Chapter 8: Truth or Dare

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Chapter 8: Truth or Dare

The clock above his bed ticked again, and Jamie craned his head to look up at the cursed thing.

"Shut up," he muttered to the time.

It was a round-faced analog clock. Hammered-copper. An abstract design, reminiscent of the scintillating Mexican sun outside their bungalow. He might have appreciated having something pretty to look at in his bedroom, if not for the relentless minute-hand that insisted on interrupting the stillness of the night and the gentle rhythm of the ocean surf outside.

Past midnight, the clock told him. He should be asleep if he had any hope of looking camera-ready in the morning.

A 7:00 am call every morning for a month...

Night one, the crew had followed him and Cora into their stucco-walled, thatch-roofed shanty, nosing around as they unpacked, and sussing out the sleeping arrangements for the benefit of the viewing public. Thankfully, the bungalow was more spacious than it looked from the outside. Two rooms. Two beds. Otherwise, Jamie might have had to play the gentleman and sleep on the floor. Or outside on the beach, with the rest of the local wildlife.

Cora had claimed the smaller bedroom and shut the door on him with nun-like haste, and Jamie found himself here. Alone, with no source of entertainment but his own imagination and the infernal ticking clock.

Could be worse. At least the place had air-con.

And at least they were allowed to sleep in peace.

He'd suffered a brief moment of panic yesterday that the cameras might hover all night long. But no. Things weren't quite so uncivilized. The crew members were booked into a hotel a half-kilometer down the beach. They must be union, he supposed, contractually entitled to time off. Mel had ordered the lot of them out of the bungalow at a reasonable hour, with orders to return in time to capture the 7am wake-up call in the morning.

"Tick," went the clock.

"Fuck off," Jamie replied. He rolled over onto his stomach and covered his head with a pillow. If only he wasn't bored out of his skull. Sleep was nowhere in sight, and his phone had been confiscated upon arrival, along with most of his personal effects. He wouldn't get it back till the month was up. Jamie couldn't remember the last time he'd been without it for a day, let alone a month.

This left him alone with his thoughts, unfortunately. Never a safe place for him to dwell for very long. His mind drifted back over the events of the day, and he wrinkled his nose in distaste.

The romantic storyline was progressing faster than he would have liked. There hadn't been time to brief his co-star on the details of the script. He had only given her the rough outline, shouted as they ran through the crowded airport concourse to catch their plane.

"Are you with me Miss Elizabeth? I'm pride, you're prejudice..."

To be fair, he'd only read Pride & Prejudice one time, a few years back. He'd sipped it slowly, the way he read most things, scrolling on his phone screen during the downtime between takes on some underwear campaign.

A few sentences here...

A chapter there...

He may have misjudged the pacing. Still, he felt certain that Elizabeth and Darcy didn't show any signs of warming toward each other so early in the plot. It was only night two since their arrival in Cozumel. His Elizabeth had already advanced from utter disdain to long, lingering glances in between their verbal sparring. Jamie was no Austen scholar, but he couldn't imagine Elizabeth Bennett staring outright, the way Cora had done during the game of "Truth or Dare" this afternoon.

The game had been staged by production when the two of them showed no interest in speaking to each other for hours at a time. Jamie had gone easy on her, of course. Cora had chosen "truth" first, and he'd avoided asking anything too revealing. He understood she was out of her depth. Not a trained expert like himself in the art of believable prevarication. Cora Glass, doctor of optometry and biomedical sciences, might not be so well-versed in image control.

So, instead of the obligatory "How many people have you slept with?" or "When was your last one night stand?" he'd asked her, "How is it possible you completed two doctorates by the age of 27?"

"Aren't you going to make some crack about nerdy smart girls?" she'd retorted, after she finished explaining how she'd started college a year early and recently graduated from a dual doctorate program.

"Smart girls terrify me," came his smooth reply. "If you see any around here, please give me a warning."

So far, so good. He'd requested a dare next. This had been her opening to embarrass him, to pierce his overinflated ego in the most mean-spirited way possible.

"Do you make a habit of insulting people right before you ask them for a dare?" she'd asked.

"I'm a man of action and danger," he'd replied, sipping lazily at his frozen margarita. "Go on then. Dare me." He'd leaned his face close to hers. "Do your worst."

She should have dared him to recite his multiplication tables, or something thoroughly humiliating like that. Where were her schoolteacher instincts when he needed them?

But no, the producer had ruined it. Mel had whispered, "Dare him to kiss you!" loudly enough for the couple stranded on the next beach over to hear.

Cora had the good sense to refuse, thank goodness.  She'd crossed her arms across her red bikini top and flushed nearly the same color. Far too early for Elizabeth and Darcy to kiss.

