Chapter 10

Lauren slept like shit last night. Again.

"Mimosa?" A production assistant hands her a flute as soon as she steps foot on the pool deck.

"Sure. Thanks," she says, scanning the group. Kaydie and Lily are chatting with their legs dangling in the infinity pool, and Sara's slathering herself with sunscreen. Hilarie's in the hot tub, paging through a thriller that was recently adapted for Netflix. The group's gotten small enough that Lauren can immediately sense every absence: there's no Madison, no McKenzie.

And no Krystin. Krystin was still in bed when Lauren left this morning, curled into the fetal position with her hair fanned around her face like a halo. She thought about waking her up, but even gently tapping her shoulder felt illicit, somehow, so she just clomped around the hotel room loudly and waited for her to startle awake. She never did.

"Morning," Lauren says, taking a seat next to Sara. "No date card yet?"

"Not yet," Sara chirps. "But it's gotta be you, right? You haven't had a one-on-one yet."

Lauren shrugs. "Anyone's guess, really." She glances toward the sliding door. "Any idea how Madison's date went?"

"You didn't hear?" Sara looks genuinely sympathetic. "He sent her home instead of giving her the date ribbon. I guess we've really reached the part of Josh's journey where it's, like, he knows who he wants." On that ominous note, Sara drops the lotion back into her oversized Kate Spade tote, then shifts back into perky mode. "Anyway, whoever gets today's one-on-one is so lucky. I can't believe we're in Buenos Aires! This is, like, the most romantic city I've ever been to, and I grew up summering in Mykonos."

The sliding door opens with a smooth whoosh, and Lauren's oddly disappointed to see it's McKenzie, a mimosa in one hand and a date card in the other. "Hey, ladies," she says. "Everyone sleep all right?"

"That was the comfiest bed I've ever slept in," Hilarie half moans, stepping out of the hot tub and walking to a lounge chair. When Lauren meets her eye, she gives her a sheepish, semi-defensive look. "Hey. I didn't grow up vacationing in the Mediterranean."

"Wait, who's missing?" McKenzie slides off her sunglasses and squints at the women. "There are only six of us here."

"Madison got axed last night," Kaydie supplies. She sounds distinctly less sad about this turn of events than Sara did. "Poor thing. Lauren, where's your roomie?"

Right on cue, Krystin opens the door behind McKenzie. "I'm sorry," she says. "I hope you all weren't waiting for me." She looks achingly pretty: Her makeup's a little more stripped down than usual and her hair's pulled back into a perfect ponytail. Lauren never would have guessed she'd been asleep just twenty minutes ago.

"Don't worry about it," McKenzie says, even though she literally just got to the deck too. "Anyway, guess what, girls? I have a date card! Who's excited?"

While she speaks, Krystin glances between the hot tub and the empty lounge chair between Lauren and Hilarie. She decides on the lounge chair.

"You turned down the mimosa, huh?" Lauren asks. It's possibly the most stupid attempt at a conversation starter ever, but whatever. "It's actually not bad."

Krystin pauses. "I'm not a huge Prosecco girl, actually."

"Really." Lauren frowns. "How have you survived here the past five weeks?"

"Lauren!" McKenzie interrupts loudly. "?Me concedes éste baile?"

Everyone's eyes are on Lauren, and for the first time, it's actively difficult to muster the kind of undignified enthusiasm expected of her.

McKenzie, however, interprets this as a poor understanding of the Spanish language. "It means, ‘May I have this dance?'" she explains.

"Oh! Thank you," Lauren says, then flips her hair. "I took a few dance classes in college, so this will be so fun."

"Well? Go get ready, girl!" Sara says, patting her thigh.

Lauren raises her eyebrow at Krystin and stands up.

Once again, Krystin looks away.

The date is on the third floor of a large, industrial building. Once they've made it up the staircase, Jim waits for the two cameramen to go first, then reaches into his backpack for a bottle of water. "Here," he says gruffly. "You'll need this."

