When suddenly you then appear, you whisper in my ear, and I jump right over the edge

Nick thought he looked pretty nice, when all was said and done. He’d dressed up for his date with Ella and tried his best to make a good impression, hoping that she would like the way he looked. He was going to give it everything he could today to make up for neglecting her for most of the round.

I really can’t apologize to her enough for that, can I? He thought as he finished brushing his hair. It was a little excessive but still worth it. I knew that she was having difficulties acclimating to a place like this as a new contestant, not to mention all the issues with Cinder, and I still didn’t give her the attention she needed.

Still, he had tried. He’d seen Ella (or Cinder) nearly every night that round thanks to her transformation, and several times he’d tried to talk with her, only to get shut down hard for various reasons.

Of course, naturally, that had led him to drift away. Which was a big mistake. He needed to do better by her. It was only fair, right? After all, Ella was trying in her own way. He needed to try too, to make a connection with her.

Whatever issues she had, he had to remember what she’d said to him the day he first met her- how she’d never had a chance for a real relationship before, and she was using this as her final shot, to try and live a somewhat normal romance.

Nick wasn’t sure if he could live up to her idealized fantasy. But he would try to make her happy all the same.

It seemed like the least he could do for her, anyway.

Sighing, Nick checked his look in the mirror one last time before heading down.

“You look fine, Nick don’t worry,” Mary said, patting him on the shoulder.

“That’s easy for you to say, you like me in anything,” Nick replied. Ironically, he found himself wishing that Vivian had stuck around. She may have had her own issues but when it came to fashion she was the one with all the answers. Nick honestly had hardly any idea what looked good. So he’d gone for more neutral clothes to try not to be flashy or risky.

Button-up shirt. Simple dark pants, not jeans. …So basically no real change from his usual wardrobe. And, well… that wasn’t his fault! Nick had no idea what kinds of clothes men wore to look stylish! He’d just kind of stumbled through life buying whatever nondescript clothing would fit him, and that was enough.

…Maybe that was why he had such bad luck dating before coming to this island.

And yet… Mary still looked at him like he was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. Someone who loved you that much… it was pretty addicting. Nick had to remember not to let her opinion sway him too much, lest he find himself getting a swelled head.

“If she doesn’t like what you’re wearing, you can always take it off!” Holly chirped from the couch.

And then there was Holly, who had… different problems.

Nick sighed out a laugh and smiled. The two of them had a way of making him feel like everything would be okay. That was one of the things he appreciated most about them.

“Thanks for the pep talk, guys,” he said, nodding. “I think I’ll be fine.”

He left the Master’s Suite, and as he did, the reassuring feeling he’d been nurturing slowly faded.

After all, he didn’t know where he was supposed to meet Ella. He knew when; but not where. Vivian had kept that from him, like the troublemaker she was. But Nick pushed those worries aside and stepped into the elevator.

Vivian may be a little coy, but she’s not that malicious. If she thought I needed to know, then she would have told me. So maybe I’m thinking too much about it.

He should just to the rational thing and go to her door. That was the simple solution here. So Nick headed for the Fashion Suite.

A knock on the door summoned Rose, looking at him with a beaming grin on her face.

“Good morning, Nick,” she cooed, batting her eyelashes. “Are you here for our date?”

Nick rolled his eyes. “Rose, stop playing around,” he said, trying to keep things light. He knew Rose was going to do Rose things, he’d gotten used to it by now. “If you want to go on a date with me, you’ll have to ask another time. I’m here to see your roommate right now.”

Rose raised her eyebrow. “Ella? She isn’t here,” the blonde said, swinging open the door. “Would you like to come in and check?”

Nick’s heart sunk in his chest. “She’s not?” He groaned. So much for keeping things simple.

“Nope, she’s not,” Rose said, her eyes flashing at him. He knew when Rose was playing around and when she was being serious (well, most of the time) and right now she was being 100% sincere with him.

