The next day they were back at the studio for the show's shooting, a few of the sixteen contestants grumbling about muscle soreness and lingering aches, but having recuperated from the Romeo and Juliet challenge, for the most part.
Serena wasn't too sore, not physically, but Darien's news in the car as they drove over to the studio sets had unnerved her. She continued to stare at him, her hurt not quite hidden as they stood at the Olympic size pool at the back lot of the studio where a an enormous wooden cutout painted like a pirate ship was propped to one side.
"I didn't arrange it, Serena," Darien said in a low tone for the fourth time as she stood near him, she in her blue swimsuit and he in a pair of blue trunks. "It's just how the lab schedules got put up, and since we're both in the show I guess the instructor stuck us in the same groupings."
She stood pouting in her swimsuit, hands on her hips as she considered his explanation, forgetting to worry about her figure when contrasted against some of the older, more filled-out female contestants in the hot afternoon. The next segment of labs for the summer had slotted Darien and Jen of Team Red in the same times with four other classmates, and while they weren't partnered up for any labs yet, Serena knew it was just a matter of time. With her luck.
"I don't want you to get her as a partner, Darien," she said just loud enough so he could hear, her frown renewing.
"We haven't been."
"Yet."
"Serena, it's no big deal." He regretted the words even as he said them. "It doesn't mean anything. Just a lab partner. If we get stuck together. There haven't been any arrangements made yet."
"Big smiles!" Parker Bob called to them as he waved the contestants closer to the large pool as three lifeguards dressed in black and white striped swimming trunks positioned themselves around the waters edge. "We're going live!"
"I hope it's a relay swim!" Tiffany said from near Serena, smiling at her. "It's so hot today."
Serena nodded, forcing a smile at the other blonde girl as the sun beat down on them. "Are you a good swimmer?"
Tiffany shrugged, her smile admitting yes, her hand tucked in Brad's beside her as they walked to the poolside. He was easily the tallest of the guys, and was looking at the pirate ship backdrop. Tiffany raised an eyebrow at Serena. "Are you?"
"She's an excellent swimmer," Darien said, his arm going around Serena's shoulders as she hesitated answering.
Serena smiled, trying to appear yes without actually saying it. The audience was already filling in the stands set up to one side of the pool, the camera crew positioning the equipment to get the best shots including the ship and pool. Dangling from booms overhead were more cameras and sound equipment meant to catch every sound from the water.
"How deep do you think the water is?" Molly was asking, her eyes on the pool and the colorful floating air mattresses anchored in the center of it as she helped Melvin adjust his glasses goggles.
"Good question!" Parker Bob said, greeting them with a wave as he stood in his black swim trunks, gray tank top, and red necktie. "Welcome, contestants!"
"Hi, Parker Bob!" they called back as the audience shouted its own greeting, thunder sticks banging from the stands.
"Now, today we are going to begin the Ahoy Matey Challenges, starting with the Ahoy Matey Girls Mini Challenge!" Parker Bob said, smiling his best celebrity smile. "Because this is the second challenge of --" He extended the microphone to the audience stands.
"Super Couple Love Note Show!" the crowd sang back, whooping for their contestant favorites.
Parker Bob put the microphone back to himself and looked to the eight couples. "This challenge is for the girls' points. Out in the pool you will see eight floatable air mattresses -- rafts -- one with each team's color. When I shoot the starter pistol, each girl contestant must dive into the pool and swim to her team color raft and climb on. Sound easy?"
The girls all cheered a 'Yes!'
"Oh, you think it's too easy?" Parker Bob asked hintingly, smiling wider.
"Yes!" the audience called.
"I think so, too," Parker Bob said, waving over his pirate wench attired assistant who carried a milk crate painted with glittery rainbow colors. She stood beside the host, and he picked out one of the large water guns inside. "You can't be outside in the pool without tanning oil, can you, ladies?"
A nervous giggle went through the female contestants.
"No. Now, each guy is to apply a liberal amount of tanning oil to his partner." Parker Bob grinned as his assistant held out her arm and he shot a spray of oil from the water gun at her wrist. "Ooh, looks like slick stuff, doesn't it, guys?"
The male contestants chuckled, nodding as the girls groaned.
Parker Bob nodded. "Each of you guys is to soak your lovely lady with your team color's oil gun. Now make sure to get every leg and arm, every inch of exposed flesh beneath the neck, guys, because if you miss a spot," he said with a disarming smile, "I'll do it myself."
"Not likely," Darien said under his breath, making Serena giggle despite her earlier mood.
