Chapter 1 #3
I found her sitting at one of the few tables on the lawn by the center square of Main Street.
The entire road was closed to vehicle traffic for the day.
People had to park at either the elementary school or the high school and be shuttled down or walk to come to the festival.
Since Main Street was the only way through town, people had to travel around the mountain to get to the other side of town today.
Not that there were many townsfolk not present.
This festival was a big deal, and it helped to raise funds for a lot of local charities.
Local vendors and even some Amish families had booths up and down Main Street.
The diner’s famous apple pie was a staple.
Farmers brought crops, and one or two offered pony rides and had a variety of animals in a small petting zoo.
Bounce houses filled part of the closed road.
Ladies’ groups had craft or jewelry tables to help raise money for their churches.
The big event, though, was the Bachelor Auction. The club, some firefighters and police officers, a teacher, and other local men were being auctioned off to raise money to build a new wing in the town’s library.
As I headed towards Dosia’s back, I saw Pumpkin step onto the stage. Dosia sat straighter. “Whatever happens, I need to win this bid,” she said to the woman next to her. “I promised him. He thinks all he’s going to get are pity bids.”
I knew this was Frankie, the club’s nanny and Dosia’s new friend.
I was trying not to feel jealous that she was making friends aside from me.
She would soon be introduced to the club, to meet the women who would become like sisters to her.
While I… Well, I still had two more years before I would become one of them.
Frankie gave Dosia an exasperated look. “Sweetie, I hate to tell you this, but Pumpkin’s a bit of a reclusive celebrity around here. The entire town knows about his accident and there are a lot of women here who want to win a date with him.”
I saw Dosia scowl, which only made Frankie laugh.
I stepped up behind my niece just as Pumpkin’s bidding started. “Um, Dosia?”
As Dosia turned in her seat to face me, JJ gasped out, “Auntie!” My great-niece scurried off Dosia’s lap to run to me.
I knelt, conscientious of Oolong hanging onto my dress at my shoulder, to greet her.
I loved this little girl more than I could say.
She’d been my little pumpkin for years, long before I figured out why pumpkins would be so important to her.
“I missed you!” JJ was saying as she squeezed me around my neck.
“I missed you more,” I told her. Over her little shoulder, I saw Frankie nudge Dosia to get her attention.
Dosia spun around to face forward as someone bid a hundred dollars for a date with her man. Her entire body stiffened. Standing up, Dosia shouted loudly, “Five hundred!”
Everyone in the crowd turned to stare at her. I had to school myself from smiling at her embarrassment. She squared her shoulders, though, and held her ground. Good for her. I had a feeling it had more to do with the utter relief on Pumpkin’s face at her bid.
Unfortunately, though, someone else yelled, “Five hundred and fifty!”
As JJ stepped back from me to show Oolong some attention, I saw Dosia look to Pumpkin on stage.
The expression he gave her was nothing short of a plea.
Clearly, he did not want to go on a date with anyone other than the mother of his daughter.
Although, from how I saw Dosia acting towards SJ when I approached, I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought of her as the mother of his children.
“Six hundred!” Dosia shouted.
Louisa, the announcer, let out a nervous laugh. “I think we have a bit of a bidding war on our hands. Ladies, please make sure you can pay. Is there—”
“Seven hundred!” another woman shouted, a different one than before.
JJ was completely oblivious to the drama going on as she continued to pet Oolong.
Panic covered Dosia’s face. There seemed to be a silent conversation happening between her and Pumpkin before she yelled, “A thousand!”
A hush of amazement fell over the crowd. So far, the highest bid had been for seven hundred and fifty dollars for a man and his service dog.
“A thousand,” Louisa said into the microphone excitedly. “Going once, going twice…” She waited a heartbeat and then yelled, “Sold!” before hitting her gavel on the table.
Dosia collapsed back into her seat. She looked completely flustered, but also excited. Her head tipped to the right towards Frankie, and the two of them burst out laughing. Dosia hastily tried to wipe her eyes. “That was terrifying!”
“Hey, you won!” Frankie nudged her shoulder. “You get to go on a date with your man.”
