“This isn’t a clown.”

“It’s a clown,” Alec says, being the relay person for Thad, who is now picking up random objects.

“Got the wood!” Cohen shouts.

“Still no burlap,” Declan announces.

“Ooo, feathers,” Thad gleefully cheers.

“Do we want the clown?” Luciana asks.

“Let me see the clown!” Helen calls out, now straddling my stomach.

“How dare you!” Thad snatches the clown away. “That’s our clown.”

“No stealing!” Mary DIY calls out. Oh, now she intervenes.

“We saw it first,” Thad says.

“And you set it down. Your loss!” Helen calls out.

Luciana snatches the clown and shows it to Amanda, who shakes her head, and the poor clown is tossed back on the table . . . where Declan picks it up.

“Do we want the clown?”

“Put the clown down, for the love of God!” I scream. “Burlap, Declan, find the freaking burlap!”

“Two more minutes at the table, then return to your workstations!” Mary calls out.

“Ugh, get . . . off . . . me.” I shove Helen with all my might, but she doesn’t budge.

So . . . I pinch her.

“You nasty rat,” she yelps, and she jumps just enough for me to roll away, right into Alec’s shoes. He topples over me from the force of my roll. Our bellies touch, our bodies forming a cross.

“Watch it!” he says, just as something crashes down to the floor.

We all pause, and silence falls as we stare at the shattered glass on the ground.

The clown.

Naomi stands over it, tears welling up in her eyes. “Oh no . . .”

Looks like no one will be using the clown.

No time for a memorial. I push Alec away, finally stand, and scour the tables.

Skeletons, no.

Disney princesses, no.

Shrek. What? No.

Camo, no.

Playing cards, no.

“Thirty seconds.”

“Crap.” I sift through the items, tossing boas and scarves to the side.

“Look, a boa,” Thad says, snaking one away from me. He wraps it around his neck. “Alec, want a boa?”

“I’d rather stick my dick in a pickle jar.”

“What?” I whip my head around just as Amanda swoops in next to me.

“Found the burlap, Mom.”

The rough texture of the fabric slides under my hand, and before it disappears, I clutch it in my palm.

“Drop it,” I say through clenched teeth.

“You don’t have to be—”

“I said, drop it, Amanda. I have no problem driving my elbow into your breast.”

Her eyes widen, and she drops the burlap just as the timer goes off. “To your workstations!” Mary calls out as guilt floods me.

“I’m sorry,” I quickly say to Amanda, who looks terrified to even be within a ten-foot radius of me. I can feel the crazy in my eyes, the snarl of my lips, the tension in my neck that’s likely making every vein pop out. Cohen’s not the only one with a throbbing vein. Lucky for me, it runs in the family.

She dodges my gaze and hurries back to her workbench.

Damn it.

“Luna, come on!” Cohen calls out, waving me over to our bench.

It’s the first time I’m getting a chance to take in everything we collected and, to be honest, I could not be more proud of Cohen and Declan, especially because I was trapped under Helen’s ass for the majority of the challenge.

“You may purge one item!” Mary calls out. “Only one, so if you just so happened to collect something that won’t work, put it in your purge box, but beware: another team is allowed to steal.”

Knowing how it works, I lay everything out and assess. Greens, creams, and natural wood. Textures, soft and hard. And rustic all around. I look up at Declan and Cohen and give them a giant smile. “I think we have a winner here, boys.”

“America picks the wedding winners, but our judges pick the challenge winners, and the judges have spoken.”

Standing between Declan and Cohen, I hold their hands and can’t stop looking at what we’ve put together for a vision board. Stunningly beautiful, it’s romantic and natural with earth tones—everything the boys wanted.

I glance over at Team Hernandez and wince just slightly. Even though I love our board, I can’t help but fall in love with theirs too. Filled with pastel pinks, cream, and gold, their vision board is decked out in dream catchers, macramé, flourishes of green, and succulents.

Obsessed.

Then . . . there’s Team Baxter. All I can say is . . . wow.

Just wow.

Pink, green, and yellow, their board is overflowing with feathers, palm leaves, and flamingos kissing. There’s no rhyme or reason to the board, no cohesion, just an array of items taped and pinned.