“So where is she?” He asked, trying not to let his impatience turn into irritation. “We have a date scheduled… I mean, not exactly formally scheduled, but I know she was looking forward to it, and so was I…”

“Oh, did you come up with something fun that she’d like to do?” Rose mused, tapping her lips thoughtfully. “That’s so sweet of you, Nick! You’re such a caring guy!”

Nick winced, wilting under her overflowing praise. “…I… I didn’t plan anything,” he admitted, feeling the wave of smugness radiating from the blonde.

Rose smirked at him. “I know,” she chirped. “You left it to the last minute. Again. You really need to be more thoughtful, Nick!” She placed her hands on her hips and frowned. “That girl was looking forward to today! But you’ve been neglecting her! Last night, she was dreaming about having a meaningful conversation with you while she was working, but no, you and Kim couldn’t get out of there fast enough!”

“I was GOING to plan things with her!” Nick protested. “But you were there, and it threw me off the way you were acting, and I just… …No, that’s not right. Sorry.”

He was just making excuses. It wasn’t Rose’s fault that he’d messed up last night. The blame was solely on him.

Rose crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not the one you need to apologize to,” she stated, stunning Nick with her maturity. The fact that she was so zealously standing up for another woman… Nick was so proud of her.

“I know, I’ll apologize to Ella as soon as I see her,” Nick promised. He just didn’t know when that would be. “But first, I kind of need to find out where she is, right?” He pointed out.

Rose conceded that point.

“…Like I said, she’s not in the room,” Rose repeated herself, stepping aside. “Go on in and have a look if you want.”

He could sense the untold truth in her voice. “…But you know where she is?”

Rose nodded. “Yep.”

“Then could you tell me?” Nick was getting exhausted with these games that Vivian and Rose were playing with him. Ella was a sweet girl, but if she was looking for a sincere and honest date with him today, she’d picked the two worst people on the island to help her out with it.

The smug look on Rose’s face spoke volumes, like she was laughing at a joke Nick wasn’t privy to. “…I could,” she purred, twirling a lock of her hair. “I cooooouuuullldd… …But is that really what you want, Nick?”

Nick stared at her, not sure what she meant. “Huh? Of course I want to know where she is. I’m not going to scour the whole hotel searching for her!”

Rose nodded. “Agreed, that would be a complete waste of time. But you know what else would be a waste of time? Going on a date with her in the first place!”

Before Nick could react Rose lunged forward and seized Nick’s arm in her embrace, pressing her boobs up against it. She looked up at him with a dewy gaze and batted her eyelashes.

“Oh Nick,” she swooned, flashing a toothy grin. “You’re just the sweetest guy… is a girl like that really what you’re looking for? I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s cute. But if she’s too shy to even tell you herself she wants to go out with you, if she sends girls like me to lead you to her… isn’t that just more trouble than it’s worth? How about we just ditch her, and spend the day together ourselves! I’m sure you’d have much more fun!”

Nick couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He was so shocked by what Rose was saying he didn’t even break away from her at first. But when he did, it was with a look of disgust on his face. “I can’t believe you would even say something like that,” he snapped at her. “Rose, you’re better than that.”

Rose stepped back, maintaining her confident grin. Like she was SO sure that she was in the right here, and Nick was just being crazy for standing his ground.

“Am I?” She asked with a shrug. “Ah well… is that a no, then?”

“Of course it’s a no,” Nick snapped. “And frankly, I’m shocked you’d even ask.”

He expected more from Rose. Especially after being called out like this. She wasn’t this kind of person, it was like she was intentionally trying to be a bitch. But why…?

“So there’s really nothing I could do to convince you to spend the day with me, instead of Ella?” Rose leaned forward, showing off her cleavage. “Nothing at all? You’d really prefer spending time with her, over me? …You know she isn’t going to put out tonight, right? But I will~”

“Rose!” Nick was starting to get actually angry right now. “It’s not about who I would ‘prefer’ to spend time with! I care about Ella and I want to get to know her better. Today is HER day. So just cut it out already, there’s no chance I’m going to ditch her for you, or anyone else! Do you understand?”