Dosia nodded, obviously relieved by this fact. As if she only just remembered I was here, she turned in her chair to see JJ sitting on my lap.
We stared at each other for a long second. I don’t know if she saw the apology in my eyes or if it was the sight of JJ reunited with Oolong, but Dosia smiled down at me. I met her smile, and knew the two of us would be okay.
“We need to talk,” I told her quietly over JJ’s story. She was telling Oolong all about her new daddy.
Dosia’s eyebrows drew down. “Everything okay?”
I nodded reassuringly, and Dosia let out a sigh of relief. Since I wasn’t in a rush to say what I needed to say, we silently telegraphed to wait until JJ was done speaking before we talked.
It took some time to get through the rest of the auction bachelors.
It wasn’t just the club members who were being bid on either, but police officers, teachers, and even the captain of the fire department.
The entire town had a blast with it, and not just because we got a bit of a strip tease from Captain Hunter.
Only two club members were left when the lady on the other side of Dosia than Frankie got up, freeing a seat at the table.
I snatched it before anyone else could. Dosia moved JJ’s coloring pages in front of me so her daughter could continue to color now that Oolong and I were filled in on every detail about Pumpkin JJ could think of.
“You look good,” I said with a smile.
Dosia grinned back. “I feel good.”
“Really? After spending a thousand dollars on a date, I’d be,” I covered JJ’s ears, “shitting my pants,” I said in a mock whisper.
Dosia chuckled. Sitting back, she officially introduced Frankie and me.
“Ah, so you’re the infamous, younger aunt,” Frankie said while shaking my hand in front of Dosia. “JJ’s told me a lot about you.”
“Has she now?” I tickled JJ’s sides to my great-niece’s delight.
“Are you here to bid?” Frankie asked as a young man stepped on stage. He was wearing glasses and looked far younger than the others wearing a cut.
“No!” I exclaimed with a nervous laugh. “Just here for the view.” I knew that Quinten would be on stage soon. I was still due my daily viewing.
“Who’s that?” Dosia asked Frankie, which was the same question I had. Based on the looks of the women in the crowd, they were not overly excited for this man’s bid as they had been for the other men.
“Keys,” Frankie answered, a bit distracted. It looked like she was noticing the crowd’s disinterest in this man too as Louisa introduced him. According to the card she was reading off of, Keys was a computer expert and the club’s Tech.
“We’ll open the bidding at fifty dollars,” Louisa announced.
Crickets fell as no one bid for several heartbeats. I looked around. The man, Keys, was young, sure, but he was cute in a nerdy kind of way. There had to be someone in the crowd who would want to bid on him.
Louisa said a bit nervously into the mic, “Come on, ladies. I’m sure one of you needs a tune-up on your computer or to have a website built.”
Still, there was nothing.
Frankie was half out of her chair when nearly every device on and off stage suddenly beeped with a message. Like everyone else in the audience, I looked down at my phone.
Unknown: $50,000
“Holy shit,” Dosia breathed out. Saying what I was thinking too. “Is that for real?”
Frankie shrugged, retaking her seat. Louisa was showing Keys her phone and asking him the same question that Dosia had asked Frankie.
Keys did something on the phone and then nodded.
“It looks like we have a new high bid!” Louisa announced to the crowd. “Fifty thousand! Going once, going twice, sold!” she shouted without waiting a heartbeat like she normally did.
Keys practically ran off the stage.
“Who could have sent that?” Dosia asked Frankie.
“Knowing Keys, it could be anyone. He has cyber contacts everywhere,” Frankie answered, an odd note in her voice. “But there’s also the possibility Keys bid on himself just to get out of the embarrassment of that.”
A haze came over my eyes and I saw a beautiful, young woman with blonde hair and blue eyes holding loose computer keys in the palms of her hands. I smiled. “No,” I said. “It was real. ‘A rose does not answer its enemies with words, but with beauty’,” I quoted.
Dosia and Frankie both looked at me perplexed—and then there was a sudden shift in the crowd. My smile fell as the last man took the stage. My man.
He was gorgeous as always. Shortly after moving to town, he started a TikTok account doing exercise tutorials, fitness challenges, and dare I say, thirst traps.
