“Everyone,” Matty called out. “Everyone! Yoo-hoo! My mother is just kidding. She never actually killed anyone. You don’t need to back away from her slowly like you’re doing right now.”
“Crazy Eyes, they called me,” Nana said. “Back in the war. ‘Here comes Crazy Eyes,’ they’d say. ‘Everyone cover your urethra before she steals it.’ So go ahead, try and bid. See what happens.”
“I don’t know if I want her to win,” Darren whispered to me, and I don’t know when we got to standing so close to each other again, but my hand accidentally scraped against his exposed thigh and I had to keep from being a pervert about it.
“Just cover your urethra,” I hissed at him. “You know you need it.”
“I don’t even know if I know what that is,” Darren said.
“How can you know math and not know what the urethra is?”
“Those aren’t even remotely the same things!”
“How would you know? You don’t even know what it is!”
“Twelve thousand going once!” Nana cackled. “Do you like bingo, Darren? Because I go to my friend’s house the third Saturday of every month and play the strip version.”
“Strip bingo?” Darren said with a gulp.
“Yes,” Nana said. “But when Wilma asks you to touch her G37, you best run in the opposite direction. Because that’s nasty. Twelve thousand going twice!”
“I thought I was supposed to be calling out the bidding,” I said.
“You were too busy talking about how Darren makes your mouth happy,” Kori said.
And then it all came to a crashing halt.
“I bid thirty thousand dollars for the Homo Jock King.”
The air got sucked from the room.
Everyone turned slowly to the voice that had just offered the most outrageous sum of money for the awkwardness that was standing damn near pressed against me.
My first thought was that we’d done it. That if that bid was legit, if it was real, then there was no way Andrew Taylor would make more money than us, not combined with all the other cash brought in. For the briefest of moments, I was absolutely convinced that we had just won and that everything was going to be okay.
My second thought, though.
The second thought came as I saw who the voice belonged to. My jaw tensed and I almost wished it was a joke, because if it wasn’t, it meant that I was pretty much fucked on everything.
“Are you full of shit?” Nana asked, eyes narrowed.
And Caleb the hipster twink said, “Of course not. Thirty thousand dollars for Darren Mayne.”
The second thought came as I looked over at Darren then, only to see a pleased smile on his face, like he was happy about this turn of events. Happy that no one would probably beat that bid.
Happy that it’d been Caleb.
And really.
Who was I to stand in the way of that?
“Thirty thousand dollars,” I said.
And Darren must have heard something in my voice because he looked toward me, that smile fading. Possibly edging toward the pity I never wanted from him.
But I was Helena fucking Handbasket.
I was a motherfucking queen.