Episode 2
James stared blearily up at the dated wallpaper lining his bedroom wall at the castle. A piece of paper with eight boxes now adorned the wall, a desperate move after the hell of the first rose ceremony. He'd taken great pleasure in etching out an X on the first box. Only seven horrible, miserable, wildly awkward ceremonies to go.
Rita had put her scarily-pointed high heel down about taking Helena off the show. At least she'd let him boot Marjorie because she agreed unconsenting kissing was unacceptable. Or rather, that it made for fantastic television the first time, but the show would undoubtedly be in hot water if it actively condoned such behavior.
This she explained with a lamenting voice.
It was all so pointless anyway. Isabella Marks was the one for James—he'd never hit it off with someone so immediately. It had been worth one never-ending hellish day to meet her. And it would likely be worth eight hellish ceremonies…
God, he hoped so.
If it hadn't been for Isabella—and, yes, the massively contented look on his mum's face the first night—he would've taken Algernon and made a run for it overnight, contract be damned. Algernon had even scoped out a path through the back garden. James could call a taxi from the nearby McDonald's, just after acquiring some delicious and extremely well-earned fries.
Eventually there would be fries whenever he liked, and more time alone and unmonitored with Isabella… but only after several more excruciating weeks.
He would endure it, just for her.
And for his mum. Obviously.
With this in mind, James reluctantly agreed to go through with the bizarre one-on-one date they'd arranged with Lucinda "He didn't remember enough about her to give her a nickname" Zheng. Not that he really had a choice in agreeing. And not that he didn't bitch and moan about it the whole time. But he did it.
And technically he could have ruined the set-up by telling her about what was really going on.
Rita had got it in her head that James was a "bloke who liked a laugh," which was technically true but did not need to be said in such a menacing way.
The showrunners had decided to gauge Lucinda's suitability for James by tricking her into thinking she and James were going to a cooking class. At one point James left her alone in a back office while he had to go "talk to Rita," and then when Rita and the cooking class's organizer returned without James, the organizer "couldn't find his solid gold paperweight" on his desk. He immediately accused Lucinda of taking it.
James watched this cruel and stupid "prank" from a hidden camera while Rita backed up the organizer.
When Lucinda's eyes welled with tears, James wrestled his way out of another producer's restraining grip.
At the same time, Rita gave up on the prank and called James back in.
"I'm so, so sorry," he immediately blurted. He picked up Lucinda's hand. "That was really uncalled for."
Lucinda sniffled and squeezed James's hand. "I thought being on this show would be a bit of fun, you know? Not—not like this."
James glared at Rita, who stood out of the hidden camera's shot. She smirked and pulled a rose out of the organizer's desk drawer.
Conniving bitch.
James stormed over, snatched the rose from her, and returned to shove it toward Lucinda. "There's no way I'm sending you home for being upset about false accusations of thievery."
Lucinda eyed the rose cautiously. "That's very sweet of you."
Rita clucked her tongue. "James, you have to ask her if she's willing to accept the rose."
He spun around toward her and demanded, "Seriously?"
Rita raised her eyebrow. "You know I don't joke about my show."
James gritted his teeth and turned back to Lucinda. "Will you accept this rose?"
Lucinda's tongue peeked out over her bottom lip, and then retreated. "The thing is, James, I don't… I don't think I like being on a show that would treat women this way."
"I definitely don't," he told her. "But you're lucky enough to have a 'get out of jail free card,' and I don't blame you if you take it."
He dropped the rose onto the floor because fuck this nonsense anyway, and instead opened his arms to Lucinda in the offer of a hug.
She stepped in and took it.
"Cheers," she whispered in his ear. "I'm gonna get so many sympathy follows."
James didn't follow her follow talk, but it didn't matter. Lucinda was free, the lucky bird.
James, on the other hand, was trapped.
He did get his mum to agree that this "date" was over the line, and she coerced Rita into agreeing that there wouldn't be anything like it in the future. The next day, though, he wished he'd instead got a "no humiliating the girls or James" handshake deal instead.
"Oh, no," he said when he arrived at the group date location. "No no no no no."
Sirius was grinning maniacally. Remus, the traitor, looked vaguely amused. Peter was working, but when he spared a moment to come over, he told James he was dead jealous.
"You get to be so close to all these beautiful women," Peter said, gesturing at the posters lining the studio walls. They all featured stunning women embracing often-shirtless, muscle-covered men.
These posters would give all these girls expectations about what his chest should look like. High expectations. Expectations like that he'd be able to lift them over himself Dirty-Dancing style, when he couldn't even do a pull-up or dirty dance.
The set of double-doors across the room opened to reveal the nine remaining contestants, Helena naturally at the front greedily searching for James.
"Ladies," Sirius said, sweeping around to them with his arms wide open. "Welcome to the romance novel photo shoot."
"I just bet that James could lift me over his head," said Beatrice dreamily, loudly, and while James was most certainly within earshot. "Dirty-Dancing style."
She adjusted the skirts of her ridiculous milkmaid dress and tapped Lily gently on the arm with three fingers, to indicate that what she'd meant was, "no, he definitely bloody couldn't, not with those twiglet arms," and Lily had to bite back a laugh.
It was their code, hers and Bea's. They'd worked it out on their second night in the castle, when it became clear that they both needed an outlet for their feelings and thoughts. Particularly when said feelings and thoughts prompted a deeply-ingrained need to be sarcastic, or to make fun of the people around them, because it happened far too frequently for both of them to keep biting their tongues.
