He looked up at me, giving the smallest of head nods to the camera, his expression a warning. We'll talk about this later. Play it cool.
I couldn't argue with his logic. It probably wasn't a good idea to hash out the strange circumstance of our meeting again in front of a national audience. I blanched and tried my best to backtrack, to act normal.
"I mean, er," I cleared my throat. "It's nice to meet you, too, Da-Patrick." Stupid, stupid. Get it together.
"Just Pat, please," he gave me a winning smile that the cameraman would be sure to capture.
"Alright, then, Just Pat, we've only got 5 minutes, so, talk. What's your story?"
"What's my story? What is this, an interrogation? Sorry, officer, you've got the wrong guy." He chuckled lightly.
I raised an eyebrow, not impressed with the facade.
"Well, I'm from a neighborhood a little south of here, it's called Palm Springs. I grew up with my mom and dad, and I have two older brothers. In high school, I always thought I would be a professional surfer, or something like that. Maybe a marine biologist. But then I realized-"
"-marine biologist jobs aren't as common as you thought they were?" I interrupted.
He laughed, a real laugh this time, not just for the camera's sake. "Yeah, something like that. Right now, I work as a chef at this little restaurant right on the beach. It's not exactly a fine dining place, it's more a cross between a café and a diner. But I love it there."
"What's it called?"
"Carter's Corner. It's not on a street corner, but, alliteration, you know."
I laughed despite myself. "That's false advertising. Who's Carter?"
His smile dropped and he looked ill at ease. "No one important, really." I could tell it was someone important. He recovered quickly, re-molding his face into a carefree mask. "What about you, though? Where are you from? What do you do?"
What do I do? I sit on my sofa binging hours of television and wallowing in self pity.
"I'm an accountant, for a firm in Chicago." I was an accountant, and now I was hoping that my boss, the same boss that had fired me, wasn't the type to watch reality dating shows.
"Me and my ex, Dylan, we, uh," I continued. "We just went through a breakup. He's moved out to West Africa now, and I'm here in California, doing... whatever it is we're doing."
There was a funny glint in his eyes that made me think he was making fun of me in his head or something.
"Well, I hope that whatever it is we're doing, we can keep doing it." He winked for a split second, so fast I almost thought I imagined it. The cameraman waved his finger in a circle, signaling five minutes was up. "Patrick" must've been timing us; that was too perfect a line to just happen to leave it on. I looked at his wrist- no watch. Impressive, that he could count in his head while holding a conversation. Just like flirting with some random girl on a plane without thinking of your girlfriend back home, I thought.
He got up and leaned forward, taking my hand from my lap and kissing it. I involuntarily recoiled a little, but he just smiled wide.
"I really did mean that, you know. I hope I get to know you a lot better, Lyra Kennedy," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
In circumstances where I hadn't met him on the plane three days ago, and where, even if I had, he had given me his real name, and where, even if he was Patrick from the plane sans the girlfriend, I might've thought this was sweet. Given the current circumstances, though, I was a little freaked out. This didn't stop me from admiring his smooth personality (and ok, maybe his butt) as he walked out and another man walked in.
As he sat down, I took quick stock of his appearance. He had shocking red hair and thick red eyebrows, with deep-toned, wide brown eyes and the slightest hint of stubble growing on his chin. He wore a checkered button-down and jeans, and I couldn't help but compare his looks to Dallas's. Patrick's. Whoever he was.
He wasn't as blatantly muscular, but he was well-built, not exactly stocky, but definitely not thin. He was very cute, but Patrick was hot. I'm not sure exactly when I made that distinction.
The cameraman signaled once again, this time foregoing the "Action!" and merely pointing when he started rolling. Mystery Man sat down across from me, after shaking my hand.
"Hi, I'm Lyra Kennedy." I decided to start this one off. Be confident, assured.
"Hey, Lyra, I'm Andrew." Good Lord, that was a deep voice. "Andrew Hastings," he finished. "Nice hair."
