Chapter 3

The chateau is pretty in the morning. Or the afternoon—it's three o'clock by the time Krystin leaves her bunk bed to find food, since she didn't crawl into the XL twin until well past six AM. After the first string-cutting ceremony and the seemingly endless confessional interviews, the women dispersed into their assigned rooms, some neglecting their nighttime routines for the comfort of being horizontal. Not Krystin, though. Her mother taught her to never go to sleep without washing her face before she taught her to ride a bike.

Half the girls are in the common area when Krystin pads in, her bare feet cold on the faux marble tile.

"Hey, girlie," says Sara-without-an-H, twisting around on the couch to face her. She's already in full face, her coffin-shaped nails clinking against the coffee mug in her hands. "How'd you sleep?"

"Amazing," Krystin answers, even though she woke up tangled in her sheets more than once.

She looks around the room. Jen is curled up next to Madison, flipping through Netflix titles. Kaydie stands behind the kitchen island in head-to-toe Outdoor Voices, stuffing celery into a juicer that Krystin suspects she brought from home. Lily's sitting by the window, leafing half-heartedly through an old issue of Vogue. Krystin can't help but notice that the brunette from the night before, Lauren C., isn't there.

"How long have you guys been up?"

"Not long," Sara says, taking a sip from what looks like a very milky latte. "Just a couple hours."

Krystin glances at Kaydie, who's making a show of being exhausted from whatever Pilates workout she did from memory. "But our call time isn't until five."

Lily shrugs. "Can't hurt to be prepared," she says without looking up from her magazine. "You never know."

Krystin doesn't know. She feels like the last girl to wake up at the sleepover, still wiping the sleep from her eyes with the corner of her Murdoch's T-shirt. Everyone else is ready for brunch. Actually, everyone else has already eaten.

"Yeah," she says. "Totally." The words stick in her throat. She desperately needs something to drink. "Where's everyone else?" she asks, rounding the corner of the island to fill a cup with water.

"I think some of them are by the pool," Kaydie offers. Up close, Krystin can see the outline of her abs through the color-blocked spandex. She should really ask Kaydie for her Pilates routine.

"Lauren C. definitely is," Jen says, and the girls exchange some looks.

Krystin looks around nervously.

"It's fine," Lily tells her. "The cameras aren't here."

Sara sits up straight on the couch. "Can we just talk about the ribbon? She walked back in all smug. Do we think they kissed?"

"I know they kissed," says Kaydie. "I totally saw them."

"No way."

"I mean, is anyone surprised?" Jen lowers her voice. "Do you know what she said to Josh when she got out of the limo?"

"OMG, spill."

"She said, ‘I want you to know that my front door is always open.' And then she said, ‘So is my back door.'"

Madison gasps. Lily laughs.

Jen continues. "And then she said something about a side door, which doesn't even make sense."

Krystin wants to leave. She's not part of the conversation, just watching it as if she's back home watching the show with Delia; but still, she feels guilty by proximity.

"Didn't she interrupt your time with Josh?" Sara asks her, eyes wide in doe-like innocence.

"Me?" Krystin asks, but it's obvious who Sara was talking to. "Yeah, I guess she did."

"Well? Aren't you pissed?"

Krystin looks at Kaydie for help, but she just sips her celery juice. Lily's turned back to her magazine. "I mean, not really. I feel good about our time together."

Truth be told, Krystin had been relieved when it ended. It took her five minutes to feel her legs again after Lauren C. had replaced her in the gazebo.

The girls are looking at her, waiting for her to divulge something, anything, but Krystin has nothing.

"I'm gonna go get ready," she says, but no one's listening. They've moved on to Jenna, twenty-eight from Atlanta, who apparently got white-girl-wasted and puked in a potted fiddle-leaf fig the night before. Their giggles fade as Krystin walks back to her room, peeling off her T-shirt before she even closes the door.

The first time Krystin wore fake eyelashes was when she was eight years old. She sat in her bedroom as her mom applied the glue to her eyelids, and then applied the tiny plastic fibers with her Tweezermans. She was competing in her first competition, the junior girls portion of the regional rodeo. She bit down on her Watermelon Lip Smackers when her horse, Ringo, had raced along the fence; her blonde curls bounced against her pearl-button blouse as she gripped the reins.