Aside from when Helena got on their case. Neither of them were shy about telling her where to go—one couldn't be, or Helena would pounce, sensing weakness. Lily often found herself wondering why James didn't just bite the bullet and ask her to get a hold of herself, as it was clear from his limited interactions with the group that the only person he disliked more than Helena was Rita Skeeter. Helena had no concern for any of her fellow contestants, but there was a slim chance that she might actually listen to him.
In the meantime, the code was a blessed release.
A three-finger tap was simple—infer the opposite of what I'm saying until further notice. In the event that they were physically separated, scratching one's arm with three fingers worked just as well. On the other end of the scale, if Beatrice were to touch Lily's hair or double-tuck her own, it would be to indicate that she was being serious.
There were times when the code came in especially useful, and there were times when it wasn't needed.
As Lily stared at herself in one of the many floor-length mirrors that were dotted around the room, appalled by the dress they'd put her in for the photoshoot—virginal white, like all the others, yet split almost to the navel, displaying too much cleavage and far too much thigh through a skirt that was practically transparent—she figured that it really wouldn't be necessary to use the code. Beatrice could guess her feelings from the look on her face.
"I look..." Lily began, but couldn't find the words to demonstrate her horror.
"Gorgeous," said Beatrice, and spun her around. "Practice with me, darling."
Lily laughed, out loud this time, as her newest friend took her into her arms. "Practice what?"
"Slavish adoration."
"Not smoldering intensity?"
"A mixture of both would be ideal."
Lily gazed up at the taller woman with all the slavish, smoldering, intense adoration she could possibly muster. "Like this, you handsome hunk?"
Beatrice touched a hand to her cheek. "Chastity, my sweet meadow flower."
"Oh, Raoul," Lily sighed. "You are but a poor, penniless carpenter, and my father says we cannot be together, yet…"
"Come with me to my small woodworking shop, and make love to me on the crafting table." Beatrice's eyes flicked off to the left. "He's looking at you."
Lily's eyes followed Beatrice's, and found James, who was hovering awkwardly by a light rigging while the production set up the next set piece—a long piece of wood that was clearly meant to resemble a dock, covered in tiny candles—in front of a green screen. He was ignoring whatever Helena was screeching in his ear, and, indeed, watching them practice for their respective shoots. He looked away as soon as she caught his gaze.
"He's looking at you," Lily countered, turning her attention back to her friend, "or both of us, whatever. He wouldn't be looking at all if Isabella were still here."
She had to remember to add more resentment to her tone when talking about James's obvious infatuation with Isabella, mindful of the many cameras in the room. Pretending to care was difficult.
Isabella had been the first person up for the shoot, and got the best costume deal in the form of an elegant white ball gown, which James had seemed happy about, at least until the cameras started rolling. Rita had instructed Isabella to fall to her knees, grab him round the waist, and stare up at him as if she was begging him not to leave her. She'd tried her best, but they were both too uncomfortable with the pose to make much headway at all.
To nobody's surprise, she had rushed off to "get changed" after her shoot and hadn't yet resurfaced. Stewing in one's own embarrassment took time.
Lily truly felt for the girl. There was a lot that she was willing to take for the sake of her job, but if Rita dared instruct her to do something so demeaning, even if just for a photograph, she would be hard pressed not to tell everyone involved with this hellish television show—minus Algernon, who found his way to her frequently, prompting many forcible removals and one very confused owner—to go fuck themselves as thoroughly as they possibly could.
Since the disastrous first shoot, James had cycled through two more. Valerie Turpin had spent fifteen minutes with her arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind, while he and Bonnie Grogan had been set to a pillow fight. That, at least, had seemed like it might be marginally fun, but from what Lily could see, the bachelor hadn't grown a mite more comfortable with the proceedings.
They kept taking his shirt off for the cameras, and he kept shoving it resolutely back on between sets.
"Please," Beatrice scoffed, keeping in character. "I give them one solo date before he goes off Isabella."
"You think?"
"'Course I do. There's nothing really there."
"That's an awfully confident assessment of the situation, Raoul."
Beatrice shrugged, and for a moment, Lily couldn't gauge if she was serious or not. "I can always tell."
"Lily?" Rita called from near the photographer, peering at the clipboard in her hand from behind her bejeweled spectacles. "You're up! Shirt off, James."
Lily would have groaned, but that would have been too obvious, so she arranged her features into a tight smile and walked over to the makeshift dock that had been set up for her shoot, while a grumbling, stony-faced James pulled his shirt over his head. Sirius, who was sitting off camera with a paper coffee cup in his hand, thoroughly enjoying his friend's humiliation, let out a wolf-whistle.
James did not have a body like the men one normally saw on romance novel covers, which…wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
If she were under oath in a court of law, Lily would admit that she rather preferred a physique like his. Flat stomach. Nice shoulders. Even, brown skin.
If Lily had met him on a beach, or at a swimming pool, or any other location where it was acceptable for a man to walk around shirtless, she might have fancied him.
If he wasn't the bloody bachelor, Lily probably would have fancied him.
"You look great," said Rita as she approached, staring down at her clipboard. Lily doubted that Rita would notice if one of the other girls had walked over in her place.
"You're too kind, really," said Lily sweetly, and tossed James a perfunctory glance when he drew level with her. "Hello."
He scrubbed a hand through his hair. Both the hairstylist for the shoot and Camelia Pinkstone kept encouraging this, and Camelia made cloying, desperate eyes at him whenever he did so.
"Hi," he said, sounding exasperated. "Welcome to hell. Not what we expected, which is probably what we should have expected from, you know, hell."
Rita looked as if she was on the verge of saying something biting, but was called away by the photographer for some reason. After a low growl she took off in that direction, leaving Lily to make small talk.
