Chapter 37 The Bachelor Auction Trope #2
Across the room, I spotted Tyrone in a pair of slacks and a button-down shirt emblazoned with the St. Nicholas Farms logo.
He smiled shyly and gave me a low-key wave.
A couple of days ago, I had a strong plan and some confidence, misplaced maybe, but confidence nonetheless.
It had been almost a week of no communication since our date from hell.
Looking nervously in Tyrone’s direction, I asked Heaven, “What do I do?”
“Take him out to the dance floor and grind up on him.” Heaven explained this like it was science.
“Grind up on him?” She made it sound simple. I knew some folk dances and was a competent waltzer. I’d been meaning to practice twerking ever since it got popular. It was on my list of things to do along with cancel unnecessary subscriptions.
Tyrone solved the problem for me. He walked across the room toward us. Like a normal person, he smiled and said, “Hey, Tiff. You know you can’t ghost people in small towns. It’s just not practical.”
I fiddled with the edge of the sleeve of my Arwen dress. “I’m sorry I disappeared after our night. I—”
“Is everything okay?” he asked. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” I touched a hand to his arm, uncertain of what to say next. “I was embarrassed for getting so out of control.” To put it lightly. “I was too much.”
His lips quirked into an amused smile. “Tiff, if that’s all you’re worried about, relax. I’m fine.” Leaning in close, he whispered, “If you’re into kinky stuff, that’s okay. No shame.”
Oh, Tyrone. He was so sweet. If only I was simply kinky. I couldn’t still be biting people like it was the 1800s. I didn’t even do that then.
“Bring your checkbook?” he asked.
“Yes.” I smiled big. “And there’s something else. I have a lot to tell you. A lot.”
Jessica interrupted me with a tap on the shoulder and handed me a paddle with a number on it from a basket.
“What’s this?” I held the paddle up.
“It’s for the auction, you freak.”
When Jessica moved on, Tyrone said, “I just want you to know—” But before he could finish his sentence, the music changed to something fast-paced.
For a second we stood as people went wild around us, leaving us unsure whether to finish our conversation or dance.
Tyrone chose dancing. He shifted easily, moving with the music, not doing too much.
He handled it like a human who had been born in the last forty years.
From the corner of the room, I saw Heaven pantomiming a dance move for me to follow. Was she helping me or setting me up? Either way, I knew my limits.
Vlad, in the ruffled shirt I had advised him not to wear, was heading my way across the room, intent on interrupting my moment with Tyrone.
Luckily, he was waylaid by nonstop admiration.
Stephanie blew off her dance partner and threw herself between Vlad and me as if we’d planned it. Get ’em, Steph!
I looked at Tyrone again and shouted over the music, “You want a drink?”
“WHAT?”
“LET’S GET A DRINK!”
Oblivious to my inner turmoil, he headed toward the bar, happy to oblige my request. I followed behind him, feeling anything but festive.
“Tyrone, I have to confess something. I don’t really drink—and I don’t dance, either.”
He looked amused. “You didn’t have to tell me that.”
“No, it’s worse than being a bad dancer. I’m not who I say I am. My real name is Tiffenie.” I pronounced it in the accent of my homeland, the word thick with the essence of who I was at my core, an eighteenth-century girl from a Transylvanian village.
I waited for Tyrone to respond.
The simple restatement of my name as it was meant to be said made my hair stand on end. It was a confession. I had undone the corset stays of my lies. I said it again. “I am Tiffenie.”
“What? I know.” He flashed me a look of concern. “Do you still feel a little off or something?”
I said it again. “Tiffenie.” Couldn’t he hear the difference?
Tyrone narrowed his gaze in confusion. I caught Vlad’s eyes on me, even as he was spinning another woman on the dance floor, and then quickly looked away from him to Tyrone.
My ire spiked. If Vlad didn’t stay out of my business, I was going to use that paddle for something besides bidding on Tyrone.
“I just want us to be honest with each other,” I said.
“Don’t you think I’m being honest with you?” His voice bristled slightly.
“No, I want to be honest with you. I’m trying to tell you. I’m not the Tiffany you think I am.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“I’m not nice and sweet and charitable. If fact, I’m not Tiffany at all. I’m a…”
With a big smile, he said, “What are you going to say—that you’re a vampire?” He laughed at the absurdity.
“Yes.” I gasped. “Why are you laughing? How did you know?”
“Jessica and I were joking about that after all the neck injuries.”
The conversation around us faded away. This was the moment I’d been building to. You can’t have true connection without authenticity. Heaven said so, and Dr. R, and Esther Perel.