In the chateau, Krystin steps back from the mirror to assess her work: subtle, but effective. If fake eyelashes could be considered subtle.

She's wearing jeans and a tank top, since all they're doing is receiving date cards. The producers told them "casual-cute." Looking at the remaining twenty-five girls gathered around the living room, Krystin sees how many ways you could interpret those words. She sits next to the remaining Ashley—Ashley O., she thinks—who scoots over to make room for her. The leather pants she's wearing squeak against the leather of the cushions.

Krystin pokes her head around into the various orbits of conversation, but she's not quite close enough to be a part of any of them. She leans back into the couch and looks at the cameramen setting up the shots, the producers alternating between stenographer's notebooks and their phones. Someone in the room is wearing too much Victoria's Secret body spray.

"Hey."

Krystin looks up to see Lauren C. settling onto the arm of the couch beside her, shiny brown hair falling into place all around her. Krystin gestures an offer to make room for her, but Lauren puts up her hand.

"I'm fine here," she says.

Krystin nods, and then shifts away. She's not quite sure what Lauren's deal is yet, and she doesn't want to be associated with someone who might get the villain cut.

But Lauren turns to her like she did in the limo. "Someone in here bathed in chain store body mist," she murmurs, and Krystin muffles a laugh.

"Okay, right? It smells like middle school." Krystin knows, because it's what she smelled like in middle school. Janie Tucker, the most popular girl in the seventh-grade class, told Krystin she wore Vanilla Lace, and Krystin had made her mom drive her all the way to the mall after school to get a bottle of her own. "We're not even seeing Josh tonight."

Lauren slips into a glossy smile. "Must be just for us."

"Okay, ladies!" A producer, a white woman in her thirties named Holland, claps three times, like a grade school teacher. "In a couple of minutes, there's gonna be a knock at the door. One of you will answer the door, get the date cards from the tray outside, then read them off. Cool?"

McKenzie raises her hand. Krystin hears Lauren stifle a laugh beside her.

"Excuse me? I'd love to be the one to read the cards," McKenzie says to more than a few eye rolls.

Holland claps again, just once this time. "Amazing! Go for it." She points to the main cameraman, who nods. The red light flicks on.

Like Holland said, knuckles rap at the front door. Around her, the girls fall into exaggerated gasps and whispers.

"I'll get it!" McKenzie stands up and trots to the door, followed by the Steadicam. When she returns, she holds three gold cards, shimmering in the late afternoon sunlight that streams in from the windows. She takes a deep breath, smiling at all of them like a sorority president. Then she reads.

And Krystin hears her name.

"Krystin." McKenzie looks up at her as she says it. "Let's find out what ten things I hate about you."

There's a disparate chorus of "oohs."

"Wonder what that means," McKenzie says, saccharine.

Krystin is suddenly aware of her face, which she's not sure is making any kind of expression. Or, she's sure it's doing something, but she doesn't know what. Everyone is looking at her. The red light blinks. She smiles.

"Gosh, I'm so flattered," she says, looking around at the other girls, who all look like they might short circuit. Holland nods at her, gestures to continue. "I knew after the first night we had a connection, and I can't wait to have more time to nurture that." Holland gives her a thumbs-up.

After she's finished, McKenzie reads the next card, a group date with twenty-three women. One name remains.

McKenzie smiles, faux-bashful. "Which leaves me." Her hands flutter up to her heart. "McKenzie, let's see what we can build together. Oh my God, that's so cute." She looks up at the couch. "You know, since both our families are in construction."

"Yeah, we know," Lauren whispers, but this time Krystin doesn't laugh. In fact, she isn't really hearing anything due to the blood rushing in her ears. She could barely get through five minutes of alone time with Josh without puking from nerves, how on earth is she going to make it through an entire date?

She counts her breath like she learned to do before competitions. One, two, three, four, in, one, two, three, four, out. Is she still smiling? She is now. McKenzie is trying to decipher her date card, the message of which seems pretty fucking obvious, and Krystin nods along in encouragement. She will not freak out. She has gone on dates before. Sure, they weren't very long or intense, and they certainly weren't filmed for the whole of America to see, including her parents and rodeo judges and Delia, but the point is, this isn't her first, well, rodeo. She can do this. She likes Josh, remember? She wants this to work. This will work.