She hated small talk, especially with James, because everything she felt devilishly compelled to say to him was something that probably would have got her kicked off the show immediately. Given his current mood, and his complete disinclination to act like any other bachelor in history and make so much as a passing attempt at charm, it seemed as if it wouldn't take much to cause him offence.
"How's my best friend doing?" she eventually settled on. His cat's inexplicable love for her had become something of a talking point in the house, particularly since Algernon despised almost every other girl in the competition.
James crossed his arms. "Not bringing me a sandwich as I asked. That's how he's doing."
Great. Now she was thinking about sandwiches.
Rita insisted that the girls eat only fruit and porridge for breakfast, so that was what they were given.
Maybe she could pretend that James was a bacon sandwich during the photoshoot, so as to best embody the lustful gaze that Rita seemed so desperate for the girls to adopt.
"That's—" Batshit insane. Selfish. An illogical demand to make of a creature that did not have opposable thumbs. Not for the first time, she wished that she could take Algernon off his hands. "Actually, he brought me a couple of flowers from the garden yesterday. Maybe he decided he was done with fetching after that."
"And you didn't even have to ask?"
She stared at him, but Rita spared her from thinking of a polite response—which here meant anything other than "how often were you dropped on the head as a child?"—by abruptly returning and seizing Lily's arm, her long, claw-like fingernails digging so powerfully into her skin that puncture wounds seemed like a genuine possibility.
"You, here," she instructed, ignoring Lily's yelp of pain. She practically forced her into a seated position on a candle-free stretch of the fake deck, her legs curling away to the right and her body turned to the left, leaning on her left hand. "Stay like that. Exactly like that." Rita straightened up, crooked a finger at James, then pointed to the spot to the left of Lily. "And you, sit here. Facing her. Same pose."
James muttered something indistinguishable under his breath, but if he'd ever had the fight required to go toe-to-toe with her, it must have recently left his body. He moved to follow her instructions, dropping to the ground next to her as if exhausted.
Rita ignored his unhappiness completely and stepped back to survey the scene, while the photographer lined himself up to start taking shots.
"Hmm," Rita said, cocking one head to the side. "Put your hand on hers."
James did, though not without an irritated sigh to indicate his displeasure. So much for being charming. Who knew the prospect of touching her would be so taxing?
Also, his hand felt about 100 degrees.
Lily was painfully aware of just how much of her body had been put on display by this stupid dress.
This was the stupidest bloody thing she had ever done in her life.
"No, move it a bit. It looks unnatural, just lying on top of hers like that," Rita declared, and the uncomfortably warm pressure shifted very slightly. "Your heads should be much closer together, and you should be looking at each other as if you're madly in love and about to kiss, not at me or the camera."
It was Lily's turn for an irritated sigh, but she had the self-control required to keep it to herself. Acutely aware that Beatrice was watching, and would certainly tease her later, she turned her head and looked at James.
They were already much too close for her liking, with only a couple of inches between their noses. Lily could make out every detail of his face. She shouldn't have been able to do that.
She remembered, with quite a lot of resentment, that Isabella, Bonnie, and Valerie hadn't needed to get nearly this close to his face.
"Not close enough," said Rita. "You know what, perhaps the two of you should just kiss—"
"No!" cried Lily loudly—so loudly that James was visibly startled—and without thinking. Rita's eyebrows traveled swiftly up to her over-bleached hairline. "I…don't like kissing people on camera?"
What a preposterous thing to say, given the nature of the show she was on.
"That won't be necessary," said Euphemia, who had strolled over and came to a neat stop next to Rita. Bonnie had said she was James's mum, and there was admittedly some resemblance, but no grown man would allow his mum to watch him fail miserably at charming a dozen women.
James started to draw his hand off of Lily's until Euphemia added, in a calm but subtly threatening way, "Don't you dare move, dear. Give it your best effort."
James grimaced and faced Lily. "The things we do for love," he muttered.
Lily's journalistic instinct was to ask him to say more about that, but then he put on what he must have considered to be a very intense, adoring look…that in fact looked more like he had just eaten some Chinese food that he only now realized was extremely questionable.
She didn't think she could have held in her laughter even if she️'d had more warning. It burst out of her in a high-pitched squeal, and she had to duck her head for the sake of politeness, the hand that wasn't on the ground and covered by his jumping up to shield her face.
"Evans!" Rita angrily screeched, like a teacher who had caught her writing notes in the back of class.
"I'm sorry!" Lily tried to respond, but it came out like a wail, because she was still laughing, the image of that ridiculous face he'd made apparently burned on the back of her eyelids. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—" She looked up at him again, noted his dumbfounded expression, and felt another knot of mirth swell up in her throat. "You look so stupid."
To her surprise, he let out a laugh. "Deepest apologies that I haven't mastered the art of lustily gazing into a stranger's eyes. It's on my to-do list, right after solving world hunger and finding a way to make sure people put the toilet roll on the right direction."
"Is that why you've had to come on the show?" she asked him, still giggling. Her cheeks were starting to warm. "Because you look at women like that, and it scares the crap out of them, so this is your last resort?"
"Mastering this is my duty as a man," he said solemnly.
His put-on seriousness only made her laugh more. "And here I thought for a moment that I'd disgusted you. It's good to know that you're just chronically bad with women."
Rita cleared her throat, prompting Lily's attention. The older woman glared pointedly at James from behind her sparkling spectacles. A vein was pulsing in her neck.
"Are you two quite finished acting like children?" she asked them icily.
Lily clamped her lips together to keep her laughter contained within her chest.
James grinned at her. "I think if we don't play along soon I'm going to turn up murdered in the morning. Help me out, yeah?"
