No Phrase Without a Double Meaning

"I've just got to keep an open mind," Turner psyched himself up for what was probably going to be the roughest night of the week. "Just because you and her didn't end on the best terms when you last talked doesn't mean that things are going to be the same now; Paige is a person too."

What would the night entail? Was Paige still just as salty about the events that transpired five years ago as he was? Did she remember the night in the car when everything started to go downhill? Obviously Paige resented Becca, but where did he stand in the equation? Millions of questions were running around his head about what would happen tonight, none of which would get answered before it was too late.

"I shouldn't have any problems like I did with Emma and Abby though," he reminded himself. "It's not like Paige is gonna try to do anything to me tonight, she's probably going to try and get it over with as soon as possible."

He nervously paced the room, looking at all of the different outfits laid out on the bed. What was he supposed to wear in a situation like this? It wasn't like he couldn't get changed, but it would be nice to just be ready once his "date" arrived. He hadn't had any idea what any of the previous gals were going to do for their date nights, but this one felt a bit different to him. Emma, Charlotte, Abby, and Lauren, he could get away with wearing pretty much anything with them. Liam, he knew Liam wasn't going to do anything extravagant. But Paige?

He settled on the same thing as the first four gals, a simple polo and khaki pants. It wasn't like he had anything super out-of-the-ordinary to worry about. It was times like this where he wished he had gotten maybe a little more instruction from Kendra? If the whole point of him having all these girls here at his beck and call, that's fine that the show left him more or less alone, but what was he supposed to do here?

It was perfect timing too, because as soon as he rode the elevator down to the lobby, he saw Paige walking into the hotel. It was almost as if there was a golden glow around her, but it had to just be the early evening sun in the background.

He saw Kendra run up beside Paige as she was walking and starting to talk to her.

"You scared the living daylights out of me!" Paige's eyes were wide in shock.

"My bad, I just wanted to catch you before you began your date," Kendra, on the other hand, had a twinkle in her eye, like she was up to no good.

"Oh, is this about what I 'picked' for my prize?" Paige scoffed.

"It is, actually," Kendra responded defiantly. "But I'll give it to you in the form of a riddle, per se."

"Alright, lay it on me," Paige shifted her weight to her other foot.

"So, Becca said something the other day about how she hopes Turner isn't too soft to you on your date," Kendra began, but then never continued.

"Is that it?" Paige asked incredulously.

"That's it," Kendra closed her eyes and nodded her head. "Hopefully a resourceful gal like you will be able to make use of that. Well, that's all she wrote, have fun!"

Kendra walked off, walking so quickly Paige would almost assume that she had to make a flight in half an hour. Paige was left a little shell-shocked, wondering what the fuck she was going to do with that statement.

"Is that literally all she's gonna give me?" Paige rolled her eyes. "Hell, I could've told her that Becca probably said that, nearly word for word. No matter though, guess I gotta go start my date."

Paige swiveled around and resumed walking back towards the hotel, opening the doors and seeing Turner standing there. He no doubt saw her interaction with Kendra, but had he heard anything? It wouldn't really have made a difference if he did, but she would rather not have to explain what had just happened between her and the host to him.

"Hey," Paige simply said. There was so much more she wanted to say, but it would have to be at a later time so as not to scare him away.

"Hey," Turner coolly responded. "Where we headed?"

"Just on a little trip down to Memory Lane," Paige answered, smiling in a way that to almost everyone else, would seem sneaky, but to Turner, he knew she was acting coy.

"That's...not really that specific," he responded, sighing loudly.

"No, there's literally a place here called Memory Lane," Paige clarified. "C'mon, follow me."

She knew that he might not remember everything by happen and, by comparison, she likely remembered every last detail of the years they had together. She was committed to talking about it with him, no matter how avoidant or uncomfortable he got, because in the end, it would all be worth it in the end. She hoped.

Sure enough, there was a place that was called Memory Lane near the hotel. Turner wondered why he hadn't seen it since he had come here, because every single date had taken him past this spot on the way to something, but he chalked it up to nothing about this island making sense.

"Well, here we are," Paige shyly said as they arrived. "Ready?"

"I'm not sure what you're planning here, but I'll bite," Turner responded.

It was at that moment that Turner felt a slight stirring in his loins, and his little buddy started standing at attention. This hadn't happened since his date night with Emma, and that was due to Kendra. What was going on here?

Pushing those thoughts to the back of his head and adjusting his waistband, he just ignored it and hoped it went away as Paige led him towards...whatever was down here. The name "Memory Lane" certainly gave him a few ideas, but it wasn't providing anything super concrete.

