Page 23 of Prime Time Romance

Then over the bridge…

Then into the mist…

And we’re spat right back out where we started.

My insides feel hollow. Like any hope I may have had was scooped out and left back there on the bridge.

“So…” Brynn side-eyes me as I slow the car to a much more reasonable speed. “I think we can officially cross driving home off the list?”

I pull the car into an empty parking spot in front of the bakery and cut the engine. My mind is still processing what just happened.

There’s no way out of this place.

We’re trapped.

“Okay.” I undo my seatbelt so I can face Brynn. “Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that we give Sheldon the happy ending he wants. What exactly would we need to do?”

Brynn undoes her seatbelt as well, then sucks her lower lip between her teeth before releasing it with a long breath. “Well, in the last episode, Sloan finally realizes she loves Spencer, but she knows that he still sees her as this sweet and innocent girl next door. So she enters the Ms. Lobsterfest pageant to try to win the crown and show Spencer and everyone else in town that she’s a grown woman, worthy of love, which I fully acknowledge sounds horrifically cheesy and even borderline icky—but I promise you it was a really good episode.”

She glances over at me as if expecting me to say something, but I don’t.

“Anyway,” Brynn continues, “the day of the pageant arrives, and Sloan has this whole plan to tell Spencer how she feels once she’s a certified beauty queen, but her evening gown gets stolen, and Lois, the pageant director, won’t let her on the stage, so she’s disqualified and devastated. She runs to the gazebo to have a good cry, and Spencer follows her. It starts to rain. It’s, like, the most romantic scene you can ever imagine. Spencer basically hints that he’s got big feelings for Sloan, but for some unknown reason that I’m going to attribute to the writers wanting a dramatic season cliff-hanger, she chickens out and never ends up telling him that she’s in love with him, and then he goes off to LA and she moves to Paris for the summer to be a fashion intern and that’s how the show ended.”

Brynn leans her head against the seat and studies me as if looking for a reaction. My thumbs drum against the wheel as I mentally dig through everything she just told me.

“Okay, so we need Spencer and Sloan to finally get together.”

Brynn nods. “I think so.”

“Can we just go to this Spencer guy’s house? You can tell him how Sloan feels, make out a little, and then we’re good to go?”

Brynn stares at me as if I suggested something stupid. “That’s not how this show works. I can’t just show up and make out with Spencer. There were five seasons of agonizing slow burn. Carson’s Cove has a formula. Besides…we have a bigger problem.”

“What?”

“Sheldon mentioned that Sloan had to win the pageant. If that humongous banner hanging above the main street is right, we’re stuck here for at least a couple of weeks.”

“So until then, we’d have to…”

She nods, following my thought. “Pretend to be Fletch and Sloan.”

Damn. That’s what I thought she was going to say.

I lean back, close my eyes, and let out a very frustrated groan.

“Hey.” Brynn rubs the side of my arm with her knuckles. “How about this? We stick together and play along for a little while, just until we get a sense of how this place works. Or…until we can find Sheldon or another way out of here.”

Stay here. Be them.

It’s not what I want to do at all. Yet I don’t see any better alternatives.

“Yeah, I guess.”

Brynn rests her head against the window and stares out at the sidewalk. “I know it isn’t ideal. But Carson’s Cove is a great town. If we’re going to get trapped in some nonexistent dimension, I feel like we could have done a lot worse. I think you’ll change your tune when you finally get to try one of Pop’s—”

She stops speaking suddenly.

I wave my hands in front of her face. “Brynn?”