"Welcome to a very special edition of Big Brother. I'm Julie Chen. Tonight we present you, America, with the chance to control the game. We are down to nine houseguests. In previous seasons, the final two house guests have faced a jury of their peers. Not this year. Once we reach the final two, it will be you, the people, who case the final vote."

"The house guests do not know this and they will not be informed until after the nominations are set. Let's check out some of the diary room conversations as the house guests think they are preparing to enter the jury phase of the game."

…

~diary room~

Johnny: Who said that living in the Big Brother house was all glamour and glitter… (Pauses to show off his glittery abs) Now that we've cut the dead wood from the house, everyone is going be upping their game. Hell, I may have to start playing instead of just flirting with Nooks. What a thought… my looks won't help me? Augh!

Nooks: Jury time… yay us! I know exactly who I want on the jury so I can win all the money. I'll only need four votes and I'm sure if I can put Tommy, Jeff, Johnny, and Connor in that position, they'll vote for me. They have to!

Connor: What's a jury?

Tommy: Final nine and everyone's getting a boner over this jury thing. It's still too soon. There is plenty of game left and tons of time for someone to make a move. Friendships don't mean a damn thing anymore… game on!

…

Day 33:

It was that time again. Time to get a new HOH. This time it was different. Big brother waited two days after the last eviction for the calm to come over the residents in the Big Brother house. Beside Chris and Bella, the rest of the house regrouped. Megan and Tom had a screaming match the first night, about how he was lying to the alliance and how he was being a fake! After Nooks and Johnny broke it up, half a day passed before Megan came and apologized for the ugliness. (Tommy being too stubborn to apologies…typical men!) Once that was settled, the alliance sat down to figure out their next move.

"If one of us wins HOH, we're gonna need to put Bella and Chris up." Jeff said. "Just so we keep our promises to each other."

"I don't know. I mean, we made a promise to Chris to keep him around. Maybe it should be Bella and one of our own and we all vote Bella off than next eviction, Chris is gone." Johnny stated. This had everyone silent. Even Connor.

"Bella bye-bye. Then Chris. I don't know if I can take Bella's nasty icky cooking any longer. Nooksy cooks now?" Connor asked. Nooks smiled and played with his hair while he sat on the floor in front of her.

"Sure sweetie, but we're in a meeting right now. I agree with Johnny. One of us is gonna need to be put up along with Bella. The question is, who? And the other question is, why the hell are we keeping our promise to Chris? We really haven't been known for that!" Nooks smiled.

"Because just this once, we should. Although, veto, if we win it should be used on the member of alliance and to put Chris up in replacement. Agreed?" Tom asked.

"Agreed." was said in Unisom.

"Alright. We know the plan for the next few days than. Meeting over." Tom announced and everyone but Tom and Nooks left the room.

"I just want to ask you a question. I've notice you and Jeff getting real close. I hope this isn't going to affect our final four deal with Connor, Johnny and me?" Nooks asked.

Tom smirked. "No, it's not. Just some comfort on lonely nights. Don't worry about it."

Nooks laughed. What they didn't know was that Jeff was eavesdropping on their conversation. What surprise Jeff though, was how upset and hurt he was. He knew Tom was just a fuck buddy, but was surprise about how much he actually cared about Tom. Before he knew it, tears were welling up in his eyes. He quickly wiped his face before turning around to escape, only to run into Megan, who was eavesdropping behind Jeff.

"Oh my God. You actually love him. You love him, don't you?" Megan was just as shock as Jeff. "I thought you were just fuck buddies."

"We are." Jeff whispered.

"But…you love him?" Megan whispered back.

Jeff shrugged. "Don't say anything please. It…I just realized it. Please just don't say anything." Jeff rushed past Megan to go hide in the bathroom stall trying to calm himself.

Few hours later…

~diary room~

Jeff: I can't believe that I've fallen in love with Tom. I mean, I know we're just friends with benefits, but… (covers face, next bit unintelligible) I guess I just have to take it for what it's worth, right? I mean, if he knew about what's going on in my life with Beth and Draco… he wouldn't love a guy like me, right?

…

"Houseguests please report to the backyard at this time. Thank you." Big brother's robotic voice came over. When the houseguest went out to the back yard, they found a pool, fifteen feet long and ten feet wide full of what looked like spaghetti. The houseguest lined up around the pit, Jeff making sure to be as far away from Tom as possible.

"Houseguests, Welcome to the 'Getting Saucy' HOH competition." Tom announced. As outgoing HOH, he was unable to compete and boy was he thankful. "In this competition, Houseguests will have to jump into this pit of spaghetti, search through the noodles and sauce, find meatballs, and rip them apart. Inside one of the meatballs is the key to the HOH room. Houseguests, do you have any questions?"

"So, do we have to actually get in it or can we just pick them out from the outside?" Bella asked, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

"Yes. You must be inside the pit to qualify Houseguests, are you ready? On your mark, get set, go!" Everyone raced and jumped, or is cases, dove into the noodles. Nooks popped up and looked around she saw Connor eating a handful of noodles.

