“First of all, she can’t steal him away because I’m not bidding on him. She is welcome to him.”
“And second of all?”
“Secondly, I can’t bear to watch,” I blurt out. “I wish I had your lady balls, Mal, but I don’t. I just don’t. I’m sorry, but I have to pee.”
“You do not!” she hisses. “You stay right where you are, you chickenshit.” My friend grabs me by the upper arm, yanking me toward her. She snatches my auction paddle out of my hands and tugs me again. “I know what’s best for you. Stand here and watch what you’re missing out on.”
Standing here to watch Ryder Williams parade around a stage for a room full of hyped-up coeds is not what’s best for me. He’s too gorgeous. Well…maybe not gorgeous as in hot, but there’s something about him that makes my insides do somersaults and backflips. I want to vomit thinking about Cameron the Kappa—or anyone else—bidding and winning, because I don’t have the courage to do it myself.
And that thought makes me sick, too.
Dramatic, much?
Ryder appears on stage, humbly waving at the crowd, shoulders slightly bent, head bowed almost bashfully. His white teeth flash, cheeks flush.
He’s wearing an Iowa baseball tee with his number on the back, jeans, and a baseball cap. His fingers grip the bill and he squeezes it then tips it toward the crowd with a smile.
The girls…go…wild.
I slip away when my friend’s grip on my arm loosens—she’s too riveted to the sight of the ballplayer on stage—working my way through the tightly packed crowd as if working my way through a maze.
I get jostled. Bumped. Shoved once or twice—that’s how many people are here, male and female. It’s worse than a club downtown, packed to capacity.
This event always draws a large crowd, always makes the fraternity a shit ton of money.
Once I make it to the bathroom, I shove through a stall, press my back against the door, and breathe, heart racing.
Why am I such a wuss? Why can’t I be like my friends and just…go for it? Ryder is just a boy. He’s just another guy.
And I’m not shy—not really, just reserved.
I’m the one member of our friend group who is always content to sit back and watch the action, to watch everyone else make asses of themselves.
I still have fun, don’t get me wrong, just not the way they do.
Through the rusty, steel bathroom door, I can hear the crowd chanting Ryder’s name. Wolf whistles and catcalls abound, and as I wash my hands under a stream of cold water, I imagine he’s strutting around the stage like a peacock while auction paddles fly up left and right, girls bidding wildly and carelessly.
I look up, into the mirror at my reflection.
Stare hard at the freckles scattered across my pert nose, lending what I’ve always thought was a sweet flare to my face. Bend my mouth into a sardonic line, wishing I was sexier. Or sultry. Or exotic. Instead, I look like one of those nice, innocent girls who are fun to talk to but not the ones you ask on a date.
In the four years I’ve been in college, no guy has ever asked me on a date.
Not one.
And no, I don’t include the drunks at the bar, or the frat boys who hit on anything with a pulse—or without one, because once, at a party, I saw a guy so drunk he hit on the support beam coming down from the ceiling.
That’s the level of quality I’m dealing with.
While I ponder how messed up it is that in four years, I haven’t been on a single date, I swipe some gloss across my lips and pucker. Shove it back in my purse, noise from the auction echoing off the bathroom tiles. The crowd is fired up, chanting while Chet loudly shouts out numbers.
I can hear the total climbing.
One hundred dollars.
One twenty. Thirty.
I can’t hear everything he’s saying, but someone must be shouting out random numbers because the bidding goes from a hundred and thirty dollars to two hundred.
My head gives a shake, shiny lips quirking into a wry smile. Some student is out there blowing their hard-earned cash on some guy they only get to spend a few hours with.
When I know it’s safe to come out, confident Ryder is no longer parading around on stage, I pull open the bathroom door.
It’s not easy to find my friends now that the crowd is good and worked up, but our friend Celeste is tall and blonde, so it only takes a few moments of scanning over everyone’s heads to find her. A few more to push back through.
“Merry Christmas! I bought you a gift.” Mallory is grinning from ear to ear as she hands me the auction paddle, slapping it in my palm.