But the suggestion had thrown off the rhythm of the thing. After a brief huddle with Mel, Cora had returned to her place on the chaise beside him and dared him to dive from an outcropping of rock and swim back to shore. Not what he had in mind at all, but he went along with it. He'd emerged out of the surf, dripping wet and glistening, arms raised to slick back his hair so as to show off his pecs to greatest effect. She'd pulled her shades down the bridge of her nose to get a better look.

All wrong, he'd wanted to shout at her. Not the vibe at all. Drooling would have been less obvious. The pecs were for the camera's benefit, not hers. Not yet. How were they supposed to stretch out the suspense for a full month with her eyeing him like that?

"Tick," the clock concurred.

Jamie kicked off the covers. It was no use. He'd never get to sleep with his mind going over and over the same events. Maybe a hot shower would make him drowsy.

He slid out of bed and padded barefoot toward the bathroom, clad in nothing but a pair of dark navy boxer briefs. A sliver of light emanated from beneath the bathroom door. Had he forgotten to shut it off before he turned in? Jamie pushed the door open and blinked against the glare as his eyes adjusted—and then he saw her startled face.

"Um, excuse me!" Cora stood before him in a filmy white nightgown that hugged her chest and floated outward from her waist, hinting at the roundness of her hips and covering no more than the bare minimum of upper thigh. "Do you knock?"

Jamie froze.

She turned toward him from where she stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

"Sorry!" He raised a hand before his face and viewed her in the slits between his fingers. "I didn't realize you were... Wait. Why are you using my bathroom?"

"Our bathroom," she corrected. She tilted her head to indicate the other entrance, opposite the one he'd just come in. "It's all yours. I was just..." Her voice trailed off, leaving the end of her sentence unspoken.

"You were just what?" he asked. "Staring at yourself in the mirror in the middle of the night?"

She paused and turned back toward him. "Talking to myself in the mirror, if you must know," she said pointedly. "I thought you were asleep."

"I wasn't."

"So I see." Her eyes flicked up and down, taking in his state of undress.

Jamie considered pulling on one of the white terrycloth robes that hung beside the towels, but he decided against it. The threshold to his bedroom gaped open behind him. He leaned one arm against the doorframe and rested his head against it. A well-practiced pose. (He had to do something on all those underwear campaigns in between reading Victorian novels.) Might as well give it a go, he thought. Why not?

She seemed unmoved by this display. She looked on with her hands on her hips, a dangerously short distance from the hem of her babydoll nightgown. "You should have warned me they were going to take away all my stuff. My e-reader and everything?"

Jamie adopted a suitably contrite expression. "They can't show us reading on reality television. How would the viewers relate?"

"Nobody told me that. I wouldn't have come."

"Is reading so important to you?"

She looked down at the tiled floor. "It's my bedtime ritual. Reading is the only way I fall asleep."

A twinge of guilt wormed its way upward from the depths of Jamie's consciousness. He fought the urge to squirm. She was only here because of him. He'd been griping to himself about her performance for the cameras, ungrateful lout that he was. But now he saw the tiredness in her countenance, the dark circles under her eyes. "Did you sleep badly last night as well?"

She sighed and turned to leave again. "Never mind. It's not your problem."

"Wait. Don't run away." He took a step in her direction. "Come hang with me in my room."

She looked dubious, smart girl that she was.

"Why not?" Jamie said to reassure her. "We can be insomniacs together. I'll be a gentleman, I promise."

"A gentleman would've put on a robe the moment he walked in here."

She wasn't exactly attired for decent company herself, but Jamie refrained from pointing this out. He merely eyed her nightie, letting his eyes linger below her face for the first time since he entered. He expected her to reach for the aforementioned robe to cover up, but she stood still and let him look. Not flaunting, but not hiding from his gaze. The only sign of discomfiture was the way she rolled her red-pedicured toes inward and balanced her weight on the outside edges of her feet.

Something in the way she stood, a picture of boldness and uncertainty at once, put an idea in his head. "Truth or Dare," he said. "I challenge you to a midnight rematch."

"That sounds like a terrible idea." Her eyes were everywhere but him now. The color crept up her neck. No doubt remembering the dare this afternoon.

She was right. A gentleman would have put on a robe. But Jamie was no gentleman. He only knew how to impersonate one from time to time.

Besides, he had a better idea how to put them both at ease.

"No dares," he said. "Just truth. I'll bore you to sleep in no time." He held out one hand toward her. With the other, he flipped the light switch and plunged them both into pitch black darkness.

"What are you doing?"

He groped for her and caught the tips of her fingers with his own. "No looking. No touching. Two disembodied voices in the dark."

"And no dares?"

"Right," he confirmed. "We'll call it Truth or Dare for Cowards."

"You call it that. I'll call it a bad idea."

A smile curled his lips that she would never see. He enjoyed the quickness of her tongue. Her hand still rested in his, and he tugged at it gently, sensing her wavering. He knew just what to say to tip the balance.

"Please?" Jamie whispered. "I can't sleep either. They took away all my books as well."

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