Chapter 5 COOPERATIVE ACT

AUDREY’S POV

My brother had one rule before he left.

"Be nice," he said, wheeling his suitcase to the door like he wasn't abandoning me in a place I desperately didn't want to be. "Cooperative. He's under a lot of pressure right now."

"I'm always nice."

He gave me a look that covered the last nineteen years of my life in one glance.

"I'm usually nice," I corrected.

"Audrey. I'm being serious.”

"I'll be cooperative," I promise. "I will be the picture of cooperation. I will cooperate so hard —"

"The cameras arrive on Thursday. He moves in today." He opened the front door. "The whole point is that this looks natural. Like you two actually get along."

"We get along fine."

Another look that made me roll my eyes.

"We will get along fine," I corrected.

He left, but I stood in the hallway for a second, looked around the apartment, and thought about how it was just me now. Me and the spare room that was Damon's room and was now temporarily the room of a guy who had mocked me in front of my brother three days ago.

Great. This was great.

---

The thing about a reality show was that it needed a narrative. I'd read enough of the production notes to understand that. They wanted Jeremy Calloway to look human. You know… warm, approachable, the kind of person you rooted for. And since he had approximately zero interest in doing that himself, someone had to build the scaffolding.

That someone was apparently me.

So when he came back from his morning run the next day, and I was already in the kitchen, I had two plates on the counter. Two breakfasts. Full breakfast— eggs, toast, fruit on the side, because I'd read somewhere that athletes cared about that.

Yeah. I had done my research. Kill me now.

The camera guy, a quiet man named Derek, had explained all the places where the cameras were stationed around the house and what we needed to do as they took footage.

This was just a test run. I could do this.

The door opened, and Jeremy walked in, looking like a morning run to him was what a light stroll was to a normal person — barely winded, hoodie slightly damp, already reaching for his water bottle before he'd fully looked at the room.

His gaze dipped to the plates on the table.

"Morning," I said brightly.

He said nothing for a second; he just looked at the plates, then at me, then at the plates again with the expression of someone who wasn't sure what was going on.

"I made breakfast," I said. "Thought it'd be nice. You know, since we're—" I gestured vaguely at the camera, "—doing this."

He walked to the counter and took a better look at the eggs.

"I don't eat breakfast," he said.

Oh.

The smile stayed on my face through sheer force of will. "You don't —"

"Ever." He capped his water bottle. "Haven't since I was fifteen."

"Oh," I said. "Right. I knew that." I did not, in fact, know that. Who didn't eat breakfast?! "I just thought since it's the first day—" I was going to actually combust. "I made extra. For me. I just. Made extra. For myself. Because I eat a lot."

Jeremy looked at the two identical plates, both clearly prepared for two separate people, and then looked at me.

I picked up both forks, put one on each plate, and sat down.

"I'm very hungry," I forced a laugh, my shoulders tensed.

He watched me for one long, terrible second and then walked to the fridge, took out a protein shake, and left the kitchen without another word.

I sat there with two breakfasts in front of me and smiled at the table until I heard his door close.

Then I dropped the fork and put my face in my hands.

Jesus Christ.

Be cooperative.

I ate both plates. Every bite. Because I'd said I normally ate that much and he was still somewhere in the apartment and I had made my bed and now I was going to lie in it and also apparently consume four eggs and six pieces of toast.

By evening, I had decided the day was a wash, and the only reasonable response was a long, hot shower.

The one in my bathroom had been making a sound for two weeks. One that told me that something was definitely wrong with the hot water. I'd been meaning to tell Damon. I had not told Damon. And now Damon was gone, and when I turned the handle all the way and waited, what came out was cold.

Fuck me.

I stood there for a second with my hand under the stream, hoping it would change.

Still cold.

I turned it off, stood in the bathroom in my towel, and thought about my options. There was one other shower in the apartment. Damon's bathroom. Which was now technically Jeremy's bathroom. But it was eight-thirty, and I'd heard him in the living room an hour ago watching something, and it was a quick shower, I'd be in and out in ten minutes, he'd never even know—

I walked up to his door and knocked on the bedroom door. Three knocks.

Nothing.

I knocked again.

Still nothing.

I cracked the door open an inch. It was dark inside. He was definitely still in the living room. I slipped in, crossed to the bathroom, knocked on that door too just to be safe—

Nothing.

So I went in.

The shower was fine. The water was hot. I was in and out in eight minutes, which was practically a record, and I was feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

Now, I needed to get my ass out of here before he decided he forgot something in his room and came up.

Just as I reached for the knob, the door opened from the other side.

The next few seconds happened in a very specific order. He stepped in, and I made a sound that wasn't quite a word.

He blinked and stopped. We stared at each other from about two feet apart, him fresh from wherever he'd been, me in a towel with wet hair and apparently no functioning brain cells.

"I knocked," I said immediately. "I knocked on both doors —"

"I was downstairs."

"Your light was off—"

"I was downstairs," he said again, slower, like that explained everything.

Shit.

"My shower's broken," I said. "I thought you were in the living room. I knocked." I was still holding the door handle. He was still standing in the doorway, and neither of us had moved. "You could've announced yourself."

"It's my bathroom."

"I knocked."

"Then maybe knock louder next time so I can hear it from downstairs."

That stopped me in my tracks. Right.

His brows raised. “Get out.”

Yup. Didn't need a reminder.

He stepped back to let me out, looking somewhere above my head in the deliberate way people did when they were being pointedly polite, and I walked past him with as much dignity as a person in a towel could manage. "Sorry," I said, because Damon had said cooperative.

He didn't respond. How lovely.

I made it back to my room, closed the door, and stood there for a second.

Okay.

So.

The thing was… and I was going to be very clinical about this, very objective, this was just an observation and nothing more, but seeing him in a compression shirt had made me realize something I shouldn't. He was built as someone had designed him. As his biceps flexed under that shirt could easily wrap around I stopped that thought.

Jeremy is an athlete. Of course, he looks like that. They all look like that. It's completely average for the sport.

I put on my nightwear and lay down on the bed.

Average. Completely average. Nothing notable about it whatsoever.

My face was very warm, and my shower had fixed exactly none of my problems, and tomorrow the cameras were back at 7 a.m., and I was going to have to look him in the eye over a breakfast he didn't eat.

Completely fine.

Totally average.

My stomach churned as I thought about how attractive he was.

Oh fuck— this was going to be the longest two weeks of my life.