"Thank you." Lauren's pretty sure she knows what to expect—after all, "May I have this dance?" doesn't leave much room for interpretation—but still, she's a little bummed. She was hoping for a bike tour of Buenos Aires, or maybe a scenic picnic with authentic local food, but this venue looks almost identical to that barre place she used to frequent back in Woodland Park during her college years.

She follows the cameras into a midsized room with hardwood floors, pale yellow walls, and a few framed prints. Josh lights up and gives her a "come here" gesture, and Lauren reminds herself to focus on her date instead of the middle-aged, hyper-accessorized white woman inexplicably standing next to him.

"Hi!" Lauren walks over to give him a hug, and he pulls her off the ground for a little spin. "How's it going?"

"Me? I'm great," Josh replies. "I'm in a beautiful city with an amazing girl. What more could a guy want?"

"You look pretty good yourself," Lauren says. She can't help but glance back at the woman. "And who's this?"

"Dawn is a renowned tango instructor here in Buenos Aires," Josh explains. "She's going to show us some moves, and later tonight, we'll put our newfound skills to good use."

"You're a lucky girl," Dawn says in an American accent, before literally winking at Lauren. "Josh here will be taking you to dinner at the Puente de la Mujer, and then out to a milonga, an event for locals and tourists alike to bond over the art of tango. Trust me, you haven't been to Argentina until you've been to one of these."

"Awesome," Lauren says. "I'm ready to do this."

Dawn beams. "Josh will lead, of course. I'm going to need you to put your arm around Lauren's back, just like this … exactly, right under her shoulder blade. And, Lauren, your hand around his neck … Perfecto."

Lauren's spent the past several weeks touching Josh: kissing him, wrapping her leg around his, carefully stroking his modest biceps. But now, Josh is really touching her, and his large, proprietary hand on her back somehow feels more invasive than his tongue down her throat. When Dawn encourages them to move chest to chest ("Like an inverted ‘V,' muy bueno"), Lauren feels completely dwarfed. Small.

Plus, even with Dawn guiding their each and every step, he keeps fumbling. When one of his pristine white Air Force 1s comes in contact with Lauren's toe, he leans down. "I'm sorry I'm so bad at this," Josh whispers. He gives her an aw-shucks, self-deprecating grin.

"I'm having fun," Lauren promises, but she can't bring herself to look him in the eye as she says it. "Don't apologize." Josh pulls her closer, and she can feel his heartbeat through his blue button-down.

The back of his neck is very, very sweaty. Or maybe it's just her hand.

"Tango is all about two things," Dawn yells over the up-tempo music. "Chemistry and confidence."

"Well, I think we've got the first one covered," Josh says, his eyes not leaving Lauren's.

"I think so too," Dawn yells back. "Your physical chemistry is palpable. Caliente, even."

He steps on her foot again.

"It's okay," Lauren murmurs, because Josh is actually starting to look a little mortified. "Just hold onto me, all right?"

And then she's leading, while Dawn shouts out random facts about the history of the dance and a few pointers. "Posture is key," she yells. "Following is about trust. Leading is about confidence."

"Well?" Lauren's hand slides down Josh's back. "Do you trust me?"

Her tone is teasing, light. She knows trust as something that's earned—after all, Damian is the only person who has hers. But when Josh says, "You know what? I do," it's straightforward, simple. She wishes she hadn't said anything at all.

It'sfine, Lauren, you're not actually winning this, she tells herself. He's spent a handful of hours with you, tops. He didn't even give you a one-on-one date until five whole weeks in.

It tempers the guilt, somewhat.

Then he steps on her foot again, and they both laugh. The moment is gone.

It's just after sunset when a producer drops Lauren off for the nighttime portion of her date. She had under two hours to shower, shave, moisturize, put on a full face of makeup, decide on a magenta ShineGirl mini dress, and recurl her hair into perfect waves, but clearly, all the hustle paid off: Josh is looking at her like she's a fucking Hadid.