I laughed, despite myself. "You, too. I think I've finally met someone who's out-gingered me."
He laughed, too, and I could feel myself relax. "Perhaps I have even less of a soul than you do."
"Oh, my gosh. The jokes never stop," I said. "My mom and my dad are both blonde, but my sister and I are redheaded. The conspiracy theories about our double adoption were a frequent topic of our late-night elementary school conversations."
"Everyone in my family has red hair, so I'm sorry I can't relate on that one," he said, chuckling. "Luck o' the Irish."
"So, what do you do, Andrew?"
"I'm a mechanic, actually. Family business type thing. My grandfather owned this little auto shop just outside Denver, and so did his grandfather, all the way back. I just followed in their drunken footsteps."
He was funny, I'll give him that.
"A mechanic, yeah? What's the coolest car you've ever worked on? I'm a bit of a fanatic, myself." I looked up at him, suddenly interested, and I saw that he had actually pulled his phone out of his pocket and was now furiously typing. On national TV. I felt disappointment bubble up in me, leaving a bitter taste at the back of my mouth. I thought we had a connection for a second, there.
"Um..." I cleared my throat loudly. He held up a finger. He actually held up a finger in a, "hold on a second, Cindy the secretary, I'm with a client right now" sort of way.
He finished typing and put his phone back in his front pocket.
"So sorry about that, really, there was an emergency," he said, stumbling over his words. I tilted my head a bit, waiting for him to elaborate, but he didn't.
Instead, he said, "Sorry, what were we talking about? Oh, cars! That's awesome that you're into them... I think the coolest I've ever worked on would have to be a Packard Panther. There was this cool old guy who came into the shop, like, three months back with this beautiful car, and he's like, hey, I don't know if you guys even have the parts to fix 'er up, but I need to have this car. There were only 4 of them ever made, and there are 2 left in production. He had one of them, said he bought it for $360,000 at an auction years back. My brother and I just stared at for a solid ten minutes before getting to work."
I wanted to be charmed by our similar interest, but the phone thing had really turned me off.
"A Packard, huh? That's awesome, was that the one nicknamed "Daytona," or whatever?"
He raised his eyebrows. "Sure was," he said. "Wow, I don't think I've ever met a girl who actually knows her cars. Except my mom, that is."
The cameraman gave the wrap-up signal again, yelling "cut!" this time. 5 minutes was up, then. Andrew had almost made me forget that we were on a reality show and not in reality. Almost.
He got up to walk out and gave me a cute little wave on his way out, mouthing "nice meeting you." I gave him a half-hearted thumbs up. What a weird dude. Pulls out his phone in the middle of a conversation, then continues like nothing happened, then waves at me?
I could already tell this would be a long day.
It was now 11:30 or so. After meeting the remaining 4 guys of Pool A, none of which were extremely memorable, they gave the girls and guys separate snack breaks in fancy little breakfast rooms before switching pools so we could meet everyone else.
During the snack, the other girls in my group had chattered and gossiped excitedly like high schoolers at lunch time. Nearly every one of them mentioned how gorgeous Patrick was, and another fan favorite was a dark and mysterious Latino man named Diego, who had introduced himself by handing me a perfect red rose from behind his back and saying "Ay, mami, I've never dated a pelirroja before!" I wasn't exactly engaged in the conversation, but I joined in every so often and made a generally friendly impression. All of the girls there were beautiful, and I could see every one of them going on to win this show.
I didn't notice any of them mentioning Andrew, which gave me a happy little rush for some unknown reason.
Okay, so the reason wasn't unknown. I had enjoyed talking to him, and I wouldn't deny it. But something was off about our conversation, and I couldn't settle myself to ignoring it.
After snack time, we had been ushered back to our line of seats in the hallway, and this time, we took turns in the hot seat as the 6 other men from Pool B shuffled through and introduced themselves, 5 minutes at a time, in a flurry of bad jokes, pickup lines, and small talk.
I was the last girl to go through the meetings this time, and I was sitting in the armchair, feeling quite exhausted, and waiting for the last of the 12 men to walk in and introduce himself.
