Brian looked over at her and the moment their eyes met Becca's heart slammed in her chest. His gaze was so intense it felt like he could see all the way to her soul. She had no idea what he was about to say, but she knew that, until he spoke, she didn't think it would be possible to breathe.
"Good. Very good," he said.
To everyone listening, it would have sounded like she'd asked him a question and he'd answered it, but to Becca, it was more than that. Somehow, his words had felt like a promise.
"Oh," was all she managed to answer, totally dropping the ball on the small talk portion of their entrance.
His lips turned up in one of her favorite smiles. It was also one of his rarest smiles. The only way she could describe it was his bad-boy smile. It was the one that had finally convinced her to go into that haunted house a decade earlier. It was the one that had convinced her to scale the fence at the local swimming pool, The Plunge, after it was closed when they were twelve. It was the one that had convinced her to ditch school and go down to the river the day before they graduated with the rest of the senior class. It was also the one that always caused her to follow him, blindly, and she was so happy that it had made its appearance today because, right now, that's exactly what she needed to do.
"You got this, B?" he asked, the twinkle in his eye making her stomach feel like it did when she'd jumped off the high dive.
"I've got this, B," she confirmed, suddenly feeling more confident and ready to take on this show as just one more of the adventures Brian had taken her on.
As she stepped out onto the gravel for the second time today and took in the massive structure before her (now that it was no longer blocked by huge trucks), she did actually begin to experience some excitement brewing inside of herself.
Before she knew it, Brian was at her side with their luggage and they were making their way up the walkway, which was surrounded on either side by perfectly manicured lush green shrubbery.
As they reached the tall, wooden, arched doors, Brian moved closer and easily pushed open-what looked like-a very heavy door, all while carrying not only her luggage, but his as well.
She would have tried to take her own luggage, but she knew that, with Brian, it would have been a losing battle. He'd insisted on carrying things for her since they had started walking home together in second grade. Every day after school, he'd take her backpack from her and carry both hers and his the entire two-mile trip home.
As they stepped into the foyer, Becca was overwhelmed by not only the beauty of the interior of the space, but also how modern it looked. The intricate woodwork looked flawless, and the stained-glass windows high in the walls gave the space an ethereal feel.
"Woohooo!"
"New people!"
"I think we're all here."
"Partayyy."
Becca turned to where she heard the voices coming from and saw the rest of her cast mates all standing in what appeared to be a sitting room, complete with several incredible paintings hanging on the walls, two couches, and a large fireplace as the centerpiece of the room.
Brian set down the luggage with everyone else's, and as they walked to greet everyone, they did just as they'd been instructed to do. Everyone was friendly. Even Natalie and Brooklyn-who had been ready to throw down over the seat next to Brian-were talking and laughing like old friends.
Becca did notice that Brooklyn was making herself very cozy next to Brian. Becca tried not to stare since she knew that they were filming. Plus, it was just creepy.
"Welcome, everyone, to Fairytale Love!" A familiar voice boomed loudly, filling the entire room and even echoing off the walls.
Becca blinked twice to see if what her eyes and her ears were telling her was actually reality or if the roller coaster ride of emotions she'd been on for the last few days had officially gone off the rails and she was crashing straight into delusion.
"I'm your host, Lance Sparrow."
Nope, still firmly strapped in and riding the crazy-emotion roller coaster. Still, Lance Sparrow being the host of this show just made her feel even more like she was in the Twilight Zone-or, at the very least, that she was seriously out of her league.
She felt Brian's head turn towards her and knew he was doing one of his famous ‘visual checks.' Every few minutes, no matter where they were, Brian would scan the crowd, find Becca, and not take his eyes off of her until he knew that she was okay.
Honestly, she had no idea how long he'd been doing it. She did know when she'd become aware of it-Morp, which was prom spelled backwards, and was HCHS's version of the Sadie Hawkins dance, where the girls ask the boys. The HCHS twist was, that you dressed the same as each other. It was the first dance they'd gone to as freshmen. Since neither of them had a boyfriend nor girlfriend, they'd gone together, starting their tradition of being one another's plus-one. Her sisters had also been in high school-Haley a senior, Krista a junior, and Jessie a sophomore.
It was Jessie who had pointed out his behavior, telling Becca that she could almost set a clock to the fact that not five minutes would pass before Brian would start looking for her. Becca had thought it was ridiculous, but when Krista overheard Jessie trying to convince Becca that it was true, she'd challenged Becca to prove their sister wrong. So for almost an hour, Becca and one or two of her sisters moved around the room, playing conversation leapfrog with almost every social circle in attendance at the dance.
Two things had come from that little social experiment. One, Jessie had been absolutely right. Brian hadn't gone more than five minutes without seeking her out and giving her an assessing look before, once again, turning back to whatever conversation he was having. The other was that she'd made a lot of friends that night she wasn't sure she would have ever talked to otherwise.
"It's good to see that you are all getting along," Lance Sparrow continued.
Were they? Becca hadn't talked one on one with a single person in the bunch. She shifted her eyes to see if anyone else was feeling the same way she was. Instead of getting her answer, she saw that Brooklyn had wrapped her fingers around Brian's forearm and was hanging on him like she was an ornament and he was the Christmas tree.
She looked back at Lance as his voice lowered, which she was pretty convinced was purely for effect.
"This journey is not going to be an easy one. Over the next few weeks, we will be testing you, as couples, to see if you have truly found your fairytale love. In order to pair you as couples, I'd like you each to come and pick a card, at random, from the bowl."
Oh, the bowl. Yes! Finally, something Becca had remembered and been expecting. The PA-Jennifer, she thought-had explained that the couples had already been selected, so each person was supposed to look down at the blank, white card-where a name would be edited in for the viewing audience-and make sure that they had look of surprise, excitement, or even "seductive plotting" on their face.
Becca knew there was no way she could pull off seductive plotting, mainly because she had no clue what it was. As she watched her cast mates go up one by one and take a card out of the bowl, she decided that she was definitely going to go with excitement. When it was her turn, she began walking up to the bowl and searched for the tape that, they'd instructed her earlier, was going to be on the floor, so she would know where to stand. Easy-breezy-beautiful-Cover-Girl … right?
Wrong!
Her knees were shaking so badly that she was instantly regretting the choice to wear shorts that day. At least if she had material covering her legs, the jelly-walk she was doing might have seemed less obvious.
Somehow, by the grace of God, she made it up to the front by Lance Sparrow. He smiled, encouragingly, as she reached to pull a white, plain card out of the pristine, glass fish's house, and she noticed that her legs were not the only things that were shaking like a leaf. Her hands had also joined in the party and it looked like the anthem was ‘shake, rattle, and roll.'
It must have been the cameras that had her body feeling so out of sorts.
Becca tried to take steady breaths and not lock her knees as she pulled the card out. The last thing she needed to do was pass out. That would be beyond humiliating. When she flipped it over, it was, as promised, blank. She smiled brightly as she turned back to crowd, who were definitely split down the middle. The men all had pleasant, even friendly expressions on their faces. The girls did not. She suspected she would not be doing much bonding with any of the girls here. There would definitely not be split-heart necklaces exchanged with ‘Be Fri' on one and ‘st ends' on the other.