Chapter 2 #3
My eyebrows drew down. She didn’t seem excited to have won a date with me. If anything, she seemed disappointed. Her shoulders were hunched, her back slumped, and she kept fidgeting with the rim of her hat between her hands.
Why would she bid if she didn’t want a date with me?
I remembered seeing her stance as she held her hand up in the air at the back of the crowd. I’d gotten the impression of desperation then. What had changed?
When neither Calliope nor I said anything, Harper cleared her throat. Her eyes jumped nervously between us. “Um, Calliope has actually requested labor, if you’re agreeable to that.”
My eyebrows rose. She had? Not that I was complaining. Or at least, not that I thought I was. And maybe it was a bit conceited, but she was giving up a date with me? In my defense, it wasn’t like that happened often. Or ever.
I waited a heartbeat to see if Calliope would say something. This was just getting weirder and weirder. I turned my attention back to Harper. “That’s fine with me.”
Due to a number of the club members being married, the alternative to being auctioned off for a date was auctioning four hours of labor.
When we filled out our information form that Louisa had read to the crowd, we had to put down whether we were willing to do a date, labor, or both.
Lucky was the only married man who checked he was available for a date because of Scotty.
His son thought he was being sneaky about his plan to bid on his father, but the entire town knew, and likely the neighboring ones too.
Everyone who was single put themselves down as a date, including myself. We didn’t really have a choice, per Steel. It wouldn’t be much of a Bachelor Auction if there were no bachelors.
“Why don’t the two of you exchange phone numbers and then you can work out your schedule later?” Harper offered, a small hint of impatience in her voice. I met her eyes and wondered if she too thought Calliope’s behavior peculiar.
I’m not really sure what I expected of Calliope, but this certainly wasn’t it.
I pulled my phone out of the inside pocket of my cut. Despite the chilly day, I’d worn a skin-tight short-sleeve shirt under my cut to help drive up bids. At least I hadn’t done a strip tease like Captain Hunter. I had some dignity.
Silently, Calliope handed me her unlocked phone.
I paused, a little baffled by this. People didn’t just hand their phones over to a stranger.
Phones were sacred, held their naughty pictures and secret text messages, apps they didn’t want their grandmothers to know about, and proof of where they’d been and where they were going.
I didn’t know why, but the trust instilled in me by this open offer seemed personal. Like she was offering me a piece of herself.
Shaking my head at that ridiculous notion, I scrolled through her apps until I located her contacts. I added myself without looking through anything else. Then I sent myself a message so I could get her number.
“Here you go,” I said, handing her phone back over. “Just send me a message later with what you’re looking for and when. I’m pretty much open this week.”
Calliope nodded once before pocketing her phone in her dress. I’d heard a lot of women complain about the lack of pockets in women’s clothing, but her dress seemed to swallow her phone right up.
She turned to leave before she paused. As if gathering her bravery, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and looked up at me. Her eyes were a lighter brown than I’d assumed, very earthy and warm.
“Thank you, Quinten.” Then she practically ran away.
My eyebrows shot up. It wasn’t a secret what my first name was, but I was surprised she knew it.
Even more surprised that she’d used it. Our legal names were personal, and rarely used.
Bulldog called Scar ‘Julian’ to his face because Bulldog felt like Scar needed a reminder of who he had been.
Abby called Bulldog ‘José’ because she’d known him long before he’d been ‘Bulldog’.
Same with Jenna calling Steel ‘Jack’. But those were very specific reasons and intimate relationships.
It had been over two years since anyone outside my doctor had used my legal name.
Did she know the significance? I wouldn’t think so.
Harper turned to me with her eyebrows raised.
“That was weird,” she stated bluntly. Then pointed a finger in my face.
“If I hear you were anything less than a gentleman with her, I will personally see to it that you are castrated. She is obviously a very sweet and shy girl. Do not pressure her into anything.”
I held up both hands. I had no idea if Harper knew Calliope’s reputation or not, but her threat was completely unnecessary. I had no intention of being with Calliope longer than the allotted four hours of labor she’d paid for.
Witchy Woman: Good morning. Thank you for your offer of switching to labor work. Does tomorrow at 1pm work for you?
