Chapter Sixteen #2
Cheers. Actual cheers of excitement. I had to admire their loyalty.
“Tonight, you are not bidding on just a man.” She paused, letting the room lean in. “You are bidding on a very memorable evening experience.”
She winked.
“That sounds either fantastic or threatening,” someone in the crowd yelled out.
Glamma chuckled. “Why can’t it be both, darlin’?”
People clapped.
I zoned out for the first two bachelors and went to get another drink for the third and fourth.
By the time the chef, the teacher, and the pilot had been auctioned off, I was back to my seat, sipping something with elderflowers in it and trying to look like I was not—under any circumstances—paying close attention to the last name on the program.
One name.
I’d been staring at it since I sat down. It pulled at my attention, the way you feel a storm coming before the sky had fully committed to it: unsettled, inevitable, and already decided.
“Next up,” Glamma announced, “we have one of our town hero’s, Jamison. He’s six feet of heroism who once rescued a kitten, a kayaker, and a wedding ring from the river all on the same day.”
Jamison walked out with a three-legged mutt whose little tail wagged so hard it was essentially a whole body experience. Jami took his time going down the walkway, easy and good-natured, crouching to let the dog sniff the edge of the low staging they were on.
“With him is Noble,” Glamma continued. “He’s adorable, well-trained, and looking for his forever home.”
“Do the two of them come as a packaged deal?” A woman in the audience yelled out.
Glamma laughed. “Let’s start at fifty dollars.”
Bids rolled in steadily, but one woman’s paddle kept going up higher than the others—a middle-aged woman who was getting very competitive about it.
“Elena,” Glamma said, her tone suggesting she was addressing a beloved, albeit mildly chaotic, family member. “You need to stop driving up the bidding for your son. We appreciate your generosity, but if you go much higher, he’s going on a date with you.”
“Sorry, Sofia.” Elena lowered her paddle, then faced the room. “Ladies, he really is a wonderful catch. He loads the dishwasher correctly, can cook, and he washes his own clothes.”
Poor Jamison’s face went from tan to crimson and back to pale in under a second. He stared at the ceiling like he was praying for the floor to open up and swallow him whole.
Eventually, he went for three hundred dollars to a woman seated across the room. He rushed offstage, and I could guarantee with relative certainty he was never going to want to speak about this ever again.
“Jami really is a doll,” Vee said, taking a sip from her drink.
“Oh, really? Is there something you want to tell me?” Henry asked. Those two words were laced with so much anger, and I had to wonder if he was like this in person, how was he behind closed doors?
Vee’s patience, which I suspected had been running on fumes before she even arrived, seemed about to come to an end. “Henry. He comes in for tattoos. I’m not interested in him.” She rolled her heavily lined eyes so hard I was afraid she’d pull a muscle.
The accountant came out next, a distinguished man in his fifties, holding a cat with a face that could only be described as personally offended by the concept of attending this event.
Its ears were flat. Its expression was judgmental.
Like it had somewhere else to be and wasn’t going to let anyone forget it.
“Our next bachelor is financially responsible, emotionally available, and owns his own snowblower. Listen, all of you who still shovel, he might be your match made in heaven.”
The crowd chuckled.
“Oh that cat is ugly,” Janine announced.
Half the tables nearby turned toward her.
I took a very focused interest in my drink.
As the bidding climbed and the crowd got louder, the cat’s back fur began to rise. Incrementally. Measurably. Like a very small, very judgemental barometer of human enthusiasm.
Fifty dollars—fur at half mast.
Seventy-five dollars—full bristle.
One hundred—the cat’s entire body became a threat detector.
My eyes stayed glued to the cat with each bid. I knew what was coming. I could see it in the flat fury of the cat’s eyes, the way its tail had gone from irritated swish to full helicopter, and I could not look away. I gripped Adele’s arm with one hand.
“Delaney—”
“Shhh.” I shushed my friend, knowing it was only a matter of time before this went sideways. The poor cat was poised to act.
Then someone at a table behind us—who had clearly made multiple trips to the bar and was feeling exceptionally good and enthusiastic about a date with the accountant—threw their paddle in the air and hollered a bid that was frankly impressive.
The cat hissed and screeched in a way that made me want to cover my ears as the microphone caught it.
Then it moved almost faster than I could track.
