I pour the half-and-half and put the lid on the shaker, shaking it with a lot more force than necessary.
“Thirteen thousand!” Jeremy yells. “This is amazing! Can we get it any higher?”
I keep shaking, only stopping when I notice Rich—the cameraman who is always willing to be a guinea pig for new concoctions I’ve created—leaning around his camera and staring at me with an open mouth. I pick up the sugar-rimmed custom martini glass and start straining the frosty orange drink into it.
“Twenty-five thousand dollars!” A shrill, familiar voice rises above all others.
The glass falls from my hand and shatters on the ground, sugarcoated shards scattering around my cocktail-covered feet. My head snaps up and my gaze follows everybody else’s to Eloise Withington standing on top of a table with a hand in the air.
“SOLD!” Jeremy screams like he’s not holding a microphone.
The crowd snaps out of its momentary shock and thunders back to life. I even spot Mrs. Mahler with her cigarette holder, who stands up from her seat and cheers.
“That bitch,” I growl, my eyes glued to the back of Eloise’s stupid dress as the crowd parts for her and she makes her way onto the stage to hug Maxwell. “I fucking hate her.”
“Oh my god!” Aviana squeals, pulling my attention away from the stage. “I never saw this as a potential story line, but I fucking love it.” She grins and it looks fucking diabolical. She turns to one of the cameramen and asks, “Did you catch it?”
My eyes widen for a second, taking in the shocked faces of Rich, Vince, and Poppy. Then I squeeze them shut as tight as possible, hoping a hopeless hope that somehow this is all a terrible nightmare.
I crack one eye open, but much to my dismay, not only is Vince still standing there with his camera, so are Maxwell and a giddy Eloise.
“So,” she squawks. “What’d we miss?”
Fucking, fucking Lady Mustangs!
Seventeen
“Dad.” I try to infuse as much feeling as possible into that one little word. “I just do not want to talk about it anymore.”
It’s been five days and the damn auction is still all anybody can talk about.
After the game on Sunday, I’d managed to convince myself that I misheard his conversation at the museum. Or that maybe he was trying to end things with whoever was on the line. Maxwell’s a stand-up dude, he wouldn’t break up with someone on the phone. But ever since I saw Eloise plastered to his side, the doubts have been creeping back in. And luckily for me, I’m not sure anyone is going to let it drop anytime soon. No matter how many times I ask.
“But they even talked about it on the news today,” my dad says. “They said the Mustangs wouldn’t even tell them how much money they made, only that it was historically high. And the news anchor was there too. She said it was the best event she’d ever attended and that HERS is her new go-to spot. You should be thrilled.”
I stand up straight and stare at my dad. “I am thrilled.” I point to the fake smile on my face. “See?”
“I just don’t understand why you aren’t over the moon right now.”
Obviously, I did not tell my dad all of the details of the auction.
I’m still trying to pretend like I didn’t unintentionally become a story line for the next season of a reality show and that said story line isn’t outing me to the world for an unrequited crush I developed on a guy so far out of my league that somebody spent twenty-five thousand dollars to hang out with him.
Although, to be fair, it wasn’t a dating auction and there were very clear guidelines set forth about what would be allowed to happen and what wouldn’t. And Eloise attended to represent her father’s firm and was given “carte blanche”—her words, not mine—to both give back to charity and have a player spend the day at their firm.
I guess when it comes to spending someone else’s money, Eloise is as charitable as they come.
“I am!” I snap, throwing the rag I’ve been using to scrub a speck of dirt off the bar, only to realize it’s a nick in the counter.
“Ooh,” Tanya says, snapping her gum as she passes. “You must’ve mentioned the thing we aren’t mentioning that happened here on Monday night with people from that team we also aren’t mentioning.”
I glare and my dad laughs.
“I can fire you.”
To that threat, she blows a bubble and winks.
I throw my hands in the air. “Does nobody here respect my authority?”
“I know you still aren’t trippin’ over that spoiled brat bidding on Max.” Vonnie slides onto the barstool next to my dad.
Why? What did I ever do to deserve this?
“Oh.” My dad’s eyes widen behind his glasses and he nods his head slowly. “This is about Max. That makes sense.”
“What? Why?” I trip over my words. “Why does that make sense?” I ask, then point at Vonnie. “You stay out of this or I’m banning you from HERS.”
She turns her head to the side for the sole purpose of giving me a wicked side-eye. “Suuure.”
Clearly, I’ve been living in a land of delusion thinking anybody in my circle takes me seriously.
“I mean it!” I shout, startling customers around us.
“Okay, girl,” Vonnie says, even though it’s obvious to everyone that she’s just humoring me. “You want to come to the game tomorrow? Lucy already called me asking if you would come to this game too.”
Aww.
Hearing that Lucy wants me there is almost enough to shake some of the foul mood I’ve been in since Monday. “That’s sweet of her,” I say. “But I don—”
“She’ll be there.”
“What? No, I can’t,” I say at the same time Vonnie claps her hands and says, “Fabulous! I’ll text Lucy right now.”
“Vonnie, I really can’t miss two consecutive Sundays. They’ve turned into one of our craziest days for business.”
“Nonsense.” My dad sounds exactly like he did when I was seven. “I’ll cover for you. You need to get out of this bar more often. And who says no to a suite at the Mustangs game?”
“I already texted her. You can’t back out now.” Vonnie tosses her crystal-encrusted phone case into her oversized Louis Vuitton bag. “She said Clara and Ruth have been asking about you all week.”
Sorcery.
She knows how obsessed I was with those curly-headed balls of cuteness.