~~ * ~~
The night before our first live show, I was wide awake long after midnight.
Not because I’d heard something in the creepy old house. I hadn’t since that first night. Not because I was nervous about the live show. I wasn’t. Instead, I listened closely to Brodie’s breathing on the couch across from mine. When I was sure his breathing was even and he’d gone to sleep, I peeled back my blankets and slipped off the couch, tiptoeing out to the backyard.
I returned to the living room a few minutes later to find Brodie laying on my couch, giving me an expectant look as I tiptoed back in.
Busted. Damn it. He’d been faking going off to sleep.
“Whatcha got there, hotness?” he whispered.
“None of your business,” I whispered back. “How’d you know I was up?”
“You’re totally obvious,” he said. “When you’re agitated, you twitch a lot and can’t sit still. And you were twitching like mad tonight, so I knew you were up to something.”
I sighed and flopped down on one end of the couch, sitting across Brodie’s sprawled legs. If he wasn’t going to get up, I’d just sit on top of him. “That’s right. You caught me. I’m up to no good.”
“As long as it’s something I can edge in on, I don’t care if it’s good or bad.”
There were times when I appreciated having a partner with questionable morals, I decided. I showed him the object I’d hidden in my hand—the recorder.
He looked vaguely disgusted. “More ghost hunting?”
“You wish,” I said. I’d used the recorder for ghost hunting the first night I’d gotten it, but when eight hours of recordings had turned up nothing but snoring, I decided to use it for something slightly more nefarious. “I hid this in one of the flower pots in the smoking area.”
Several of the people in the house were smokers—Marla, Lenore, Sunnie, Fido, and Casper. Jendan was super into fitness, so he was probably the most ridiculously healthy in the house. I doubted he even drank. I hadn’t seen Katy or Liam head down to the smoking area, so I guessed they didn’t smoke. Brodie didn’t, either. Of course, that meant that the smokers often went out to have a cigarette and chit chat, and that meant that the non-smokers were rarely in on the conversations. It was something I’d noticed early on, and I’d considered taking up smoking just to muscle in on the private conversations…but I couldn’t stand the taste or the smell.
Having a recorder was the next best thing, though. Maybe even better.
Brodie sat up as I showed him the recorder, a gleam of appreciation in his eyes. “You are a genius. I could kiss you.”
“You already did,” I replied pertly, but I couldn’t help but smile at his words.
“Yeah, but this time you could act like you enjoyed it,” he teased.
I glanced over at him from under my lashes, curious. Had he thought I hadn’t enjoyed the impromptu kiss? It had taken me by surprise, but…it wasn’t a bad kiss. “I didn’t enjoy it because your kisses don’t mean anything, Brodie. You pass them out like candy.”
He chuckled, unhurt by my tart accusation. “So do I get to listen in on the tape?”
“As long as you promise not to burn me and tell the others I’ve been recording them.” Even Jendan didn’t know I was borrowing his recorder for sneaky purposes. I thought it might seem too shady, so I’d kept the secret to myself.
Plus, I was a little curious about what Jendan was saying about me, too.
Brodie made a ‘cross my heart’ motion on his chest. “You’re my partner. You can trust me to save your ass as long as it’s attached to mine.”
Fair enough. I slid a little closer to him on the couch and we bent over the recorder, listening. The first few minutes were nothing but silence, so I started to skip ahead every few minutes, listening for voices. When I heard someone, I’d rewind and then we’d listen in on the conversation.
We listened to that darn recorder for hours, our heads bent together. And we found out a wealth of information, only some of it surprising.
Mickey was hitting on every woman in the house and failing miserably. That wasn’t surprising.
Lenore was furious that she’d been put up for the vote, and she was busy campaigning to get out Katy and Liam. That also wasn’t surprising, though the viciousness of some of her words was startling—and kind of lame. I lost track of how many times she referred to Liam as a “tattooed hooligan.”
Casper and Sunnie and Fido seemed to be in an alliance together, which worried me. They didn’t trust Brodie, didn’t trust me by default, and had pulled Marla in. Marla assured them that she had Jendan’s vote and that he’d align with them. They wanted Liam and Katy gone ASAP. Not only because they’d won last time, but Katy and Liam weren’t exactly playing the best game. They tended to hang out in their room together and just talk quietly between themselves. Brodie had mentioned to me that his sister was a bit of an introvert, and it seemed that Liam was too. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but when it came to a game like House Guests? It was pretty much a one-way ticket home.
I mentally counted as we listened to Sunnie and Casper make plans with Marla. Sunnie, Casper, and Marla. They said they had Jendan. Fido was with them. That was five together. Right now, it sounded like they were planning on all voting for Lenore and then pulling Mickey to their side. He’d follow, because he was no doubt upset that Katy and Liam had nominated him for eviction. That would give them six, and if there were eleven left in the house, we’d be outnumbered.
Damn. Week one and I was already on the losing side.
The recorder ran out and clicked off, and I gave Brodie a concerned look. “What do you think?”
He rubbed his spiky blond hair. “I think we’d better not lose the next Power challenge, or we’re screwed.”
I twirled a foot, fidgeting anxiously. “This sucks. If they’re going after Katy and Liam, you know we’re next.”
“I know,” he said grimly. “We have to pull some of them over to our side.”
“I thought I had Jendan, but the way Marla was talking, I’m not so sure. I’d say we could work on Lenore, but she hates Katy and Liam.”
He thought for a moment. “I can probably work on Sunnie. Can you work on both Jendan and Mickey? Mickey likes you.”