"Once our girls are thoroughly oiled, they will line up at their color mark painted on the edge of the pool," the host explained. "When the gun goes off, the girls must swim to their team color air raft and climb aboard. In sixty seconds after the gun, the guys will enter the pool and meet at the rafts, help the lady into the raft if she isn't in already -- without getting onto the raft yourself, guys -- and dive down to unsecure the rope holding the raft in place at the bottom of the pool. Then you will swim back up and climb aboard the raft. The couples must then hand-paddle to the girl's team marker at the pool edge. First girl back gets five points for their team. First guy gets two points."
He waited a moment as some confused murmurs rippled through the contestants.
"Wait a minute," Rei was saying louder than the others. "That means the winning team gets seven points?"
"Five plus two is seven," Chad said with a nod. "Right?"
Andrew leaned closer to Darien. "Something's up."
Darien nodded, his hand tightening on Serena's shoulder.
"Sound fishy?" Parker Bob asked, winking at Whitney in her white swimsuit. "Today we have a change-up. After each girl has gotten oil-soaked by her guy, she will pull a wrist cuff from this bag." His assistant brought out a colorful cloth bag from the milk crate of water guns. Parker Bob took the bag, holding it up for all to see. "Whichever team color wrist band she picks will be her new partner for this mini challenge. Whatever color she gets will work with her for the five points for her team, and two points for his team."
A mixture of sighs and grumbles went through the contestants. Serena looked up at Darien, and then to where Jen was standing with Matt, also watching Darien.
"Jen better not get you," Serena mumbled to Darien as he looked to her.
"You better not get Black," he told her, eyes shifting to where Team Black was trading looks between them.
"Now," Parker Bob said, "let's get these ladies oiled up!"
Applause and hoots went through the crowd, followed by a chant of "Go Team White!" as each guy of the teams found their water gun of tanning oil and stood apart from the others with his partner.
Darien and Serena found a spot between Andrew and Mina and Rei and Chad. Serena held her arms out to her sides as Darien opened fire with the oil gun, grinning as she smiled, blushing slightly.
"This stuff smells good," he said, chuckling as she turned, the almond-scented oil starting to dribble down her legs and arms. He grinned wider as her blush increased. "I kind of like this idea."
She batted a hand at him, taking a careful step as the tile around her got slick. "You wouldn't be able to hang onto me."
"Oh, I could do it," he said, squirting her back just above the seat of her baby blue bottoms.
"That's trickling in," she said, wiping the excess oil away, blushing anew.
"Hey!" Rei cried out, pulling her arm down as Chad lifted it, the water gun in his other hand. "You don't have to do my armpits!"
"He said every exposed piece of skin below your chin, Rei," Chad said as she swiped the gun from him.
"Not there. Good grief, Chad," she said, trying to hold the gun away from him as he reached for it, his arms outdistancing hers easily. She nearly toppled over trying to get away, and he caught her in an embrace, grinning as she wiggled in his arms.
"Now, guys," Parker Bob called over the crowd as the chanting died down, "carefully escort your ladies to your team color markers at the poolside, and my lovely assistant will be around for them to draw wrist bands. Every guy will then find his new partner, and we will begin our mini challenge!"
Darien put an arm around Serena's waist as her first step nearly sent her into a heap on the tile. Her bare feet left smudgy oil prints across the poolside, criss-crossing prints from the other girls as they found their markers.
"Look at the size of those," she mused, eyes on a set of footrpints, slipping as they made their way to the blue dot near the pool edge.
He chuckled at the large female footprints that Gucci was leaving as Varner escorted her to the black dot across the pool. "Like a dinosaur."
Serena giggled, standing cautiously on her blue mark, attention going to the blue air mattress marked Team Blue Raft in white letters floating in the center of the pool near the others. She frowned. "I'll never be able to get on, Darien. I'm too slicked up."
He nodded, his arm oiled from his hold on her. "The water's probably over your head to make it more of a challenge, but there are lifeguards at each side." He pointed to the closest one. "Don't worry about drowning."
She scowled, eyes on Jen across the pool where Matt was helping her to the red dot on the tile. "That's not what I'm worried about."
He squeezed her hand, his fingers slipping off hers in the oil. "This is a good look on you, Serena."
She smiled and then looked out to the pool where the eight colorful rafts were bobbing. "However this goes, try to get the two points," she said more somberly.
He nodded. "And you go for the five."
She nodded.
"Okay, ladies," Parker Bob called, a cameraman following him and his assistant as they made their way to the first couple, Team Orange. "We will now draw for your new teammates. First up, orange!"