The cameraman looked just as tired as me, after filming what were undoubtedly the most awkward 60 minutes of his life's career. Upon seeing the final man walk through the door, he immediately pointed to me to warn me of the filming. I blew out a big breath of air I had been holding in. The final 5 minutes. Keep it up.
I stood up and held out my hand. It had been shaken so many times in the last hour that I'm sure that I could feel a callous developing where my hand had been in contact with the others'.
A man wearing a Bulls jersey and joggers walked up and took it in both of his, shaking it gently up and down, and then he leaned down to kiss it. Charmer alert.
He cleared his throat and sat down, making immediate and almost alarming eye contact.
"If I were to ask you on a date, would the answer be the same as your answer to this question?"
I tilted my head to the side, utterly confused and caught by surprise.
"Ye-No." I said. "Wait, yes. No. Oh, you sly devil." He was a clever one.
"Clever," I voiced aloud, "But that's not how it works, unfortunately. I'm Lyra. It's nice to meet you."
"Uriah, and same to you. Did you like that? I thought it up on the way over," he said, flashing me a devilish grin. I highly doubted that. It sounded like it came from a Buzzfeed article, but still, I admired his drive.
"You're from Chicago? Me too, man! Sorry about Butler, heavy loss," I said, shaking my head slightly. We had lost Jimmy Butler in the draft, and now the Bulls' chances for next season weren't looking so good. I didn't actually know a lot about basketball, barring the little knowledge I had gleaned from Dylan and his buddies when they came to the apartment to watch "the game," but I figured what I knew would help here.
"Ahhh, a Chi-town girl, I see you," he winked, pulling at a stray piece of hair. With that expression, a little bell rung quietly at the back of my head somewhere. He seemed really familiar, all of a sudden. "And yeah, shame about Butler. Here's hoping we don't need him," he said, making a quick sign of the cross and raising his folded hands above his head.
It was quite interesting, his haircut. Sort of a fade on the sides, then really long on the top with spirals of curls popping out every which way. It was brave. I liked it.
"North or South Side?" He asked casually.
"South Side, born and raised."
"Ah, me too, me too." He bit his lip like he was thinking. "Okay, I'm sorry, and I swear this isn't another cheesy line or anything, it's just you do look really familiar. Have we met?"
"Oh my gosh, I was just thinking the same thing!" I said, a little too quickly. I definitely knew him from somewhere. "You don't happen to work in accounting downtown, do you?"
He laughed. "No way, girl. I'm a firefighter. Never was good at math or anything."
I furrowed my brow, trying to remember where I'd seen that face.
"Firefighter, yeah? That's very heroic of you."
He looked down humbly. "Yeah, I don't do any of that hero crap, I just kind of, fell into the job. I like it, it suits me."
I smiled. He seemed really genuine, if a bit goofy. I didn't see any of the staged confidence that Patrick had put on, or the rude awkwardness I got from Andrew. My prospects were at last looking up, on man 12 out of 12. If only I could remember where I knew him from.
Just then, the cameraman let out a sigh of relief.
"That's 5, guys," he said, muttering a "finally" at the end that I bet he thought we didn't hear.
"Guess we'll have to hash through the past in the future, then," Uriah mused.
"Yeah, I guess so," I agreed. "Either way, it was really nice talking to you. Again. I think." Cringe. Why was I so awkward?
But he took it all in stride. "Yeah, maybe I could catch up with you at dinner or whatever fiasco they have planned for us next. Nice re-meeting you, Lyra Kennedy."
With that, he walked out of the room and I walked back to the hallway, where the lady with the clipboard was standing, waiting to lead us to the next activity. She started to say something, but I was too busy racking my brains for past thoughts of Uriah to pay attention to her. It was really interesting, that his face looked familiar but I couldn't actually remember who he was. My memory was usually pretty good.
The one thing I did remember was that I had introduced myself as "Lyra," and he had said goodbye to "Lyra Kennedy."