“I wasn’t ogling you!” I insisted. “I was only trying to figure out where that snoring sound was coming from.”
“I don’t snore.” He turned to face me, and I was grateful to see that he had a shirt on.
“You most definitely do. You sound like a Mack truck.”
“You’d be the first to complain about it.”
My skin flushed in response, and I didn’t need to think about the implications of that statement. Speaking of which . . . “Where’s Genesis?”
“I don’t know. The producers wanted all of you in separate rooms.”
I didn’t examine the relief that sang through me too closely. “Why?”
He propped himself up on one elbow. “Genesis and Michelle started throwing up right after you did. They didn’t want you to make each other sicker.”
That was not sickness. We wouldn’t simultaneously get the flu within a few minutes of each other. Something had happened.
Something named Abigail.
“Is Abigail sick?”
“Not that I know of.” If he knew something, I didn’t see it on his face or hear it in his voice.
I thought back to our girls’ night, and how she drank the milkshakes with us and how much it had surprised me. Abigail was always careful with what she little she did eat. Always organic, always proteins and vegetables. I thought she was just excited and decided to have a cheat night. And she drank and drank, up until the last batch that we had right before we all fell asleep.
Was she capable of something like that? Would she have seriously poisoned us? Was she willing to kill us all in order to win Dante?
I had a feeling she was. I would have to prove it somehow. And much as I would have loved to inflict a slow, excruciating revenge, it would be enough just to get her kicked off the show and out of our lives.
“How are you feeling?” Dante interrupted my Inigo Montoya-esque plans for vengeance.
“Totally better. I don’t think I had the flu.”
He pulled back the covers and sat up in the bed. “Food poisoning, maybe? That would explain why all three of you got sick.”
It certainly would.
“Did you take Abigail on the last-chance date yesterday?”
“No. I was in here with you all day.”
My heart stopped and melted all at the same time. The physical attraction was one thing, but the emotions threatened to drag me under. “Doing what?” My voice sounded strangled.
“Taking care of you. Watching that zombie show you like so much when you were sleeping.”
It affected me more deeply than I would have cared to admit that he had spent an entire day looking after me. He didn’t have to, I didn’t expect it, and he did it anyway.
Maybe, just maybe, his feelings weren’t as shallow as I thought they were.
I couldn’t imagine Sterling doing the same thing.
What was wrong with me? It was like I was looking for reasons to be with Dante and cancel my wedding. “You mean The Walking Dead?”
“And I don’t understand why when people fall down when running from a zombie, they scoot backward along the ground instead of getting back up and running away. They’re obviously faster on their feet. Or why sometimes the zombies are loud and other times they’re like ninja zombies.”
Sterling also refused to watch The Walking Dead, even though it was my favorite TV show.
I sighed. I was doing it again.
“It does make you wonder how you’d react in an apocalypse.”
That was one of the reasons I loved the show so much. I liked to imagine myself in that scenario, how I would do it better than the characters and how I would survive. I liked that he had asked the question. “I would kick butt in an apocalypse. I’m an excellent shot.”
“Also useful in a revolution.”
“Are you expecting a revolution?” I couldn’t help but smile. The last people anyone would try to overthrow were Dante’s parents.
“No one ever expects a revolution. It would be nice to know that at least one member of the royal household could shoot her way out.”
“I’m not going to be . . .” I stopped talking and sucked in a breath as he stretched his arms above his head, flexing his arms and showing an expanse of his stomach that my great-grandmother could have done her laundry on.