Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
“Kill me now,” Tate moans.
“You’re going to do great,” his mother assures him. “Everyone will bid on you, sweetie.”
“Mom, no. You don’t understand the assignment. We don’t want everyone to bid on me. Just Cassie.”
Gavin waggles his eyebrows at me. “Look at you, young lady. You seem to have captivated our son.”
“Oh, we’re just friends,” I’m quick to protest.
“I’m just teasing,” he says with a boisterous laugh.
I laugh awkwardly in response. “Oh. Anyway, it was nice meeting you guys. I should go join my friend, though.”
“Wonderful to meet you, Cassie,” Gemma says warmly.
“They’re so normal,” I hiss at Tate as he escorts me back to my table.
“I know. I told you.”
Ten minutes later, the bachelor auction is in full swing. From the shiny podium at the head of the stage, Big clutches a stack of cue cards and introduces the first bachelor.
“Everyone, let’s give a warm welcome to Morty!”
A tuxedo-clad man with glasses and a red bow tie takes the stage. He’s pushing sixty, with an infectious smile he flashes to the entire room. He waves to the crowd and starts strutting.
“Oh, he’s adorable,” Joy exclaims.
“Morty is sixty-two years young, an accountant with a head for numbers and a love of pickles. And not just eating pickles! Creating them! In his spare time, Morty pickles anything he can get his hands on. Beets, peppers, tomatoes, peaches, squash, rhubarb—Farrah, did you know you can pickle rhubarb? I didn’t!”
Right. Blonde’s name is Farrah.
“Sounds yummy!” she chirps into her microphone.
“So how about it, folks? Who fancies a date with Morty? Bid high and maybe he’ll pickle something for you! I’m told his entire garage features rows and rows of jars, all full of pickled delights …”
“I changed my mind,” Joy whispers. “I think he might be a serial killer.”
“The jars, right?”
“Oh yeah.”
“We’ll start the bidding at fifty dollars.”
Three hands shoot up. “Fifty!”
“A hundred.”
“A hundred and fifty!”
Before we know it, Morty the Pickler goes for six hundred dollars.
“That’s about five hundred and fifty more dollars than I thought he’d go for,” Joy whispers to me, and we nearly keel over in laughter. The champagne at this event has been free-flowing, and although I’m only on my first glass, I’m already feeling a buzz.
The next bachelor is a silver fox who causes a murmur to ripple through the crowd when he emerges from behind the black velvet curtains.
“Hot damn. Hello, Daddy,” Joy coos.
“Oh gross. Don’t say that.”
“Come on, don’t tell me you wouldn’t hit that.”
I study him. He’s wearing a white linen shirt, fine-pressed gray trousers, and deck shoes. Sporting a deep summer tan. He’s tall, handsome, and when it’s revealed that he runs a hedge fund, the ladies are clamoring to bid.
Farrah the Blonde barely gets out his job title before a woman shouts, “Five hundred!”
“Six!”
“Seven!”
“Eight fifty!”
Joy looks over. “Can I borrow some of Grandma’s money?”
I elbow her. “Absolutely not. You literally just got back together with Isaiah.”
“Oh right. Fuck. I forgot.”
After Silver Fox is taken for fifteen hundred smackeroos, several more bachelors grace the stage. The owner of the Good Boy brewery. A dog trainer. Two waiters from the club restaurant, then one of the golf instructors. Luckily, not Lorenzo.
When Tate’s friend Danny is up, the winning bid for the attractive ginger is a staggering $2,300. Doesn’t bode well for Tate if that’s the going price for hot sailing instructors.
Danny’s smile seems forced as he walks off the stage to greet his date. The pair isn’t required to go out tonight, but it’s customary to say hello to the person who “wins” you. Instantly, the woman’s fingers curl around Danny’s biceps and she peers up at him eagerly. Now I see why Tate was so worried. There are a lot of hungry women in this ballroom tonight.
“Our next bachelor is Tate!” Farrah announces.
“Here we go,” I say.
Tate appears on the stage, hands loosely resting on his belt loops. His long stride eats up the runway, fair hair gleaming in the spotlight aimed at him.
“Tate is an avid sailor, splitting his workdays between the yacht club and Bartlett Marine, our number-one boat retailer in Avalon Bay.”
“Yeahhhhh!” cheers a loud voice I recognize as Gavin Bartlett’s.
“He loves being out on the water, any way he can. When he’s not on a boat, you’ll find him on a surfboard.”
Tate reaches the end of the runway and stops to strike a cheesy pose. He seeks out my face in the crowd and winks before turning back.
“This golden boy is a romantic at heart. He enjoys long walks on the beach and stargazing with that special someone.”
It’s physically impossible for my eyes to roll any harder. I wonder if he wrote this himself.
Farrah sighs dreamily as Tate returns to stand beside her at the podium. “Oh, honey bear, I’ll stargaze with you any day.”
“Farrah,” Big hisses into his mic to snap her out of it.