It didn’t just jump or leap. It scaled the accountant’s arm, across his shoulder, briefly occupied the top of his head—and then launched itself from his skull toward the backdrop curtain, which it hit with all four claws extended, and hung there.
The poor creature clearly conveyed to the crowd it had finally had enough.
The accountant stood below it, hair in full disarray, bow tie at a forty-five degree angle, trying to coax it down, and the audience lost its mind.
I was laughing so hard I was crying. Actual tears, which meant my mascara was probably migrating somewhere it had no business being, and I didn’t even care.
My friends were equally amused. Adele quietly chuckled, and Cheryl had her face in her hands. Penny had given up entirely and put her head down on the table, her shoulders shaking.
On the curtain, the cat had not moved. It didn’t blink. It just hung there, surveying the room, completely unbothered now, having made its point.
Glamma spoke again, humor in her voice. “Going once,” she said, “to the lady in red, for what I think we can all agree has been the most excited to win her date.”
The cat dropped from the curtain, landing perfectly on his feet, and strutted offstage without looking back. Acting like he hadn’t freaked out, and we all imagined the last few minutes.
The crowd erupted all over again.
As I wiped my eyes, I noticed something on Janine’s sleeve. It was likely a piece of lint, but maybe not, and my vindictive side, tired of all the shit she’d spouted tonight, took over. “Is that a spider?”
She screamed and flung her arm up. The paddle went with it.
I’d only meant to scare her for a second, not have her bid. Crap.
“Five hundred dollars to the screamer.” Glamma pointed at her with delight.
Janine turned to glare at me. There was no mistaking the fury in her eyes. She knew exactly what happened, but couldn’t say it out loud without proof.
I pressed my lips together in total innocence. There was no way I was coming clean now.
One more bid came in mercifully, saving Janine from having to actually come up with that money, or force the accountant, who genuinely seemed nice, to spend a date with her.
“We have two bachelors remaining,” Glamma announced, pressing her hand to her chest with unmistakable fondness. “And these two are personally my favorites. First, let’s meet our next bachelor—my grandson, Wyatt.”
Wyatt walked out with a pitbull that moved with a serene, unhurried confidence.
Wyatt himself had the easy, deliberate stride of a man who was either completely comfortable being stared at or had become very good at performing.
Based on the sighs I heard around me, the room appreciated either interpretation.
“Our bachelor is a talented tattoo artist, the man responsible for at least seventeen regrettable decisions permanently inked on the residents of this town, and is a sweetheart who takes his grandmother out for lunch every single week.” Glamma’s voice warmed with clear affection. “Bidding starts at fifty dollars.”
An array of paddles flung in the air as Glamma smirked and increased the bid.
By three hundred dollars, the room had taken on a more focused type of energy and people were bidding more seriously than I’d expected.
Then Vee chuckled, reached forward, and lifted her paddle. “Four-fifty!”
“What the fuck, Vivi?” Henry’s voice dropped low.
“It’s just for fun, Henry.” She didn’t look at him. “I’m driving up his bid. Besides, he knows it’s me, and it’s going to piss him off.” Something in her tone suggested that was very much the point.
“I think it’s disrespectful,” Henry said, “that you’d do this with me sitting right here. It’s bad enough people in town already think you two are fucking each other.”
Vee tensed. “You know what, Henry?” She reached down and pulled the engagement ring off her finger and set it on the table in front of him.
“You can fuck right off. Wyatt’s my friend.
An annoying friend, but my friend, nonetheless.
If you can’t trust me even the slightest bit and feel the need to spout off lies to ease your fragile ego, then maybe we shouldn’t be getting married. ”
Holy fucking shit.
The entire table went silent.
Henry stood, snatched the ring, and walked away, looking back as if the narcissist clearly expected to be followed. It made me wonder how often that type of scenario had happened between them.
“You okay, Vee?” Adele asked quietly.
Vee shrugged. It wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no, and this was not the moment to push, so none of us did.
The bidding for Wyatt kept climbing. Five hundred. Five-fifty. Six hundred.
Wyatt, from the stage, stared at our table. Or more specifically, he was looking at Adele like he was willing her to bid on him.
He had been for awhile now.
Adele pretended not to notice and was as focused on her program as if she were studying it for an exam.
But her hands trembled, and I didn’t buy her nonchalant act for a second.