The True Love Experiment

It’s a struggle not to stare at her while she eats. She hums happily as she chews, licks a tiny bit of salsa from the side of her mouth, and studies the food in her hand with pleasure-drunk eyes. So far in only this first outing alone I’ve seen two very different sides to Fizzy: effusive and public facing, and this more intimate, quietly playful version. Both charismatic, both sexy, both mesmerizing. First, I was resentful to be assigned this, then I was resigned. Now I feel a flicker of excitement over the challenge of capturing her brand of magic on-screen.

You’re going to be setting her up with other men.

The reminder crashes into the forefront of my thoughts, and I blink away. “I had a thought about the show.”

She glances up at me and laughs. “I hope you’ve had more than one.”

“This is specifically about the title. What do you think about calling it The True Love Experiment?”

“I think I’m mad I didn’t come up with it myself.”

A sunburst of pride spreads quickly through my torso. “Brilliant.” I reach for a mystery taco. “So, to recap: We’ll cast the eight Hero archetypes. Filming will be Monday to Thursday, with Friday for crash editing, and a Saturday broadcast. Voting will take place over twenty-four hours after the episode airs, and the following Monday we’ll reveal to the cast who has made it through each round.”

She mumbles a happy sound around a bite.

“And,” I continue, “I think we should go in with the understanding that the show won’t be so heavily produced. I don’t mean from an aesthetics angle, but the actual story lines. I’ve been thinking quite a bit on this, and I really want to do something different, as much as we can. From what I gather, some of these shows are plotted out from episode one, which makes me question the sincerity of any relationship that comes out of them. Since viewers will be voting on our outcome, we want to give them the truest possible narrative we can.”

She nods, licking her lips again, and it splits my focus into foggy tendrils. I squeeze my eyes closed for a beat to recapture the thread. “Because it’s a limited series, you’ll only really be tied up for about five weeks.”

“Tied up, huh?” Fizzy grins. “Sounds fun.”

“You’re trouble.”

She laughs. “I think that’s why you chose me.”

“I chose you because you’re beloved by your fan base. But yes, I am excited to do this in part because you’re also a bit mischievous.”

“Excited?” She drops her balled-up napkin and plants her elbows on the table. “That’s a new development.”

I take a bite, chew. “What can I say? I am continually evolving.”

“I see that.”

“I know this matters to you,” I tell her. “I want you to know it matters to me, too.”

Fizzy takes a long breath, opens her mouth to speak, and then seems to change track. “You said you moved here when you were fifteen?”

A flicker of unease quells the vibrating hum in my blood, and I take a bite to delay what I suspect will be a gentle but surgical interrogation. “Yes, that’s right.”

“And your mother is the Brit?”

I nod. “She lives with her parents now, just outside Blackpool, but she met my father when she was studying abroad in the States. She got pregnant, and my father wasn’t interested in being a father yet. He’d visit every year or so to pop in and tell her what she was doing wrong.”

“Wow, sounds like a nice guy.”

“He’s a mixture of unbearably selfish and unremittingly dutiful.”

She laughs at this. “Why’d you go live with him?” I narrow my eyes at her, calculating whether I want to get into it, and she smiles under the inspection. “What?” she asks. “Is this story escandaloso?”

“Perhaps a bit.”

“Oh, well now you have to tell me.”

“My mum and I were in a very bad car accident when I was twelve. We were both fine, eventually, but the entire thing really shook her up.”

Fizzy’s expression straightens. “Oh no.”

“For… a few years,” I explain, “Mum didn’t leave the house. I had to for school, of course, and to take on odd jobs. But she suffered from a great deal of anxiety. This whole period is when I got into film, so I can’t resent the solitude, but in hindsight I do see how much I missed of my adolescence.” Before this can veer too bleak, I wrap it up: “Anyway, my father visited when I was fifteen and didn’t like what he saw. By then he’d married and had a couple of kids with my stepmother, but eventually Mum conceded that I needed a change of scenery and agreed to let him take me until I was ready to go to university.”

“Do you ever go back to England?”

“Of course,” I say. “I spend some Christmases there. I speak to my mother regularly. I’d planned to move back after I’d graduated uni, but life had other plans.”

“And what about present day?” she asks. “Are you remarried? Out every night, living the hot single life?”

I clear my throat, frowning as I adjust the napkin on my lap. “I—no. Neither,” I admit. “My daughter is still quite young. I only have her on weekends, and I work late most weeknights—so I haven’t. I don’t. That is, I don’t date much.” I hear the stumbling clutter of my words and squint past her, to stare at a flock of birds picking at something on the sand.

“What’s her name?”

I’m grateful that she’s letting me move on. “Stefania Elena Garcia Prince.” Fizzy bites back a smile and I laugh in understanding. “I know. My last name always sounds like the sad friend at the party. She’s a trip, though. Part princess, part evil mastermind.”

“She sounds like my kind of girl.”

“I genuinely fear the day you two meet. I think Nostradamus wrote about it.”

When I look up at her, I register that she’s been studying me. Her dark eyes are wide and gently set on my face.

“Anyway, we should be talking about you, not me.”

She doesn’t look away as my gaze holds hers. It’s this, and the way her voice goes a little hoarse when she says, “I’ll tell you anything you want to know,” that make me suspect I am absolutely, irrevocably, and undeniably fucked.





thirteen FIZZY




I assume we all have the proverbial angel on one shoulder and devil on the other, but in my case, they’re very real, and the devil is a shouter.

I know that it is stupid to flirt with Connor. I know how absurd it is to develop sexy desires for this man in particular, but it’s been so long since I’ve been attracted to anyone that I feel like a starving dog staring at a T-bone.

Connor licks his lips, pulling them in between his teeth, and I realize he’s reacting to the weight of my stare. Blinking away, I focus my attention on the waves crashing into the smooth sand instead.

I need to get my shit together. As much as I’m glad I’m a butterfly coming out of the cocoon of sexual stagnation, I probably shouldn’t fly directly to the first flower I see. Especially if that flower’s professional goal is finding me a soulmate.

“Well,” he says after our odd, lengthy showdown, “let’s start easy.”

I stretch, pretending to crack my neck.

“Tell me what you look for in a guy.”

Taking a deep breath, I look out at the waves in the distance, thinking. “Have you ever gone to the grocery store hungry?”

Connor laughs in understanding. “Yes.”

“Cheese plate, carrots, chips, salsa, Cocoa Pebbles, and sugar cookies. Whatever sounds good at the time.”

“Right.”

“I’d describe my dating energy a little like that. I don’t have a type, exactly, but maybe that’s part of the problem.”

He nods but doesn’t take this opportunity to speak. Again: hot.

“I initially did the DNADuo for fun,” I say. “You know, to try out the technology from a romance research perspective. I got matches and went out with everyone. I wanted to see if a Base Match felt different from a Silver.”

“Did it?” he asks.

“It did, but in romance, love is often about getting past our core assumptions. So if someone told me I had a Titanium Match, wouldn’t I subconsciously work harder to make it successful than I would with a Base Match? That’s always the question with this technology.”

He hums, nodding. “That makes sense.”

“I think doing this show is the perfect way for me to get back into the dating scene. I won’t know what kind of matches I have. I won’t overthink it. I’ll just have to go on how we vibe and let the audience worry about the rest. I mean, I’m not having any luck on my own, why not let a bunch of strangers give it a shot?”