Bedroom Games
Page 14

“Right.” Liam rubbed his hair and gave us that quiet smile that told me he was acutely uncomfortable being in the spotlight. “I have to pick a team to nominate for eviction. Katy and I thought long and hard about this.” He glanced down at his blonde partner, who gave him a small little smile as if sharing a secret. He winked at her, and then he turned back to us. “In the end, we decided to just go with what we thought was fair for everyone, and picked the team that came in last in the reward challenge.”
At my side on the couch, Jendan’s leg nudged mine, as if to say Good call.
On my other side, Brodie nudged me, too. I was starting to feel like I was a punching bag caught between the two men.
Liam clasped his hands and exhaled. “So, tonight, I’m placing the team of Mickey and Lenore up on the block. I hope you guys realize it’s nothing personal, just that someone had to go up.”
“No problem,” Mickey said, a pleasant look on his broad face. He moved to the two chairs designated at the front of the room for the nominated players.
Lenore looked less pleased. She cast an angry look at Liam. “That just cost you the game, young man.”
Liam’s eyebrows went up in surprise, but it was Katy who lost her temper. She stood up, all five foot nothing of her, and put her hands on her hips, facing down the elder woman. “You just got our votes, then. I’m glad we put you up. I hope you’re the first one to go home. I—”
“Katy,” Liam murmured, putting an arm around the blonde’s shoulders and steering her away from Lenore. “Let it go, baby.”
“That was just rude,” Katy muttered, but she slid in close to Liam again, sending another scowl Lenore’s way.
Liam patted Katy’s shoulder and pulled out a blue House Guests card, reading from it. “The final vote will be two nights from now, when the live TV show is filmed again. Until then, the two nominated contestants will be allowed to campaign to try and sway votes to their side.”
“Yeah, good luck, Lenore,” Katy cut in.
Liam shushed his girlfriend again, but there was a smile on his face. The rest of us quietly laughed at small Katy’s fierce rage on her tough-looking boyfriend’s behalf. “Once the vote is finished and the contestant has left the house, you will prepare for the next Power competition and another game twist. Be ready.” He flipped over the card and then shrugged. “That’s all it says.”
“Another twist, huh?” Brodie rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Wonder what kind.”
“Nothing good, I’m sure,” Casper pointed out. Several others nodded.
“Well, enough about that,” Mickey said, getting to his feet. He clapped his hands and gave us all a beaming smile. “Who wants a massage, courtesy of their favorite masseuse who needs a vote?”
~~ * ~~
 
 
The night before our first live show, I was wide awake long after midnight.
Not because I’d heard something in the creepy old house. I hadn’t since that first night. Not because I was nervous about the live show. I wasn’t. Instead, I listened closely to Brodie’s breathing on the couch across from mine. When I was sure his breathing was even and he’d gone to sleep, I peeled back my blankets and slipped off the couch, tiptoeing out to the backyard.
I returned to the living room a few minutes later to find Brodie laying on my couch, giving me an expectant look as I tiptoed back in.
Busted. Damn it. He’d been faking going off to sleep.
“Whatcha got there, hotness?” he whispered.
“None of your business,” I whispered back. “How’d you know I was up?”
“You’re totally obvious,” he said. “When you’re agitated, you twitch a lot and can’t sit still. And you were twitching like mad tonight, so I knew you were up to something.”
I sighed and flopped down on one end of the couch, sitting across Brodie’s sprawled legs. If he wasn’t going to get up, I’d just sit on top of him. “That’s right. You caught me. I’m up to no good.”
“As long as it’s something I can edge in on, I don’t care if it’s good or bad.”
There were times when I appreciated having a partner with questionable morals, I decided. I showed him the object I’d hidden in my hand—the recorder.
He looked vaguely disgusted. “More ghost hunting?”
“You wish,” I said. I’d used the recorder for ghost hunting the first night I’d gotten it, but when eight hours of recordings had turned up nothing but snoring, I decided to use it for something slightly more nefarious. “I hid this in one of the flower pots in the smoking area.”
Several of the people in the house were smokers—Marla, Lenore, Sunnie, Fido, and Casper. Jendan was super into fitness, so he was probably the most ridiculously healthy in the house. I doubted he even drank. I hadn’t seen Katy or Liam head down to the smoking area, so I guessed they didn’t smoke. Brodie didn’t, either. Of course, that meant that the smokers often went out to have a cigarette and chit chat, and that meant that the non-smokers were rarely in on the conversations. It was something I’d noticed early on, and I’d considered taking up smoking just to muscle in on the private conversations…but I couldn’t stand the taste or the smell.
Having a recorder was the next best thing, though. Maybe even better.
Brodie sat up as I showed him the recorder, a gleam of appreciation in his eyes. “You are a genius. I could kiss you.”
“You already did,” I replied pertly, but I couldn’t help but smile at his words.
“Yeah, but this time you could act like you enjoyed it,” he teased.
I glanced over at him from under my lashes, curious. Had he thought I hadn’t enjoyed the impromptu kiss? It had taken me by surprise, but…it wasn’t a bad kiss. “I didn’t enjoy it because your kisses don’t mean anything, Brodie. You pass them out like candy.”
He chuckled, unhurt by my tart accusation. “So do I get to listen in on the tape?”
“As long as you promise not to burn me and tell the others I’ve been recording them.” Even Jendan didn’t know I was borrowing his recorder for sneaky purposes. I thought it might seem too shady, so I’d kept the secret to myself.
Plus, I was a little curious about what Jendan was saying about me, too.
Brodie made a ‘cross my heart’ motion on his chest. “You’re my partner. You can trust me to save your ass as long as it’s attached to mine.”
Fair enough. I slid a little closer to him on the couch and we bent over the recorder, listening. The first few minutes were nothing but silence, so I started to skip ahead every few minutes, listening for voices. When I heard someone, I’d rewind and then we’d listen in on the conversation.
We listened to that darn recorder for hours, our heads bent together. And we found out a wealth of information, only some of it surprising.
Mickey was hitting on every woman in the house and failing miserably. That wasn’t surprising.
Lenore was furious that she’d been put up for the vote, and she was busy campaigning to get out Katy and Liam. That also wasn’t surprising, though the viciousness of some of her words was startling—and kind of lame. I lost track of how many times she referred to Liam as a “tattooed hooligan.”