"I'm so sorry," she said, with the briefest, most insincere apologetic look for Rita, and turned her attention back to James, returning his grin. He was kind of decent, when he wasn't in a sulk. "I can help you out by taking care of Algernon after your untimely passing?"
"Generous offer. I've been expecting my mum over there to do it, but you two could have a competition where he judges and decides who to live with—" He stopped and blanched. "Oh fuck. I've just invented the cat version of this show."
Lily let out another peal of laughter.
"Language!" Rita cried, and actually swatted the back of his head. Like he was a fly, or like she lived in a country where assault wasn't that big of a deal. It was a wonder his mother didn't leap to his defense, but she had wandered off to stand behind the camera and, Lily assumed, look at some proofs. "I need you both to take this seriously, or so help me, I'll—"
"Actually, Rita?" called the photographer—Lily had heard Rita refer to him as Bozo, but she hoped that it was a cruel nickname, not an actual, legal name that had been foisted upon him by even crueler parents—waving her over from behind his camera. "Come and take a look at these."
Rita snarled under her breath and pointed a stern finger at James. "I've got my eye on you," she warned, before turning on her heel and stomping off to see whatever it was that Bozo found so fascinating.
"If she does murder you, mate," said Lily to James, quietly, her amusement still clear in her voice, "I'll do my best to shove her out a window. That's what casual acquaintances are for, yeah?"
He winked at her. Or rather, he tried to wink but really just squeezed one side of his face to close one eye, while the other barely stayed open. "Cheers."
That made her laugh, again, for what seemed like the tenth time in a minute, because he was so weird, and that—especially considering the fact that he'd found her under a table on her first night—was the most unexpected development she had encountered so far. The men on these shows were usually so smooth, but James was positively dorky in comparison.
And, halt the presses, pretty bloody charming, when he felt like it.
"That's all, dear!" called Euphemia, now James's mother confirmed, from her spot next to Bozo. "You're all finished."
Lily tore her eyes from the ridiculous winking man before her to look at Euphemia, a slight frown creasing her forehead. "What—"
"We got the shots we needed," said Rita, though she sounded desperately unhappy about it.
"They're beautiful," said Euphemia proudly, and gave them both a thumbs up. "Nice and natural, for once!"
"Small miracles," put in Rita.
Lily could have jumped for joy. Somehow, she had been spared the indignity of an awkward and distinctly un-sexy spectacle, forever immortalized on film. "Oh."
"You can let her hand go now, James," said his mother.
He yanked his hand back from hers, then gave a shy smile. "Or, er. Yeah. Right. Ah, congrats on being done, Lily. Pet Algernon for me when you get the chance. He likes it best when you scratch his left ear, although he also likes to keep the attention mostly balanced between his ears."
"I already know that. What do you think I am, an amateur?" she replied with a comical roll of her eyes, and hopped to her feet. "I quite fancy a nap, actually. Oi, Rita?" Their scowling director looked over at the sound of her voice. "Can I go for a nap, please?"
"No."
"Well, I'm going for one anyway," she stubbornly retorted, and gave a still-sitting James a lazy wave. "Have fun with the rest of your shoots."
He didn't say anything else, but waved back, looking extremely pained by the prospect. For a moment she felt a warm, quasi-affectionate ember of pity stirring in the pit of her stomach. His overall discomfort was becoming increasingly more apparent as the show went on, and it wasn't particularly pleasant to witness. He clearly didn't want to be there. No sane man would want to spend an afternoon acting like Fabio Lanzoni.
On the other hand, he was also staying in a luxury suite while she and the other girls were consigned to the servants' quarters.
And he had an awesome cat.
In any case, there was nothing that Lily could do to save him from the fate he'd chosen, so she turned and left before Rita could change her mind.
Perhaps she could bring Algernon along for her nap.
After the photoshoot that would be James's nightmare fodder for years to come, he tried three times to talk to his mum or any of his mates alone. But Rita and the other show staff might as well have thrown him in a cellar and locked the door, they were such masters of intervening whenever he tried to express what he was really thinking and feeling to someone he trusted.
It wasn't because the staff adored his company. In fact, whenever they weren't actively filming or lighting him, most of the crew treated him like he was Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense, only James didn't have a single sixth-sensed person to communicate with. Even Peter, dutiful and obedient as ever, always flicked scared eyes at Rita and said he couldn't be with James alone.
Which was the whole point, of course: to get James to reveal himself on camera.
After all the girls had left, Rita plopped him on a stool in front of the last photo set. It wasn't a backdrop he'd be keen to remember. He'd had to spend more than twenty minutes dipping Charlene "Leather Dress" Stebbins in front of a beach background because he kept accidentally dropping her.
"Right," Rita said, looking at her list. "Tell us about your last shoot with Charlene."
Unfortunately, the reality show staff knew what they were doing by isolating him—his thoughts slipped out more often than he'd have liked.
James mumbled his way through an answer about how Charlene had taken the dropping relatively well. She'd looked pretty peeved by the sixth time, but he couldn't blame her. No one had asked him if he could hold a woman in that position for longer than a few seconds.
He also inadvertently let on that he'd been frustrated with Wendy "Magic Mirror" Wilde because she'd kept stopping to fuss with the curls around her face, and then how her dress neckline lay on her chest, and then how tight her boots were laced. The camera had probably picked up on the few eye rolls he hadn't been able to suppress at the time.
Then he got too close to calling Camelia "Wandering Hands" Pinkstone aloud by his mental nickname. Instead he changed tactics mid-stream and called her "Wandering...Eyes," which was only a slight improvement.
Worst, he came too close to admitting how much he liked Isabella. She'd been cheery for the first couple minutes of the shoot, and had actually started to put him at ease, but then they'd gone and forced her to put her head directly in front of his crotch. No matter how much he liked her, she'd only known him a few days. It had taken a lot of calming looks from his mum in the distance to keep him from pushing Isabella away out of sheer discomfort.
