23. Corkscrewed
twenty-three
Corkscrewed
I ’m in a shit mood. Erika. The little minx turned that around on me. Gave me another fucking hard-on.
My phone rings with Helen, Facetiming. “Hey!” She’s chipper. “Are you going to the auction?”
“Ellis’s auction? Fuck. No.”
It turned wicked cold again this afternoon. I’m on the couch, licking my poinsettia prank wounds with my feet stretched toward the fireplace, thinking about her mouth on mine—what she whispered before she got up—and a football game on TV I haven’t been able to focus on.
Erika wants to play games? She doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into.
“Come back to me, Kourt. What are you watching?”
“Ballgame.”
“Are you ready for your big game?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be. Scares the shit out of me, playing with Jamarcus and those guys. I can’t hold a candle to them.”
“Actually,” she lifts her brows. “You can. You know you could have, if Angie hadn’t insisted on dragging your long-legged ass back here. Admit it.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Because you never really tried or even threw your hat in the ring.” She waves her arm high. “You knew you were coming back to Blitzen.”
I rub my hand over my face. I haven’t thought about Angie this much since, I don’t know when. “Maybe.”
“Maybe my ass, Kourt. You didn’t even go for it.”
“Wasn’t any point in trying.”
“Do you regret it?”
I stalk to the refrigerator and pull out a cold one on that question. She’s always known how to jerk my chain. “Not really.” I take a swill.
“Go light on that. I intend to see you at the auction.”
“Told you. I’m not going.” I turn it up just to get under her skin.
“You have to.”
“Why?”
Why am I always expected to do what I don’t want to do?
I aim my beer at the TV monitor on the wall by the fireplace. “I’ve got a game on and a fire going.”
“To support your fire department, dummy. If you don’t show up because you don’t like Ellis, you’re shooting the finger to the whole fundraiser thing.
It’s poor sportsmanship. You two are competing to see who raises the most money.
Now close up your pity party, get out of that sweatshirt—and I’ll see you there.
You need to bid on something. To contribute. ”
I choke on the swallow and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “As if I haven’t spent a couple hundred dollars on diesel since Erika hit town. For the fundraiser, I remind you.” I grumble and finish off my cold one.
“No more, Kourt. School gym. One hour. You’re not going to turn into a drunk over this Erika shit.”
“What do you mean?” My ticker revs. “This has nothing to do with Erika. I can’t stand the guy. You think he’s going to be at my basketball game?” Okay, I’m a little loud.
She smirks. “I’ll bet money on it.”
“How much?”
“Fifty.”
“You’re on.”
The high school parking lot is packed. Even my space, with my name on it, is taken. Jerks. I drive around ’til I find a spot a quarter mile from the gym, which is just as packed when I finally reach it.
She’s pulling it off. Every dime made here is going to the new fire truck. Erika knows what she’s doing.
I stand in the rear of the standing room only crowd—I can see over everyone—as one item after another is brought to center court, where ass wipe Ellis has set up a little stage for himself and his auction items. I hope that son of a bitch doesn’t scratch up the floor for tomorrow night’s game. He didn’t even ask.
“Alright everyone, something special.” Ellis is wearing a frigging tuxedo, holding the microphone as he stands beside what I’m guessing, by its size and shape, is Erika’s statue. They’ve got it covered with a cloth, which he swishes off with a flourish.
The crowd mumbles.
So do I. What is it? A big coil?
“This piece belongs to our own Josephine Amherst—you all know her niece, Erika, who’s the mastermind behind this year’s Old-Fashioned Blitzen Christmas, which is our primary fundraiser for the new fire truck. Stand up for us, Erika.”
I crane my neck, along with everyone else, as Erika stands in the bleachers. She’s a damn knockout, dressed for this shit auction. Looks like a million dollars in a fitted black dress she sure as hell didn’t buy in Blitzen. She smiles, nodding, and sits back down.
I know her. If I were closer, I’d see those cheeks are the color of raspberries.
