登入Elara’s POVI spend most of the day with Adrian and it resets my brain. By the afternoon, I feel like someone grabbed my hand and pulled me out from underwater—and I had been underwater for five years, so I was drowning and the fresh air feels more freeing than ever before.Being around Adrian for hours doing nothing and talking about everything reminded me of who I really am. Of who I was before Grayhound swallowed me whole and spat me out into this valley, without any will to live left. Adrian’s alpha energy fed my child the way his dumbass father should be doing, which has me more awake and energetic than I've been in over a month.Various producers tried to get us to go back to the rest of the group throughout the day, but we simply didn't, and eventually they accepted this, brought us food, and told us to do whatever we wanted until six PM.Apparently, after six PM, we have a mandatory situation with our respective spouses."How angry do you think they're going to be this time?
After I eat the worst breakfast I've ever eaten in my entire life, I find myself in the most lost, bored state of my life.This is not a condition I'm familiar with. I don't get bored. I have never, as an adult, had nothing to do—there is always something requiring my attention. There is always a problem to solve or a decision to make or someone waiting on my response.But there is nothing to do here. Literally nothing.I've already had my two hours of allowed work. I've already made myself the worst breakfast to ever be made with human hands. And it's only ten in the morning.I sit on the back of my cabin and look at the trees because some people enjoy nature, but the trees do nothing to keep me entertained.All I can do right now is think. I worry for a bit about the terrible situation with the wild rogues, but to be completely honest, I mostly think about Elara. And how she completely lost her mind because of nothing. I’ve been way worse before and she has never reacted like this.
"Elara," I manage to say, a few seconds later, since neither of them seems to notice my presence.I expect her to startle. To sit up quickly and look guilty— I don't know why I expect this exactly, but I expect it anyway.She doesn't do it.Instead, my wife turns her head toward me without moving anything else, she looks at me and sighs through her nose like I am a huge inconvenience. Then she turns her head again, looking up at the sky like I’m not here. "What are you doing, Elara?" I push, "Why are you soaking wet? What is going on?""We jumped in the lake, swam a little," she responds, voice calm, "And now we're drying off in the sun. It's not that complicated.”“But wh—““Can you leave?” She interrupts me, “You're fucking up the vibe. We’re connecting with nature and I know you’re not into that, so… leave."I do not leave. I do not move. I just stand here and look at my wife lying on another man's body while they’re supposedly ‘connecting with nature’ and my brain just goes comp
As soon as I see the lake, I know what’s going to happen. When I was young, I was too much of a prude to strip down at the lake back home. And Adrian was always too much of a good guy to make me feel bad about it. So we developed the system of jumping in whatever we were wearing, which was deeply impractical and deeply fun at the same time. And something we did almost every day for a long, long time. Which is why I'm not surprised when Adrian doesn't slow down at all. I have just enough time to take a full breath before we hit the cold-as-fuck water.I go under, feel my feet find the bottom, and push up hard, breaking the surface gasping."Fuck! Oh, god," I let out, which is all I have for a moment, and then I notice two figures running toward us from the bank and have one panicked second before I realize they're production staff with long microphones, sprinting to catch whatever we say. I ignore them completely and turn back to Adrian, who surfaces a second later."Holy shit," he
As soon as the cameras start rolling, Mariah leads me to Adrian’s cabin before going back to work. I knock on the front door, then I stand there for long enough that I start feeling like an idiot, rehearsing reasons to be here in case Paulie answers, but then the door opens and it's Adrian."Hey, Ella," he says, taking a small step back like he wasn't expecting me at all, which he probably wasn't, "What's up?""Not much. I'm bored and I need to just get away for a bit. Want to skip communal breakfast and go somewhere, just us?"I watch his expression move through confusion, intrigue, and then settle into something that looks like genuine delight. His smile starts growing. Slow and unstoppable."Just like back in the day, huh?" he finally asks, and looks over his shoulder once—a quick, guilty glance at his wife, the one he’s totally going to sneak away from—then he steps out and pulls the door shut behind him, "Let's go. Fast."We walk away fast, then faster, and then we're basically
The need to be with Kael is still present the next morning, along with the general discomfort of being pregnant with a baby who needs something I don’t have. I give the need ten minutes of aggressive ignoring while I brush my teeth and it does not go away, and then I give it ten more minutes while I get dressed, but it does nothing. So… that’s when I make the executive decision to simply do what my body and soul both want.Of course Kael is not in the cabin, so I ask our assistant producer to show me where his temporary office is.Once I’m right outside his door, I start second-guessing this executive decision. Because what if he just tells me to leave? What if I’ve walked all this way at almost eight in the morning to be dismissed in under sixty seconds, which would be on-brand for him and devastating for my dignity?But then I think about the kisses. I think about the fact that I was not alone in any of them. He was there, present, involved and wanting it as much as I did. He was
“Elara?” Kael’s distant voice wakes me back up.I guess I fell back asleep somewhere between feeling sorry for myself and finishing the second ginger candy, but when I wake up again, the nausea has dialed down from catastrophic to merely present, which is very nice. My headache feels manageable. T
"That's the dumbest piece of advice you have ever given me, Sera," I let out after mulling it for about five seconds, "I will continue doing my own thing, thank you.""I'm j—""I said thank you. You are dismissed. Where is Rowan?" I interrupt her before she continues down this route, "I need to spe
Elara does move faster, but roughly, and I can tell from the set of her shoulders that she's annoyed.Fine. So am I.A few seconds later, she shuts the water off and shoves me to the side when she walks past me. It's not too hard, but I move anyway, since she obviously wants me out of her way. She
Once we finish eating, I have to endure about one more hour of chit-chat until Theo gets up and announces he's tired, so Olivia goes with him. Thank fucking god.Elara gets up shortly after, and that's all I need to excuse myself without looking like an asshole."Ready?" she asks."Yes," I say.We