Mina smiled, looking up at Andrew as she stuck her hand in the bag the assistant offered. She pulled it out, and then did a couple steps of dance as she held up the orange wrist cuff. Her feet slid out from under her, and Andrew caught her before she fell.
"Oh, Team Orange is still Team Orange!" Parker Bob cried out. He and his assistant moved on to the next couple along the poolside.
From there it went, Rei drawing a purple cuff, Jen a yellow and Tiffany a white, oddly, Molly a blue, bringing a sigh from Serena, Gucci Matt's red, Whitney a green, and finally Serena drawing the black cuff.
Darien scowled at the Velcro band, eyes going to where Varner was grinning, already rounding the poolside to Serena, abandoning Gucci.
Darien sighed as the taller guy approached, putting a hand to Serena's shoulder. "Remember we're in this together, Serena," he said.
"I've never forgotten that, Darien," she said, her eyes holding just a touch of sadness. "I'll get us five points, you get us two more."
Her oiled skin was warm and soft beneath his fingers, and he found himself with more than a twinge of jealousy as Varner met them. He looked up at the taller guy, who grinned in return.
"Hey, good luck," Varner said, extending his hand.
Darien tried not to let his feelings interfere. "You, too." He shook his hand, which was just as oiled as his own. He watched Varner take his place beside Serena on the blue mark. She handed him the blue band and he clasped it about his wrist, smiling at her.
"Darien!" Molly yelled, not quite hopping on her green mark at the other side of the pool kitty-corner from the blue marker. "Darien!"
"Bye," Serena said with a smile as he left to join Molly.
"Good luck," Darien said and then jogged over to Molly in her green one-piece swimsuit.
Varner grinned at Serena, eyes flicking over her glistening skin in the sunlight. "Looks like it's you and me, Mrs. Team Black."
She nodded, deciding he had a nice smile. "Looks like. I hope you plan to win this."
"Oh, I do. We will."
They looked back to where Parker Bob was reviewing the challenge rules, his arm raised overhead with the starter pistol.
"Ladies, on your marks!" he cried out, looking around at the eight girls on the spots poolside. His attendant stood nearby, the crate at her feet, her hands over her ears. The pistol fired. "Go!"
Serena dove into the water, slipping a little as she did and landing with an awkward splash that was hip first. She bobbed to the top of the deep water and took a moment to swim to the blue floating air mattress, the white words Team Blue dipping and bowing as she reached it.
She closed one hand on the blue vinyl, her fingers sliding off, slick with oil. She clutched farther into the raft's surface, throwing a leg over the side as shrieks and yelps echoed from around the pool as none of the girls could climb onto the floatables.
She gritted her teeth, fingers squeezing the tight raft surface, trying to grip it better, only to slide back into the water. Within thirty seconds she was exhausted, panting, her hands cramping, winded as she struggled to make another heave onto her elbows, feeling herself slide back again.
A whistle blew, and the guys dived into the water and began their swim to their new partners' rafts. Serena was still struggling at the blue air mattress side, alternately gasping and swallowing water, when Varner met her. He put one long arm over the raft and the other around her waist.
"Lift up," he said, spitting water to one side away from her she made another futile, frantic lunge for the raft.
"I'm too slick," she said, her fingers reaching over the mattress again.
He anchored his arm under her ribs and raised her more out of the water, his hold slipping as she pulled at the raft, one leg finally making it onto the side. She pulled herself up higher with his help, her elbow clipping his chin as she did, bringing a muted 'oof' from him.
"I'm sorry," she said breathlessly as she crawled onto the vinyl floatable, his hand pushing the blue of her swimsuit bottoms, making her squeal.
"Keep going!" he said, dodging her other flailing leg as she scrambled on.
Serena sprawled flat on her stomach as she maneuvered to the raft center, hands splaying out to either side, the oil still thick on her palms. She got into a sitting position in time to see Varner disappear under the water's surface. She looked around, spotting Darien pitching Molly's green form onto the lime colored raft across the pool. He glanced her way before diving under the water.
The shrieks renewed around the pool as Andrew's hand slipped and made a more than friendly pass over parts of Mina as he tried to hitch her up higher onto the orange raft, and a bellow of another sort when Chad literally threw Rei over the opposite mattress side in an attempt to push her onto it. Team Purple started over in Rei's quest to commandeer the purple raft.
Varner broke water near the raft side and quickly climbed up beside Serena, grinning at her as she smiled. "Let's get to that blue mark, Serena," he said, pushing her across the mattress.
