Heads Carolina, tails California

Kim woke up feeling rested and relaxed, more than she had in a long time. After the massage Nick had given her the night before, all her soreness and fatigue had completely vanished.

Of course, there was still the stress from his relationship troubles with Mary, but it seemed like he was more on-board with getting married to her now than he had been before.

“So now that you’ve slept on it,” she said, turning over to face him with a grin on her lips, “have you figured something out about what you’re going to do with Mary?”

Nick blushed and turned away. He was actually surprised by how forward Kim was being. Heck, she was still wearing her lingerie! She’d come a long way from when she’d been flustered and frustrated about stripping out of her clothes for her job.

He wondered if that naked sushi platter had awakened something in her. Or maybe all the damage her clothes had taken during the second challenge, with all the Mimi clones.

…

Now that he thought about it, Kim had a penchant for getting her clothes stripped. Strange.

“It’s hard to think about,” Nick sighed. “I mean… I love Mary, I really do. And if she wanted to marry me… I think I would say yes, but…”

“She does want to marry you,” Kim pointed out.

“Yeah, but that’s the thing, it’s not just her,” Nick said, getting out of bed. He stretched, feeling a little stiff himself. “The other girls… if Mary and I get married, then what’s going to happen with my relationships with them? I don’t think she’ll be happy if I get married to the others, too, after all, knowing the kind of woman she is.”

Heck, she’d basically said as much on their date yesterday. That was a bit of a problem.

Nick sighed and shook his head. “I just… I want her to be happy. What should I do?”

Now it was Kim’s turn to sigh. They’d had this discussion already last night, and Nick was still no closer to an answer.

“I think you should just wait and give her some space, honestly,” Kim confessed. “The two of you… you care about each other. This is something she has to figure out for herself. And knowing her… I’m sure she will eventually, but… let me ask you something. If she proposes to you, will you say yes?”

“You already asked me that yesterday,” he pointed out.

“And I want to see if you’ve changed your mind now that you’ve slept on it,” Kim replied.

Nick considered Mary carefully. He wanted to make her happy, he wanted to see her smile. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, and…

“Yeah, nothing changed,” Nick said confidently. “If Mary wants to propose to me, then I’ll accept, but…”

“But you want to have the choice of marrying the other girls too,” Kim smirked. “And maybe even me. How greedy of you.”

Nick blushed. “Yeah, well, so what?”

Kim shook her head. “I just hope she’ll come around. For both of your sakes. Until then, we just have to give her space, and let her come to her own decision. If you pressure her, she might break, and that would be even worse.”

Nick nodded. The chance of Mary being okay with him actually trying a polygamous relationship was very low, not to mention he had to consider the difficulties of making that happen in the real world. But when it came to love, he couldn’t help how he felt.

Mary… I love you. But I love them too. I just don’t know what to do to make you feel better.

Like Kim said, he just had to believe in fate and hope Mary would make the choice that was best for her. Even if it would end up hurting him in the end.

The coin flipped through the air and Mary watched it go anxiously. Her heart pounded in her chest and her blood froze in her veins.

Moment of truth… if it’s heads, I marry Nick… if it’s tails… then I don’t. Her heart was split in two halves, with each side of the coin representing one of them. And as it turned over before her eyes, she honestly couldn’t say which one she wanted to win.

Mary had always had faith in the guidance of the lord before now. But she found herself in a cloud of doubt in that fraction of a second that time seemed to slow down.

Rose snapped the coin out of the air and slapped it onto her wrist. The shock of the move brought Mary crashing back down to earth and she nearly fell over, completely startled.

“Mary,” Rose said seriously, “you said that you’d follow whatever the coin decided, right?”

Mary felt a murky feeling well up inside of her, but she swallowed down those doubts and nodded. She clenched her fists tightly and hardened her resolve. “Yes…” she nodded solemnly. “What… what is it?”

Marley watched with baited breath on the sidelines as Rose slowly removed her hand.

