Like Warm Sun on Nekkid Bottoms - Charles Austen [153]
“Come on,” Sophie demanded of Morgan, bouncily. “I’ll pay. I know you’re broke.”
A smile spread rapidly across Morgan’s face. A girl who was touching him and intending to pay. He was in heaven. This could work out after all.
“You two go ahead,” I told them unnecessarily. “I need to find Wendy.”
“Is she going to bid on River?” Sophie asked.
“Er…yes,” I said, nervous that she was apparently better versed in the plan than Morgan was.
“Try check-in,” she offered. “Everyone who bids is supposed to register first.”
Morgan wandered off at the giddy urging of Sophie, she clearly delighted to have the interest of a boy—any boy—even if it was only Morgan, and he clearly delighted at the faintest glimmer of getting laid.
Meanwhile, I headed the other way. I saw Petal working a small sign-up table near the stage and Play-Doh’ed myself through the crowd toward her.
“Hi, Petal,” I said pleasantly. “Is your sister around?”
Petal looked up at me with an expression that told me I had stepped in dog shit, and would I please go somewhere far away and wipe it off. With my tongue.
“She doesn’t want to see you,” Petal said. “And I can understand why. A lot of guys would kill for a girl like her, and here you come along and treat her like you could find three more better than she is next week, which you could not, so don’t sashay over to me with all that mister charming, rich guy, isn’t my penis cute, malarkey, and try to cozy up to me like I should still think you’d make a fun brother-inlaw or something, because you wouldn’t…”
“I know I could never find another like her, Petal,” I said, cutting in. “That’s why I came here. To bid on her, so she has to listen to me. Unfortunately…”
“Don’t,” a voice said from somewhere over my shoulder.
I turned and saw Wisper standing halfway up the stairs to the stage, glaring at me with more-or-less the same expression Petal had. Though with Wisper, I could practically taste the dog shit.
“Don’t even think about bidding on me,” she said. “I wouldn’t come with you, even if you won.”
She continued up the stairs without another word, or a second look.
“I thought this was for charity!” I called out to her magnificent bare back. “I think you should be more open to making money for a worthy cause!”
“So write a check and donate,” she said without turning around. “Then go home.”
I felt like I’d been stabbed in the hart. Or deer.
Pretty women dismiss men all the time. But there’s something profoundly devastating about having someone so incredible show she cares for you first, then rip that interest away. It makes you want to fight for it. To do anything within your power to reverse the situation and put it back like it was. Like it should be, and I started to tell her that.
“Do what she says,” an unusually high-pitched voice said from behind me, stopping me before I could speak again. It was a voice that sounded eerily familiar, like I’d heard it somewhere before.
I turned around and found myself staring directly into the eyes of ‘pants-hater’ from Nuckeby’s Bar and Grill. The voice that had told ‘Vincent’ to ‘drop’ me. The man who had kicked me in the temple when I was down.
Washburne. It had to be.
“Why?” I asked. “Afraid you might lose?”
“To you?” He almost laughed. “You’re too afraid to even take your pants off. I can’t imagine you’d have the guts to stick it out in a bidding war against me.”
“Don’t be so sure,” I said, more confidently than I felt.
He stared at me for a long moment, then appeared to reach some sort of conclusion that might be very painful for me indeed.
“Fine,” he said, still stifling a laugh. “Feel free to waste your time. It’s only money.” He began to walk away. “And you’ve already lost, no matter how courageously you bid.”
I glared at the back of his head and tried to explode his brain, but I didn’t have any superpowers. After a moment of desperately trying to ignite his hairline, I turned to Petal, hoping for support. She offered none. Not for me anyway.
“Never thought I’d see the day that I was rooting for Washburne