Thankfully he was allowed to snag her first at the cocktail party the next night.
"I'm so sorry about the shoot," he said once they'd sat down in the admittedly gorgeous, ivy-covered grotto in the back garden. "That was dead uncomfortable for me, too."
She smiled at him, as she often did, and it hadn't once failed to win a smile out of him in return. "It's all right. It's not like you chose that, either."
"No. No, I absolutely didn't and wouldn't have."
She picked up his hand and laid his palm over hers, twining her fingers through his. "Sometimes people like James Bond end up doing things they don't necessarily want to because of the circumstances."
James couldn't think of an example from any of the movies, but he ignored it. "Thanks for being understanding. I get why you ran off at the end."
"You're so sweet." She squeezed his hand. "I feel like you really get me, you know?"
"Yeah. Yeah," he said, his heart thumping happily, "I feel like you get me, too."
"I never thought—I mean, obviously I signed up for this show, but I guess...seeing people on the other versions make such an instant connection, I thought it might have been staged."
"Possibly." James had never seen an episode, truthfully. "But I'm not—I'm not really great at faking that sort of thing."
She leaned in, resting her head on his shoulder. "Me neither."
He could have stayed there in that fairy-lit grotto for the rest of the night, the next few days, and then a few more for good measure. She just made him feel…calm. Being around her was easy.
Of course their time together couldn't last, though. He had eight other women to see tonight.
Because Rita had a deep and obvious masochistic streak, she made him talk to Helena next.
Helena spent their time together fawning over his "stunning physique," and repeatedly stressing how natural it had felt to lay on a Regency-era bed, with her corset half undone and a shirtless James straddling her waist.
In at least half the pictures, he was certain he'd be accidentally staring at her chest. She'd kept shifting around, seemingly to make them jiggle.
In all of them, he was sure to look nauseated.
From there he had a decent conversation about careers with Bonnie "Irish Dancer" Grogan, a terrific one with Beatrice "Careless Whisper" Booth about the bakery her parents owned, and a less interesting and more one-sided one with Valerie "Few Words" Turpin (in which he continued to do most of the nervous rambling).
After that, Rita "encouraged" him to take Lily out by the era-inappropriate pool someone had installed. They settled in on the only pillow-laden loveseat amongst the many lounge chairs.
At least this conversation wouldn't be exhausting. She'd actually been right fun at the shoot, although they'd had a much less intimate pose than the others.
He let himself sink back into the oversized pillows and exhaled deeply. "You doing alright, Evans?"
"Hmm?" Lily's gaze had been drawn to one of the large bay windows at the back of the castle, and following it, he saw Beatrice, who had pressed herself against the glass and was making faces at her. "Yeah, sorry." Her eyes flicked back to the window again, and she suppressed a laugh. "I'm great, thank you."
He smiled. "You and Beatrice friends, then?"
"I love her," said Lily warmly, "which sounds like hyperbole, I know, and everyone but Helena is lovely, but I already know that she'll be the one person I keep in touch with after this is all done."
"I know what you mean," he sighed happily.
"I feel like she's the only person I can be myself around, you know?" Lily continued, waving at the window. Beatrice blew her an airy kiss. "She's funny, and she's wicked smart, and, okay, I'm biased, but definitely the prettiest girl in this house." She paused for a moment. "God, I'm starting to sound like I'm in love with her."
"That would be the best twist, actually, so if that's how it's going I say go for it."
"I mean, I would, but I'm already planning to run away with the true love of my life, Algernon," she said, and laughed. "And I've been cursed to find men attractive, which is just the worst, honestly."
"It's true. People attracted to women have really got the better end of things. Women are just…" He thought of the way Isabella had fitted so nicely to his side earlier, and been sweet and understanding and genuine. Women made close friends of each other in a way most men didn't and were generally dead supportive of each other, unlike James's traitorous friends who savored his current torture. There weren't words for how great women were, but James had to finish his thought so he added lamely, "They're brilliant."
"Except Rita, which I can say, because they can't air it," said Lily dryly. And then, with a burst of fervor he hadn't expected, she added, "The way she treats you really pisses me off, you know. Someone ought to teach her a lesson."
James's chest filled with warmth. Finally, someone was on his side. Someone had the guts to say it, and with Rita right there, too.
Lily Evans had been one of the most attractive girls from the start, with those stunning eyes and that smile that seemed to keep taunting him to keep up with her.
He could have just said "thank you," but she would match him if he went one better.
He nicked his head toward the producer stalking toward them from the other side of the pool. "As Rita is right behind you, and she knows where I live now and in general, I am obligated to say 'no comment.'" Then he said, with true conviction, "And thank you."
"No problem." She smiled at him, then landed a soft, friendly pat on his hand. "We all need mates, right? Even super handsome bachelors with scores of women fighting over them. Plus, I'm counting on you to keep me and Bea together for as long as you possibly can."
He double-blinked when she called him super handsome. She probably meant it as a joke.
He gestured at the two cameras, which pointed directly at them from about ten feet away, the pool light reflecting in their lenses. "You're sure you want to stick around for this?"
"You forget," she said, and pointed to the house, or really, at Algernon, who had slipped outside and was perched by the patio door, watching them both expectantly, "I met the love of my life on day one, and speaking of…"
She climbed to her feet and shot a tight smile at Rita, who stopped by the loveseat, looking furious.
"I heard that," said Rita coldly. "You need to start watching your mouth, girl."
