Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 41935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 210(@200wpm)___ 168(@250wpm)___ 140(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 210(@200wpm)___ 168(@250wpm)___ 140(@300wpm)
“You go ahead!”
“You’re not coming?”
“I’ll get there when I can!”
I can’t just leave Alice here by herself. I’m texting a production assistant about reaching the doctor the producers have on call when I notice her walking away from me, still limping.
“Hey, wait,” I call out.
“Just find someone to leave the water in the kitchen for me.” She turns back to look at me, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. “I have to go get more sushi and lavender.”
“No, let me do that.”
Her lips curve up in a smile. “Trust me, you won’t get the sushi order right. And you’re a contestant on the show. You can’t just leave.”
I sigh, aggravated. Even though I must look like a douchebag to her right now, I’m actually not. I don’t knock women to the ground and leave them injured and alone.
“Let me Door Dash the stuff.”
She turns around and starts walking again. “That won’t work.”
“At least let me pay you for it!”
Alice calls over her shoulder. “It’s Farrah’s money. Don’t worry about it.”
She has to be talking about Farrah Reed. Maybe Alice is one of the show’s production assistants.
“Dalton!” Ben, who definitely is a production assistant for the show, is waving me over to the house’s main entrance.
I look back at Alice again and then jog over to Ben.
“They’re waiting on you so they can start the meeting,” he says.
My mind is still on my run-in with Alice.
“Does Alice work for the show?”
He wrinkles his brow, confused. “Alice? I don’t know of anyone named Alice.”
I gesture to the woman walking away from the house. He squints, trying to make her out.
“Oh, her. That’s Farrah’s assistant.”
My brows shoot up. “Farrah brought her own assistant?”
“So I’m told. But listen, you have to get into the meeting. Let’s go.”
I shake my head. “Listen, I was playing catch with JP and I ran into Alice. I think her knee is hurt. I want a doctor to look her over.”
“Yeah, we’ll take care of it.” He puts a hand on my back. “Seriously, you have to get to this meeting. We plan to start shooting tonight and we can’t afford to fall behind.”
I glance over my shoulder at Alice, who’s passing a security guard, still limping. I’ll have to check in on her later. Ben leads the way to the meeting, and I follow.
“For the rivalry between you and JP, we want it to be lighthearted. Little barbs between the two of you. I have some examples if you need them.”
I keep my game face on as Alex, one of the producers of Celebrity Love Malibu, tells me about the plans producers have for this season of the show.
“So this show is...scripted? My agent didn’t tell me that.”
Alex waves a hand, dismissing my concern. “Nah, it’s not scripted. We just have some directions we like to lead you guys to make for better television. It would be boring if everyone liked each other, right?” He laughs. “We like to keep the tension as taut as a swimsuit model’s stomach. We have what we call a Three-Legged Stool of Tension.” He lists them off on his fingers. “Chemistry. Love Triangles. Rivalries. You and JP will fall into the rivalry category, but it'll be a passive-aggressive rivalry. We have to keep your team owners and fans happy, and we respect that.”
I blow out a breath. I should have known this show wouldn’t be all fun and games. When my agent told me about it, he said the producers of the show had approached the executives in charge of pro hockey and asked them to recommend a player who met the criteria they were looking for.
I assumed the criteria were one, single and two, willing. But now I’m not so sure. The woman in charge of public relations for the league came to Minneapolis, my team’s home city, last week to meet with me and the PR people for the Mammoths, my team.
Rita was clear about her expectations for my appearance on the show. I’m supposed to be likable and charming. Make viewers see hockey players as good guys they can root for. The league expects to see correlations between my episodes of the show and way more people following and checking out pro hockey’s social media pages.
“I’ll talk to JP and see what I can do,” I tell Alex.
“Great. But don’t rehearse anything. We want this to all seem organic.”
Organic. Right. The producers had a meeting with all sixteen contestants where they hit a few high points about the filming schedule for this week, and then they started taking us one and two people at a time for other meetings. This is my first one, and I’m already not looking forward to the others.
Alex looks down at the iPad that has his notes on it. “As far as partners, we’d really like to see some initial chemistry between you and June Calloway.”