“I don’t think the other girls will hang around.” Jemma turned her legs to one side, attempting to figure out her best angles beneath the studio lighting. “I’m sure you’ve been listening to what the other girls had to say.”
“Yes. I heard them.”
“Do you have a response?”
Lexie gave them the smile she’d always reserved for church. The I’m-bursting-with-God’s-holy-love smile. “I understand they’re upset. We all went on the show to find love, and rejection is never easy. Some people strike out at others instead of dealing constructively with their own disappointment.”
“You shouldn’t have been allowed on the show,” Davina from Scottsdale said. “You obviously weren’t there to find love like the rest of us.”
Lexie turned up her smile instead of rolling her eyes. Davina was an actress and had figured reality television would make her a star. A chance that was as fat as her head. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“God, I’d like to smack that smile off your face,” Davina added, followed by a smattering of applause that Lexie couldn’t ignore.
“No one is getting up from their seats,” Jemma warned. “Violence is never the answer.”
Lexie straightened her little dog’s pinafore. “Yum Yum is a pacifist. So am I.”
“You’re a sneaky liar!” Mandy from Wooster pointed at her.
“You think you’re better than all of us,” Desiree from Jersey said, triggering full-on tirades from the other girls on the set.
“You spent most of your time on the pig phone.”
“You stole my lip chap!” Whitney from Paducah claimed, and the audience howled with laughter.
Oh God, not Lip Chap–Gate, again. Whitney’s Chap Stick had gone missing around week three and she’d turned it into a huge ordeal. As if it was worth a million dollars instead of costing around two bucks.
“You told Jody I walk like a poodle. What the hell does that mean?”
“Well, it—” Lexie tried to explain but was interrupted by Jenny from Salem, who pointed at her. “You tripped me in the chicken-and-egg contest. That’s the only reason you won.” Jenny scooted to the edge of the bale. “I should have gone on that hayride date with Cindy Lee and Pete. Not you.”
“I didn’t trip you.” That wasn’t an outright fib. She just hadn’t tried to trip her. “Your running in five-inch wedges through a chicken coop tripped you up.”
“Speaking of the chicken coop challenge, you all had your share of trips and falls.” Jemma pointed at a big overhead television. “Let’s take a look.”
On the screen ran a montage of various challenges, starting with the pig chase and ending with Lexie winning the obstacle course, pumping her fist in the air and hotdogging the hell out of it. “Booya, suckers!” she said into the camera as the other girls struggled to get over the last wall.
The lights came up, and Lexie shrugged. “Perhaps I am guilty of excessive celebration.”
“Lexie and Pete will come face to face for the first time since the ring ceremony.” Jemma smiled into the camera. “We’ll be right back.”
A red light signaled the commercial break, and the makeup artist appeared to reapply Lexie’s lipstick. The cast gave her evil looks as they vacated the hay bales, and Pete took the wheelbarrow chair on Jemma’s left. Lexie glanced at his face but couldn’t tell if he was going to play the part of the wounded groom or get real.
“We’re back with Pete Dalton. Welcome back, Pete. How does it feel seeing Lexie again?”
This was the moment where he either manned up or threw her under the bus again. “You look nice,” he said.
“Thank you. You look good, Pete,” she said, which was true. Blond streaks in his hair made him look like a surfer.
“What do you feel now that you see Pete again?”
Relief. Joy. A bit of guilt. “That we experienced something unique together, but it didn’t work out.”
“Did you ever think you were in love with Pete?”
“At the time, yes. I was caught up in the show.” She put a hand on her chest, then motioned toward Pete. “I think we were all caught up in it, but once I went back to my real life, reality hit me and I realized that it takes more than ten weeks, and half that many dates, to know a person well enough to fall in love. Let alone get married.”
“What d