Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77341 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
All eyes land on me. I’m not sure where to look. I don’t want to see my family laughing; I want to like them tomorrow. I can’t look at Banks because I’ll be tempted to leap off the stage and beat his ass right here. I don’t want to look at anyone bidding, lest they think I want them to spend their hard-earned dollars on a date with me. And I sure as hell don’t want to make eye contact with Bianca.
“Six hundred from Marla in the front,” Gloria says. “Do I have seven?”
Various paddles shoot to the ceiling. And they stay there.
Gloria laughs. “I see. Let’s go to eight hundred?” The paddles remain in the air. “Nine? One thousand? One thousand one hundred?”
What the hell is happening?
“Fifteen hundred!” Marla grabs her walker to brace herself. “I bid fifteen hundred.”
“Okay. Sixteen hundred, anyone?” Gloria asks. “Yes! I have sixteen hundred from the lady in the back.”
Heads turn to the back of the room. Bianca sits tall in her seat, proudly waving her paddle.
I look at Jason in surprise. He shrugs as if there’s nothing he can do. I send him a silent message to stop her. But instead of intervening like I’ve seen him do countless times in both private and combat situations, he defers.
He’s helpless and at the mercy of his baby sister.
“Seventeen hundred!” Marla shouts, her voice wavering from the force of her words.
“Eighteen hundred,” Bianca fires back.
“Two thousand,” Marla says, her hands shaking. She narrows her eyes at Bianca.
Out of my periphery, I notice Banks snickering.
“Two thousand, two hundred.” Bianca’s voice is edgier than before as she stares Marla down. “I bid two thousand, two hundred dollars.”
Jason gets up and stands behind her, holding his forehead.
“Two thousand, three hundred,” Marla says.
“Twenty-five hundred.”
Heads swing from one side of the room to the other as bids volley back and forth.
Marla scoots her walker around so she’s face-to-face with Bianca. “Twenty-seven hundred.”
“Twenty-eight,” Bianca says easily.
Marla’s finger shakes as she points at her adversary. “Respect your elders, missy!” Her gaze whips to Gloria. “Three thousand.”
“Someone stop this,” I mumble.
Bianca stands, holding her paddle in the air, and levels her gaze at Marla. “Ten thousand dollars.”
What did she just say?
Gasps echo through the room.
“I’m sorry, hon,” Gloria says, the microphone squealing. “Did you just bid ten thousand dollars?”
Bianca smiles sheepishly. “It’s for charity, right?”
Marla flops in her chair, defeated.
Applause breaks out as Gloria struggles through her shock, her gaze switching between Bianca and me. I feel like Gloria expects me to say something, but I have nothing to say other than what the fuck just happened?
My head spins.
I exit the stage, ignoring curious looks from the audience as everyone gets up to leave.
I came for pie.
Pie.
What went so wrong?
My feet falter, and I stop just short of where my brother and I stood only minutes ago.
Banks.
Banks is what went wrong.
I growl into the air.
Today can’t possibly get any worse.
CHAPTER 2
Bianca
“What part of let's slip in here quietly did you not understand?” Jason asks, still holding his forehead as the locals exit the building.
I bat his hand away. “Stop doing that. You’re going to get wrinkles.”
He sighs, ignoring my suggestion and wrinkling his brow even more.
“Do you think I’ll have bad karma for outbidding that sweet old lady?” I ask.
“It’s a little too late to worry about that now. You just took her hopes and dreams and shredded them in front of the whole town.”
“It’s not my fault. She got my competitive juices flowing. I feel bad now that I—ow!”
I’m thrust forward by a metal rod bumping the back of my knee. I catch myself on Jason’s arm.
“I hope you’re proud of yourself, you little hussy.” The sweet old lady sneers, scooting toward the door. “Kids these days.”
“It’s a charity auction.” I shove off my brother. “There’s no reason to be upset.”
“You have no shame,” she says. “No shame at all.”
A part of me wants to tell Marla that I’m sorry—that this has nothing to do with her and everything to do with my unresolved feelings for Foxx. But the saucy part of me wants to tell her how shameless I can really be—which just might be the catalyst for my unresolved feelings for Foxx.
“Only you, Bianca,” Jason says, shaking his head. “Only you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He sighs, frustration etched in the deep, wrinkly lines on his forehead.
Jason is my favorite out of my five brothers. He’s not the most fun. He won’t talk freely about anything personal, and he’s not the one I’d call to gossip with about the others. But what he lacks in relatability, he makes up for with a laser-focused sense of loyalty and duty.
And sometimes that’s annoying.
“You’re the only person I know who can show up in a new town and have a beef with an elderly woman within ten minutes,” he says.