Stuck on You by Heather Thurmeier Page A

give up her portion of the prize to Ben and Miles because Zoe said so? Because she wanted Zoe’s help? Was the chance at winning Miles’s affection worth the sacrifice?
    She had come on the show as a way to spend time with Cassidy while she figured out what she wanted to do with her pathetic dating situation back home. Sure, it sounded great to have men come out in droves to court her with flowers and promises after she’d gotten kicked off
The One.
But the reality of it was more along the lines of annoying and confusing. She’d just wanted time away with Cassidy to figure out if it was time to jump back into dating or not.
    And now here she was with a very good, very hot dating prospect in front of her. All she had to do was give up some money she hadn’t really expected to win anyway.
    That didn’t sound so terrible.
    Honestly, the chance of either of their teams winning was pretty slim anyway. Team Firefighters were basically kicking everyone’s asses at this point with over a hundred caches found already and a pocket full of prizes like the pair of motorcycles they’d recently won. So what did she have to lose by saying yes? Nothing.
    “Deal,” she said before she could think about it any more. She needed this. Not only to try to win Miles’s attention, but also for herself. She needed to learn to be more confident in every aspect of her life, not only dating. She was tired of people overlooking her and not taking her seriously — like Chip had, signing her up for the show based on a half-hearted “yes” she hadn’t had time to think through, like her friends and parents back home had overlooked her opinion by forcing endless prospective suitors on her.
    But no more.
    Zoe’s help was exactly what she needed to start the changes she wanted to make to her life. And once she was more confident in herself, she’d finally stop waiting for things to come to her and instead she would go after the things she really wanted. Like Miles.
    “And you agree to listen to me and actually take my advice, no questions asked?” Zoe asked.
    Oh jeez. She could practically hear Zoe’s head getting bigger by the second.
    “Yes.”
    “We start tomorrow. Now you better pipe down over there. You’re going to need all the beauty rest you can get.”
    As Paige pulled the blankets tighter under her chin, a spike of excitement shot through her. Followed quickly by a spike of dread.
    Had she really just made a deal with the she-devil Zoe?
    • • •
    Paige and Zoe parallel parked around the corner and a few streets down from Macy’s in Herald Square. Yesterday had taken them all over hell’s half acre along the Hudson Valley and nowhere near a shop where they could pop in and get started on Paige’s new Zoe-ish style. But they’d had plenty of hours while driving around to work on her confidence level and her flirting techniques.
    According to Zoe, it was all in the delivery and less in what you actually said. Half-lidded eyes, a subtle tilt of her head, a sultry smile, and a bedroom voice could make a man crumble to his knees — or so Zoe said in her lessons. But it was the practice that was even worse. It was hard to flirt while following an arrow on a GPS and even harder when it was Zoe she had to flirt with.
    Paige tried to flirt with Evan a few times because at least she found him attractive. But every time she’d tried, all she could imagine was Cassidy watching it on TV and commenting on what she was doing wrong. Not that any of her flirting scenes with Evan would ever make it on air. Not when he laughed so hard he nearly dropped the camera on more than one occasion. He’d made it perfectly clear that he thought their plan was a bad idea, but he didn’t seem to mind the comic relief she provided while practicing on him.
    If Evan’s reaction to her flirting was any indication, she still had plenty of work left to do.
    That could wait, though, because today, finally, they’d ended up in the city. And according to