"There's my favorite dance partner," he says, wrapping her into a warm hug.

She kisses him, then pulls away to look around. "So where are we, exactly?"

"Near Puente de la Mujer," Josh explains. Before Lauren can ask for more information, he starts spitting out facts probably fed to him by a producer: It's a rotating footbridge, it was built in the late 1990s by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, and the design is said to resemble a couple dancing the tango, isn't that perfect?

"Very appropriate," Lauren agrees.

"So." Josh claps his hands together. "Ready for some sustenance before we go show off our moves?"

Lauren follows him to a candlelit table set for two. "This is so beautiful," she says, and it's not a lie. There's a man strumming a guitar several feet away, lanterns and rose petals littering the ground, and cameramen blocking any tourists from entering the bridge's vicinity. For the first time today, Lauren actually feels like a VIP. "I've never had a guy do anything like this for me, you know." Or anyone, really.

"And I've never danced the tango with a pretty girl, then taken her to dinner," Josh says. He pulls out her chair and helps her shrug off her black jacket. "We're in this together."

"You're not a huge dancer, huh?" Lauren asks.

"‘Not a huge dancer' is an understatement. Back in middle school, I learned that I have zero coordination on the dance floor." He shakes his head and chuckles. "You should see the videos from my bar mitzvah. Even the party motivators couldn't save me from the humiliation."

"Party motivators?"

"Yeah. We had these … bar mitzvah dancers." Josh looks sheepish. "Parents hire them to get the party started, drum up some excitement. I swear, I thought I was the coolest guy around dancing with these ladies, but the photos … oh, man."

"Well, you heard what Dawn said earlier," Lauren replies. "Dancing is all about confidence."

"And chemistry," he adds, reaching an arm across the table.

Lauren grabs his hand right back, and like the flip of a light switch, the entire scene feels less beautiful: the cheap lanterns, the golden champagne flutes, and even the bridge itself seem manufactured, as fake as everything else on Hopelessly Devoted. She gazes across the water at the moonlit city. "Definitely."

"A toast." Josh lifts his glass of champagne with his other hand. "To having just a little more game than I did in seventh grade."

"Just a little," Lauren teases, and it's so easy that she can almost forget all the artifice.

"Something I've noticed about you," Josh says. "You're great at picking up new skills. Dance, modeling, even podcasting—I mean, I don't know how you do it."

"Not everything comes easily to me, if that's what you're saying." Lauren takes a sip of champagne.

"Of course not," he quickly clarifies.

"I've had challenges," she says. "I know I put on a good front, but I've always had to, like, work for things. And it sometimes feels like no matter how hard I work, it still isn't good enough."

She's briefly worried she shouldn't have hinted toward faking anything, but Josh just nods solemnly. "That must be really hard."

"Like, in college." Lauren looks at the ground. "I didn't get into my dream sorority, and my two freshman roommates both did. I think that's the first time I really felt like I wasn't enough."

Josh's voice goes soft. "Do you feel that way a lot?"

Lauren pauses to consider his question. If she's being honest with herself, she doesn't feel less than—like, ever—because she actively, skillfully avoids putting herself in any kind of situation that could potentially make her feel that way. She doesn't work a job, aside from influencing and the freelance marketing work she does from her apartment. She's never had a romantic relationship, aside from her fake one with Damian (and, well, whatever kind of relationship she has right now with Josh). And since she first realized she was gay in eighth grade, she'd started keeping her friendships with girls casual, light. She'd hang out with them in group settings, planning mall trips in high school and pregames in college, but she avoided deep conversations at all costs. Even with the girls she's hooked up with—Halley Finch from her sorority, for example, or Sierra Ashbery back in high school—the more drawn she felt, the more she kept her defenses up.

And fine, it's a little sad, when Lauren thinks about it like that. But it's also smart. It's foolproof.

