As is the case with most great love stories, the latest potential “Challenge” connection started toward the back of a shared passenger bus on a suburban Turkish byway.

On tonight’s new “Battle of the Bloodlines” episode, Johnny Bananas, who was equipped with a GoPro camera, caught Cara Maria and Thomas getting rather cozy during a return trip from the beach. Then, coziness turned to nose-to-nose contact and, finally, the two were (allegedly) engaged in a motion that's typically reserved for extracting trapped ketchup from a bottle or performing several unbroken reps with a Shake Weight.

Still, both parties denied any real funny business went down (“…we literally play rock, paper, scissors, and sit next to each other on buses,” Thomas remarked), and Cara reminded her fellow competitors that she is not single.

“Tom’s super-cute, but my relationship status is I’m still seeing Abram — we live together in Montana right now,” she explained. “But I will do anything I can to make it to this final, and I will flirt my little butt off.”

It sounded like a reasonable enough explanation, but when Cohutta and Jill found themselves destined for The Pit as the “Family Dinner” losers, and the mission’s winners, Cara Maria and Jamie, were tasked with choosing their opponents, Cara immediately did away with the idea that Thomas was of practical use to her and threw him in. It was much more important, she noted, to keep her good friend Cohutta around, and Cohutta saw Thomas as his best chance for survival.

So that’s all well and good, but what exactly does she want with Thomas in that case? If she’s not sincerely interested in Tom romantically like she claimed she wasn’t, and she just shot a hole through a potential alliance with him, then we’re officially out of options and would go ahead and call these some muddy waters.

What do you think: Does Cara really only see Thomas as a tool for simpler game play? Or is she just trying to mask more sincere feelings, and is her simply-business talk just a farce? Tell us what you think, and be sure to tune in to a brand-new “Bloodlines” episode Wednesday at 10/9c!