A smile slowly spread over Rose’s face as she stepped back and nodded. “Yes, I understand completely,” she conceded. “I’m well aware. I just wanted to hear you say it.”

She gazed up at him with that mischievous smirk of hers. “Is that good enough, then?”

“Huh?” Nick was surprised by her sudden change in demeanor. “Good enough? What?”

“Not talking to you, sweetie,” Rose tittered.

A flash of movement out of the corner of his eye got Nick’s attention. He turned to see Ella sanding beside him, sliding the mask off of her blushing face.

“El-Ella?!” He stammered in confusion.

“…Sorry,” Ella said timidly, averting her eyes to Rose for a second. “That… I just…”

Nick was totally lost. “Wait, I don’t get this,” he said, shaking his head. “So you… you were here the whole time? Huh?”

He looked from Rose to her roommate and back again, trying to make sense of everything. And the flustered expression on the shy brunette wasn’t helping either.

“Allow me to explain,” Rose cooed, sauntering past him and draping her arm around Ella’s shoulders, pulling her into a hug that looked very uncomfortable for the shorter girl. “This whole thing was a neat little plan cooked up by Ella and myself!”

Ella just squeaked.

“…A plan.” Nick still felt like an idiot because he was completely lost. “What… what KIND of plan?” He finally managed to ask.

“The kind where I convince her that you’re not just taking pity on her.” Rose stepped behind Ella and placed her hands on the girl’s back, lightly shoving her forward.

It was just a slight push but it nearly knocked the poor girl over; Ella staggered forward, her face a red mess of embarrassment.

“I-I’m sorry!” She squeaked out, her trembling hand reaching for her rubber-band.

She gave it a snap to calm her nerves. “THWAP!”

“It’s okay,” Nick assured her. He still had no idea what was going on, but the way Ella was acting, it was clear something was up. And if she was nervous enough to use her rubber-band, it must have been serious. “Just tell me.”

“I… um… look, it’s not… it’s not what you think…”

Rose nudged her in the shoulder. “Nick’s kind of slow when it comes to stuff like this, he’s not ‘thinking’ anything right now. You’re gonna have to explain.”

Nick shot her a look.

Ella took a deep breath and exhaled. “Okay, so, um, look, it’s like this… I… uh… …I wanted to go on a date with you!” She finally blurted out.

Just stating that looked like it had taken everything out of her. She sagged and looked warily up at him, trying not to collapse.

“…I want to go on a date with you,” Nick replied.

“R-right… um… but I… I wasn’t sure about that…” Ella fumbled with her rubber-band again, but resisted giving it a snap. “Because I thought… I was afraid… I was wo-worried…”

“After last night she thought you were only going on a date with her because you were obligated to, and not because you actually wanted to,” Rose interjected, seeing that Ella was never gonna get there herself. “She thought you were taking pity on her.”

Nick’s jaw dropped. “What!?”

“ROSE!” Ella glared furiously at her, nearly turning into Cinder on the spot. “I could have said it! You didn’t have to-!”

“Geez, sorry!” Rose took a step back and held up her hands. “Sorry.”

“Ella… is that true?” Nick turned to her, stunned.

Ella’s face burned with shame. She looked down timidly. “I… it… it is,” she finally admitted with a resigned nod. “I thought… well… since I came here, people have been so nice to me… but it’s usually out of pity. I was afraid that you were doing the same thing… that you didn’t really like me, that you were just going out with me to humor me…”

“For the record, I tried to convince her many times that you wouldn’t go out with her if you weren’t really interested in getting to know her,” Rose said, clearing her throat to insert herself into the conversation.

Nick shot her a look to shut her up. He appreciated Rose’s faith in him, but right now this was something Ella had to do herself.