"Hey, are you good?" Lauren is looking at her, and actually seems kind of concerned, through the grin plastered on her face.

"Huh?"

Lauren looks pointedly at Krystin's nails, which are digging into her denim-covered knees. "You look like you're about to rip a chunk out of your Levi's."

Krystin releases her legs. "Oh, yeah. Nerves." Lauren's eyebrows raise. "Excited ones, though. Like adrenaline."

Lauren studies her a moment longer. "Totally."

"All right, cut," Holland yells. "That was good. You'll all get your call times and instructions in a bit. Cameras are gonna be around tonight for some B-roll, so just do what you normally do, or not. It doesn't really matter either way."

Krystin's call time is eleven AM. She gets up way earlier, though, after taking NyQuil and falling asleep at eight thirty the night before. When she went to bed, the girls were already shuffling into alliances. No, not alliances, Krystin reminds herself, friendships. The way she thinks about it, the show is as real as you make it, and Krystin is determined to treat it as authentic as her dad's Carhartt work jacket.

She stands at the end of a gravel road in producer-specified gym shoes and leggings. She's braided her hair in two long plaits, which used to make Delia call her Pippi Longstocking, but Holland had coaxed her to "lean into the whole cowgirl thing." She'd started to say there wasn't much to "lean into," but Holland had already moved on to another task.

Krystin spent some time this morning trying to figure out what she and Josh would be doing, but gave up pretty quickly. Whatever it is, she's going to do it. She can't see much from her position on the road, just a long stretch of dust lined with palm trees.

After a few minutes, Holland tells Krystin they're ready to start. The cameras point their lenses toward her.

"Rolling."

Then Josh appears at the end of the stretch and starts walking toward her, so she ignores the wings batting around in her chest and does what they always do: she runs toward him and jumps into his arms.

He catches her, if a bit unsteadily. "Hey, tiger," he says, laughing.

Krystin jumps down, a little out of breath. "Sorry," she says. "I couldn't help myself."

Josh raises his hands in defense. "No problems on my end." He reaches for her hand. "Ready to go?"

She accepts. They walk. Eventually, a red barn appears, the kind too literal to house even cows in Montana. It looks out of place next to the tropical trees.

"So," Josh says as they come to a stop in front of the impeccably painted structure. "Something you should know about me: I love the movie 10 Things I Hate About You."

"Okay," Krystin replies. "Where is this going?"

"Well, there's something they do that I've always wanted to re-create for myself."

Krystin thinks. "Please don't tell me you're going to make me write you a poem."

Josh laughs. "No, no. But maybe later!"

Then it clicks. "Oh! Oh my gosh, paintball!"

"Paintball."

They're outfitted in vests and pads, and given rifles that look frighteningly identical to the ones hanging in Krystin's grandparents' garage. The course is, as expected, barn-themed; stacks of hay bales populate the ground, triangulated by wooden deer stands—except today, Krystin and Josh are the deer.

"I'm not gonna go easy on you, Romantic or not," Krystin tells Josh, loading her paintball gun.

"I wouldn't expect any less."

And then they're off. Krystin darts behind a haystack, and Josh stumbles away to find his own perch. She exhales steadily, grateful for the adrenaline. Then she flips around, resting the barrel of her rifle on the straw, and waits.

"Jooooosh," she sing-songs, protective goggle-covered eyes glued to the scope. "I should have warned you." She hears him rustle, and moves the gun accordingly. "My dad's big on hunting, and he's taught me a few things."

Josh bursts from behind a haystack and Krystin nails him in the back.

"Ha!" she yells, jumping from her crouch to chase after him.

He turns around, blasting paintballs while running backward, and they splatter the hay around her. He grimaces.

Krystin cackles like a Disney villain. "Wow, you are so gonna lose!"

He's still running, trying to zigzag away from her. "I might have made a mistake choosing this for our first date!"

Right. This is a date. Krystin stops running. "Okay, okay. Go ahead, hit me." She holds her arms up in defeat, letting the paintball gun swing behind her on its strap. "Hit me, baby, one more time!"

Josh pops his head up from behind the stack he dove behind. "What? No way!"

"It's only fair!"

"That's not fair, it's cheating! It is not the manly thing to do."

"Oh yeah?" Krystin taunts. "So what's the manly thing to do?"

