The Fire Between High & Lo (Elements #2)(91)

“But are you mad?”

“Am I mad that you’re a diabolical bitch? No.”

I had to hand it to her. She waited two months for her prank to come full circle. That’s a hell of a commitment.

“I wish I could’ve seen your face when you got the letter. I can almost visualize you noticing the title and then climbing on your soapbox about the sexist undertones of the show and then the shock of realizing that you applied to be on it. Are you going to write a strongly worded letter about the selection process?” Koko joked.

“Ha ha,” I replied without any inflection in my voice. My eyes kept scanning the paperwork.

“Thousands of women enter and only twelve get selected to participate on the show. Well technically twenty-four but twelve are eliminated before the big cocktail party with the eligible bachelor. And there was less than a one percent chance that you’d get selected because of how many people apply so I felt like you were safe from actually being too attached to the show. They may not even keep it on file. I just wanted a letter or email that had your name and that you applied to be on The One.”

“Like I said, diabolical.” I looked at the congratulatory letter once more before dropping the stack of papers on the desk and pressing my fingertips into my forehead. “But there’s just one little problem with your plan though.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m not going on this bullshit show and I’m going to burn all evidence that could link me to it.”

“No!” Koko shouted, making my ear ring. “I’ve waited two months for this! I earned this Zoe Elise Jordan! And I heard that at the bottom of the letter, they actually say ‘Our bachelor is looking for the one Zoe…and it’s not you.’ Please, please tell me it says that. Please.”

I let out a puff of air. “That’s not what mine says.”

“What does it say?”

“Mine says ‘our bachelor is looking for the one Zoe…is it you?’ And then a hefty stack of papers asked me to give up my right to privacy and go parade around on this demeaning show so that I can compete against other women for the affection of a man I don’t know.”

“Wait, what?”

“I’ve been invited to be a contestant on the show,” I clarified, running my free hand down my face. “I’ve been given a week to decide. Well, a week from when they mailed the packet.”

“Oh. My. God!”

I pulled my phone away from my ear, but the damage to my eardrum was already done.

Her words became garbled and then she continued, “Are you going to do it? You have to do it! When do you have to get it back to them?”

Glancing down at the paperwork, I skimmed the paragraphs until I found what I was looking for. “Tomorrow. By close of business.”

“You have to do it!”

I started pacing from one side of the room to the other. “I most certainly do not. That’s a big hell to the no.”

“I know you’re not a risk taker, but just think about it. If you win, you get prize money. That prize money, depending on when you get sent home, would be more than enough to pay for us to go on a shopping spree or for us to go to every Beyoncé and Rihanna concert on the West Coast.”

I stopped in my tracks, trying not to laugh. “So in this scenario, I, alone, whore myself out on TV and we, together, spend the earnings if I win?”

“Or if you don’t like those suggestions, it would be more than enough money for you to reapply to take the bar exam.”

My lips pursed. I walked right into that.

Before I could respond, she rushed on. “We would get to see each other all the time. I’m going to be there every day except Sundays. We can’t go that long without talking! The location is incredible. You’d be staying in a mansion with a pool, a hot tub, a steam room and a relaxing place to read. And, most importantly, the eligible bachelor is Julian Winters.”

We were both quiet for a second. She was likely waiting for a reaction, but I was waiting for clarification.

“Julian Winters?” I asked, starting to pace again.

“Yes!”

My eyebrows came together, perplexed. I threw my hand up in the air. “Who the hell is that?”

“Julian Winters, the music producer.”

As a music lover, I was still stumped. “I have no clue who he is or why you thought I’d care.”

“Well, he’s a song writer and a music producer and he’s totally your type. He kind of looks like that Resident Assistant we had a crush on freshman year. And he was caught up in that copyright infringement lawsuit with that socialite, Janna White. I can’t think of the song now.”

“Ohhhh, yeah,” I remembered, familiarity of the case and the names flooding my brain. “’Sweet’. That case ended her music career, didn’t it? I loved that song. I vaguely remember that he was the one who wrote it, but they settled out of court, right?”

“Yes. But do you know what he looks like now?”

“No… I just remember being fascinated by the case because—”

“I’m going to go ahead and stop you right there,” she interrupted, cutting me off mid-sentence. “We are not going to talk law right now. We are going to talk about you having the chance to bump uglies with Julian Winters. He is the—”