26. World’s Worst Chippendale #2
At four hundred, the local librarian entered the fray, nearly smacking her seatmate with her paddle.
At six hundred, a group of middle-aged runners in matching 5K T-shirts pooled their resources and began bidding as a block.
By the time it hit eight hundred and fifty, I was starting to worry about someone’s mortgage payment.
But then came the real shock: Sadie entered the game.
She had her paddle raised, eyebrows up, a look of “try me” aimed at the rest of the room.
I knew she didn’t have that kind of disposable income, especially with all the time she’d taken off to be with Buddy and the improvements she’d been making on the farm, but she was doing it anyway.
That was her way, never the center of attention, but always the wildcard.
The number leaped to a thousand, then twelve hundred, and there was a pause as the crowd recalibrated.
Sadie put her paddle down, and gave me a slow, deliberate shrug. She was out. I understood completely. I was flattered she’d bid at all.
The next bid nearly took me out at the knees.
Five thousand dollars. I turned to see who’d made the offer, and there she was, Annabeth Timmons, queen of the Historical Society and rumored to have single-handedly funded a restoration of the town library because she couldn’t stand the carpet.
She was in her eighties and wore a sequined visor indoors, which was either legendary or insane, depending on the day.
Gen slammed her hand on the podium with a flourish. “Sold! To Miss Annabeth Timmons! Five thousand dollars for four hours with Dawson Lockhart—that’s an hourly rate that would make a Wall Street banker blush! Hope you’re worth it, cowboy.”
I bowed, and let the applause wash over me.
As I wandered off the stage, I heard Annabeth call out, “I bought him for my granddaughter!” which prompted a new round of laughter and more than a few side-eyes from her table.
The granddaughter in question, a pretty redhead with a magazine-perfect smile, was seated beside her and buried her face in her hands.
Damon intercepted me as I hit the stairs, clapping a meaty hand on my shoulder. “Julia only got three grand for the entire week with Richard Gere in Pretty Woman. You’re getting five grand for four hours. I put it down to inflation.”
I ignored my brother and made my way through a minefield of congratulations and lingering perfume.
At Annabeth’s table, I stopped to thank her, and she patted my cheek with a hand that smelled of lavender and lemon tart.
“Don’t you worry about a thing,” she said in a low voice, leaning in conspiratorially.
“I’m just making sure my granddaughter doesn’t end up with one of these tech bros from Portland. You’re solid. Country stock.”
The granddaughter looked up, her cheeks flaming.
She was objectively stunning, glossy brown eyes, movie-star dimples, a smile that was brighter than the sun.
If I were any other man on earth, I’d probably have been over the moon.
But as I shook her hand and made polite small talk about the upcoming “date,” I caught myself glancing back at the exit, searching for Sadie.
She noticed, because she was sharp. “Don’t worry,” she apologized. Her voice was gentle but edged with something like sympathy. “I know this is not romantic, and I promise to make this as painless and quick as possible.”
I got the feeling this wasn’t her first rodeo, that she’d probably been through a dozen of these awkward setups. The last thing I wanted her to think was that I was upset about the lunch that her grandma just paid five thousand dollars for. “Oh, I didn’t…I wasn’t…” I stumbled over my words.
Her smile widened. “Tell her she’s a lucky girl.”
Relief washed over me that this woman knew the score.
It was refreshing to speak to someone so direct, and I hoped that she found whatever she was looking for.
I spent the next ten minutes fielding handshakes and back pats as I weaved through the dense crowd, eyes trained on the periphery for any sign of Sadie—everyone from the town’s dog grooming champion to the orthodontist with the shock of white hair and a tragic fondness for Hawaiian shirts.
My jaw hurt from smiling, and my tongue had gone dry from the endless thrum of half-congratulatory, half-mocking remarks by the time I made it to the boardwalk.
I was scanning the area when a hand landed on my shoulder.
Half-expecting Damon or one of the other bachelors with a fresh round of mockery, I turned and found myself face-to-face with none other than Vicki Blair.
Back in high school, Vicki was the undisputed queen of Valentine Bay: she ran student council, cheer squad, and half the boys in our class with equally ruthless efficiency.
Even now, with her precision-bleached hair and wrinkleless slacks, she looked like she’d stepped out of a homecoming court photo and into a power lunch.
The only difference was that she’d traded the prom queen tiara for a real estate license and an Instagram following large enough to merit a blue checkmark.
She was Valentine Bay’s Regina George from Mean Girls.
Not just because she was popular with blonde hair and blue eyes, but also because she was mean.
We weren’t friends before ‘the incident’ or after. I, of course, made sure she was okay. When we spoke about it twelve years ago, I asked her if she knew what happened and she told me that she didn’t remember either.
Now she stood before me with an expression that told me she had a confession to make. “I heard about what happened with Jeremy,” she said. There was no venom in it, only a kind of hollow regret. “I just wanted to say, for the record, I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
I blinked. For a moment, my brain refused to process the words. “No, of course not, I didn’t think that you did.” That thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.