I stared down at my phone. I was sitting at the clubhouse bar nursing a cold brew. It was the day after the auction and everyone was on edge. Tomorrow would determine if Steel was going to be released or have formal charges brought up against him.
After Calliope had run from me at the fair, I’d bumped into Kora.
She’d asked me if I wanted to go hang out, but I’d declined.
I wasn’t in the mood, which was a bit of a first for me.
I blamed it on needing to be available to the ol’ ladies and helping with clean up, but while she seemed to buy it, I hadn’t.
I’d turned down sex, a very sure thing. And I had no idea why.
“Isn’t it a little early for that?”
I turned, seeing Grumpy hop up on a stool next to me.
Grumpy and Papaw were the only members who didn’t live on club property.
When Grumpy had moved to Mount Grove, he’d bought a house in town and had lived there since, despite having a free apartment available to him here at the clubhouse.
Papaw had moved out as soon as his prospecting time was up, moving himself and Louisa into a little cabin on the outskirts of town.
I’d been there, and it was quaint. Perfect for the older couple who wanted to downsize without living in an apartment.
I ignored the comment about my beer. Without responding to the message, I put my phone facedown on the wooden bar. “What are you doing here so early?”
The man grunted. “Looking for you, actually. I have a project in the garage I wanted to work on and didn’t know if you had any plans to be filming today.” He once again gestured to the glass bottle in my hand. “I can see you’re not, though.”
The club’s property had two buildings besides the residential houses the club members lived in with their families.
The clubhouse where we were now and the garage where we stored our bikes during the winter.
Grumpy used it as a secondary workshop too.
Over a year ago, we’d transformed half of the space into a gym, which was now where I filmed most of my content for my TikTok channel.
We tended to have to be cognizant of each other’s schedules in there, because both of us could be noisy in our own right.
I grunted back at him. “I’m caught up for a few days. Probably won’t be back in there other than a standard workout until Wednesday or Thursday.”
I saw him nod out of the corner of my eye. “Want to tell me why you’re drinking at eight in the morning?”
After taking another swallow, I put the bottle back on the bar. “Nope.”
Every member of the club had a key to the alcohol cabinets behind and under the bar except Jumper. He’d heavily abused alcohol and drugs to cover his PTSD symptoms years ago. He hadn’t touched either in over a decade, but also did not trust himself to be around either unattended.
Everything at the bar and in the kitchen was a free-for-all for the club members.
Each apartment had a small kitchenette, which was where we had to keep anything personal or that we didn’t want to share.
Only reason I wasn’t drinking in there was because my cat, Cuppa Joe, was sending me even judge-ier looks than Grumpy was.
I wasn’t an alcoholic, nor did I have a drinking problem.
I liked the taste of beer, and normally didn’t have my first until after five in the afternoon.
Later, depending on my schedule. But this morning, I was still feeling put off by the events of the day before so I grabbed a beer.
It wasn’t a big deal, and I wasn’t planning on having more than one.
The fact that both my cat and Grumpy were judging me so harshly was grating on my nerves.
“Does it have to do with the auction yesterday?”
Grumpy had no room to question me. His winner was a fifty-something divorcee who had a reputation for being a cougar and going after men a lot younger than Grumpy. Yet Grumpy didn’t see me asking him if he had plans of putting out. Wasn’t my business, and what I was feeling now wasn’t any of his.
I slept like crap the night before. I couldn’t figure out why I had turned down Kora for sex. It was just so odd for me, and then I couldn’t figure out why it rankled me so much that I had. It was just sex. I could get that anywhere.
Realizing I hadn’t answered Grumpy’s question, I said shortly, “Nope.”
At that moment, my phone buzzed. Putting my beer down, I picked it up. I was not expecting the message to be from Calliope. I hadn’t yet replied to her first.
Witchy Woman: I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings by declining the date.
I don’t know if you know this, but I’m opening a new store in town.
It’s a New Age store, and I’ve practically been doing all the work myself.
My parents are older and can only help but so much.
So I’m behind on a good amount of what needs to be done, and my Grand Opening is Samhain (your Halloween).
I just wanted to take advantage of the extra pair of hands for a few hours since you were agreeable.