She looks away, tickled. A hint of a dimple decorates her right cheek. “Alright, alright. You’re on.”
Now for Jules, who is full-on deer in the headlights. “There are so many sinful things happening here,” she says, quietly giggling in something like amused horror. “So many sins!”
“You love it,” I tease her.
“And if you win?” she asks, ever the practical one.
I have to think about that for a moment. I mean, if I win I potentially get a life changing sum of money from the lucky guy who wins my cherry, right? But, on the other hand…
“If I win, you all have to sing and dance Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” in front of a lot of people. Place and time of my choosing.”
Jules squints. “That’s it? And if we win we get new phones?”
“Even Jesus wants you to get a new phone. So?”
“Blasphemy, too! But fine,” she says, shaking her head, and laughing. “You’re on. Lord help me.”
Bets are placed; there’s no backing down now.
“What’s it called?” I ask Emily.
“The Dallas Men’s Club Auction,” she answers. “According to Reddit, anyway. So, you know. Grain of salt and all.”
I Google it, and there it is. The typeface is masculine. The logo is a four-poster bed. “Join us. All members welcome. Register through this link.”
A couple of short clicks and I’m registering as a “seller,” typing in my name as “Stephanie,” and finally snapping a selfie, as I wrap my lips around my straw, giving it a sexy suck, already wondering what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.
CHAPTER 2
Marshall
The limo is a brand-new Humvee stretch.
Total douche-pool. But, I’m doing my best to play nice. It helps that the bourbon is decent.
Across from me in the limo sits my foster brother, Victor. I love him like a real brother.
Next to him sits my oldest friend, Lennon. I’d do anything for the guy, but he can piss me off like no other. While all three of us have done damned well, none of us is exactly upstanding. We’ve made our livings doing borderline shady shit since the beginning.
And we look it.
I did some enforcement work in my earlier years. That gave way to selling guns, opening some shell business for money laundering, offering protection to some of the local underworld kingpins and their families.
Eventually, it turned into a legit security business that I recently sold and set myself up for the rest of my life.
I’m not entirely sure what that’s going to be honestly. But, I’m a fly by the seat of my pants sort of guy, so I’m open to whatever opportunities present themselves.
I glance at my two friends and then at my own reflection in the tinted window—at my tattoos, the odd angle of my nose and the scar through my eyebrow. We look like three retired MMA fighters, but we’re not.
We’re just guys who had it hard when we were young, and still act like we have to fight for everything. Life is war. Nobody will ever convince me otherwise.
The limo driver gives me a worried glance in the rear-view mirror, like we’re not the kind of guys he usually drives around. But I give him a nod in return to say, We’re good. Don’t stress.
He gives me a relieved blink and settles in to focus on the road as we head out of town for Lennon’s bachelor party.
I pour myself another my chest feeling tighter as we drive. “I still don’t fucking understand why we couldn’t be watching the playoffs over beer and wings.”
“Will you stop busting my balls?” Lennon says. “This is what I fucking want to do. So this is what we’re fucking doing.”
This, apparently, is a high-end poker game outside town. All very hush-hush. Very invitation-only. High class, high stakes. Lots of ego and flash, just the sort of shit that rubs me wrong.
“Fine,” I bark. “But why the fuck do we have to be in tuxedos? Can anybody fucking tell me that?”
Victor shoots me a calm the fuck down glance. And I try. For now. I’m not known for my sunny disposition even on a good day.
As we drive, I watch the Dallas skyline turn from dusk to dark. I grew up here, but it feels like a lifetime ago. Truth is, it was. But there are reminders everywhere; city parks I remember going to in happy times, and cop cars that remind me of bad times.
If I think too hard about it all, it comes back in sharp, intense flashes. So I don’t think about it. Or try not to, anyway.
I think it was the lesser of two evils though. The little I know about my parents, drugs, prison, homeless…the better off I’m sure I was in the system than growing up with them.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s a text from my foster sister, who also lives in Dallas, but who I haven’t seen in years. If it hadn’t been for her living here, I’d probably have begged off with some excuse why I couldn’t make the bachelor party.