"Deeply sorry, your highness. I'll go think on my sins now," Lily sweetly replied with a neat curtsy, then turned on her heel and gestured for the cat to join her. "Come along, darling. Rita needs privacy to torture your human."
Algernon darted over at once—already more obedient for Lily than he ever had been for James—and she scooped him up in her arms. He settled against her chest with the happiest of purrs.
"Bye, Potter," she called over her shoulder, retreating towards the house. She spun in an elegant little circle right before she reached the patio doors, then disappeared inside.
As much of a horror as it was being on this show, at least he'd met some fantastic women in the process. Not just Isabella, but Beatrice and Bonnie and Lily. They were lovely and nice and fun to be around. Lily in particular was dead clever and funny.
While Rita scolded him, he debated sending Lily home during the ceremony because she was too good for this place.
That said, she could leave whenever she felt like it. And he would never force a girl to do something she didn't want to do, even if he didn't understand why the hell someone would voluntarily stay in proximity to people like Helena and Rita.
Then again, he thought as he watched Lily and Algernon appear beside Beatrice in the window, some people were definitely worth sticking around for.
"I've got eyes on him," said Beatrice urgently, and grabbed Lily by the elbow to spin her around, evidently not caring that she was mid-conversation with Wendy and Charlene. "Grand piano, right ahead."
Thankfully, the champagne glass Lily was holding was empty, as she had elected to indulge in a tipple that evening, albeit lightly. Had it been full, her favorite blue dress would have been sadly ruined.
"Careful!" she scolded. "You can't just pull me away from conversations, it'll look suspicious."
"Why? We're not doing anything wrong."
"Great. You can explain that to Rita when you see her."
"Forget Rita for now. Eyes on the prize, Evans."
"Eyes on the prize," Lily softly repeated, setting her empty glass on the mantle of the ornate fireplace they were gathered beside. It wouldn't do to waste such a rare opportunity to snag a moment alone with the man she needed to see. "Let's go."
With a quick goodbye to Wendy and Charlene, she and Beatrice breezed across the room, nodding at one another as if engaged in a fascinating conversation and throwing in a few tinkling laughs, here and there. No subterfuge here. Scheme-free zone. Zero shenanigans afoot. Rita and most of the crew were focused on the fit Helena was throwing over how grim James looked in their cover shoot. This was Lily's and Beatrice's best shot at achieving their goal.
Beatrice was right: they technically weren't doing anything that wasn't allowed, but Rita would have taken some issue with it. Rita took some issue with everything.
Luckily, she and Bea had gotten quite good at playing along with all of the nonsense, especially since they had both found such a capable scene partner in the other.
When they drew near to the piano—which Lily was itching to play, but not with ten cameras pointed at her head—they split off to either side and converged around their mark, each approaching him with the same adoring, blatantly false smile.
"Peter," said Lily.
"Peter," Beatrice seconded. "Looking foxy today, I see."
Peter, the show's gaffer, also known as Scrimgeour's inside accomplice and Lily's phone smuggler, nearly dropped the clipboard he was holding.
"Hel—hello, ladies," he said, looking from one to the other like a frightened mouse. Lily had learned from the moment she met Peter, thanks in no small part to his bright red face and nervous squeaking, that he went a little to pieces around women. It was most unfortunate for him, but worked to her advantage in this case.
Not that she would normally condone such subtle manipulations, but tonight's buffet table had pushed her and Beatrice to their respective limits.
"Pete, sweetheart," she began, "do you think you could do us a favor?"
"A really tiny favor?" said Beatrice.
"We'd be ever so grateful."
"Incredibly grateful."
"More grateful than you could ever imagine."
"I could—okay," said Peter, looking dazed. "What do you need?"
Lily smiled brightly at him, and tucked a loose curl behind her ear. "You're an angel, honestly. Do you think you could order us some food?"
Peter's eyes strayed towards the buffet table. "But—"
"Nice food," Beatrice clarified. "Not wilting lettuce. We're not rabbits."
"We were thinking about McDonald's," said Lily. "You've got Uber Eats on your phone, right?"
Peter nodded. That dazed expression still hadn't left his face.
"Great," she carried on. "Now, I can't possibly explain how I know this, but it just so happens that the McDonald's near here does deliver via Uber Eats, and as you know, we're not in possession of our phones—"
"Two sad, phone-less girls, we are."
"—and I'd be ever so grateful if you could order me a Chicken Legend with spicy mayo, in a meal, with a large Coke."
"Two large Cokes," said Beatrice. "And a cheeseburger. No, two cheeseburgers. I could go for two."
"And a chicken nugget share box."
"Oh, I almost forgot the share box!"
"Right," said Peter blandly. "Right."
"Once I get kicked off the show and can actually have my things again, I'll pay you back for it," Lily promised, landing the tips of her fingers briefly on his arm to demonstrate the sincerity of this vow. "Do you need us to repeat that?"
"Oh, no, I think I've got it," said Peter. "Two cheeseburgers, one Chicken Legend meal with spicy mayo, a chicken nugget box, and two large Cokes, right?" He looked from Lily to Beatrice, then back again. "Anything else?"
"No," said Lily, but then added, "Actually, yes. Could you also get a large fries on their own?"
"Fries come with your meal," said Beatrice.
"I know that," she said, vexed and confused to find herself feeling uncomfortably warm in the face. "They're for James, not me."
Beatrice immediately adopted a knowing expression. "Ooh la, really? What prompted this?"
Lily delicately ignored her tone. "He's having a rough time, I think," she explained, "and anyway, he asked me for them."
"When did he ask?"
"Back when—" Lily started, then stopped, unwilling to explain the whole conversation they'd had on the first night. "I dunno, a while ago, doesn't matter. I'm just trying to be nice."