Here I am, Tyrone.
I took his hands. His warm brown eyes crinkled at the corners with a smile.
“I love how funny you are,” he said.
I bit my lip in frustration. Slowly and deliberately, I explained, “I am the vampire Tiffenie. I am over three hundred years old, and I am just finding my footing. No one has ever found me to be funny.”
For a second, he looked like he wasn’t sure how to take it. “This is great stuff, Tiff. And you are funny. Stephanie and Claire can’t stop talking about it.”
“I’m dead serious, Tyrone. I bit your neck.” I traced my fingers along the mark I’d left. What more evidence did he need?
He leaned in, his breath tickling the baby hairs at the nape of my neck. “I haven’t had a hickey like that since high school.”
“That wasn’t a hickey. I bit you.”
He shrugged it off like the bite was nothing. “I told you, be your kinky self. I’m cool with it.”
I’d bit him and he still didn’t believe me. Was I that unbelievable?
“Baby,” he said, “right now, I just need to know that you’re gonna bid on me.” He smiled devilishly. “You’re going to bid on me, right? Because I want to go finish what we started, you sexy little vampire.”
Did he think this was role-play?
I nodded and smiled weakly. I would make him understand later, but for now Mariah B.
Gary took the stage and tapped on the mic.
“It’s time for everyone’s favorite part of the night, the SugarBoo bachelor auction!
Gentlemen, take the stage. Ladies, get out your paddles.
” She started singing “All I Want for Christmas Is You” as basically every man in Valentine walked onto the stage.
This was not a Magic Mike–style auction, but a true charity event. Every dad bod in town was for sale.
Mariah took a break from singing. “Buy one of these guys for an evening and do your worst. Make him run errands, take your kids to soccer, or”—she shimmied her shoulders and threw the crowd a sexy look—“enjoy a candlelit dinner and…” She winked.
“Just remember happy endings are not included.” She clapped a full-on grandpa in suspenders and a flannel shirt on the shoulder as she said this.
The grandpa laughed. “Unless you refill my prescription.”
Dr. Rosetti started laughing way too hard, so hard that she spilled her drink. The town’s vault of secrets appeared to be getting drunk.
Jessica flashed a smile my way. “Bidding?” she asked.
I nodded.
Mariah shifted from pimping out someone’s grandpa to a more formal introduction.
“Let me remind everyone of the history of the SugarBoo bachelor auction. It started in the year of our lord 1987, when the maple syrup season was a bust because of inclement weather. The town council hosted the first auction to get the local farmers through the season. The tradition continues today.”
Vlad sidled up next to me. “Why aren’t you up there?” I asked.
“My seven hundred years of sexual experience would be wasted on these country folk.”
I raised my eyebrows. “That’s not true. No one could use seven hundred years of cunnilingus practice more than these women.”
He huffed.
“Plus, it sounds like these ladies are shopping for someone to fill in at the carpool or fix a leaky sink.”
Vlad’s body grazed mine and he whispered, “I’m still waging a campaign to chaperone you and fix your leaky sinks, not to mention use my considerable cunnilingus training on you.”
I couldn’t say that didn’t send tingles to places I wouldn’t currently admit, but between Vlad and Tyrone, my senses were spinning out of control. With an imperious tone, I said, “Love is not a campaign to wage. It is not war.”
He angled his brows. “Then you haven’t been paying attention.”
Mariah called out, “It’s time to start the bidding. Our first bachelor is Pete. He’s one of Valentine’s brave firefighters. As a master of the flame, he knows how to heat things up.” Reading from a card, Mariah added, “He also brews his own beer and belongs to the church choir.”
“How about him?” I suggested to Jessica, selfishly trying to get rid of my competition for Tyrone.
“Do you think he’d repaint my stairwell?” she asked.
“I don’t know what you’re into, but I gave him a BDSM manual a few weeks ago.” I caught his eye and waved discreetly. Pete blushed furiously.
Jessica started choking on her drink. After she collected herself, she said, “Maybe he can paint my stairwell in a ball gag?”
“Why not?” It seemed fine to me.
Jessica bought him for seventy-five dollars.
After a few more bachelors had taken the stage, the spotlight shifted to Tyrone. He walked to the front of the stage as a couple of older women hooted and hollered.
“Mmhmm!”
“Take me, Santa!”
“Santa’s coming tonight!” Valentine was showing the effects of the spiked eggnog. A little liquor, and I was seeing shades of LA.
I pushed closer to the front of the crowd.
“I’ll start the bidding at twenty-five dollars!” Mariah B. Gary shouted. “Do I hear twenty-five?”