I was his very first follower. Though I’d never commented, shared, or liked any of his videos, I’d seen every single one of them.
I had a very small following when it came to my videos about bees, but Quinten had gained a fast following.
After his patch-in party, he wore his cut for some of his thirst traps. It was how I knew his road name was Starbucks. I didn’t know why, though I could guess it had something to do with his love of coffee.
He played up Louisa’s announcement of him by flashing the women his abs. Catcalls sounded loudly from a group of young women towards the front of the crowd, followed quickly by incessant giggling. My spine stiffened, but I kept my mouth clamped shut and my eyes on my man.
“Who’s that?” Dosia asked. If I didn’t know she was head over heels for Pumpkin, I might have lost my composure at her question and glared at her. Instead, I stared straight ahead. I stared so long and hard, in fact, that my vision started to get a bit hazy.
Frankie made a scoffing sound. “Starbucks. Never saw a vagina he didn’t want.”
A coldness washed over me that had nothing to do with the late fall afternoon. Dosia snorted into her hot chocolate and shot a glance at JJ, who thankfully didn’t seem to have heard or understood Frankie’s comment. On stage, my man sent a flirty wave to the crowd of women at the front.
I had to swallow back bile. I knew he wasn’t a monk. He had no idea I existed, and I couldn’t fault him for having a life. But Goddess, did it hurt… It hurt so bad to see him interacting with those women and never even once look in my direction.
“Opening bid—” Louisa started, but one of the women from that group called out, “Two hundred!”
“Two-twenty!” a blonde next to her offered. They were all around my age, early twenties, and likely didn’t have the money to bid in higher increments.
“Two-fifty!”
“Two-fifty-one!”
“Ladies,” Louisa scolded. “Serious bids only please. And you know the rules, bids are supposed to be made in increments of fifty dollars. So we’re back to two-fifty being the highest bid,” Louisa said, pointing to the woman who offered that.
The crowd, the auction, even the table where I was sitting faded. I blinked, and found myself standing in front of a mirror. I wasn’t at my house. I didn’t recognize the bathroom I was in. It was small, likely an apartment or maybe a dorm room.
I turned my head and nearly gasped. My face wasn’t my own.
I had straight brunette hair, not curly blonde.
I was petite, standing at five-four with a narrow waist and boobs that could easily be mistaken as bug bites.
But the reflection in the mirror that stared back at me now was tall, five-eight or -nine, with an hourglass figure and a full chest. The cleavage showing was generous, and just shy of being too much.
I would never be caught dead in a shirt like this.
I was holding a phone to my ear, though I couldn’t hear anything specifically from it. My mouth was moving as I spoke words that were not my own into it.
“Look, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m pregnant, and it’s not yours. I’ve moved on with my life, Kurt. You should too…”
I blinked, finding myself back in the present as the first woman who bid on my man shouted, “Three hundred,” with a flirty wave.
He winked back at her and the woman practically fell over swooning. Her face turned, and even from the back of the crowd, I got a good glimpse at it. I gasped, my hand shooting out to grip Dosia’s wrist. “Calliope, what—”
No! I could do a lot, put up with a lot, because of my gift.
I’d denied myself sex or the touch of any man because I knew that they were not the man I was meant to be with.
I could sit back and watch as he lived his life without me, because I knew I’d one day be in it.
I’d be his whole world and we would be blissfully happy.
But I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t just sit here and watch him get another woman pregnant. Instinct told me that she wasn’t already, that what I had seen was a future conversation. And if that woman won the bid, it would come to pass. I couldn’t let that happen.
It was selfish and wrong. I knew that. If he was meant to have a child with this woman, who was I to deny him that? But fuck it all, I couldn’t. All the loneliness, all the love I felt for this man, came crashing down on me, and I knew that I could not allow his bid to be won by anyone but me.
I was done sitting on the sidelines.
In a rushed plea, I hastily said to Dosia, “I need to borrow five hundred dollars.”
“What? Why?” I could hear the confusion in her voice.
“Dosia, please.” I was growing frantic, my eyes glancing between my man on stage and the woman in the crowd.
“Yes, yes, of course.”
Relief filled me and I stood, nearly knocking JJ off of the table. “Five hundred!”