, we screen-shotted that image a dozen times. And we stayed there—for two more hours, listening to them, but they didn’t say another word. They just laid there, facing each other, him underneath the sheet and her on top. And then, right around dawn, she rolled out of his bed and went to her room.
It was epic. You wouldn’t think that two people just lying there would be epic, but it was.”
Lauren Flan, Assistant Director, House of Fame
