Page 49 of The True Love Experiment

But if there is an expert in dating anywhere, it’s Fizzy Chen. So I shove this tiny, terrified instinct back into its dusty corner and look Dax right in the eye. “We’re setting the bar high, I see.”

He laughs and gives me a playful once-over. “I’ll say.”

I reach my hand across the table. “Nice to meet you, Dax.”

“Nice to meet you, too, Felicity.”

He holds on to my hand for a prolonged, flirty beat. His voice is naturally low and a little raspy, his fingers coarse and dry, palm calloused. Everything about him is rough around the edges, and I like it. He’s a perfect balance of hot and sinful. Well done, Connor.

But do I tell Dax to call me Fizzy? I like the way Felicity sounds in his voice. It sounds dirty and playful, and that’s the role he’s been given, the one he’s been sent to embrace. And I think of the audiencewatching, how they won’t know my thoughts unless I say them aloud, and how I don’t want them to think keeping things formal is a measure of my interest.

“Everyone calls me Fizzy,” I tell him, releasing the handshake. “But I like the way you say Felicity.”

“Felicity it is, then.”

I smile in agreement. “So, Tattooed Bad Boy.”

He nods.

“The tattooed part is self-explanatory. But why bad boy?”

“Let’s see if you can guess.”

I lean in, humming, studying. There’s a sharpness to his gaze, an overt confidence. I think of his calloused hands. “Daredevil? I bet you’re into extreme sports.”

Dax laughs. “Skydiving, rock climbing, you name it, yeah.”

“Holy shit.” I smack the table. “I’m good.”

A production assistant waves a red card just behind Dax’s shoulder, a technique Connor set up to remind me not to swear like a sailor. It has the added effect of reminding me that Connor is right there watching, thathishands are enormous and warm, and of the way he sent one up under my sweater last night, cupping my breast, the pad of his thumb circling the tight peak as his kisses grew impatient and rough.

Focus, Fizzy.

“I want to know something,” I say, leaning in closer to block out the shape of Connor’s broad shoulders in the background.

Dax leans in, too, smiling coyly. “Anything.”

“What is your ugliest tattoo?”

When he throws his head back and laughs in surprise, the oldFizzy would notice Dax’s long throat, that masculine spike of an Adam’s apple, and about a hundred other things about him because he is gorgeous. Old Fizzy would be breaking the rules left and right, planning meetups with these contestants after hours. My trailer in the alley out back would do nicely.

Now, no matter how charismatic he is, no matter how much I appreciate his sex appeal, the idea of meeting up with Dax later leaves me feeling blank inside. All I can do is focus on not turning my eyes up to Connor in the background to gauge his expression while he watches us flirt.

But in the end, the date with Dax is objectively great. The glee he exhibits when he shows me a truly awful tattoo of a mermaid on his shoulder says so much about his sense of humor and willingness to be silly in front of the camera that I find myself genuinely enjoying talking to him. He’s third-generation Korean American, has won all kinds of BMX trick competitions (which I’m sure are very impressive to those who know anything at all about BMX), and turns out to be a surprise foodie, with friends in the restaurant business all over town.

The next Hero date, if possible, is even better.

ISAAC: HOT NERD

He walks into the café, a bespectacled six-foot-three Black man, and an appreciative hush falls over the room.

He sits across from me, his Hero name tag slapped over a pectoral I can see outlined beneath his plain white T-shirt, and manages to make artificial intelligence sound only moderately terrifyingbefore turning every ounce of genuine focus on me. When I finally find my words again, we discuss books, oldest sibling woes, favorite memes, and our shared disdain for having to go into the bank or post office in person anymore. For the first time in over an hour, I forget there are cameras capturing every single expression that passes over my face. I like him, and at the end of our time together I’m genuinely disappointed to see him go.

The third date is the first real miss.

BENJI: COWBOY

Physically, Benji—who goes by Tex—is great, but the energy is all wrong. I can see Connor pacing in the background behind a wall of screens as we struggle and jerkily interrupt each other, trying to fill silences in unison. When he asks me what my dad thinks about his daughter writing romance for a living, I ask him in return what his mom thinks about him riding horses for a living and watch the confusion play across his features.

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