Page 144 of Double or Nothing

You’re welcome.

Cheeky bastard. Cute, though. So Bryce it’s ridiculous.

I have to stop my emotions in their tracks. I have hard limits. No way am I going to smile and get all gooey over a kitchen appliance. I have online games to win.

Yet still, rather than get back to my laptop, I give the toastie maker a fresh look.

Fucking hell, I hate myself for my lack of self-restraint.

I’m losing money right now. Hundreds. A whole bunch of crap players online, there for the taking, and I’m checking out the instruction manual of a Toastique Pro.

It really does have a billion different settings. It’s ludicrous. How does a small domestic appliance have this much range?

I grab my phone from the coffee table and call up Bryce’s message window.

This is the most middle-class seduction attempt in history, I hope you know that.

His reply only takes thirty seconds.

I was done with your complaining. You aren’t having mine. It’s sacred.

Like fuck it is. It was wrapped in its cord at the back of his cupboard like a discarded antique.

I grin despite myself. Writing out a thank you in return feels bizarrely sappy, but I do it anyway.

His response comes back almost instantly.

You’re welcome x

I physically recoil when I see the little kiss icon. I never use that. Not ever.

It’s a quiet confidence he’s gaining. I can picture the twee little smile on his face.

That should not be attractive, but it is.

I keep flicking through the bloody manual. Oooh. Artisan-bread calibration. What a winner.

Sixty grand of art, and I’m undone by a sandwich press.

Excellent.

Good to know my emotional framework is so robust.

My laptop chimes with the two-minute warning. If I continue to sit out, I’ll be removed from the table.

I should get back to the action, but instead, I find myself opening a browser tab. I’ll give Bryce another gift straight back at him, this one via Alice.

I search for Hammersmith private art auction and it comes right up.

Not charity this time. Not champagne and social obligation wrapped in a tax deduction. This is for serious buyers. Collectors. People who use words like emerging and investment potential with straight faces. People who wouldn’t be caught dead missing the opportunity for a high-class masterpiece, even if just to brag about it on some shitty collectors’ article.

The event is exactly as Alice implied. Upper-class, closed-list, irritatingly pleased with itself. Contemporary and mixed media, apparently, with a focus on rising British names.

It’s managed by a woman called Camilla Stour, which sounds less like a person and more like a marble bust. On closer examination of her portrait picture, I’m sure I’d be able to crack a smile out of her polished little sneer

Perfect. I can handle that.

I do some more digging.