“Ella… I’m sorry about last night,” Nick apologized. “Things were really hectic and my date with Kim had already been interrupted by people multiple times yesterday… we were just **** to have a little time to ourselves so I rushed to leave. I didn’t even think about how that would affect you. I’m sorry about that.”

“No!” Ella’s eyes widened behind her bangs and she shook her head. “It’s okay, really! It… it’s my fault, I haven’t been the easiest person to get along with this round, so…”

She sighed again. “…So I asked Rose to, um… test you.” It sounded really bad saying that.

Nick was starting to figure out the game now. “Okay… I think I get it. To make sure I really wanted to go out with you, you used your mask to hide, then had Rose try to seduce me.”

Ella winced, and nodded. “…Yeah, that’s what we did… I thought if it was a choice between me and Rose… you would probably pick her… so I just had to see for myself… if you really wanted to go on a date with me or not…”

“Again, to be clear, I knew you would pick Ella the whole time,” Rose said loudly. “Just like I knew that if Vivian played coy when she passed on the message, you’d come find me, since I’m her roommate.”

“It was… bad to do that, right?” Ella looked contritely up at Nick. “We really should have thought of something else, huh…?”

Nick winced. “Yeah… maybe,” he admitted. “…Wait, but how did you know I would come to Rose? I was really tempted to just start checking the Banquet Hall first, or somewhere else…”

It was a good guess and Rose knew him well, but it had a chance of backfiring.

The shame darkened on Ella’s face and she averted her eyes. “That, um… actually… I was watching. The whole time…”

Nick blinked. “…Huh? The whole time?”

Rose look away. She made a wringing gesture with her hands like she was washing them clean of this. This was Ella’s mess to clean up.

Yep, that was Rose. Setting Ella up and putting the spotlight on her, then ducking away to dodge the fallout.

Ella looked like she was going to collapse from the guilt. “…I heard you and Amelia talking in the lounge… I snuck out with my mask on, to go meet up with Vivian outside of the Master’s Suite. That was always the plan… since we knew you’d go back there first to get changed… But when I saw you… I thought… it would be time to start. So I followed you back up and listened in on your conversation with Vivian…”

So that was why Vivian had looked so smug when he asked her where Ella was. She’d been in the hall with them the whole time!

“Wait, then does that mean you snuck into the Master’s Suite too?!” Nick exclaimed. “Have- have you been following me all morning!?”

Ella stood petrified with horror.

“A-again, I-I’m sooooo sorry,” she stammered, covering her face with her hands. “I just had to know… so I, um…”

“And when he was in the shower, and changing? My my, what a naughty girl,” Rose said, clicking her tongue and shaking her head.

“NO!” Ella screeched, looking at Rose in horror. “I didn’t-! Do that-! NO! I waited outside the bathroom, um… the whole time.”

That was… marginally better.

“Ella, you didn’t need to go to all that trouble,” Nick said gently, not wanting to upset her further. He understood what had motivated her to do something like that, but Rose was right- it was a little excessive.

“…I’m sorry,” Ella mumbled out again, looking timidly up at him. “I was just so worried… that you wouldn’t want to be with me… for real.”

Nick supposed he could understand why she’d be worried about something like that.

“It’s alright,” he assured her gently. “I’m not upset. I promise. I just hope that you’re not still worried about how I feel, Ella.”

Ella looked up at him gratefully and shook her head. She managed to smile this time. “I’m not,” she said. “I… I was worried, but… what you said to Rose… I’m not anymore.”

Right up until Nick had turned down Rose, her heart had been breaking, certain that he’d ditch her for the blonde. Then when he didn’t, heartbreak morphed into shame and guilt for tricking him like that. She had gambled, and thought she’d lost.

She’d almost not even taken off her mask, too afraid of confronting what she’d done and coming clean. But in the end, she’d managed to do it… and it was the right choice.

This was definitely not how Nick expected his date with Ella to start. But he didn’t mind the tricks and lies. If it helped Ella feel confident that he really wanted to go out with her and get to know her better, then it was all worth it.