She slid easily on the vinyl surface, her shins still oiled. "You got it!" She leaned over the side as he did the same on his side, both using the opposite hand to paddle clumsily. The paddling took longer than expected, as there was little real contact with the water, despite their speed and determination. Serena glanced to the other mattresses to her side, seeing the yellow raft with Tiffany and Team White's Ryan making for the yellow marker, and Gucci screaming at Team Red's Matt to paddle faster.
"Faster!" Varner shouted as Serena's shoulder ached. "Almost there, Serena!"
She grunted at her paddling, watching the blue marker on the poolside near. A few seconds later the blue vinyl bounced off the pool edge, Varner's side first. A buzzer sounded, and Serena sat up and looked with astonishment as one of the lifeguards pointed to them.
"Team Blue first!" Parker Bob called out, the microphone squeaking. A roar went up from the crowd, everyone on their feet, thunder sticks banging a deafening beat. "Team Blue!"
Varner put one foot on the poolside as he knelt on the raft, anchoring it to the tiled side, and offered Serena his hand as she crouched on her knees, still sliding, reaching her hand to his shakily. She put her other hand on the poolside, unsteady with her oiled palms, feeling Varner's supportive hand on her elbow, his other clutching hers in a strong hold, as she bungled out of the raft. She stood slowly at the poolside as Parker Bob rushed to them, the cameraman and assistant running to keep up.
"We have a winner! Two winners!"
Serena managed to stand straighter, brushing water that beaded on her oiled legs as Varner made his way out of the raft and to her side. He gave her a grin and took her hand, raising her arm in triumph.
"Team Blue, five points!" Parker Bob announced as the audience cheered and booed in unison. "Team Black, two points!"
"Good job," Varner said to Serena as Parker Bob looked back to the camera.
"Thanks. You, too," she said, smiling back up at him.
He nodded to her swimsuit top, grinning. "You're misaligned."
Serena looked down to see one side of her blue bra was slightly lopsided. She turned her back to the camera view, blushing as she repositioned herself better. Nothing was showing, nothing exposed, but her two-piece top did look a little odd. She turned back around to find him still watching her, amused.
"Thanks," she mumbled.
The rest of the couples had finally reached their pool sides, most making it to the tile surface without incident as Parker Bob thanked the crowd and the cameras zoomed out. A splash was heard at the green marker, and Serena looked there to see Molly resurface in the pool, having miscalculated her departure onto the tiling, and Darien leaning over the water edge to help her out.
"Be careful walking," Varner said as Serena took a hesitant step on the tile surface. "Hate to see you skin those pretty legs. You want some help?"
Serena shook her head, denying the slight blush that warmed her cheeks as she turned away. She carefully stepped among the oily footprints and water on the tiles as Parker Bob's voice rang out across the pool.
"Twenty minutes until guys' mini challenge! Twenty minutes, contestants!"
Darien met her halfway around the poolside, grumblings and complaints from the losing couples drifting across the water. His eyes went over her suspiciously, as if looking for damage. She smiled wider at him.
"Five points!" she said, making a careful hop as he met her.
"Good job, Serena." He put his arm around her waist, eyes holding hers as she braced herself with a sudden slip. His other hand took hers, keeping her upright. "Not too bad working with Team Black?"
She shrugged as they turned and left the poolside for the studio door where the other couples were already heading. "Not too bad, I guess."
Darien glanced to where Gucci was giving Varner an irate earful about her partnership with Matt. He saw the other man's eyes follow Serena's movements, nodding inattentively as the brunette girl spoke. Darien looked back to her. "Not ready to trade me in, are you?"
She giggled, elbowing him slightly in the ribs as he mocked an 'ouch' as in front of them Tiffany looked their way while Brad held the stage door. "Not quite."
Darien gave her side a poke that made her poke him back. "You better not."
"Hmph. You're one to talk," Serena said, returning Tiffany's smile as they followed Brad inside.
Darien's arm went tighter around waist, her skin soft with oil as Team Black fell into step behind them. Gucci's complaints raised a notch as Varner's arm caught the door behind Serena and Darien, holding it open as they stepped inside.
Darien's eyes were on the hand, not liking the taller man's proximity, watching as Serena's eyes remained on the other couples in front of them. "Good."
Who is the best Super Couple? Vote in the poll!
Standings after Ahoy Matey Girls Mini Challenge:
Team Blue (Serena and Darien): 13
Team Black (Gucci and Varner): 12
Team Purple (Rei and Chad): 6
Team Yellow (Tiffany and Brad): 3
Team Orange (Mina and Andrew): 2
Team Green (Molly and Melvin): 2
Team Red (Jen and Matt): 2
Team White (Whitney and Ryan): 0
[If I'm wrong, please let me know. :)]