"I mean, working as a content creator," Josh says, prompting Lauren out of her own head. "That's gotta be constant competition, right?"

"Oh, yeah," Lauren says, grateful their conversation's moving toward an easier topic. "There's always a girl out there who's prettier or hotter or has more money. It's hard."

Josh shakes his head. "It's so sad to think about powerful women getting pitted against each other like that."

Is it? Because we're currently filming a reality show based on that exact premise, Lauren thinks, but she has a feeling that if she pointed that out, production would chastise her for breaking the fourth wall. "It's pretty competitive," Lauren agrees.

"I can't imagine," Josh continues. "I mean, my dad has an ongoing rivalry with this door guy from Syosset, and I know he takes it really hard when he sees Ralph's van in our neighborhood. But at least he doesn't know how to use Instagram."

"It's been nice to be off social media a bit while filming," Lauren lies. "And just focus on our relationship."

"I know that must be difficult. It's your career," he says. "But I'm really happy you're here, and I'm so happy you feel that way about … us."

"Of course I do." Lauren tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ears. She can see this conversation's finish line, and she knows what she needs to do: follow the one-on-one date script, one she's watched contestants follow year after year, season after season. "This is all so surreal. I think I always knew we'd have a connection, but I never expected to fall so fast."

"Lauren." Josh puts down his flute. "I know we haven't even made it to the milonga yet, but I told myself I'd follow my heart throughout this journey, and I just …" He shuffles through his jacket pocket and procures a shiny gold ribbon. "I need to ask if you'll accept this date ribbon. I don't want to wait."

"I'd love to," Lauren murmurs, but to her shock, he doesn't reach over; he stands up. She has no choice, really, but to stand up, too.

He walks her toward the guitarist and pulls her in. Before wrapping the ribbon around her wrist, he kisses her with purpose. "You're enough," he whispers, his breath hot against her cheek. "You're more than enough."

There's nothing to say to that, so she just kisses him again. It feels cheap and saccharine, like a glass of producer-provided champagne.

The lights are out when Lauren slips into her hotel room, gracelessly removes her heels, and drops her purse on the desk. Krystin must be asleep already, which isn't a surprise—the clock by her bed reads past midnight. Lauren beelines to the bathroom, beyond eager to shower for the third time that day. Eager to be alone for a second, honestly.

As she slathers coconut-scented shampoo into her hair, she remembers the way Josh kissed her at the bridge. She remembers the way he "didn't want to wait" to give her a ribbon, the way he needed her to know how enough she was, and her heart starts to pound in an anxious, unfamiliar way. No matter what Dawn or even Josh said, there was no chemistry, no sexual tension, no desperation at all. But there was a sense of certainty, at least on his end. An earnestness.

Lauren knows she won't break Josh's heart. They hardly even know each other, and besides, she doesn't think she's capable of breaking anyone's heart. But as hot water cloaks her body, she has the nauseating, terrifying, sudden-as-hell feeling that maybe she's in over her head here, because Pia's gone. Gabi, all the Ashleys, and the Other Lauren are all gone. Tomorrow night, Josh will cut two more women loose, but the date ribbon around Lauren's wrist is a too-tight reminder that she won't be one of them.

She remembers the way Josh looked at her at the loud, crowded milonga, the way his eyes never left hers as they danced, and an unwelcome thought pops into her head: What if you actually win this thing?

Lauren showers until her body feels swollen red, brushes her teeth until her gums hurt. If it comes down to it, she doesn't want to have to self-eliminate—with a lead as beloved and nice as Josh, she just knows she'd get eaten alive online, labeled a heartless bitch who hurt a good guy's feelings. And if she's being honest with herself … she doesn't want to hurt Josh's feelings. Sure, she came on this show for purely selfish reasons, and yeah, this man would probably give her the ick even if she were into guys. But that doesn't mean she wants to hurt and humiliate him on national TV.

