Well, maybe no fire — Vegas is way too hot for fireplaces. And with a body like that, Tate probably ate nothing but Soylent.
Still, you get my drift. If I wasn’t so busy trying to save my father, I could be pursuing my own real romance.
For not the first time, I cursed my dad and the life he’d thrust upon me.
And for better or for worse, I couldn’t reflect on that any further, because a voice came over the speaker phone.
“Thirty seconds.”
I leapt into action mode, breaking out of my funk and ripping off the coat, not even bothering to hang it up, just tossing it on the nearby bench.
“This is as good as it’s gonna get,” I said to myself, regarding my reflection.
I trotted to the door and placed a hand on the cool knob, willing my heart to stop racing.
“You can go on in,” the voice said. “Lights will be up shortly.”
I opened the door, and entered a cool, dark room. In the dim light, I was able to make out a podium that presumably I was meant to stand on.
Here goes nothing.
I stepped onto the platform, and turned to what I estimated to be the glass. Fuck, how was I supposed to pose? Hands down at my side, or a leg out or—
Just do something, I told myself.
So I put a hand on my hip, stuck out a leg and shook my hair.
The lights went up before I could instruct myself to smile.
As the room was illuminated, I saw a sea of men looking back at me, all pretty much old and white. The shock of the impact left me momentarily breathless, but in a moment I regained my balance.
Anddd that’s right about when I saw Tate, sitting smack dab in the middle of the theater.
Oh my God.
I was gonna kill him.
Listen, I’ve been angry before. I have a gambling addict for a father, a man who incidentally landed us in one hundred thousand worth of debt. So, yeah, I know mad.
Believe me when I say, I’d never been so pissed in my life.
How dare he! What the fuck was he doing at a place like this?
All fantasies I had about meeting up with him post-virginity loss evaporated. I had been right the whole time. He was as smarmy as those posters made him out to be. In a way, I was grateful the sale had come along before I could do anything as stupid as fuck a guy like that.
“Let the bidding begin,” I heard through the glass.
Paddles flew up around the room, and I became too preoccupied by the flurry of action to focus quite so much on Tate and how severely I was gonna kick his ass.
Focus, I thought. If you don’t make as much money as you need, it’ll be your own fault. Don’t let Tate and his idiocy distract you.
The auctioneer started to say numbers in that quick-patter way of his people, so fast I couldn’t even catch them. I concentrated on making eyes at every man in the room save Tate, willing them with my stare to drop a ton of cash. Men were, fundamentally, not brilliant. They think that if a woman makes eye contact, she wants to bang. Little do they know we often have a million other schemes afoot in that single glance.
I tried to smile, but I was worried that it would look like a snarl given what I was thinking about Tate, so I practiced detachment instead. I was in my forest in Washington.
But try as I might to avoid his stare, my eyes went back to Tate, and the expression I saw was haunting. He looked terrified, not for himself but for me. His eyes flicked to the men on his right and left, who were raising their paddles at every number the auctioneer called out.
Finally, I was able to make out a clear bid over the intercom.
“Five hundred thousand,” the man said.
If I hadn’t been in my underwear, in front of a room full of billionaires, I probably would’ve shit my pants.
Five hundred thousand?!
When I’d walked into the coat closet, I’d derided myself for not being worthy of the group of women who’d come before me. Now, I was making way, way more cash than I’d ever even dreamed of. I wanted to shout to the auctioneer that five hundred thousand was fine, that it would more than cover my dad’s debt, that this could all be over now.
But the bidding continued.
And this time, Tate raised his paddle.
“Six hundred thousand,” he said casually, as though that’s what he’d spent on lunch.
What the fuck was he up to?
A bald man near him raised another paddle. Tate appeared to resent this — he looked at the man as though he were a cockroach.
“Seven hundred thousand,” the bald man sneered.