"I think you're nice," said Peter hopefully.
"Sure," said Beatrice, and waved him away. "Can you put that order in now? Thanks a bunch, mate."
Peter took out his phone and strolled off while Lily cocked an eyebrow at Beatrice. A slow and deeply amused smile was spreading across her friend's face, and though Lily felt rather inclined to shove her at the wall and tell her to shut up having thoughts that she could read, that would have been unduly childish, and incriminate her, besides.
Incriminate her…for having a crush on a bloke she was supposed to be pretending to fancy, a crime she wasn't even guilty of in the first place.
She'd formed a fondness, though.
A little fondness.
Really, it was merely an inkling of platonic affection, and even that was overshadowed by her professional interest in discovering why he'd ever signed up for the show when it was so clear that he didn't want to be there. It was slowly becoming a point of immense fascination.
Lily had been getting tidbits from the girls over the past few days, and a lot of it was workable, but if she could get something from James—something that might expose an as-of-yet undiscovered, seedy underbelly to the whole thing—that would be the cherry on top of the cake.
She'd seek his consent to publish it, as she had with Beatrice, and Lucinda, while she was packing her things to leave, but something told her that he might not mind slamming Rita and her production once he was safely out of the house.
In the meantime, she could get him some damn fries because he seemed like a nice chap, and he deserved a bit of kindness.
Lily could freely admit to liking him, and had done so earlier that very evening, in one of the stupid confession-cam sessions that Rita forced her into. For the sake of maintaining her thin ruse, she'd left the "as a friend" part out of her confessional, focusing mostly on the nice conversations they'd been having, and just a little bit on his hair (which was fantastic).
Evidently, she'd done too good a job at sounding infatuated, for Rita had "encouraged" her to start interrupting his conversations with other girls, while Beatrice was now having "inklings" that Lily and James "had something between them."
"See?!" Bea had cried out, shortly before the cocktail party had begun, when the nine remaining girls were ushered into the room to find that the best shot from each individual contestant's shoot had been blown up and positioned on easels. "Yours is easily the best photo—"
That would have been impossible to argue down. She and James had taken the best photo of the day, but only because theirs was a candid shot, taken by Bozo when both of them were laughing at the stupidity of it all. Every other picture was so awkwardly posed.
"—and I think you two have got chemistry," Beatrice had concluded, even though Isabella had been standing mere feet away, overheard the whole thing, and was visibly bothered by it.
Rita had cackled.
Meanwhile, Lily had felt compelled to apologize at once, but Beatrice had not, pointing out that they were all in the same boat, and that Isabella had known what she was signing up for when she'd joined the show. It was lucky that James made a beeline for Isabella as soon as he arrived at the party, putting the lovestruck girl at ease. Lily was in no mood for her to overhear any other bits of conversation that might upset her.
Isabella was sweet, though a little less fun than Beatrice and Bonnie. She didn't deserve to have her feelings messed with by Rita, or by anyone else.
"Let's go back to the others," Lily said to avoid any further ribbing on the matter. "I want to hear Charlene finish her story about the Norwegian leather industry."
As it happened, the inner workings of the Norwegian leather industry prompted far more explanation than Lily and Beatrice had expected. Charlene's love of motorcycles and anything related, including the source of her motorcycle gear, far exceeded any passion Lily had ever had in her life. She was still cycling through the details of a specific tanning method when Peter appeared in the room with two large brown paper bags in his arms, beckoning to Lily and Beatrice to join him in the corner. It was quite a relief to escape her rambling tale for the sake of getting a McDonald's. Lily regretted encouraging Charlene to talk about it in the first place.
"Amazing, Peter," she said, once the gaffer had deposited their food into her loving embrace. "You're a superstar."
"The absolute best," said Beatrice thickly, having already shoved a chicken nugget into her mouth.
Peter beamed with pride.
"Could you take this from me and bring it to the nearest available flat surface?" Lily asked Beatrice, shifting everything but one carton of fries into her friend's arms. James was outside, stuck in the grotto with Helena, who knew how to cling to an unwilling victim better than a leech to an open wound. "I just need to give these to James."
She felt oddly excited by the prospect of surprising him.
It was probably her nature speaking. She loved buying gifts for people, even if the best she could muster in her luxurious prison was cheap junk food that she'd have to spot Peter for later.
Happily, Lily got to fully enjoy the experience of surprising her new almost-friend with what she hoped were his long-coveted fries. He was sitting with his back to her, so he didn't actually notice that she was there until she was right behind him.
"Hi there!" she sang with an apologetic smile for Helena, who looked utterly disgusted to have been disturbed after cornering James for a second time that night. James turned around at the sound of her voice. "Nice night, isn't it?"
"Lily," said James, looking up at her with an expression that said he was in desperate need of rescuing, and she was his only hope. "Hi."
"What do you want?" said Helena icily.
"I'm super sorry to interrupt your lovely chat, but I wanted to deliver these personally," Lily replied, smiling as if she hadn't heard Helena speak. She held out the bright red carton for James to take, and his eyes widened in surprise. "Just, y'know, in case you were hungry."
He blinked at her offering, then sniffed loudly and looked upward. "Dear Santa, this wasn't quite the salvation I asked for, but I appreciate your generosity all the same. I continue to be your humble servant." He brought his gaze down to Lily. "Those are real McDonald's fries, right?"
"No, it's the one ring to rule them all," she said dryly, then laughed, giving the carton a quick shake. "Go on, take them. I promise they're not poisoned."
Helena looked as if she was suffering a severe cardiac arrest.