"Shall we go inside?" Paige said, letting out a small smirk as she took a brief glance downwards but met Turner's eye line, for the most part.

"I guess so," he nonchalantly responded.

They walked down the street and immediately they were engulfed by a white light, similar to the light that the two of them had seen when they were transported to this other dimension. As the blinding brightness faded a bit, the two of them were standing in some sort of dark, misty area. It looked like they were floating because the floor was gone, but they could feel the ground underneath their feet. Paige instinctively took Turner's hand, a bit perplexed about what was going on, but he shook her off, causing her to look downcast.

"Are you taking me here to lock me in a closet or something forever?" Turner was very suspicious about what was going on. "Because I've said this before, but this is definitely sketchy."

"Just...give it a second," Paige insisted. "Kendra said it might take a minute or so to kick in."

Right after Paige finished talking, the mist around them cleared and the area grew brighter. Turner immediately recognized where they were, the first time they had met. It was a bright and sunny August morning, and they were both dreading math class. It was almost as if they were watching a 3D video of themselves, they could see their high school selves in the adjacent desks in the back of the classroom.

"This is where we first met!" Paige giddily said, mirroring his thoughts exactly.

Turner didn't respond, just watching the scene unfold in front of him. He saw his former self drop a pencil off of the right side of his desk. As he was bending over to pick it up, he butted heads with Paige, who was also trying to help him by picking it up.

"Oh, my bad," he said, pulling back a little bit. "I'm so sorry about that, I didn't mean-"

"Don't mention it," the past Paige said. "I'm Paige by the way."

"Turner," he responded.

After he picked up his pencil and turned his attention back to the small worksheet, Paige looked over at him. She gave him one of her trademark smiles, like she often did when she was up to something.

Later that day, Paige was sitting alone at lunch, silently eating the gross cafeteria "food" when Turner came up beside her with one of his friends.

"Mind if I sit here?" he asked her hopefully.

"Sure," she simply responded before stabbing another one of her tater tots. At least, they called them tater tots at the school, Lord knows what they really were.

Turner sat down across from her and the person tagging along with him introduced himself as Liam, Turner's lifelong friend. The three of them began talking away like there was no tomorrow. Liam left after five minutes, going to sit with somebody else, but Turner didn't follow suit, in the middle of telling Paige the story of when he was seven and got his bike stuck in some mud.

"I always loved listening to your stories," Paige wistfully said as the scene before them ended, shrouding them in the dark, misty void again. "You were such an expert at telling them."

Turner let out a nervous chuckle but didn't follow it up with anything. He was still trying to figure out what Paige's M.O. was for bringing him here, because she always had a plan for everything. He didn't get far in his thoughts before the misty void in front of him changed to show an ice cream shop. The retro design reminded Turner of a classic 50's diner, one with the jazz music playing on the jukebox, people flipping burgers behind a glass counter with bar stools, and enough vintage cars to transport an army across the country.

Turner and Paige walked in the door, him awkwardly holding the door for her as she did a small curtsy to show her gratitude before the two of them burst out in hysterical laughter at one of their inside jokes. The setting September sun behind the pair was the perfect backdrop for any sort of photo-op, but that wasn't what they were here for.

After the two of them ordered and picked up their food, they sat down at a small booth across from each other, eating their frozen treats. The air was very light between the two of them, especially as most first dates go, because they had gotten to be very close friends with one another incredibly quickly. Quickly alternating between eating ice cream and talking, Turner and Paige never stopped the conversation long enough for it to become awkward.

Little did Paige know, this was only the precursor to something more that Turner had planned. It wasn't anything spectacular, though, he just had an idea for the part two of this date.

"I never forgot the song that was playing when we walked in there," Paige's eyes were closed as she smiled.

"Neither did I," Turner agreed, although his voice carried more malice than hers did. It was the last song that they had played together before everything went downhill, causing him to remember it differently from her.

Holding hands, Turner and Paige sat down in their seats in the cinema, near the back. Liam, when Turner was telling him all excitedly what the plan was for the night, had taken every opportunity to make fun of Turner's seating choice, citing "you know what happens in the back of movie theaters, right?".

After sitting the admittedly-way-too-large popcorn bucket down, Paige moved the armrest separating the two of them up and scooted closer to him. The trailers started to play and she showed no signs of moving back into her space, not that Turner minded in the slightest. In fact, he closed some of the remaining distance between the two of them, prompting Paige to lean onto his shoulder and nestle herself underneath his left arm.

The content of the actual movie was fuzzy in the vision, mainly since neither Paige nor Turner were paying any attention to the big screen itself, mostly just focused on one another. That and the popcorn that cost triple what it should've.

