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“Stay low, keep your center of gravity as low as you can, but don’t lose your footing,” he instructed Zara.
She nodded her head.
“Ready, set….” Marcus looked back and forth between the teams. “Pull!”
Keaton gripped the rope and his muscles burned as he pulled it backward. It actually felt good. He hadn’t rolled with anyone in over two weeks, and he’d missed the feeling of using every muscle in his body. He missed pushing himself to the limit of what he thought he was capable of. He missed the exertion, and he even missed the pain.
He was just getting into his zone when he noticed across the pit Freya’s feet began to shift in the dirt. Harlan was straining so hard two large veins had popped out on his forehead. Keaton knew they had it in the bag when he heard Harlan groan. It was nowhere near the warrior cry he’d let out just minutes before against Vic.
Keaton took advantage of his opponent's exhaustion and kicked it up a gear. He’d found the trick in any competition was not to max out in the first few minutes. Wait for your opponent to get tired and then switch it to full steam.
His tactic worked and within seconds of Keaton pulling with all of his might, Harlan and Freya ended up face-first in the mud.
The whistle blew and Zara turned around and jumped into Keaton’s arms. He spun her around, celebrating their victory, and the next thing he knew she’d planted a kiss on him. Not a peck. Arealkiss. She’d been getting more and more affectionate each day, but it had just been cuddling and quick pecks here and there. This was a NSFW smooching.
He froze for a second, but then remembered they were being filmed. If he moved away, viewers would definitely pick up on it. Since they hadn’t stipulated rules of engagement, in a split-second decision he went along with the kiss. After this, he’d set up some ground rules, one of which was no make-out sessions.
After a few seconds, Keaton broke the kiss and set Zara down. Before her feet hit the ground, he heard wolf whistles and cheers from the other teams. He smiled as she lifted up his arm, declaring them the champions.
Marcus walked over to them to crown them Couple of the Day for the fourth day in a row. Keaton had to bend down for him to reach. He smiled as Marcus put the crown on his head but that grin slipped when he straightened back up and saw flowing red hair behind the camera.
For a brief moment, his eyes locked with Avery’s. This time she didn’t have a deer in the headlights look. Now, she looked like she’d just seen a horrific car crash and was about to cry or throw up. He was still getting over the shock of her being there, when she turned and walked away.
He wanted to go after her. To explain everything. But he couldn’t because there was a microphone being shoved in his face for his reaction to the win.
He didn’t have any clue what he said in the post-tug-of-war interview. It was all he could do to force a smile on his face and keep his feet planted so he didn’t take off running after Avery.
Keaton didn’t know how, but even if he had to use Morse code or smoke signals, he would get a message to her. He didn’t know if it would matter at this point, but he needed her to know that this reality TV show wasnotreality.
15
“Where am I going with Daddy?”Jacob asked for probably the thirtieth time since Avery had told him Jude’s plans to spend the week with him.
“Chicago,” Avery told him again. She’d noticed when he was nervous or unsure about something, he kept repeating the same questions. “Remember the pictures we looked up last night of that big silver bean and the bridges and the pizza?”
Jacob nodded as he waded on the shores of the lake, kicking the water with his feet.
The property the castle sat on had private lake access that was not open to the public. There was a small trail hidden behind an overgrown bush that led down the wooded area to the water. Avery had found it, by accident, when she’d been on a walk with Keaton. This was the location where they’d shared their first kiss. It was where they’d spent the entire night lying on the grass just talking under the stars.
It was strange but she felt like they’d crammed an entire relationship into two weeks. Keaton hadn’t officially opened Legacy yet because he was waiting for his business license before he could start classes, so his schedule was pretty open. Avery was just on site to oversee the renovation, but thanks to hiring an incredible GC who she checked in with for a quick update every day, there hadn’t been a lot to do, so she’d just hung out with Keaton.
They’d gone down to the lake, on trail-walks all through the wooded area around the castle, and explored every inch of the castle. They’d talked and talked and talked, and hadn’t ever run out of things to say. Those days were like a dream, one that she’d never wanted to wake up from.
“When is Daddy coming to get me?” Jacob asked.
“He’s coming in four more sleeps.” The thought of Jacob being away from her for ten days made her sick to her stomach.
But not as sick to her stomach as watching Zara and Keaton make out had.
Avery thought that after seeing them flirting on TV the past few days, she could handle seeing the PDA in person. She’d been wrong.
Seeing them lock lips had caused her to have a physical reaction. It was like someone punched her in the stomach. She thought she was going to throw up. It was horrible. But just like a car crash, she hadn’t been able to look away.
It was insane to her that she’d gotten so much more upset seeing Keaton kissing Zara than she had when she’d walked in on Jude and Celeste naked in bed together.
After she left the set, she’d gone back to her office and cried. She’d cried over Keaton, a man she’d technically never had a relationship with, and hadn’t spoken to in five years, a man who kissed a woman he was “dating” on a reality TV show.
There was something seriously wrong with her. After her sob session, she’d made an appointment with a therapist named Anne Perkins. She’d clicked on her website becauseParks & Recwas one of her favorite shows and Anne Perkins was the character she most identified with. But she scheduled the appointment because Anne Perkins, the therapist, not the television character, had a doctorate in psychology from Harvard and a Yelp score of 4.9 with over five hundred reviews.