Tails.

Mary’s world came crumbling down as she stared at the silver dollar in shock. Her legs gave out and she fell to her knees, her face turning white.

“Tails,” Rose calmly stated, turning the coin over in her fingers to show there were no tricks. “I guess that means you won’t be Mrs. Nick Reynolds.”

Mary started to shake, and her eyes turned misty. “No… no, that’s not… that’s not fair… I didn’t… why?!” She sobbed, watering the floor with her tears. “Why did it have to be that?”

Rose stood over her without a trace of remorse or sympathy on her face. “What’s the matter?” She asked calmly. “Why are you crying? Didn’t you say you would abide by the outcome, whatever it was? Weren’t you so uncertain of what to do, that you were willing to rely on the flip of a coin to determine your destiny?”

“I-I know-!” Mary cried. “But I didn’t…”

“Didn’t what?” Rose pressed, crouching down in front of her. “You didn’t think it would hurt this much, to not get the outcome you wanted?”

Mary raised her head, gazing up at Rose through her tears. “…What?”

“The truth is… you weren’t equally fine with both of those outcomes, were you?” Rose asked. “You convinced yourself you were… but in your heart… in your heart you wanted one more than the other, isn’t that right? Isn’t that why you’re in tears right now?”

Mary sniffled as Rose’s words slapped her in the face. She couldn’t deny it. She was supposed to feel relieved when this was done. Convinced that God had guided her down the right path with his turn of fate. But she wasn’t relieved. She was crestfallen, heartbroken… she’d lost everything she wanted and she didn’t even know she’d wanted it this badly when she gave it up.

“I want to marry him…” She sobbed, shaking like a leaf. “I don’t want to give up, please… please don’t make me…”

Rose smiled and clapped her hands together. “Excellent! That’s all I wanted to hear!”

Mary was so startled by Rose’s sudden change in demeanor she actually stopped crying.

“…Huh?”

“That’s how you really feel, right?” Rose pressed. “Don’t try to deny it now. Your desire to marry Nick is stronger than even your faith in God, and we just proved it.”

Mary’s brain started to short circuit as she stared at the blonde, trying to process what she was hearing. Marley heard though, and she was pissed.

“Hey! Rose! What the heck’s the big idea, huh?!” She demanded, grabbing the blonde by the collar of her sweater. “If you already knew that was the case, then why did you push Mary into crying like that?”

“Because I didn’t know it was the case,” Rose calmly explained. “Not even Mary knew where her heart truly lied; do you think I did? All I knew was that Mary had a decision to make, and her doubts and worries were keeping her from making it, so I took the choice out of her hands. That was the whole point of using the coin.”

Marley let go of Rose’s collar, but she still eyed the blonde suspiciously.

“…Explain,” she growled.

“It’s simple.” Rose picked up the coin from where it had fallen in the scuffle. “From the moment I flipped the coin, there were two options. Either Mary gives up on Nick out of faith in her religion, or Mary decides to break one of the tenets of her religion out of her love for Nick. Of course, I had no idea if those feelings were equally powerful, or if one mattered more than the others, so I had to use this coin to test it.”

She turned to Mary. “There were multiple ways this could have gone, ma chérie. But the outcome did not matter. Whatever it was, the truth of your feelings would have come to light, no?”

Marley frowned. “What does that mean?”

“I-I don’t understand…” Mary agreed.

Rose sighed. “Mary… what would you have done if the result had been heads?”

“If… it had been heads? Then…” She imagined the joy that would have rushed through her body now that she knew how much she wanted to marry Nick. “I think… that would have been wonderful.”

Rose smiled. “Exactly,” she nodded. “When it comes to flipping a coin, the outcome itself does not matter. How you feel about the outcome is what matters. You wanted to marry Nick most of all, but you wanted that choice taken out of your hands because you were afraid to make it. If the result had been heads, you would have been happy to accept it as ‘fate’, even though you would reluctantly be forsaking some of your beliefs. But when it was tails… you were heartbroken, because that was not the outcome you wished for in your heart. And the same would apply if you truly did want to be faithful to your religion. You would have been heartbroken to know that you had to marry Nick, or overjoyed that you had an excuse that you could latch onto.”

