Chapter Twenty
Blake
“Hold it steady, then slowly reel it in.”
I watched Mike tighten his grip on his fishing rod, and he followed my instructions before pulling it in too fast at the last second. “Damn, I think the lure snapped off.”
“It’s all right. You’ll get the hang of it,” I said. “Just remember—slow and steady.”
“Thanks for teaching me, man. Always wanted to go fishing, but never got around to it. Can you believe it? Grown-ass man who’s never fished.”
I chuckled. “It’s fine. Hardly anyone does it these days. It was nice of the producers to hook us up with some fishing gear, though.”
Mike shook his head. “It was actually Loretta. You know, the owner of the Candle Cove? Her husband loves fishing and told her she could lend us all this gear. All because she remembered me mentioning to Meredith on our first day here that this place looks like it would make a great fishing spot.”
“Oh, right.”
“I’ve actually been chatting to Loretta a lot. You know what else she told me?” Mike said as he attached another lure to his rod.
“What?” I sat back and watched him. He was a quick learner.
“She told me where the Candle Cove got its name from. Do you know much about the history of this island?”
I shook my head. “Nope. Fill me in.”
“She told me that back in the days of Prohibition, this place was somewhat of a bootlegger outpost. Small and out of the way, enough to attract practically zero attention. The inn had a secret distillery in the basement, and they’d take all the bottles down to the little cove just near here, hidden in boxes of dried fish. They’d light candles to signal to boats off the shore that the stuff was ready to be picked up. In the dead of the night, of course.”
“Man, history is cool sometimes,” I said, looking down from our little fishing spot toward the cove. “So they ended up calling it the Candle Cove Inn from that, I presume.”
“Yup.” He nodded. “The name stuck, and they never changed it. And why would they? It’s a cool piece of history. They even had tunnels running everywhere, just to make sure no one ever got spotted heading to the cove with all the contraband alcohol.”
“Nice. Maybe we can try and explore next time we have a full day off filming.”
“Yeah, for sure.” Mike smiled, then hesitated. “I saw Indi earlier.”
“Yeah?”
“Yep, when I went into your room to look for you. Ran into her on my way out, and she told me you were still at breakfast.”
I kept my face as nonchalant as I could. “So that’s how you found me. Sorry, I got caught up with all that crispy bacon in the buffet,” I said, trying to dodge the subject of Indi as much as possible.
“She seemed a little… I dunno, man. Never mind. Not my place to say, I guess.”
I sighed. Clearly, he had something to say about Indi. “It’s fine. Go ahead.”
“She just seemed a bit…” He shook his head. “I dunno how to explain it. Like her light is gone. I mean, she didn’t say anything negative. It was just her general kind of aura. Listless. Y’know?”
I sighed. “Yeah. I know exactly what you mean.”
He glanced at me curiously. “Is there something going on? You wanna talk about it?”
“Nah. I’m good.”
“You sure? It could help to talk through your issues, figure them all out. That’s why we’re here, after all.”
I shook my head. “I already know exactly what my issues are. Just basic shit, really. Something hurt me a long time ago, and since then, I pretty much gave up. Stopped pursuing happiness within a relationship. Blah, blah, blah, you know the drill,” I said. “Er, our relationship, I mean,” I added, remembering that I was still supposed to be fake-married to Indi.
He nodded and leaned forward as he cast his line out into the water again. He was silent for a few minutes, and then he spoke up again. “Y’know, I really want to get first prize on this show. All that money… I fucking need it, and I’m pretty sure I’d do damn near anything to get it. But you know what I need more?”
“What?”
“To fix shit with Meredith. We’re on and off, on and off. Rinse and repeat. I can’t deal with it anymore. We need to stop. Need to heal. That’s the most important part of being here, right?”
“I guess,” I replied, feeling a little awkward. Indi and I weren’t like the others. We weren’t in a broken, dying marriage.
We weren’t in anything.
“Well, I know you don’t really wanna talk about it, but let me give you some advice at least.”
“Sure. Shoot,” I said. The man was trying to help, after all.
“We tried a couples therapist once. Didn’t work that well in the end, obviously, because we’re here, but the therapist did tell us some stuff that helped things along more than anything else ever did. Two main things. Never stop dating your wife. After he told me that, I realized that as soon as Meredith and I got hitched, I stopped trying. Stopped taking her out, stopped trying to surprise her.”
“I see.”
“Never stop trying, because that’s when things start to get stale and resentment and boredom build up. Secondly, you gotta talk to her. Like, really talk. Don’t just wait for her to come to you all the time to start the conversation, all because women are supposedly meant to be the emotional, talkative ones. That’s bullshit. Men have feelings too. We’re allowed to talk about them. Don’t have to be macho and detached all the time.”
I hadn’t really been listening to the first part all that much, but Mike’s second point really hammered something in for me.
Shit…I’d never actually gone and talked to Indi. I was so frustrated with her for not telling me how she felt when I was convinced she secretly had romantic feelings toward me, but at no point had I gone to her and fucking admitted my own feelings.
I never went to her and actually said the words: Indi, I want you so much that it hurts. You’re all I think about anymore. All I dream about. Please, give us a shot.
Instead, all I’d ever done was crack stupid sleazy jokes and make teasing remarks about her wanting me in the hopes that she’d do all the hard work and own up to it. Nothing more.
Christ, I was a fucking idiot.
Indi wasn’t exactly my best and oldest friend, but she still knew me when I was quite a bit younger. Back then, I was a sleazebag. A man whore. The kind of guy who made women drop their panties for me, only to drop them the next day. I moved out of Lakewater around the same time she left for college, and six whole years went by before we saw each other again. And when we did, I acted like my old self: a douchey, cocky asshole.
No wonder she refused to talk to me or admit any feelings she may or may not have—she was afraid. Scared that I was still that same asshole who would use her for a good time in the bedroom and then ditch her the second I got bored. All because I was too much of a fucking idiot to ever actually talk to her and tell her she was wrong; tell her I’d grown up a bit since back in the day.
It was time I manned the hell up; stopped screwing around and actually told Indi what I wanted and how I felt.
I glanced at my watch. “We better pack up,” I said, seeing that it was already past twelve. “Filming starts at one, so we need to be back for that.”
It would only take a few minutes to head back to the inn, but I wanted a chance to talk to Indi and tell her the truth before we got back into filming for the show. We didn’t even need to be here anymore. I could give her everything she wanted if she just let me. We could end this charade and head home, forget about trying to win any sort of prize.
She was the only true prize in this scenario.
Mike nodded. “True. Let’s go.”
We packed all the gear up and trudged back to the inn. By the time I returned the fishing gear and headed into the main function room, I could see most of the contestants and crew members already congregating there in anticipation of the afternoon challenge. Indi was there too.
I strode over to her. “Indi, can we go somewhere for a minute? I want to talk to you. It’s important.”
She looked shocked at the earnest tone in my voice. “Oh. Sure,” she replied, her hazel eyes widening. “I…um…I actually really wanted to talk to you as well.”
I smiled, relieved. “Great. Let’s go back to our—”
My sentence was cut off by a loud gasp from Elise Tilden. “Yuri!”
I turned to look. Her husband had just stumbled in through the French doors, blood seeping from his mouth. He was bug-eyed and white as a sheet. “I didn’t see who it was,” he choked out, his voice raspy. “Got me….behind….”
“Yuri, what happened?” Elise said, frantically dashing over to him.
He let out another choking sound, and then he fell forward, landing on the polished floorboards with a heavy thud.
There was an ax sticking out of his back.