When Eric woke up that morning, he did not know the rest of his life was about to begin. There he was, riding the middle-back of a popular game show, in Scotland of all places, a little break from the hustle, bustle, and belt of his burgeoning singing career in Korea. He liked being in the game, but he also found it a bit addling; he wasn’t very good at figuring things out and it was strange to be surrounded by all this rather garish American talent. Many of them were lovely people, but they were loud and spoke in a sort of celebrity vernacular that was a little foreign to him. 

But he was content enough, knowing that I, your narrator, was back home waiting for him, us two Boston College grads enjoying a years-delayed campus romance. And he seemed to be getting by just fine on the show; sure he had a few moments when he feared murder, but there he was every morning at breakfast. And there he was every night at the roundtable, not attracting much suspicion and watching in awe as these people—who, out in the real world, were probably a lot less famous than him—threw their brand identities around like currency. 

All was puttering along just fine until he got a note requesting his presence out by the fire pit where the game will eventually end. He knew what this was. Three traitors were gone and, surely, the last remaining one would need a new co-conspirator. It was to be Eric, much to his surprise. He took the long and lonely walk across the gravel and down the stairs and there, indeed, was a hooded figure, head bent down as if in silent prayer. This was it. This was the moment. Eric guessed it would be Johnny, and that the two of them might have a shriek and a giggle about that and then, yes, they’d get down to traitoring, hoping against hope that the stronger players in the game wouldn’t suss them out too soon. 

But then the person before him lifted their head, pulled back their hood, and it wasn’t Johnny at all. It was, instead, the strongest player of them all, he of the piercing slate-blue eyes, he of the overalls and writhing tattoos, he of the dangerous allure that, previous to this, Eric had largely avoided. But now he had no choice. Rob was standing there enticing Eric to be with him, like some sort of dark dream from his BC days surrounded by the seductive menace of Catholic jocks from the East Coast. Eric, really, had no choice but to say yes.