Page 111 of The True Love Experiment

“I would say I’m comparatively chill. What’s with you?”

“Finale,” he says simply. “Just nervous.”

“Everything is going great,” I tell him. “Haven’t you been watching?”

“Yeah—just—” Connor sucks a deep, jagged breath and then blows it out. “The hard part is coming.”

I turn to face him fully and set my hand on his chest. This, Iknow: “Everything is going to be amazing,” I promise him. “You don’t have anything to worry about. I will not let you down.”

He nods, and his gaze falls to my mouth, drifting unfocused.

My heart decides to evaporate from my body.

“Whatever happens,” I whisper, forcing the words out, “we did this spectacular, brilliant, once-in-a-lifetime thing together, and I will never regret it. I will never regretyou.”

Before the words are fully out of my mouth, he’s already leaning down, lips on mine, warm and urgent, his hands cupping my face. Surprise pulls a cry from my throat, but my instincts send tight, possessive fists to the lapels of his jacket, and I stretch up onto my toes, eager for his mouth, desperate for the addicting balance of domination and tenderness in his touch. I don’t know what this is, but I’m no fool. I’ll take anything this man will give me.

With a quiet groan, Connor tilts his head, deepening the contact into a decadent slide, sending a hungry hand down my body, cupping the curve of my ass, and pulling me tightly against him. The other threads fingers into my hair until he’s holding the back of my head and pouring everything he has into the kiss. It is the perfect balance of soft and hard, wet with teasing licks and sucks. He catches my bottom lip between his teeth, drags slowly away, and I chase the contact, but he stops me, pressing his thumb over my lips.

He stares at his finger, conflicted, before sliding it away for a final, lingering kiss.

“Connor.”

“You’re right,” he says.

“About what?”

But applause breaks out in a blast of sound behind me. We are back from commercial and that’s my light cue illuminating overhead.

Connor turns me bodily, gently pushing me forward, and in a daze, I walk onstage—hair mussed, lipstick gone—to find out who I’m meant to spend the rest of my life with.

fiftyFIZZY

The roar of the audience feels like a hive of bees inside my head. I glance out, trying to gauge how many people are here, but the stage lights are blinding. I can’t see anything.

What just happened?

Did Connor just kiss me goodbye?

The set has been restructured, with a love seat inserted beside Lanelle’s chair, and the two sofas with all the Heroes put off to the side, one next to what I presume is my love seat, and the other behind, on a riser so they sit in two rows of four. I presume whoever wins the audience vote will come sit beside me, but the moment I sit down alone on the two-seater, I feel weirdly exposed and self-conscious.

My lips still tingle from the fever of Connor’s mouth.

I have a couple of minutes to get myself together as the video montage of my life plays; in the darkness, a SWAT team of hair and makeup artists rushes in to fix the damage. On-screen, I’m shown writing (LOL), jogging (there’s a lone cackle from the front row; I’ll discuss that with you later, Jessica Marie Peña), and body surfing in Pacific Beach (welp, that’s quite a wedgie). God, in hindsight, why didn’t I say no to any of these ideas! An accurate portrayal of my life would be me double-dipping tortilla chips into a giant bowl ofguacamole withCrash Landing on Youplaying on the television for the seventieth time and my laptop gathering dust in the corner. But I guess that doesn’t scream Heroine material.

When the video ends, we cover what we already know: that I previously dated Evan and hated his tattoo; that Arjun and I had no chemistry; that Tex and Jude rubbed me the wrong way; that Dax and I looked like we wanted to eat each other but didn’t actually have that much in common; and that I had great chemistry with Nick, Isaac, and Evan.

We all banter, we all bicker playfully. We break for commercial, and while everyone is joking and chatting, I feel my pulse start to climb. We’re almost there. Almost there. Odds are good I’m going to puke on live television.

I want to be done with this, but also never want it to end. I don’t know how to maintain a relationship with Connor after the show is over, or even whether I should. It’s weird to be thirty-seven but only now learning how to do this: confess my feelings, go after who and what I want in my romantic life, manage rejection. I never expected to be the kind of person to have a hard time letting go.

The lights rise, signaling we’re back. My palms are sweaty and I resist the urge to wipe them on my dress because I’m sure it would be very obvious that I’m freaking the hell out right now. We’re going to find out the audience vote. We’re going to find out our scores. We’re going to find out the name of my soulmate.

But then Lanelle surprises me.

“Well, the eight of you weren’t the only Heroes with ardent fans,” she says. “There was also the surprise fan favorite; isn’t that right, Fizzy?”

The crowd goes insane.

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