Page 2 of The Auction
We step into a crowd of dancing bodies and chaotic laughter, and I feel it hit me all at once—heat, nerves, adrenaline.
The loud music beats against my chest. The smell of weed is saturating one set of closed doors and I scrunch my nose at it. Bree heads over and cracks the door open.
“Jesus.” She closes the door, blinking. Tears beginning to glass over her eyes. “Talk about instant fucking contact high.”
I pull my green dress down a bit further when a gaggle of guys turn to look at us at the same time. They look like prairie dogs popping up all at once and I snort a half-hearted laugh through my nose.
The stares don’t stop.
Every time we move, a new cluster of guys turns to look—smirking, elbowing their friends, nudging each other like we’re a new flavor on the menu.
Bree eats it up, already dancing to the beat with her hands in the air and a grin on her face.
I’m occupied scanning the room.
Every face. Every flicker of dark hair or tall frame that makes my heart lurch for half a second before disappointment slams it back down.
No Jaxon.
I make another slow pass through the living room, then the kitchen. Nothing. I circle back, check the hallway near the bathrooms. Still nothing.
It’s all anyone has talked about all week and that he was definitely coming tonight. But it’s like the universe is playing chicken with my confidence—and I’m losing.
I lean against the wall near the keg station, trying not to look like a sulking teenager. Bree’s across the room, fully in her element, laughing with some guy in a beanie and doing this slow, swaying dance that has his full attention.
Good for her.
I scan the top floor where a wide staircase curves up and a wrap-around hallway is the perfect place to watch the entire party below.
Just when I think about walking up there, I see my brother.
He’s halfway down the hall, tangled up with some blonde I don’t recognize. Her hands are in his hair, his lips on her shoulder dragging across toward her neck. She giggles and sitsup, sniffing and tugging at his nose once before she tugs him toward one of the rooms and he follows.
But before he disappears behind the door, he turns. His eyes scanning his surroundings before he looks down.
Right at me.
His expression hardens like stone. Holding me there suspended a second, then two before he disappears behind the door.
I swallow hard and try not to show how my stomach twists.
It’s not just that he’s an asshole—he is, obviously. But something about my existence pulls the most hateful anger out of him. The kind of anger that ended up with me bruised and crying.
I learned a long time ago not to give him a reason.
But tonight was supposed to bemine.My chance.
And so far it’s one giant disappointment.
I tap Bree on the shoulder and lean in. “I’m gonna head outside for a minute. It’s hot.”
She doesn’t even slow down. “You good?”
“Yeah. Just need five.”
She nods, already moving to the beat again, her eyes on the beanie guy, the music too loud for anything else.
I slip through the crowd, past the beer pong table and the sticky kitchen floor, out the back door and into the cooler night air.