Marley finally got it. “…So no matter what the coin showed, Mary’s real feelings would have come out.”

“Oui,” Rose tittered. “She would know definitively one way or the other, and that would be that. And of course, if she truly had no greater feeling one way or another, then she would accept the result and that would be that.”

Mary sniffled and stared down at the floor. “But… that’s it then, isn’t it? I love Nick… but I can’t marry him now?”

Rose raised her eyebrow. “And why is that?”

“B-because!” Mary sputtered. “The coin said, I-!”

“It’s a coin, silly girl. Not some pact in blood. Weren’t you listening? The outcome wasn’t important. I just wanted to reveal what you really wanted most. And that is Nick’s love, as his wife.”

Mary shook her head. If only it could be that simple. “But I made a vow!” She wailed. “I said I’d abide by the result! If I go back on my word now, then I’m just a liar! A sinful, wretched liar!”

Rose scowled. She was quickly tiring of this. “Wouldn’t the greatest lie, then, be lying to yourself?”

Mary stared at her in shock. “Wh-what?”

“You want this. You know you do. And if that’s the truth, then wouldn’t pretending otherwise and sacrificing your own happiness just bring you even more pain and misery? Tell me, Mary, who would that be for?”

“I… I…” Mary couldn’t take it. She didn’t want to be a bad person, she didn’t want to violate the tenants of her faith, but… she didn’t want to lose Nick forever.

“Can I really… marry him?” She sobbed, her eyes watering with **** hope.

“What do you want to do?” Rose shrugged, staring down at her.

“I… I…!” Mary continued to stutter, but as Nick’s face flashed in her mind, the cloud of doubt and discomfort hanging over her heart slowly but surely cleared away.

“I WANT TO MARRY HIM!” She cried. “It doesn’t matter if I can’t be his only wife! I want to be his! Please let me marry him!”

Mary had never felt more relieved than in that moment, when those words finally left her lips.

Rose smiled. Marley was in tears.

“No one’s stopping you,” Rose said, helping the redhead to her feet. Mary was still a little shaky. “We just need to find the right moment to confess.”

“Uh-huh…” Mary nodded. As happy as she was, she couldn’t stop the sorrow leaching into her heart. Rose looked at her with concern.

“Is something the matter?” She asked. “This is what you want, right?”

“It is,” Mary confirmed, holding her hand over her chest. “But still… a part of me still feels guilty regardless, knowing that I’m going against the teachings of God this way.”

She’d have to make peace with that at some point. But for now, in that moment, it didn’t matter what the Bible said, or what her church had taught her. Marrying Nick would bring her more happiness than she could imagine, even if she did have to share him with the other women in his life.

Then she gasped. “Oh! I need to go propose to Nick now!”

She turned and scurried for the door, only to be dragged back by Rose.

“Hey! Let me go!” Mary wailed. “I need to go propose!”

“Are you nuts?! You two just had a big blowout! Give him some time to decompress, geez!” Rose groaned.

“But that’s just it!” Mary exclaimed. “It’s my fault he’s feeling down in the dumps and hiding in his room again! He didn’t come down to breakfast because of how awkward we ended things yesterday! But if I tell him it’s fine if he marries all the other girls too, then that won’t be a problem!”

“Okay, yes, I get that,” Rose agreed. “But come on Mary! There’s a time and a place for this, you know that! You can’t just propose off the cuff, you need to set the mood!”

“But…” Mary looked desperately back at the door. Now that her feelings had solidified, every moment she didn’t spend in Nick’s arms felt like time she wasn’t breathing. She didn’t want to face this mess by herself!

“Please?!” She wailed.

