Page 14 of Surviving Love

“Awww, how sweet. Are you worried about me?” I snorted.

When he responded, he sounded amused. “If you get eaten by a python, we’ll probably have to cancel the shoot before I can win my million dollars.”

Irritation pricked me. “I’m sure this is all very amusing to you.”

He shrugged. “Not really.”

“You don’t find it funny that I trusted Harold enough to tell him I wanted to vote you out, when all the while you were in an alliance with him?”

He gave a gruff laugh. “Okay, maybe I do find that part entertaining.”

“I figured,” I rasped.

He sighed and moved to where the moon lit his features. Surprisingly, his gaze was assessing, not gloating. “You’re not the kind of guy I’d usually be friends with. I doubt that comes as a shock to you.”

“Not even a little.”

He glanced over his shoulder back toward camp. “I was impressed by you earlier.”

I narrowed my eyes, wondering if he was mocking me. “When?”

“You worked your butt off today helping with the shelter. In fact, you and I were the only two who really did anything useful.”

“Harold started a fire.”

He grunted. “Yeah, and it was promptly snuffed out because he didn’t have the brains to try and protect it from the rain.”

I frowned. “What’s he supposed to do about the rain?”

“There are ways to keep a fire going in wet weather.”

My knowledge of fire making was fairly basic; I’d have to take his word for it. “I’m confused about why you followed me out here.”

He gave another wary glance toward camp. “I’m rethinking who we should vote out first.”

Hope flared in my chest. “You are?”

“Yeah.”

“All because I helped with the shelter?”

“You can tell a lot about a person by how hard they work. Most of this group just sat on their lazy asses waiting for you and me to do all the manual labor. That’s bullshit in my book.” He lifted one shoulder. “I can always vote you out another time.”

I bit back my angry retort and instead said, “Gee, thanks.”

He laughed. “You want me to lie to you?”

“I guess not.”

“In my opinion, your hard work earned you at least another week on the show. Besides, Harold likes you. He really was trying to save you.”

“He lied to my face.”

“Yeah. He did. He wants to win a million dollars just like you do.” He grunted. “Nobody is here to meet their new best friend. We’re all here to win the game and collect the money. You included.”

“Fair enough.”

He crossed his arms. “So who do you want to send home instead of you? Who do you dislike even more than me?”