This is ridiculous. You won't win, she tells herself. Spits. You have two weeks until hometowns, and three weeks until overnight dates. There's plenty of time for him to cut your string. McKenzie or Krystin will win, probably, and you'll make it far enough for an Us Weekly feature, a bottomless well of brand partnership opportunities, and a lucrative, performative friendship with Josh. A lucrative, performative friendship with the rest of the Devotees, too, including your roommate over there.

She spits again.

Even after showering, brushing her teeth, flossing, doing her multistep skincare routine, letting her hair dry, and crawling into bed as carefully and quietly as possible, she's wide awake, too tense to move. The air in the hotel room feels sticky-hot and charged.

And then Krystin flicks the bedside lamp on, and Lauren almost jumps.

"Jesus, you scared me," she says. "I thought you were asleep."

"I was. I just need to pee," Krystin responds, but after spending a few nights in a hotel room together, Lauren knows how she sounds when she's just woken up: raspy, slow, and sleep-laced. Right now, meanwhile, her voice is crystal clear, if quiet. She heads to the bathroom, and Lauren takes the opportunity to sit up, smooth her hair, and pull off her pink satin sleep mask.

"Trouble sleeping?" she asks the second Krystin returns.

"Not really."

"Okay." Lauren gives her an up-and-down scan, and tries not to smirk when Krystin blushes and looks away.

"How was your date with Josh?" Instead of getting under the covers, Krystin just sits down on her bed, legs crossed. She doesn't move to turn the light off, either.

"Oh, you know." Lauren sits up a little straighter. "A hippie from California taught us how to tango, and then we went to this nightclub where we did it in front of, like, half a dozen cameras. So we really had the authentic Buenos Aires experience."

Krystin cracks a smile. "Well, it sounds fun."

"I guess I'm glad I got that time with Josh. He's cool," Lauren says, because it's what she's supposed to say; it's a sentence she's heard a million times. But Krystin's smile dissipates, and Lauren remembers how flushed and happy she looked after her one-on-one with him, weeks ago. Lauren's positive that all the other contestants are playing the same game—maybe each to a different extent—but Krystin? She might really be here for this guy. For the right reasons.

"You don't talk about him a lot," Krystin says. "As much as some of the others, I mean. But you must have a strong connection, right?" She zeroes in on Lauren's ribbon.

"Yeah, I guess. We get along." Lauren's caught between feeling guilty and defensive. "But the conversations just start to get repetitive, you know? And kind of creepy. We're just sitting in a circle, making the same observations again and again. It starts to feel like we're in the Cult of Josh or something."

She's worried she might have gone too far, but Krystin lets out a laugh—a real one—and Lauren's stomach and heart both settle at once, like she just reached the end of a roller-coaster or downed a can of ginger ale. "It's pretty depressing, actually. Especially at the cocktail parties," Krystin agrees. There's a pause. "The one-on-one time with him is always nice, though. Right?"

Lauren meets her eyes, trying to figure out what she's angling toward here. "I thought we just agreed all the Josh talk is redundant," she says, but it comes out with a harsh edge, and Krystin looks away. She sighs. "Listen. I'm not …"

Not what, exactly? Not a threat? Not interested in Josh like that? Luckily, she doesn't have to finish the thought, because Krystin pipes up again. "I'm jealous you learned how to tango," she says softly. "I feel like we came all the way out here, and I've hardly even gotten to leave the hotel."

They both know she isn't really jealous of the tango lessons. She's jealous of Lauren's supposed connection and time with Josh, which is, like, laughable, really. But she looks at Krystin, and she doesn't look like a renowned rodeo champion or a reality show star; she just looks uneasy and sweet and ridiculously cute in her old Montana State sweatpants and form-fitting gray tank. Her top's just cropped enough to reveal a small sliver of skin, and the sight makes Lauren way too aware of her own fingers, her own heartbeat.