“Okay, now!” Ellis gestures toward the statue, reading a card. “This piece is called Time Spirals. It dates to 1898 by Jebediah Helstrom, a retired locksmith.”
The crowd chuckles as Ellis holds up his index finger and keeps reading.
“Erika did some research. Helstrom believed the act of uncorking a wine bottle represented the release of time, so I guess this… represents a corkscrew. We’ll start the bidding at a very conservative $200.
Its value has been placed as high as a thousand. It’s actually made out of old keys.”
He taps his gavel, opening the bidding.
The audience is quiet. People are looking at each other.
No one alive but Josie Amherst would want that monstrosity in their house.
I know Erika. She’s dying up there.
“Do I hear a hundred-fifty?” Ellis bellows, his gaze roaming the crowded gym.
Nothing.
“Two hundred!” I raise my hand. Shit. One more time, Kourt to Erika’s rescue. She doesn’t know it’s me in the back of the crowd. Neither does ass wipe.
“Sold!” Ellis looks in the direction of the voice that bid, but I don’t think he can even see me in this jam-packed gym. “Pay the lady at the counter for…” he bends down and looks at the ticket attached. “Item Number 27!”
I back into the hall. She doesn’t have to know.
Two hundred dollars lighter and another quarter mile hike to my truck and back—and the auction is, apparently, over. Until dickhead says, “We want to make as much money as possible, so tonight, ladies, we’ve got another auction. Guys, come forward.”
His football team marches onto the little stage, flanking Ellis. All in tuxes.
“You’re bidding for a Blitzen Blitzer football player for a date, or a day of honey-dos. We start the bidding at fifty dollars a player, starting with quarterback, Cody Baker.”
I groan.
My team surrounds me in less than a minute. “Coach, why didn’t we do that?” Logan is at my side, looking back and forth from me to the football players in their tuxes. “We need to contribute, too.”
“I’ve got Jet Holloway here tomorrow. The basketball team is contributing.”
I’m going to choke Ellis Andrews.
“Come on, Kourt!” Someone in the stands yells through cupped hands, seeing me with my players. “Get those basketball players out here, too!”
“Come on, coach. Let’s go.” They push me forward and the whole damn gym applauds, interrupting the bidding for Cody, chanting, “Kourt! Kourt! Kourt!”
What can I say, Blitzen’s a basketball town.
Shoved by my team to the stage—we line up in our street clothes beside the football players in their tuxedos. About a third of them play basketball, too.
“Bidding for the basketball players starts at sixty dollars!” I yell to the crowd.
“My guys are worth it!” I wrap my arms around the shoulders of the two nearest, my star seniors, Logan Ramsey and Asher Reece.
“What do you say? Sixty bucks to support the fire department for a day’s worth of work from one of my guys. ”
The two players beam, having a higher price on their head than Ellis put on his.
And… they’re off… auctioning one athlete after another as the other coaches and I slip away. Almost every player goes to their parents or grandparents for a hard day’s work. A few have girlfriends bidding.
Kind of feels good, I have to admit.
“Now, ladies, I’m offering my services for a day or a date.” Ellis flexes his bicep, and I almost upchuck on the gym floor. “I can do a lot of mowing and hoeing with these guns.” He smiles big and flashes his dimples. “Or dinner buying—for the highest bid.”
He had it right at hoeing.
Ellis turns and faces me squarely. “And I challenge Coach McClain and the rest of the coaches to do the same. Assistants, too.” The prick summons us with a big wave. We’re all huddled under the basket to watch his shit show. “Come on up! Let’s raise some money for the fire department!”
The whole damned crowd applauds again.
Ted Landry, standing beside me, let’s out an F-bomb. “Can you believe this shit?” Ted coaches soccer.
Bill Ellerby, the baseball coach, shoves a hand over his crewcut. “Motherfucker.” He cuts his eyes up to meet mine. “Payback’s gonna be hell.”
“Damn right.”
Reluctantly, one by one, all the coaches and assistants make our way onto the stage, every one of us grumbling.
“Aw, come on, coaches. Put on a happy face!”