"This."

Josh runs toward her, but he's not holding his paintball gun anymore. Krystin shifts her weight to run away, but he's not chasing her. Instead, he wraps his arms around her waist and kisses her. He really, really kisses her. Krystin is suddenly very aware of her hands, which aren't doing anything, so she runs them through Josh's hair. It is curly. It feels funny between her fingers.

"Wow," Josh says, his cheeks flushed when he comes up for air. "You're, like, a really good kisser."

Krystin smiles, even though she wasn't really doing anything. Like most other kisses in her life, she kinda just let him take the lead, projecting whatever he wanted onto her. "Thanks. You too."

"So …" He trails off, looking out at the course. "Should we finish the game?"

Krystin takes the paintball gun back in her hands. "You're on."

By the end of the date, they're sweaty and Skittle-colored. It takes Krystin thirty minutes in the shower to scrub all the paint out of her hairline. She feels raw and hot by the time she gets out.

All in all, the first part of the date went well. And Krystin had fun—she barely had time to be nervous between all the running and shooting. Also, she kicked Josh's ass, which she's pretty sure turned him on.

She chooses a long, glittery halter for dinner, and curls her hair into big waves that brush lightly against her open back. Josh blushes again when he sees her. He pulls the chair out for her, and she slides in. The table is already set, red wine in the glasses, plates of pasta in front of them. Krystin's not hungry, though. The producers brought chicken nuggets to her room before she left to prevent any unfortunate chewing on screen.

"Today was really fun," Josh says, swirling his wine around in his glass before taking a sip.

"I had a really great time," Krystin replies. She brushes a piece of hair behind her ear. "I hope I didn't scare you. I tend to get really competitive."

"There's no way that could scare me," he assures her. "I like strong women."

"I'm glad." She smiles. "It's kind of ingrained in me after so many years of rodeo."

"I believe it." Josh pauses. "So, how else has rodeo shaped who you are?"

It's a broad question. "Gosh," Krystin starts, looking out at the empty restaurant. There are other tables, and they're all set, but Krystin and Josh are the only patrons. It makes her think about the cameras, which makes her shift a little in her seat. "I mean, how hasn't it?"

Josh nods. Go on.

"Um, okay. Well, I learned a lot about community. The girls who do rodeo are some of the best I've ever known, just the kindest, most talented women, and a lot of them are still my closest friends. And it really connected me to where I'm from—you know, Montana rodeo is a lot about western pride, and I really have a lot of it, I love it. But I guess the biggest thing is that it taught me to go after what I want." She looks at Josh. "That's what brought me here."

Josh whistles. "Wow," he says. "Thank you, Montana rodeo."

"I mean, there are a lot of reasons why I'm here," she amends. "I just mean—"

"No, I understand. Like, genuinely, I thank rodeo. Because I'm really glad you're here." He looks like he means it.

"Me too," Krystin says, and she means it too. "So, what about you? What do you want?"

"Oof, coming in hot, I see. Well, I want a wife, obviously. I want a family. I want what any red-blooded American guy wants, right? A happy home."

"I want that too," Krystin agrees truthfully. "My parents have been married for almost twenty-five years, so it's like, that's all I know. And I want the same for myself."

They talk about their families for a while, and Josh tells Krystin about his younger brother, who is infamously responsible for a lot of the tension at last season's hometown date. Krystin counters with stories of being an only child, and how she feels pressure to be everything for both of her parents, who have given her everything in return. They talk about growing up, how different it was for each of them. When Josh explains the theme of his tenth birthday, Krystin describes the Gallatin County fair and how her mother won first place for best pickled vegetable every year, choosing a different type of vegetable each time.

Toward the end of the dinner, a platter with a single golden ribbon on it is left on the table.

"Krystin," Josh says, taking the ribbon in his hands. "I've had an amazing time with you today. You're smart, and sweet, and you're pretty darn cute."

Krystin doesn't have to remind herself to smile.

"Thank you for sharing so much with me tonight. I'd like to give you this date ribbon, as a symbol of our connection, and so you can be confident your string won't be cut this week. Will you accept it?"

Krystin holds her wrist out for Josh. For the first time since arriving at the chateau, her stomach isn't churning, and she actually thinks she might be happy. "It would be my pleasure."