“You thought right,” Elise muttered. Harper was treating her like a Victorian convalescent. All she needed was a fainting couch and a bell to ring. “Thank you.” She picked up a strawberry that Harper had cut in half and brought it to her lips. It was both sweet and sour and soothing. “Not just for the food,” Elise added once she’d swallowed. “For everything.”
Not only had Harper held her hair back, rubbed soothing circles between her shoulder blades, forced her to stare at the horizon, and escorted her off the boat, but she’d also walked her back to her house, tucked her under the covers, made her a cup of black tea, and organized Gillian to step in for the rest of the day.
At some point, when Elise had stopped feeling like she was being tossed around in a giant-sized cement mixer, she’d found herself staring at her cell phone screen, waiting for an explosion. And when there hadn’t been any emergencies, she’d actually felt disappointed.
It was then that she’d realized with startling clarity that a major part of what she enjoyed about her job was being needed. Was that healthy? Elise had no idea. She made a point to ask her therapist once she got back to LA.
“The group date is starting in an hour,” Harper said, sitting down on the bed beside her. She squeezed Elise’s ankle, which felt so delectable she nearly groaned over her toast. “Are you up for work today or—”
There was a sudden, loud knock on the front door. Elise barely had time to catch Harper’s eye when Monica called, “Elise. Are you in there? Code blue.”
Code blue?What the hell was code blue?
Elise scrambled out of bed so fast her vision wobbled. For a second, the floor tipped, and her knees swayed. She was on her way down. But then Harper caught her by the elbow. “Take it easy,” she said, looking concerned, which once again had Elise melting. Had Michael or Daniel ever looked at her like that? Like they would lie down on the floor to cushion her fall? No, she decided. They had most definitely not.
“You’re still weak from yesterday, remember,” Harper added.
Elise nodded and smiled. “You’re making it a habit of saving my life.”
Harper chuckled. “You’re worth saving.”
If she melted anymore, she’d be a puddle. Elise fanned her face, fought the urge to kiss Harper, and slipped into the living room. She’d barely pulled open the door before Monica stepped past her.
“We’ve got a big—” She stopped in her tracks when she saw Harper walk out of the bedroom. “Oh,” Monica said, frowning. “I didn’t know you were—”
But Elise didn’t let her finish her sentence. Or allow Harper to say something. In fact, she wished Harper had stayed out of sight. She was entirely surprised by this, considering how mushy for Harper she’d felt just a second ago.
“Harper’s just showing me some photo edits from last night’s rose ceremony,” Elise said, her voice a little too high, alittle too fast. The last thing she wanted was for Monica to think something was going on between them. Which there was. There were a whole lot of things. Both physically and emotionally.
Elise didn’t catch Harper’s gaze but could feel her eyes burning holes into the side of her face. “What’s the emergency?” she asked, clearing her suddenly dry throat.
With reluctance, Monica tore her gaze off Harper and said, “Megan is freaking out. She’s refusing to come out of her bedroom and says she won’t participate in the next date.”
“Why?” Elise stammered. Just as she thought everything was going according to plan, a bomb had to detonate. She refused to admit that a tiny part of her was secretly pleased to feel indispensable. She was needed. That much was clear.
Monica touched her fingertip to Harper’s camera that was resting on the four-seater circular dining table. “She thinks she sent home the wrong contestant last night.”
“You mean Nadia?” Elise asked, vaguely remembering Gillian’s text after the rose ceremony. Something likeNadia out. Girls r shocked.It had been a shock because Nadia had been one of the favorites. Elise had forgotten all about the text until now.
“Yes,” Monica said. “She said she had a dream last night, and apparently in her dream she was getting married to Nadia. Now she believes she sent home her soulmate.”
“Megan is a pediatric surgeon,” Elise said without thought. Apparently, years of medical training hadn’t made her immune to spiritual revelations.
“I know,” Monica said, nodding.
Harper made a little throat-clearing sound and seemed like she wanted to add in her two cents, but Elise cut in before she could say anything at all. “I’ll go speak to her,” she said, already walking back to her bedroom to put on a bra.
~~
Megan wasn’t a pretty crier. Elise knew that sounded cruel, even in her own head. But sitting on the carpeted floor beside her, she couldn’t ignore the way vivid blotches crept up Megan’s neck like some skin disease.
“I think Nadia might be the one,” Megan muttered into her palms. She had her knees up, her back pressed against the foot of a saffron-colored chaise, and her hair stuck to her cheeks in damp strands. “I made a huge mistake sending her home last night. I don’t know what I was thinking. Clearly I wasn’t…” Her voice cracked, and the last word collapsed into a small sob.
“Okay,” Elise said softly. She almost reached for Megan’s hair to stroke it in a motherly kind of fashion, but that would’ve felt too awkward. Elise wasn’t the motherly type at all. “Walk me through it again. Slowly.”
Megan sniffled and clutched the lemon-yellow pillow like a life raft. “It felt like way more than just a simple dream.”
“But itwasa dream,” Elise reminded her quickly as she watched another tear roll down Megan’s cheek. “Just remember that, alright? It was just a dream.” Unfortunately, Elise had a feeling she hadn’t gotten through to Megan at all.