The Final Rose

Chapter Seventeen: (Lee)d the Way

I woke up to a view of Lee's empty bed the next morning. The comforter and sheets on the twin bed had been pulled up even though we probably had housekeeping service in the penthouse suite. I laid in my own bed, propped up on a single pillow, and smiled. It felt like a very Lee-like thing to do—to make her bed even though someone else would be coming in later to clean our rooms.

Most of the other women were awake and lounging in the living room by the time I padded out of my bedroom. Although we shared two suites between the contestants, this suite had somehow become the designated hangout, probably a result of the sounds and smells of bacon sizzling on the stovetop. Stephie, Lee, and Jade danced around the kitchen in their pajamas, sharing breakfast duties.

"Good morning!" Lee greeted in her usual bright tone. She waved at me with a plastic spatula.

"Morning." I rubbed at my eyes, still bleary from sleep and from the bright Caribbean sunshine streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

"You feeling okay, sleepyhead?" Stephie posed.

Traditionally I was up much earlier than the other women in the house, but the combination of a long day of global traveling and an overdo orgasm had me sleeping in.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I grunted. I pulled my body up to the kitchen counter. "Did the date card arrive yet?"

Stephie shook her head. "Nope. Hence why everyone is still in chill out mode."

"Who do you think gets a one-on-one date this week?" Jade questioned.

"Who's left?" Lee mused aloud. She tapped her fingers against her bottom lip in thought, and I couldn't help my own thoughts from wandering to more explicit territory. Was that the hand she had used the previous night to get herself off?

"Maybe Irene or Brittany," Jade guessed. "Or Nokomis; you're still waiting for a date, too."

I shook my head. "We went fishing," I reminded her.

"Yeah, but that wasn't a real date," Jade rejected.

Nearly half of the women had only been on group dates, but I was unique in that Jacob had singled me out for the fishing excursion. It had afforded me one-on-one time, but compared to the all-day activities usually associated with the date card, it fell short.

Patience chose that moment to swoop in on our conversation. She plucked a piece of bacon from the greasy paper towel and popped it into her mouth. "Doesn't seem to matter," she sniffed. "You're still here."

I chewed on the inside of my cheek. I'd been doing a lot of that lately to keep from lashing out at Patience. "I guess you can't screw up if you never talk to the guy," I proposed.

"Or you're so drop-dead gorgeous that he can't send you home," she protested.

The edge of my mouth twitched. "Everyone here is pretty."

Patience curled her lip. "Don't be modest. You'd win this show on looks alone."

The words coming out of her lemon-puckered mouth could have been interpreted as a compliment, but her tone suggested something born out of petty jealousy.

A loud knock on the suite door interrupted our conversation before I could get myself in trouble.

"Oh, no. What if that's Jacob!" Brittany panicked.

Her suggestion caused a small riot. Women still in their pajamas dove into bedrooms, some that didn't even belong to them, all to avoid the remote possibility that Jacob might see them looking less than perfect.