She can't believe she's spent so much time quietly pitying Josh when, really, he's the luckiest fucking person in the world.

"Come here," Lauren says, climbing out of bed. "I mean it. Stand up."

Krystin frowns, confused. "What?"

Lauren gives her an appraising look. "You wish you learned how to tango, so I'm going to show you everything I know. Which, really, is not very much. Production probably shelled out two hundred bucks for this, max."

Krystin visibly softens, but she still doesn't stand up. "It's the middle of the night."

"Yeah, and neither of us are tired." Lauren rolls her eyes, but then Krystin does stand up—slowly, hesitantly—and Lauren feels herself smile. "I'll lead. You have to start with an upside-down V, like this."

Lauren wraps an arm around the small of Krystin's back. She doesn't know if it's okay to pull her any closer, but Krystin easily lets herself fall into place, reaching around Lauren's neck. "Like this?"

"Yeah," Lauren says, more than a little distracted by the feeling of Krystin's breath against her neck. "So then just follow me, okay?"

Leading Krystin doesn't feel like dancing with Josh. For one thing, there's no New Agey blonde yelling at her about posture and chemistry and the art of dance, and for another, she realizes she isn't faking anything at all: She actually feels confident, sure of each step. Even when she and Krystin bump into each other and even though there's no music, what they're doing doesn't feel clumsy or awkward. It's … kind of fun. Almost intimate. For the first time since stepping out of the limo—actually, for the first time in years—she doesn't feel like she's hiding something. It's like there was a thin layer of film separating Lauren from the rest of the world, one that's somehow dissolving underneath Krystin's touch.

"I feel like you're holding back on all the pro tips," Krystin says. "Is this really all it is?"

"Well, your posture is perfect," Lauren says, stepping forward, then forward again. "No surprise there."

"What about my rhythm?"

"Also perfect," Lauren says again. "You're a natural."

"I guess I have a good teacher," she says quietly.

There's something shy and nervous in her voice that Lauren doesn't recognize, and it stuns her silent. She wants to do something, wants to tell Krystin not to worry about her relationship with Josh, wants to say something stupid and snarky and watch a slow smile spread across her face. But even though Lauren usually knows the perfect thing to say to get what she wants, she doesn't know what to say this time—maybe because what she wants feels too convoluted and impossible and unfamiliar.

So she doesn't say anything, and she realizes that they've stopped dancing altogether. But her arm's still holding Krystin close, and their chests are still flush against each other. And then Krystin tilts her head just slightly, takes a shaky, nervous breath, and kisses her. And Lauren doesn't even have to think about it, doesn't try to process what's happening, doesn't stand there in shock—she just kisses her back.

It isn't like kissing Josh. It isn't like any kiss Lauren has ever had, actually.

It's chaste—sweet, like everything about Krystin—but still real and full and deep. Kissing Krystin feels like sinking into freshly washed sheets after a long, arduous day of … well, sweating and primping and drinking and fawning over a man she doesn't want. Eventually, Lauren's lips find her collarbone, her earlobe. She kisses Krystin's neck, just under her clavicle. She feels her suck in a breath, then feels herself smile against her skin.

A small part of her wonders if this is a huge mistake or even some kind of trap, but every time she thinks Krystin's about to push her away, she just pulls her closer. And then they're making out—really making out—and then Krystin's pulling her backward, until Lauren's practically straddling her on the hotel bed, and then—

And then, Krystin's eyes snap open.

"I, um." Krystin glances around the room before her gaze lands somewhere behind Lauren. "I really need to go to bed."

Lauren wants to ask what the fuck just happened. Even more than that, she wants to ask if Krystin's all right. It's actually borderline overwhelming, how much she wants to just talk to this person and hold her close, maybe make her laugh. Make sure she's okay, or something. It's a foreign feeling.

Instead, she just says, "Sure, whatever," heads back to her own bed, and takes nearly two hours to fall asleep.