James took the proffered fries from her and quickly shoved several in his mouth, as though someone were coming to steal them at any second. And from the producer's startled and confused face, it seemed like a definite possibility. Rita's subordinate stood there flipping through paper on a clipboard, as though searching for what to do when one of the contestants sneaked brand name, illicit food to the bachelor.
"This is why women are great," he said through a mouth full of fries. "Fuck men. Women are brilliant."
Lily's cheeks heated. "I just felt like doing something kind."
"Oh sure, you're just being kind," said Helena derisively. Her arms were folded so tightly across her chest that Lily imagined she might discover a need to untangle them like a twisted necklace. "This is my time with him, Evans. Stop encroaching on my territory."
This was such a ludicrous assessment of Lily's behavior that she snorted—loudly, unattractively—and briefly fantasized about grabbing Helena by the back of her dress and throwing her boldly into the pool.
"Bloody hell, calm down, Magellan," she said, to which Helena gasped as if she'd been shot in the chest. James gave a sudden, choked laugh. "I'm not trying to steal him away. I just wanted to drop those off, and now I'm leaving."
She moved to escape what would surely be a violent and tragic death, courtesy of Helena, and return to the castle to enjoy her own well-earned meal, but James's free hand shot out and closed around hers before she could take a step.
"You could stay, if you want." The look in his eyes was so clear and pathetic—Helena is a psycho, I'm terrified, please don't leave me alone with her—that her heart went out to him. "Are you hungry? You're welcome to have no more than half of these." He looked down. "I might've eaten half already, though, so you can have a quarter of them—"
"What about me?" Helena yelped, at the same time Lily said, "I've got my own food, actually, so I don't—"
"Do you want to bring it over here?" he said to Lily.
"No, honestly, it's fine, I wouldn't want to inter—"
"Five minutes to the ceremony, mate," said Sirius, who had appeared on the scene, clad in a dark grey suit. "Rita wants you to go—where did you get fries?"
"From the depths of hell where you left me," said James. He nodded at Lily. "From my new best mate, of course. Easier to fill your overly large shoes than you expected, eh?"
"Oh, right," said Sirius, squinting at all three of them in the fading evening light. "Is that why you're holding hands?"
James dropped Lily's hand as if it had scalded him.
"I assume he needs to go and 'decide' who he's booting out, right?" said Lily to Sirius, who let out a sharp laugh. She decided to take that as confirmation of her theory that James had little to no real control, and pointed a warning finger at his fries. "Bring those with you, eat them right in front of her face, and if she tries to take them away, tell me and I'll start plotting a long and complicated revenge."
He stared at her in awe. "Aye aye, captain." Then he shoved another handful of fries into his mouth and stood up. "Tragic to cut this short," he said to a speechless-with-rage Helena, "but a higher duty calls. Not Santa, unfortunately." Then he added, seemingly to himself, "If only."
Sirius loped an arm around his shoulder and started drawing him away. "We've talked about this, mate—you're too tall for an elf."
James cast a last smile over his shoulder at Lily as they walked toward the castle.
"Well," said Helena loftily, interrupting Lily's half-formed thought about how cute it was that James was a fully grown man who still talked to Santa, "I would have expected this behavior from the others, but not from you."
Lily rolled her eyes. "Will you shut up if I split my chicken nuggets with you?"
Helena thought about this for a moment. "Yes."
"Come on, then," she wearily instructed, and led the way back into the house, where she found her dinner on the coffee table. Beatrice was sitting on the floor with Remus, laughing uproariously at whatever he had just been saying.
Her hand was resting on his forearm.
Trust Beatrice to try to pick up one of the hosts of the show on camera.
"There you are!" she cried gaily, waving a nugget in the air. "Is James in love with you yet?"
Lily felt Helena tense beside her, and ignored it. "Eat fast," she advised, dropping to the floor. "Ceremony is in five."
"On that note, I should go and get ready," said Remus. He stood up and dusted salt off his trousers. "Lovely speaking with you, Beatrice."
"You too."
"And thank you for the nuggets," he added, before heading out of the room.
Lily gaped at her. "You gave him some of our nuggets?"
"I was just being polite!" Beatrice retorted, and tapped Lily's arm with three fingers, though it wasn't necessary when the reasoning behind her decision was so blatantly obvious. She jerked her head towards Helena. "What's she doing with you?"
"Lily said I could have some of her nuggets," said Helena.
"Hypocrite!" Beatrice cried.
"I was buying her silence," Lily protested, reaching for some fries of her own. "Bugger off."
When James was brought back into the room to begin the ceremony, wearing a veneer of cheerful cordiality that did a poor job of hiding his obvious anger, Lily could tell instantly that he'd been argued down on something. Her suspicions were proved correct as soon as the ceremony started, for Helena became the first girl of the night to receive a rose.
Tragically, or hilariously, Helena was not aware of the large ketchup stain on the front of her dress when she walked up to collect it, but Lily knew that the cameras were.
In the end, and because Lucinda Zheng's abrupt departure earlier in the week dictated that only one girl be eliminated, instead of the planned-for two, it was Camelia Pinkstone who got the chop. Lily was called up for a rose after Isabella and before Beatrice, and couldn't help but feel a little pleased to receive a far warmer offer, and smile, than the one he'd given Helena.
"I mean, I'd prefer some fries, if you have any," she told him, once he asked her to accept the rose, and took it from his outstretched hand, "but if this is the best you can do, then sure."
He laughed at that, and she smiled in response.
He was a good guy, this James Potter. Not a puffed-up product of the patriarchy, as she had so thoughtlessly assumed, before she'd taken the time to know him a little. She'd been entirely wrong about that. James was a dork. A sweetheart. Surprisingly easy to talk to. A mate.
Maybe Beatrice wasn't the only person she'd want to keep in touch with, once this was all over.