Page 51 of Insta Bride
“Babe, do you think you could keep up with me?”
“Oh, I’ll be miles ahead before you know it.”
“Do the two of you ever stop fighting?” Georgia spat, probably annoyed about the minutes our banter would take away from their fake declarations of love.
“Oh, my girl is all about the f’s. Food, fighting and fu—”
“Kye!” My elbow barely connected with his stomach, but he still doubled over in mock agony.
“She’s trying to kill me!”
“You can’t die from blue balls.” Kye hid any potential embarrassment with a playful toss over his shoulder and pretending to run me back to bed. “Okay, okay, I’ll massage them later,” I laughed until he put me back down.
Sometimes, I wished we were a couple.
Sometimes, I wished he hadn’t been such an asshole to other women, or hadn’t slept with so many people.
Sometimes, I wished I could be enough. Just me. No frills and no pretence. Just me.
I’d chosen a hike thinking the cameras wouldn’t be able to follow us. They did, but Kye and I were able to spend most of our time walking single file, with little opportunity to talk, flirt or do anything screen worthy. Occasionally, Kye tried to hold my hand and I allowed him to help me over logs or up and down the crevices. Not that I needed help, but I appreciated the offer.
The awkwardness of the past few nights seemed to evaporate while we were in the middle of nature with seemingly no one around. It was exactly what we needed. I didn’t hate him. I hated the way he could disarm me. I hated the way I’d wanted to believe we could be a thing, that I could be enough for him.
But, if he preferred three in a bed, then we’d never work.
I’d never be able to trust him. Even if we were together, I wouldn’t just be afraid of him cheating—I’d be afraid of him inviting someone else to join us.
“Shit!” Kye jumped in fright, flapping his arms around, swotting away imaginary enemies.
I immediately saw the problem, and pulled the vine out of the way, brushing the cobwebs from his face. I almost peed myself, laughing while he struggled to regain his composure. “Oh, if the cameramen could have been able to keep up!” Once Kye was safe from the threat of marauding vegetation, I collapsed onto the nearest rock, holding my sides, and trying to keep bladder control. The tension evaporated and eventually, Kye dropped to the ground beside me, with his laughter even louder than mine.
We could hear the camera crew shouting out to us to stop so they could repeat what had happened, but Kye just shook his head.
“I can’t believe that—that—”
“Oh, I can.” I blew him a fake kiss. “For the rest of your life, you’re gonna look back on this day as the time I saved your life.”
“My life?” he chortled. “I copped the brunt of it. I saved your life.”
I choked back even more laughter, “You did not save my life. Seriously, Kye, you screamed like a two-year-old.”
“It was attacking me.”
“It was a massive cobweb attached to a vine.”
“Yeah, and because I walked through it, you didn’t have to. I felt a spider, or something attack my face.”
“It was a leaf. You shook the vine; a leaf fell down. You screamed like a baby because of a leaf.”
“What would it take for you to agree it was a spider.”
“You really want me to say you saved my life?”
“I want you to agree to a version of the truth.”
“Kye, it’s just us. I saved you from being attacked by an evil vine.”
“Okay, what about you. All the times you were falling over your feet if I didn’t catch you. I could say that you were falling for me.”