Page 57 of Insta Bride
“What’s with the spinning wheels?” Seb asked before I could.
“You flip a coin and spin a wheel. Heads are men, tails for our ladies. I’m not saying the kiss has to last five minutes, but—” he trailed off.
“What if we don’t want to kiss anyone other than our partner?” I decided to man up and ask.
“Then you better not get five answers wrong. Or, you can pull out of the competition and face the ultimate consequence.”
“Which is?” Sami asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
Sami won the toss and Seb had to answer questions. The only one he got right was that Sami would prefer lip gloss to mascara. What the fuck sort of question was that—and how did he know? Luckily, Seb didn’t have a phobia about anything other than possibly kissing a guy. Although, Sami expected him to know she had milk in her coffee and that she preferred to read books over audio.
Tony and Staci got the perfect round. The island’s most loved up couple made the competition look easy and instantly got voted Most Likely To Celebrate 50 Years.
Georgia threatened Harris with no sex for a year after having to put her hand in the snake tank. Spiders were her phobia, but luckily Harris knew she’d never leave home without her cell phone and that she would prefer beach over snow.
As the questions got harder and more personal, I could feel Elena’s panic rise. There had been no repeat questions and the only one I’d known for certain would have been beach over snow. Okay, I could have guessed audio books but that was only because I knew Elena felt self-conscious at needing her glasses to read.
Benjamin almost ended up spinning the wheel, but managed to guess Kenzie’s preferred wedding location as a cathedral over beach.
Then it was our turn.
Elena released my hand to toss the coin. Heads.
She closed her eyes for several seconds, before heading towards the table with worms. One wrong answer and she’d have to plunge her hand inside.
“Can we swap?” I asked, “I’m a better listener than Elena.” A lie, but I was willing to try anything to stop Elena from having to go through with it.
“Did I mention swapping in the rules?” JP laughed. “Kye, ask the first question.”
“No.” I said without thinking. “I want to swap.”
“It’s okay, Kye.” Elena lied. “I can do this.”
“Babe, we’ve talked about real stuff, not about lip gloss or board games. Either we swap, or I’m forfeiting.”
“There are consequences for pulling out of the challenge,” JP warned after getting advice through his earpiece.
“You can see that Elena wants to play, I don’t.”
“Are you saying that you’ll suffer double the ultimate consequence?”
“Yes.”
“Kye, don’t”
I didn’t give a damn anymore, I pulled Elena away from the table and whispered soft enough that I hoped the microphones wouldn’t pick it up, “I know you hate anything slimy. I know you’ll have nightmares for weeks about even the worms. I’m not going to let you do it.”
“But I—”
“I remember. We were walking along the beach and you saw the jelly fish and said you’d take the sting any day as long as you didn’t have to feel them.”
Elena gave me the first, genuine hug since our argument. She felt like every Christmas morning rolled into one hug. I could face anything they could throw at me for an Ultimate Consequence, as long as I got a double dose of Elena-sized hugs every day.
With her still wrapped to my chest, I met the other couples’ gazes head on. They might think we’d chickened out, but I’d do it all again. Elena hugged me. She knew I’d known her fears and had protected her without making a huge deal about it for the camera. Just like the helicopter ride, I’d done it for her.
Filming halted while the production team discussed what my Ultimate Consequence would be. Apparently, I’d caught them unprepared. Which only meant it would be worse than if they’d had had to clear it through a risk assessment or legals.