Olivia hobbled over to the kitchen island where she’d left her tote, her toe still aching, and scrambled for her laptop. “No, no, no,” she said in a rush. She pulled it out and pried it open to see the Wi-Fi signal completely empty. “No!” She slammed it shut and held her face in her hands. “There can’t be no internet.”
How was she supposed to check her email? How was she supposed to know what was going on in the world? How the hell was she supposed to distract herself from being locked in a house with Chuck Walsh for a month?
“Maybe it’s like the second bathroom,” Chuck offered. “Maybe we can win it in a challenge or something.”
Olivia groaned. Even one day without a connection to the outside world would be torture. She was tempted to call it quits right then and walk out the front door with her hands up in surrender.
“This is just another way they are trying to break us,” she said.
“What?” Chuck looked up from where he’d squatted by the TV. He’d found a basket full of DVDs. “I will sleep through literally all of these…” he muttered as he ran a hand over the cases.
Olivia rejoined him in the empty living room. “They’ve set this whole house up to test us, to make it harder for us to be here together, Chuck.” She flung her arm at the kitchen. “The dishwasher, the dinner plans, only one bathroom, only one bed. No touching. It’s all designed to make us break. And nowthis.” She sighed in dismay. “No internet means we’re going to have to…spend time together. Talk to each other.”
Chuck looked up at her and swallowed like he wasn’t sure what to make of the prospect. He looked back down at the basket of DVDs and plucked one out of the ten options. “Or just watchFinding Nemoon repeat for a month.”
“Don’t hate on the fish.”
A genuine whine spilled from his mouth. He flopped back on the carpet like a cranky kid, and Olivia half expected him to throw a tantrum.
She felt the same way, but instead of melting down, she took a breath. “This is fine. It’s fine,” she said with a shrug and a false sense of confidence. “We can do this.”
In response, Chuck groaned and smacked theFinding Nemocase against his forehead.
•••
They’d made it twelve hoursin the house together by the time Olivia was ready for bed, which, all things considered, was impressive. Exhausted from the move-in and interview and still cranky about their new accommodations, they opted for eating what Tyler had already supplied rather than requesting ingredients for a full dinner they would’ve had to muster the strength to agree on. Olivia had an ice cream sandwich and a piece of toast, and Chuck was defeated enough to microwave a frozen burrito.
The camera crew had left for the night, but the glowing red dots from the lenses mounted in the corner of each room made Olivia feel like they were being watched by tiny vampires. She’d left Chuck to his own devices to carry out his ten-stepbedtime skincare routine because she knew she would have thrown an elbow trying to share the same bathroom space he’d commandeered ninety percent of, just as expected. She’d changed into her pajamas, shorts and a stretchy camisole, and taken her toothbrush and facial cleanser to the kitchen sink. When she returned to the bedroom to find him nestled into one side of the bed with a book in his lap, she froze in her tracks.
He was shirtless and under the covers from his waist down. Her eyes went to his cut arms and naked torso like magnets. She hadn’t seen him shirtless other than in her imagination since that day on the sidewalk. She knew he slept in his underwear, if not naked, and she sincerely hoped he hadn’t stripped down before staging this coup. But perhaps most problematic was that he was wearing her ultimate kryptonite: his glasses. His vision needed only slight correction, and he wore contacts during the day, but the pair of black frames he put on at night easily took him from already gorgeous to hot professor fantasy status. She bit her lip at the sight, and then remembered they’d had a deal.
“What are you doing?” she asked, annoyed.
“Reading,” he said without looking up. “I found this on the shelf in the office. I’ll take classic sci-fi overFinding Nemo. And besides, this will probably take me a month to finish anyway.” He lifted the thick paperback from his lap, and Olivia saw he was a few pages intoDune.
She walked into the bathroom to deposit her toiletries and returned to the bedside with her hands on her hips. “I meant, what are you doing in the bed? We agreed that I get it.”
He put the book down and gave her a serious look. Or perhaps it was the glasses making him look serious. She hated toadmit they gave him an air of authority. “No,yousaid you get the bed. I never agreed.”
“I—” She realized he was right. She’d claimed the bed, but the only thing they’d actually agreed on was no sex. And sharing a bed, well, it didn’t need to be stated that one thing would lead to another. And now they had an official hands-off rule to contend with. “Chuck, no,” she said. She waved her arms in a chopping motion like an X.
“Liv, it’s fine. Look, I’ll build a pillow wall.” He grabbed one of the spare pillows and shoved it up against his hip. “I’ll stay on my side; you’ll stay on yours.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. They’d never stayed on separate sides of the bed in all their time together. They slept in a tangle of sweaty limbs or spooning or, most commonly, didn’t sleep at all.
She knew it would be impossible, and after the day she’d had, she didn’t want to deal with it. Not to mention, a slip-up would cost them money.
“Chuck, please. My foot hurts from when I came running over your little meltdown in the living room earlier, I essentially got harassed in our interview today, this house sucks, and I’m really, really tired!” Her voice rose into an exasperated whine. She clenched her fists at her sides and stamped her good foot.
Chuck gave her a weary look. “And you think all those things don’t apply to me too?”
She arched a brow at him. “None of those things apply to you!”
“Ugh, you know what I mean, Liv! I know you had a rough day, but so did I! I’d sleep on the couch if we had one, but we don’t. This feels fair.” He patted the pillow he’d squished intothe bed’s center, then held up his hands. “Hands off. Promise. I won’t lose us any money.”
He could make all the promises he wanted, but she was worried about herself. Inevitably, that pillow would end up on the floor, and she’d roll over into his warm chest and nuzzle her face into her favorite crook between his shoulder and neck. Then he’d pull her close, and his hands would find their way to her thigh, her back, under her shirt—
“Chuck! Get out!” she snapped.