Page 39 of Fan Favorite
T he final eight girls—Edie, Bailey, Max, Lily, Zo, Aspen, Parker, and McKayla—were back on the risers, waiting for Bennett to arrive so the key ceremony could begin.
It struck Edie that with their bodies angled toward center just so, their hands clasped at the waists of their plunging gowns, they looked like a choir.
Edie watched McKayla slide a hand down the front of her dress and hoist a boob back into place.
Well, maybe a slutty choir. And if this were Glee , this would be the moment when they’d all burst into Ariana Grande’s
Break up with your girlfriend
Yeah yeah, ’cause I’m bored
More tongue-in-cheek musical numbers—that’s what the show needed. Just thinking about suggesting it to Peter made Edie smile.
“Who do you think’s going home tonight?” Bailey whispered, looking particularly elegant in an off-the-shoulder cobalt gown that highlighted her blond hair, blue eyes, and tanned skin.
Max and Lily turned from their spots in the front row.
Max also looked amazing in a sleek black jumpsuit, her lavender hair blown into a pompadour, and Lily was serving ethereal beauty in a cream maxi dress with her long hair parted down the middle, framing the adorable spray of freckles across her nose.
As part of her makeover, Edie had been gifted a new wardrobe, and tonight she’d chosen an asymmetrical Norma Kamali dress that ruched from her right shoulder down to her left calf like a chic five-hundred-dollar toga.
“Definitely not us,” Max said.
They nodded. Definitely not them.
“I hope it’s Zo,” Bailey said.
They gasped—Bailey never talked shit about the other girls. Zo was clearly this season’s villain, but Edie was under the impression that when the cameras were off, Bailey actually liked Zo. They did yoga together. Shared chia seeds.
“Why? What’s up with Zo?” Edie asked, but before Bailey could answer, the doors opened, and Bennett and Peter strode in.
Bennett looked stupid handsome in his slim-cut gray suit, that intense key ceremony look in his eyes.
Peter was more relaxed in chinos cuffed over white high-top Converse and a soft navy sweater.
He had his hands shoved in his back pockets, pulling the sweater tight against his lean runner’s bod. When he caught her eye, he smiled.
“She was in Bennett’s room last night,” Bailey whispered, dragging Edie’s attention away from Peter’s chest. “She didn’t come back ’til this morning. McKayla saw her walk of shame right through the kitchen.”
The girls gasped again.
“It’s not like Zo owes us anything,” Bailey continued. “But it’s totally against the rules, you know? And she told Aspen how adventurous he was.” She leaned in to whisper. “She was talking about sex!”
Jaws dropped. Sex on The Key wasn’t totally unheard of, but it was totally scandalous.
The sort of thing that made the season promos and was teased every single week until the climax.
(Literally.) They collectively turned to look at Zo.
Her tiny body was Saran-wrapped in a nude-illusion gown studded with Swarovski crystals. She twinkled her fingers at Bennett.
Bailey wiped a burgeoning tear from her eye. “Yesterday we were in the hot tub, and everything was perfect and special and… he said he was falling in love with me.”
Edie put her arm around Bailey. The stages of love on The Key were: crazy about you, falling for you, falling in love, and in love .
It made sense that Charlie would already be falling in love with Bailey—who wouldn’t fall in love with Bailey?
Still, the fact that he’d said it to her and not to Edie made her feel sort of sick.
“Oh, honey, don’t cry, your lash is going to fall off,” Lily said.
“It just makes me feel weird about Bennett,” Bailey said, wiping her eyes. “And then if you start thinking about any of it too much…”
Edie knew exactly what Bailey meant. She supposed it was inevitable that the euphoria of prom night would fade—no one could live in peak romance every moment of every day—but as it had ebbed, all sorts of questions and thoughts and feelings had risen to take its place.
And she found if she considered any of them, it was a quick spiral back into what the fuck was she doing here?
Charlie was on dates with other women—apparently sleeping with them and saying he was in love with them—while she’d sat around for a week pondering their connection .
Truly, it was better not to think. Because if she thought about any of it—Bennett Charles making out with other girls, which one of her friends she’d have to crush to win his heart, how Alice was going to react to Edie dry humping on TV, or the very secret way Edie was constantly scanning the set for Peter—it all fell apart.
“Rolling,” the lead camera op yelled.
“Speeding,” the sound guy responded.
The ceremony began.
“When I started this journey, I’d been traveling the globe for years,” Bennett began.
Edie turned to look at him standing next to that stupid pedestal of keys.
“And I’d begun to think my match didn’t exist.” Surely he wouldn’t sleep with Zo , Edie thought.
Not when Edie was here. Not when Bailey was here.
“I said to myself, where is she? Nigeria? Tanzania? Bangkok? Amsterdam? London? Tennessee? But I’d already checked those places and didn’t find her.
” Edie studied Charlie’s face—sort of generically handsome, like an idea of handsome, rather than a distinct person she knew or understood.
Suddenly the pomp and circumstance, the keys, the girls, the solemn name calling, and one man anointing them one by one felt very, very wrong.
“But now I think everything is exactly as it should be because she’s right here, right now, in this room tonight.
” Their eyes met, and for the first time, picturing a life with Charlie seemed impossible. “What an incredible feeling.”