I almost feel bad for them. How on earth are they going to work with that?

Key word being almost.

To top it off too, Thad made the team dress up in boas, so the snob himself, Alec Baxter, is sporting a yellow boa—looking like he’d prefer to use it as a noose.

Now we wait quietly as the judges take in our vision boards and make a decision. This is how it is after every challenge: they clean up, and then we’re judged. I’ve seen the show more than a dozen times, and this is the most nerve-racking part, when the judges silently walk around, taking everything in, before deliberating off to the side, never in front of the contestants.

Each vision board is labeled with a theme to give the judges an idea of what we have planned.

Team Rossi’s Modern Rustic.

Team Hernandez’s Boho Romance.

And . . . Flamingo Dancer. Team Baxter’s unfortunate mess of a board. It’s practically stapled together and has no cohesion—not to mention they wrote and said flamingo dancer, when in actuality it’s flamenco . . . not the pink bird.

The judges confer for a few more minutes before Mary DIY nods. They separate, and she turns to the camera. “The first-place winner of today’s theme challenge will get an extra five hundred dollars to add to their budget. Second place will receive an extra one hundred dollars, and third place will receive nothing.”

The extra money would be great, but I know we can deliver a great wedding for under $10,000. If anything, I’m scrappy, and if you give me a spork and an avocado, I can make a beautiful centerpiece.

Based on the vision boards and the judges’ reactions, I would say Boho Romance is first, just because they spent the most time marveling at what Luciana, Amanda, and Helen put together. We’re surely in second, and the unfortunate Flamingo Dancers will be in third, which makes me feel a little bad for Naomi, who can’t seem to stop tearing up about the broken clown. She keeps muttering something about it not being able to live out its destiny. Her pregnancy psychosis is making me rethink ever having children.

“The judges have deliberated, and it was a close competition,” Mary continues. “In third place, receiving no extra money, is . . .”

She pauses, the dramatics of it all a little too much.

Flamingo Dancer—just get it over with. We all know who’s last.

“Team Rossi.”

“What?” I shout before I can even stop myself. “How is that—?” Cohen claps his hand over my mouth before I can say anything rude, and believe me, a rant is simmering on my tongue. There is no way in hell Flamingo Dancer is better than our theme.

“In second place . . .”

“This is an outrage,” I mutter as Cohen shushes me and squeezes my hand.

“Team Hernandez, which means Team Baxter adds five hundred dollars to their overall budget.”

A shrill scream fills the set. You’d think it came from Naomi, but nope, she’s frozen in silent shock along with Alec as Thad puts his hands on his hips and starts doing an Irish jig.

“Hell yeah! I knew the feathers would tickle the judges’ fancy.” Thad winks, and it’s right then and there that I decide Alec is paying off the judges.

It’s the only explanation.

How on earth would they even consider feather boas and palm leaves a number one wedding theme? It screams tacky. They might as well have stuck the clown in there.

While Mary talks about next week’s episode and challenge, I stew between Declan and Cohen, staring down Alec and watching his every move. Is he nodding at the judges? Winking? Making any kind of gesture that would represent being in cahoots?

He swipes his finger under his nose, and I shout, “Ah ha!”

All eyes focus on me as Diane yells, “Cut!” She sighs. “Please, no outbursts while Mary is talking.”

“Sorry.” I wave my hand in apology and melt behind Declan and Cohen. While Mary jumps back into her closing statements, I glance back at Alec, who’s looking at me, a smirk on his face. A knowing smile. The kind of smile that says . . . “Gotcha.”

To which I silently respond . . . No chance in hell, you pretentious, snobby, loafer-wearing, flamingo-themed-wedding Chris Evans look-alike.

Think he could read all that in my eyes?

CHAPTER SEVEN

LUNA

“Hey, you’re home . . . uh-oh. Why are the fudge-striped cookies out and dangling off your fingers?” Farrah asks as she shuts the door to our apartment and sets her purse on the side table in the entryway.

I hold up my bag of booze with my cookie-free hand. “I’m drinking this too.”