"The question is what couple will be joining them on that stage. Will it be Jax and Madison? Or will it be Brian and Brooklyn? Your votes determined who will be continuing their journey to happily ever after. With over twenty percent of the votes, the couple that will be heading off to their fairytale getaway is Jax and Madison!"
"What?!" he heard Brooklyn gasp.
Jax pumped his fist in the air, and Madison was jumping up and down and crying. Brian had to admit that he was relieved. Like they always did, his eyes shot to Becca. Her brow was furrowed and she looked like she wanted to cry. He smiled and shook his head slightly, trying to tell her that it was fine. He was really okay with it.
"And Brian and Brooklyn!" Lance Sparrow announced loudly over Madison's crying.
"What?!" Brian's head spun around to the host, sure that he'd just heard wrong.
"That's right, folks. There was a tie for second place. So all three of these couples will be going on their own private fairytale getaway. Tune in next week to see each couple in their exotic, romantic retreat. Voting will open immediately after the show and will remain open until the live finale, where you will choose which couple you believe has found their fairytale love."
The applause track was played, and after a few seconds, Brian heard, "We're clear!"
Brooklyn was jumping up and down with Madison. Both girls were crying. Jax had already pulled his phone out of his pocket and was probably tweeting his ‘fans.' Becca stood smiling next to Colton as he whispered something in her ear.
Gavin, Sabrina, and a few PAs rushed up to the cast and started going over flight arrangements and itineraries. Brian was only half listening. His eyes kept slicing over to Becca. When she caught him looking at her, she smiled widely and gave him a thumbs-up sign, happy that Brian was continuing on to the next round.
That made one of them.
Chapter Nineteen
Becca stumbled into the house and her bags came crashing down on the tile flooring. Loudly. She bent down to pick them up and heard Krista yell, "You made it!"
Looking up, she saw Krista sitting on the barstool that sat beside the kitchen counter, her hair up in rollers as she was getting her makeup applied by Haley. Jessie was sitting at the kitchen table, her laptop open, probably working. All three of her sisters were in robes. Haley and Jessie both had their hair and makeup done.
"Yep. I made it," Becca said with relief washing over her. She hadn't slept in twenty-four hours. But she was here. She'd made it to Krista's wedding. "Do I have time to take a shower?" God, she hoped so. She hadn't showered in thirty-two hours.
Krista waved her arms, motioning for Becca to come over to her. "Yes, but first, come sit. I want to hear all about the show, Colton, your fairytale getaway. Once the wedding stuff starts, I know I won't get a minute to talk to you, and Chase and I are leaving for Paris from the reception."
All Becca wanted right now was a hot shower and a bed. But this was Krista's day, so she put on a happy face and dragged herself into the kitchen.
"Why are you guys doing your make-up in here?" she asked as she slumped down into the chair across from Jessie.
"This room has the best lighting," Haley explained.
"Oh." Becca nodded. "Where's Mom?"
That was the third thing Becca wanted in addition to a hot shower and a bed-to hug her mom. Sandy Sloan had always been the glue that held the entire Sloan clan together. Not only her immediate family either. She'd also stepped in when Becca's cousins' mom, her aunt Cheryl, had left the family due to mental illness when the boys were ages two to ten and then ultimately passed away from complications of her illness a few years after that. Becca's mom had done her best to be there for Becca's five cousins as well as her own four girls. Honestly, Becca truly believed that her mom should be nominated for sainthood.
She'd missed her mom even more this past month than during her first year away at school, which Becca supposed made sense due to the fact that this last month had felt about twice as long as one semester at college.
When she was in school, she was focused on her studies. Some might even say consumed by them. So even though she'd missed her mom, it had just been more of an occasional thing. This past month, not a day had gone by that she hadn't wanted a hug from her mom.
"She's down at the river with Wendy making sure everything is perfect," Krista explained.
Krista and Chase were getting married on the bank of the river that ran through Harper's Crossing. Growing up, they'd spent a lot of time there, and last year Chase had done an interview for Hits magazine where he talked for the first time about the fact that he'd written his band Midnight Rush's most popular song "Saving Me" about Krista.
"Soooo talk fast. I want to know everything about The Huntsman," Krista said without moving her lips or face because Haley was applying mascara to her eyes. It was impressive.
Jessie shut her laptop. And the second Haley was done applying a second coat, she set the wand down and turned towards Becca, expectantly.
"Who?" Becca asked after a few seconds. It had taken time for her brain to catch up to the fact that she had no idea what Krista was talking about.
"Colton. The Huntsman," Krista replied as if that were obvious.
"Why are you calling him that?" She'd heard Brian call him "Cowboy Colton", but "The Huntsman" was new.
"That's who he is, and you're Snow White." Krista's brow furrowed and she looked at Becca like she wasn't firing on all cylinders. She probably wasn't, considering the fact that she hadn't slept in twenty-four hours.
"I don't … " Becca shook her head, still trying to make sense of what her sister was talking about.
"Here." Jessie opened her laptop and typed something before turning it around.
Becca stared at the screen. There were pictures of the entire cast of Fairytale Love. The couples that had been eliminated were in black and white; and, the couples that were still on the show, were in color. For a second, she was just looking at everyone's pictures. It was so surreal seeing all of their pictures grouped together like that. It took her a minute to realize why Jessie had showed her the page. Underneath their pictures were their names, and underneath their names were character names of princes and princesses.
Under Natalie and Andrew's picture, it said ‘Ariel and Eric.' Which made sense-she had long, red hair and blue eyes and he had dark hair and light eyes. Then there were Leah and Blake, who apparently were ‘Cinderella and Prince Charming'. Jax and Madison were ‘Beauty and Vincent', a.k.a. ‘The Beast' (yeah, that should have been a no-brainer). Brian was ‘Prince Phillip,' which was the pile she'd seen his headshot in, and Brooklyn was ‘Princess Aurora.' Her own picture was side by side with Colton's, and beneath theirs it read ‘Snow White and The Huntsman.'
"What is this?" Becca asked.
"It's the show's website." Jessie now had the same look of concern on her face that Krista had just had. "Haven't you seen this?"
"No." Becca shook her head. "The Internet was so slow up at the castle that I barely went online, and in the Bahamas, I had no Internet access."
"The Bahamas!" Krista exclaimed. "Oooh, la, la! So that's where your fairytale getaway was?"
"Yeah."
"What about Brian? Where did he go?" Haley asked.
"I don't know. All the couples went to different locations."
"Have you talked to him since you've been home?" Krista asked.
All three of her sisters looked at each other with their ‘Does she know? Should we tell her?' look, and Becca instantly got an uneasy feeling in her stomach.
"What?" Becca sat up straighter.
"It's nothing." Krista stood up from her stool and put her hands up. "Everything's fine. It's just … Frank is in the hospital."
Becca stood up and rushed back to the front door to grab her phone as she shot rapid-fire questions back at her sisters. "What!? Does Brian know? Is he home? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I think Brian got home yesterday. I'm sure he knows," Haley said in a comforting voice.
"Is his dad okay? What happened?"
Krista, Jessie, and Haley all moved into the front room while Becca searched for her phone.
"From what I've heard, he was working at the shop and collapsed," Haley explained. "But that's just what I heard through the grapevine."