Plans

Plans
By Misha

Disclaimer- Not mine.
Author’s Notes- This was not what I’d set out to write tonight but given I’ve had a weeks-long drought, I decided to grab inspiration when it came to me. This is a very short AME piece set at the beginning of Book 1 and focuses on Ivy.
Rating- PG
Summary- Carson and Ivy discuss their plans for America’s Most Eligible Season 10.

Ivy cast a cautious look around her before slipping out of the living room in search of her partner in crime.

She found him in his dressing room, conventionally one of the few places in the mansion without cameras, carefully examining his appearance in the mirror. She smirked, wasn’t she the one who was supposed to be obsessed with her appearance, and then rapped on the door frame.

Carson turned quickly, his fake showbiz smile firmly in place, though he vanished when he saw her. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought we should talk before the premiere,” Ivy told him, quickly shutting the door behind her. “Just to make sure we’re on the same page. Since I’ve already started doing your dirty work.”

Carson smiled, a genuine smile this time. “Good job, by the way, how did you get Whitney to quit?”

Ivy rolled her eyes. “It was ridiculously easy, I just started talking about how hard it was going to be on camera all the time and how if it was anything like a pageant, the questions were to be so personal, and it was definitely a little nerve-racking because this is such a big audience.” Her southern drawl became more pronounced as she repeated what she’d told the other girl. “She bought it all and started crying about how she couldn’t do it.”

“Piper was furious,” Carson said with glee, “the season hasn’t even already started and there’s already a major bump in the road. The best part is, Jen plucked some no one right out of the audience.”

Ivy frowned. “I thought we’d just have one less contestant.” She’d been counting on it, the fewer contestants, the less competition.

Carson waved a dismissive hand. “Never gonna happen, Piper would have brought back someone from last season if she’d had too. But this is the best outcome. That poor girl is going to be so out of her league here and she’s going to be our best asset.”

“How so?” Ivy asked suspiciously.

“Piper wants her gone tonight,” Carson confided, “but I am going to make sure that doesn’t happen. I’m going to fix the first challenge for her.”

Ivy shot him a look. “I thought you were working with me?” She hadn’t made this deal for Carson to start doing some nobody favors.

“I am,” Carson assured her, “No one wants to win the first challenge, it makes you too much of a target. We agreed you wanted to fly under the radar, right?”

That was what they’d agreed, Ivy acknowledged. They’d even discussed her throwing a challenge to look weaker. It would help her sweet, Southern girl approach. “Yes,” she said reluctantly, “I guess one challenge isn’t a big deal.”

“And it will piss off Piper,” Carson said gleefully, “it will show a lack of control on her behalf. But don’t worry, there’s no way this girl will be a real threat.”

Ivy nodded, letting out the breath she didn’t even know he was holding. Of course, he was right. How could some random girl off the street be a threat to her? She’d been preparing for this for months, using a lifetime of pageant training to help her, as well as a secret weapon in Carson. She had this season won and it hadn’t even started, there was no way some nobody from the audience could derail it.

• End