Paige couldn't stop smiling as the scene unfolded before the two of him. She kept taking furtive glances over to Turner to gauge his reaction. No dice on anything so far, although that wasn't too far out of the realm of what she expected. Bringing up the past hurt, but it was necessary for her grandiose plan. The scene shifted one last time to the fated prom night that Paige was remembering earlier in the day. As the mist cleared and the colors started to become more vibrant, Turner looked over at Paige's current dress, likely connecting the dots with her reasoning for wearing red today.

"Alright, Paige, what is it you're try'na do here?" he asked, a bit annoyed.

"What do you mean?" Paige feigned ignorance.

"Why did you take me down to this place where we could revisit all our past important moments?" he clarified. "Is it a good idea of yours to make me remember all the pain that you put me in?"

He glanced back over at the scene after he finished talking and saw past Paige taking past Turner's shirt off. Remembering the situation caused his somehow-still-hard dick to twitch slightly.

"Not at all," Paige shook her head. "Look, let's go back to the hotel and I'll tell you what my 'grand plan' or whatever you're calling it is."

"Ordinarily I would decline that because I know you're up to no good," Turner's eyes narrowed. "Unfortunately, the rules say I have to let you stay the night there. You better not try any funny business though."

"I would never," Paige responded. Turner took that with not just a grain of salt, but an entire ocean's worth of salt. Her statements in the past had been shallower than a middle school gossip girl saying that she wouldn't tell anybody about what she had just heard.

He did have to walk her back to the hotel, though, and just prayed that she actually was telling the truth for once in her life. The walk was a bit strange too, since he thought the added blood flow would cause this insanely-long boner to go away, but it didn't subside one bit. This wasn't natural in the slightest, and he just thought it was some offhanded thing that Kendra did and forgot about.

"Do you want anything to eat?" he asked her once they passed through the ornate glass doors. Just because he didn't like the gal he was on a date with wasn't a reason to deprive her of food.

"Nah, I'm good for now," Paige shook her head. "I can get food later, though, right? This isn't like a 'speak now or forever hold your peace' situation?"

"Yeah, just let me know when you do want anything," he waved his hand. "Unless I'm asleep, in which case, please don't wake me up because you want another 3 A.M. hot pocket or something."

"I would never," Paige repeated, but this time, Turner could tell she was being sincere. Did that mean she wasn't being serious before? All this thinking and mental hopscotch that he had to play whenever he was talking to her nowadays was tiring.

"Well, anyways, I told you I would tell you what was happening, so, I guess I should do that," Paige said after a few awkward minutes of sitting in the penthouse.

"Go for it," Turner consented, preparing himself for whatever bullshit Paige had cooked up this time.

"Earlier you said that you thought I did this to make you remember the pain that I caused you," Paige began. "That wasn't why though, it was to make you remember all of the good moments we had before the night when it all went southbound."

"But why?" he asked. "Why bring it up at all? I know you don't like Becca at all, but why try and drive a wedge between me and her?"

"It's not just me trying to do that," Paige pointed out. "Everybody here is eventually going to have to do that. This game show is going to make it so that you can't be monogamous anymore."

"That doesn't really answer my question," Turner exasperatedly said.

Paige pursed her lips, seemingly psyching herself up for the next statement, before letting loose. "It's because I want to apologize for everything! I ruined it all, I threw away something that was so good between the two of us just because I got carried away. I was so stupid, and wrong, and ever since I broke your spirit and your trombone, I've felt like utter shit. And I'm hoping...I can make it up to you?"

That...was a lot for Turner to unpack. Ever since the initial meeting and Paige's transformation, he had always expected that this was going to happen. However, expecting it to happen and actually experiencing it happening were two completely different ballgames.

"You can't just do everything you've done, simply say 'sorry', and expect it all to be fixed," Turner pinched the bridge of his nose. "I spent three years with you. Three years, one of which was basically a sham anyways. Then you attack my current girlfriend relentlessly and expect it all to be okay? There's not really anything you can do to even begin making it up to me."

"Well then, I can at least take the edge off, and pick up where we left off" Paige said flirtatiously, before giving in to her urges and pouncing on Turner.

Kissed Turner: +4 VP!

Suddenly, everything made sense to Turner, like he just finished a 1000-piece puzzle and stepped back to look at the grand project. Paige made up this elaborate plan so that she could apologize for not just one simple thing, but everything in the relationship, by virtue of pointing out everything in the relationship, at least the highlights. The red dress was so she could, as she put it, "pick up where we left off". His aching dick was likely something done by her as well, and he wondered if there was something that she bought with those BP that he'd heard so much talk about, but not much walk.