Ellis gets a line of fake smiles.
He turns back to face his audience. “Okay… I’m going to hand the microphone to Erika Amherst. Erika, come on down and run this bid so I can join the other coaches.”
Does he know what a jackass he is? First of all, wearing that idiot tuxedo when everyone else is bundled in wool or flannel or down. But dragging Erika into this?
She gracefully makes her way to the stage wearing high heels like Helen.
I’ve never seen her dressed like this. I can’t take my eyes off of her.
I thought she looked good from across the gym but watching her—she’s classy as hell with that long, wavy, almost black hair pulled into some kind of up-do, those big blue eyes and lashes most women would kill for, in a tailored black dress that looks sewn to her curves.
Pillowy pink lips.
Damn.
“Let’s start with Coach McClain,” Ellis says as he shoves the microphone into Erika’s hand.
A half grin hooks me, along with a vision. The expression on her face if I shoved that mic down Ellis’s throat. I’d have plenty of help.
Ellis coaxes, “Go ahead, Erika.”
Hesitantly, her gaze now locked with his, she takes the microphone.
“Hello everyone. I… I didn’t plan on this.
But, I’d say, if the players went for sixty dollars each…
what do you say, we start the bidding for the coach at…
” She turns from the crowd to look straight at me, smirks, and turns back to the crowd.
“Two hundred dollars?” She taps her gavel.
“Do I hear two hundred dollars for a day or a date with Coach Kourt McClain?”
Nightmare. Night-fucking-mare.
“Two hundred!” a woman shouts.
“Two-fifty!” another yells.
How fucking embarrassing.
“Three hundred dollars!”
There’s not a hole deep enough to crawl into.
“Three-fifty!”
Okay. Take it easy ladies.
I can’t do anything but stand here and take it.
“Can I just donate five hundred dollars?” I whisper out of the side of my mouth to Ted.
Trent, on my right, elbows my arm. “I should’ve shoved that statue up his ass like you told me to the other day.”
Bill’s as red as I am. “You think you’re embarrassed? My wife didn’t come. Nobody’s gonna bid on me.”
“Five hundred!”
“Sold!” Erika finally chirps. “Coach McClain, your services for a date or a day of chores has been won by—let me see—stand please.”
She motions toward the crowded bleachers.
Up pops Bama Rush. Kelsey Waverly.
Fuck me.
Kelsey marches to the stand, holds out her hand, and I step down, take it, smile and bow. “At your service, ma’am.”
Got to make the best of it.
She holds my hand the whole way as she marches me to the payment table. This is the only way she’d ever get a date out of me, but it’s not in me to be rude to her. We’ll make the most of it.
But Ellis Andrews is going to regret this day.
Kelsey and I take our place in the stands to watch one after another of our coaches get auctioned off… until finally, it’s Ellis’s turn.
How was he saved for last? I hope some old lady bids for that son of a bitch and works his ass off. I hope he has to scrub her floors on his hands and knees. Instead?
Erika asks the crowd, “Is everyone out of money?” She’s comfortable as hell in this new emcee role.
Everyone cheers.
She glances at her watch. “It’s getting late. We’ve had a wonderful success tonight. Thank you so much. What you do for your community is… so meaningful. A new fire truck will save lives and Blitzen’s livelihood.”
“Hear, hear!” Someone shouts from the stands, exciting the crowd, and Erika garners several whistles.
They’re enthralled. She’s so... fucking genuine. That’s what it is about her. She’s all in, even when it doesn’t belong to her. If it helps someone else, she makes it her cause. Erika Amherst is the real McCoy.
“In the interest of saving time and saving all the rest of you money, how about I match tonight’s highest bid for our remaining coach, Coach Ellis? Anyone opposed?”
“No!” The crowd cheers.
“Sold!” Erika turns to smile at the son of a bitch in his tuxedo. “To the highest bidder.” She cuts her eyes at me and winks, mouthing, “Gotcha.”
Yeah. He’s going to the bottom of Devil’s Lantern Cavern.