"Connor, sweetie, don't eat this stuff. It nasty and has everyone's germs on it!" Nooks panicked in a motherly way. Connor spit the stuff out. "Look for meatballs sweetie and find the key to the HOH room!"

While Nooks dove back in, Tom was trying to be sly. When Jeff stuck his head out with a meatball, he silently made his way over and stole a kiss. Jeff stood up and moved away from Tom who followed.

"Stop and let me focus on this competition." Jeff said just loud enough so only Tom could hear.

Tom leaned in. "Okay but just know, if you win, we're gonna be up all night." Tom winked before stepping back.

Megan was digging through noodles, throwing them all towards Bella.

"STOP!" Bella screamed at Megan.

"Stop what?" Megan looked at her stupidly, while smashing a meatball in her hand.

"Don't play stupid, MEG-HAN!" Bella shouted.

"Bitch, it's MEG-AN. Not MEG-HAN!" Megan threw the smashed up meatballs in her hands at Bella.

"Ugh!" Bella throw a handful of Tomato sauce at Megan, which started an all out food war.

Johnny wasn't really into it, being concern about his hair. He dig in the noodles in front of himself instead of diving under to find meatballs. Chris on the other hand, was going a little crazy, diving under, jumping up, smashing meatballs in his hands before throwing it behind him and diving back again.

It was thanks to Chris' technique that allowed Nooks to look over and see a silver glint in a meatball Chris had just thrown over his shoulder. See, Chris thought just smashing the meatball flat was good enough. So when Nooks grabbed the piece of cooked meat that had just left Chris' hands, she used her technique of crumbling the meat into tiny pieces until a key was revealed.

"I found it!" Nooks grinned.

"Sixty-two minutes later, and the winner is Nooks. Houseguests, the competition is over. Congratulations to Nooks. Your room will be ready in na hour." Tom stated; his role as Head of Household now officially over.

Everyone got out except Bella and Megan who were still fighting. Johnny ran to the shower. Nooks and Connor jumped into the pool to clean up a bit.

Once an hour was over, Nooks told the houseguests that if they wanted to come up and see her room that was okay, but it would probably be the same as last time so she wouldn't feel too bad if no one wanted to see it. Megan and Connor as well as Johnny went but it was exactly the same as before so there was no surprise.

That night, Tom invited Jeff to join him in his bed in the empty room. He lay awake for hours. When the clock hit one in the morning, Tommy got up and tip-toed to Jeff's room which he shared with everyone else. He lay behind Jeff on his bed.

"Are you awake?" Tom whispered. Jeff pretended to be asleep, hoping that would work. Tom shook Jeff a bit. "Jeffers. Wakey wakey."

Jeff pretended to stretch. "Hmm?"

"Hey, are you okay? You've been acting a little weird today. I thought you were going to come sleep with me tonight. Did you fall asleep?" Tom asked.

"No. I just didn't want to." Jeff scooted away from Tom.

"Why? Jeff, what's going on?" Tom frowned.

"I…" Jeff sighed and turned around to face Tom. "overheard what you told Nooks earlier. How I'm just comfort to you on lonely nights…I know we're just fuck buddies but…hearing that…it hurt and it shouldn't. It hurt because I've…fallen in love with you and I know I shouldn't have but I did." Jeff paused, not looking at Tom. "I'm sorry. I just thought that if I put some space between us it might go away.

Tom was silent. He was taken back with Jeff's announcement. No one loved Tom. If anything, Tom was just a heartbreaker. He just didn't do relationships. In fact, he hadn't been in a relationship for six years since the last guy he fell in love with broke his heart into a thousand pieces.

"I'm sorry, Jeff." Tom leaned in and kissed him on the lips before getting up and headed to his own bed, where he laid awake all night, questioning what this strong feeling he felt for Jeff was. He spent the entire night trying to convince himself that it was nothing more than guilt. It had to be, or his entire game plan was shot to shit.

Day 34:

Tom did not fall asleep until after the sun rose over the Big Brother House. He tried to get as much sleep as he could before, knowing the way things were going, Big Brother threw something at them like a nomination ceremony or a has-not competition or just something stupid to make for good internet viewing.

It was almost noon when he did finally leave his room. He grunted hellos at Johnny and Chris, but everyone else was smart enough to know when to avoid him. He quickly showered and, while he still felt like he needed a nice long nap, he was a little less gruff and able to seek out a certain person.

Jeff was in the hot tub, alone.

"Jeff?" Tom asked softly

Like last night, Jeff was pretending not to hear him.

"Jeff?" Tom repeated "I know you can hear me. Don't make me dunk you."

Jeff opened one eye. "What?" He didn't mean to sound angry, but his tone was otherwise.

"Jeff…" Tom swallowed loudly "Can we talk?"

TBC...