It was intoxicating, being lip-locked with his former girlfriend, in an embrace like this. It was taking the edge off. Not the same edge that Paige was referring to, but the edge in terms of his almost uncontrollable, almost drunken, horny haze. It just felt so...good.

"I know Becca hasn't done anything like this with you yet," Paige whispered seductively into his ear. "And since I was your first in other areas, I want to be your first in everything else."

Taking Turner's lack of pulling away from her as a sign of approval, she shimmied out of her dress and brought his hands up to her tits, squeezing around his hands.

Turner Touched Her Breasts: +5 VP!

If the last revelation was like finishing a 1000-piece puzzle to Turner, this one was like finishing one with 2000 pieces instead. That was the missing link, that Paige somehow knew about his **** to do anything with Becca and she was damn well gonna take advantage of it. The mention of his girlfriend, however, was like a splash of cold water, and a big mistake on her part if she thought that he was going to consent to whatever she had in mind whilst in a state of delirium. He immediately pulled back from her advances.

"Paige, what the fuck?" he started accusing. "I don't even know where to begin with what just happened in the last three minutes or whatever. If that's your way of apologizing for what you did in the past...by doing almost the exact same thing again, then that's a really shitty way of making up for it. I don't know how you did what you did, if you made me inhale some sort of suggestible mist when I was in that 'Memory Lane' or whatever, but it's definitely not helping your case. Not with me, and definitely not with Becca."

Paige was stunned. What broke him? He seemed like he was in almost a haze, and that he was willing to do whatever she suggested, for whatever reason that was. Was that what Kendra was referring to when it came to her reward? Would he be more willing to accept her advances? Is that what the host meant when she said that stupid riddle or whatever you can call that?

"I-I-" she stammered, but couldn't come up with anything cohesive before running off to the bathroom.

Turner had even been willing to hear her out a little bit. If she could prove to him that she had turned over a new leaf, he would've likely, at the very least, earnestly tried to rekindle a cordial relationship with him. All this ended up proving, however, was that she was every bit the same girl she was back in high school.

"Why?" Paige asked herself that one word over and over again as she hid in the bathroom, flustered, and very aroused from the whole situation. "I had one job, and it was all going so well. Then it's like a switch flipped in his brain or something, and he remembered 'Oh right, I'm supposed to be mad right now'."

As she recounted the memories of the last few minutes, specifically the part where she poured out everything to him as an apology, she began to work up a rhythm, rubbing between her legs with fervor, but it didn't yield anything.

"It's gotta be him...this won't do it anymore," she thought. "I've actually got to get him to...finish the job, but right now he's not gonna do jack shit. How am I supposed to...do this?"

She sat, crumpled on the ritzy yet cold ceramic floor, feeling sorry for herself. "I don't know what to do. I have to go back into the room at some point, but what am I gonna say? The second I start talking to him, I'm gonna start apologizing for everything I just did, and it's gonna be an endless cycle until either I break or he breaks, and judging by the current state of affairs, that seems like a very one-sided competition."

She thought of Kendra's prize to her. If she went back out there, would it reset all of the negative progress that she had made with him? That couldn't be the end of the reward, right? She couldn't have squandered her first-place winnings already, right? Although, with how her life had been going for the last...eternity, that wouldn't be all too out of the ordinary for her.

"I've just gotta get up and do it now...it's gotta be done at some point, so why not this point?" she psyched herself up again as she stepped out of the bathroom with conviction, a stark contrast to the mess that she felt like only a minute ago.

Turner looked over her direction, but didn't say anything. That didn't give her a whole lot of information, he was either going to pretend like it didn't happen, feeling really upset with her and didn't know how to get the words out, or it was basically like a clean slate again and she could try again. This was how he was acting towards her at the beginning of the night, it wasn't completely out of the realm of possibility.

"Turner?" she hazarded.

"I'm going to bed," he icily stated, shutting down any opportunity to do anything with her, even talk. "You probably should too."

"Wait, but what about...dinner?" she pleaded.

He let out a deep sigh, and said "Sure, fine, what do you want?"

She wasn't necessarily hungry at the moment, but even having a chance to talk with him a little more gave her the last little boost of courage that she needed.

"You," she simply said as she hungrily kissed him again.

Judging by the fact that he didn't immediately push her back and start yelling at her, she had guessed correctly on what mood he was in.

She walked him back over to the massive bed while dancing her tongue around with his, still in nothing but her underwear.

Kendra looked over the whole scene unfolding in front of her, clasping her hands together in glee. Things were finally going the way she initially intended. The gift she had given Paige, making Turner more soft towards her and less soft physically, was panning out just as she had planned.