Fairytale Love - Becca & Brian(33)

The lights still weren't her favorite and she didn't love answering  questions about herself, but what had paralyzed her with fear before was  now just a little uncomfortable.

"Are you surprised at the number of tweets and messages you and Colton  have received?" Gavin, who was sitting beside the camera pointed at her  in the ‘confessional' room, asked.

"Yes," Becca's answered honestly as her eyes widened. "I mean, there are  some very colorful characters here, and the fact that anyone notices  me, at all, is shocking. Honestly, I think it has a lot more to do with  Colton than me. Who can resist a cowboy?"

Gavin grinned before he asked, "So things are going well between you two, then?"

Well, she hadn't said that, but things were going well between her and  Colton. He was funny. Smart. Attentive. Gorgeous. And from the little  bit she knew about him, he seemed to have a really big heart. There was  really only one area he was lacking in. He wasn't Brian.

"Things are great. He's a really great guy." Becca heard the tension in  her voice. It felt like her throat was closing off her air passages.

With every day that passed, she began feeling guiltier and guiltier.  Last night, at the second elimination show, Natalie and Andrew had been  sent home. Yes, it was partly because they'd come in dead last in the  waterskiing challenge. Each couple had to ski side by side as a boat  pulled them through an obstacle course. In Lance's intro, he'd said that  it was to prove that you could maneuver successfully through the harsh  waters of life. Natalie and Andrew hadn't made it halfway.                       
       
           



       

Jax and Madison had come in third, she and Colton had come in second,  and Brooklyn and Brian had claimed the number one spot. She'd been happy  for her friend until he'd picked his blond ‘princess' up and spun her  around, after which she'd planted a big, sloppy kiss right on Brian's  lips.

Brian's perfect, full lips. The lips Becca had phantom dreams about. Had a ghost of a memory of kissing. Those lips.

It had been hard enough to watch Brooklyn's hands roaming all over Brian  like she was blind and he was her favorite book in Braille these past  couple of weeks. Watching them do something as intimate, as personal, as  kissing had made her want to cry, scream, and basically, lose her  ever-loving mind.

But she hadn't. She'd clapped for their victory, keeping a tight rein on  her facial expression, masking the pain she felt as her heart was  breaking wide open in her chest. Reminding herself that if it weren't  Brooklyn, then she'd have to get used to some other girl in Brian's  arms. Some other girl kissing his perfect lips. Some other girl feeling  the rough callouses on his fingers as he slid them up-

"So there are only three couples left. What do you think of your competition?" Gavin asked.

"I think that everyone here deserves to be here." She'd given the answer  her sister Jessie, who was in PR, had told her to give. After Becca's  first confessional experience, she called her sister practically  hyperventilating. She hadn't been expecting half-no, eighty percent-of  the questions that they'd posed to her.

Thankfully, her sister was like the rock star of PR and told Becca not  to worry, that she'd put her through a crash course in media training,  and she had. After one fifteen-minute conversation with Jessie, Becca  felt much more prepared to handle whatever they threw at her. Within an  hour, her sister had emailed her a spreadsheet of questions they'd most  likely be asking her and several different safe responses.

If there was one thing Becca was good at, it was studying. She'd stayed  up half the night committing to memory the entire document. And her  sister had been batting a thousand so far. Not one question had been  asked of her that Jessie hadn't prepped her for.

She'd even advised her what colors would look the best on screen. How  not to wear her hair. And she reminded Becca that anything she said  could be edited and taken out of context, so she should be mindful when  speaking so that nothing could be misconstrued.

To most people, that might have made them feel more overwhelmed, but not  Becca. It actually made her feel empowered. It had given her a  direction to focus her nervous, panicked energy.

Her sister Krista might be marrying Chase, who was a bona fide rock  star, next weekend but in Becca's mind Jessie was the real rock star.  She'd never really given a lot of thought to what Jessie did. Her sister  Haley was a lingerie designer and Becca loved getting care packages  with pretties from her sister's line-Tempting-in them. Krista was a  physical therapist, so of course since Becca was pre-med she had a  fairly good idea what Krista's job entailed.

Now she had a little more of an understanding of what it was her sister Jessie did, and it was kinda badass.

"Since you and Brian have a history from growing up together, do you feel more or less competitive with him?"

"I don't feel competitive with anyone. I'm just happy to be here." Even  as the words came out of her mouth, Becca was surprised to find that  they were actually true.

When this had started, she never would have guessed that a day would  come when she actually wanted to be here. But this experience had showed  her that she was capable of so much more than she would have ever  thought she was.

When she told Brian that she wanted to try new things and when else  would she ever have a chance to do something like this, those had just  been her pathetic excuses when she'd been grabbing at ropes while she  sank in quicksand. Turned out, she had a little more Nostradamus in her  than she realized because those words had turned out to be prophetic.

"What do you think of Jax and Madison? Do you think they deserve to be crowned the winners of Fairytale Love?"

"I think that Jax is a strong competitor and Madison has a huge capacity  for love," Becca answered, giving Jessie's PR version of: Jax is a  roid-head and Madison is a stage-five clinger.

"How about Brooklyn and your best buddy Brian?"

"I think Brooklyn is beautiful and confident. And Brian … " Becca paused.  Jessie hadn't prepared her to answer questions about Brian, probably  because it was Brian. Why would her sister think she'd need to be  coached on what to say about her best friend? "Well, Brian is … perfect."                       
       
           



       

She didn't know what else to say. To her, he was perfect.

Gavin laughed. "Perfect, huh? Elaborate please."

She felt put on the spot. She didn't know how to answer that. Her palms  were definitely sweating now. Without any time to try to figure out what  the best thing to say would be, she just started talking straight from  her heart.

"Brian is the kind of guy who not only opens doors and makes sure you  wear a jacket if it's cold outside, he also knows exactly what to do to  make you laugh when laughing is the last thing you want to do. He knows  what really matters and what doesn't. He can rebuild your car engine,  put a complicated desk together in under an hour after your dad throws  the instructions out from frustration, fix your computer when it  crashes, and he also notices when you buy a new skirt."

Becca felt her eyes filling with tears. She didn't want to cry. That was  the last thing she wanted to do. But the tears were coming whether she  wanted them to or not.

She sniffed as a smile spread across her face. "He has a smile that  makes you do things you would never do in a million years. I call it his  bad-boy smile. When he flashes that smile, people-myself included-just  follow him blindly. Because even if, technically, it's something you  know you shouldn't be doing, you also know that, whatever happens, Brian  will take care of it. He'll take care of you.

"If you are lucky enough to be someone Brian loves, then you know that,  no matter what happens, he will always be there for you. He would do  anything, sacrifice anything, for the people he loves."

Becca sucked in a shaky breath.

Gavin stared at her, and for the first time since she'd met the Dick  Dastardly doppelganger, he looked as though he were at a loss for words.

She waited for a few seconds to see if he was going to ask anything  else, but instead, he reached up and, with his thumb and forefinger,  wiped underneath his eyes.

Was he crying?

"Wow," he said after a few moments. "I think I just fell in love with Brian."

Becca laughed. Those were the last words she'd ever expected to hear  come out of Gavin's mouth. As he smiled and shook his head back and  forth, still wiping his misty eyes, she was tempted to tell him to get  in line.





Chapter Eighteen





"Welcome back to Fairytale Love. I'm your host, Lance Sparrow. This  week, our couples were asked to take a leap of faith in the journey to  their happily ever after. Let's see who jumped without reservation and  who needed a little convincing."