Rose sighed. She knew she was going to regret this, but she actually felt really bad for Mary, and she couldn’t help herself.

Why does my inner romantic have to lead me into the worst possible situations? She wondered.

“Look… what if you put off your proposal until tonight?” Rose asked.

Marley’s eyes widened. “Rose, you serious?” She asked, shocked by what Rose was offering. “You’re seriously going to invite another girl up to the Master’s Suite on your night, so that she can propose to him?”

Yeah, that’s what Rose was gonna do. She hated it, but she was going to do it. Maybe NEXT round I can have an actual night with Nick, she thought sadly. Hopefully she would save up enough money by then.

“Tonight?” Mary whined. “But… that’s hours from now!”

Yeah, no fucking shit! You crazy-! Rose caught herself and took a few deep breaths, trying not to let her inner thoughts leak out.

“...Look. Things are awkward right now between you and Nick. He needs some time to cool off,” Rose explained. “And in the meantime, you need to get ready for your proposal. You need to figure out what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it.”

Mary gave her a blank stare. “I was kinda thinking just going ‘please marry me’.”

Rose flicked her on the forehead.

“OW!”

“No wonder you failed as a writer,” Rose said, rolling her eyes. “How’s that going to be moving? No, we need to pull out all the stops for this. It’s gotta be perfect if you want to get him onboard with marrying you!”

Mary could see the logic in that. She’d gotten similar advice from Gina and Carly, telling her how she needed to make Nick fall so deeply in love with her that there wasn’t even a chance of him saying no.

“Wait, the rings!” Mary had nearly forgotten.

“Huh? Rings? What rings?” Rose asked.

Mary dug around in her pocket and pulled out the sheet of her purchases.

10000 BP: Rings of Confirmation – Contestant Mary and Master Nick will be given a set of matching rings. Upon exchanging rings, Contestant Mary will be permanently bound to Master Nick as she would if she were to end the game as a member of his harem, and will remain bound to him even if she should be eliminated from the harem. (NOTE: This item cannot be purchased without consent from both Contestant Mary and Master Nick. This item may only be purchased once.)

“I need to have 10000 BP!” Mary explained. “I only have 8100 saved up… without the rings, then I won’t be able to properly propose…”

Mary hadn’t really considered the rings that urgent of a purchase. Her doubts had kept her from seriously considering marriage this soon.

Now those doubts were gone, and she wanted to get married as soon as possible! But that would take money.

She looked at Rose with hopeful eyes and Rose shut that down immediately.

“Oh, HELL no. I’m not paying for your wedding ring too,” she scowled. “I’m already sacrificing my night with Nick to invite you up to the Master’s Suite for your proposal, you don’t really expect me to pay for it, too, right?”

Mary sighed. Rose had a good point.

“I guess you’re right,” she nodded.

Rose sighed. “Still… I’ll help you as best I can, alright?”

She was very tempted to loan Mary the money. After all, knowing Mary she’d pay it back in full and even throw in interest if pressed, without any hesitation. She was a sweetheart like that. And her popularity with the audience meant that should be easy.

But she just couldn’t do it. She’d already given enough up for Mary’s sake; she wasn’t like any of those other simps!

…But the poor thing sure was cute…

“Whatever!” Rose scowled, her face heating up. “We can discuss the specifics later! For now, let’s head to the hot spring and get you a nice bath! Or no, maybe that could come later…”

“Huh?” Mary stared at her incredulously.

“I already told you!” Rose huffed. “We need to get you looking your best! Hair, makeup, clothes, we’ll need to do a whole lot if we’re going to get you prepared to give the best proposal in your life!”

Mary nodded, swallowing everything Rose said with a big spoon.

Then a door slammed open and the three ladies jumped. Their heads whirled around to see a figure clad in black stride into the banquet hall with her eyebrow raised.

“Hello girls,” Dakota greeted them with an amused smile. “What’s this I hear about a proposal?”

A shiver went down the collective spines of the three of them. Mary gulped.