Love at Last

3 | Week One | Eliminations

I looked down at the palate Brianna was holding. It was the same type that Ravenna had just dropped. Brianna, who saw me looking down at the palate, knew just what I was thinking. She nodded to tell me to go ahead with what I was considering.

"Ravenna," I said, "Just use mine."

"What?" Ravenna gasped. "You'd give us, your competition, your palate?"
"First," I said, laughing, "We're all friends here, not competition. And second, it's just makeup."

Ravenna gratefully took the palate and began to do Nina's face.

SOON, WE WERE ALL READY TO GO. Our hair was freshly curled, and our makeup was flawlessly applied. I stood in my white lace evening gown, paired with royal blue stilettos. Nina wore a shimmering blue dress and matching blue heels, the same heels that were on my feet. And Michaela looked stunning in a silver dress with the same pair of royal blue shoes. As we were looking through our possible clothing selections, we all noticed that we had the same pair of royal blue stilettos. So, we decided to wear them and match.
We walked down to the ceremony room and stood in a group. Bryson Valentine walked into the room, followed by the camera.

"And here we are," he said, "We are in the ceremony room where the road will unfortunately end for five women here. Here are the wings for this week," he showed, with a flourish, twenty plastic rings with little dinosaurs sitting on a small, white, pillow.

"Now, what these ladies do not know is that we've been filming them for the past week, and our crew has put together a little clip that lets you meet the ladies. August," he said, "hit it." And the video began to play.
The video started by showing parts of the interviews and interspersed them with segments of clips from us eating dinner and waiting. Everyone chuckled at me wolfing down the pizza and 'wanting to keep the butchers in business.' The one thing that never appeared in the clip was my little pool moment with Sebastian. I remembered in the contract that I had signed that it stated that there would be no hidden cameras and no filming in the rooms. Clearly not all of those cameramen setting up at dinner were just setting up. The video ended with some funny bloopers and outtakes. There wasn't much footage, so it was a pretty short video.

"Alright," Valentine said when the video ended. "It is time for the ceremony of rings. For some of you, this is going to be the end of the road. But for some of you, you're going to be one step closer to finding love. May I present Mr. Sebastian Avanti, the man of the hour.

Sebastian walked out in a black suit, and smiled once at the camera.

"Sebastian Avanti, hello!" Valentine said. "So this is the first time you're seeing these women face to face, eh?"

Sebastian offered a bright smile in return. "Yea, yea, I guess so."

"So, you've seen the interviews, you've watched the girls from behind the scenes, and you've talked to the cameramen. How are you feeling about this season?"

"I'm doing pretty well," he said, nodding, "definitely excited to meet some of these women."

"So, I am wondering," Valentine began, "why on earth you showed up as the pizza delivery man - August, can you play the clip?" The clip of me ordering the pizza and Sebastian delivering it played on the screen behind Valentine.

It finished, and all eyes turned to Sebastian. I could have sworn I had seen his cheeks tinge pink. "Well," he began, "I was getting some pizza myself and I saw that an order was going to one of these lovely ladies here. I wanted to know who had ordered grilled chicken and onion on the pizza, so I saved the delivery service some gas and delivered it myself. You know, I don't even think the girl knew who I was," he said, glancing at me for a second.

"So who was this woman who ordered the chicken and onion pizza?" Valentine asked.

He turned to face me. "It was actually the one that I'd like to give this first ring to - Lily Harne."

My eyes widened in astonishment. I had thought for sure that I would not make it to the next week, yet here I was, the first girl to be called. I snapped out of my reverie and walked up to Sebastian, holding out my pointer finger. He gave me a warm smile as he slipped the plastic dinosaur ring on my finger. Then, I went and stood to his side.

Sebastian called nineteen more people, including Shanina and Michaela. But my story was the only one that was highlighted.

Word Count: 1322 words. It's really more of a continuation of the previous chapter. Not quite sure if I want the general pattern to go: Long chapter, short results chapter or put them all together.

N.B. The show airs on Saturday, with the finale airing on thursday, February 14, 2019. If I were to do a long chapter (3000+ words) and a shorter results finale (~1000 words) they'd be posted on Thurday and Saturday, respectively.

Thank you again for reading. Vote and Comment! I really do love reading the comments. I know, everyone says that, but knowing that my characters are relatable or as annoying as I find them is really helpful.