What’s that now?
“Videos?”
“Yeah,” she nodded with a wide grin. “Kip’s security footage was a bit grainy, but you can clearly see the moment you took him out. And the one of you stabbing him only started when he was hitting his leg and making it worse, but I’ve watched both of them on repeat for the last two weeks.”
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Not knowing what to say, I just smiled and shrugged.
Reading it for what it was—me feeling totally awkward—she asked, “Where are you sitting? Are you here with anyone?”
“Uh, no. I was forced to come tonight by Hayden and my boss.”
Wincing in sympathy, she gestured behind us at the open doors to the ballroom. “Come and sit with us, then. Nothing worse than coming to an event on your own and having to sit with strangers.”
“Well, technically there’s a lot that’s worse than that…” Will murmured, but quickly cut off when she glared at him. “But you should definitely sit with us.”
I really should have considered the possibility that he would be there with them, but I was so distracted by dresses, celebrities, crystal stuff being everywhere, people talking about the bids they’d placed on blind auction items as we passed them, the fact I’d never be able to afford those amounts no matter what, and making sure that I didn’t step on my dress or fall on my ass in my slippery shoes, that I gratefully accepted the offer and followed them to their table.
A table that had none other than the biggest pain in my ass since my brother sitting at it. And my chair was right next to his.
“Kip, you remember Ashley, don’t you?” Meg asked him as she sat down two chairs away from me, with Will in between us.
“Of course, how could I forget,” he drawled, shooting me a smirk.
Smiling sweetly at him instead of stabbing him with a fork like I wanted to, I leaned into him and whispered, “Thanks for sharing the videos.”
“Well, if I had your number, I’d have sent them to you, too.”
Mental note to self: doesn’t understand sarcasm.
Before I could say anything back, more of the team arrived at the table, some with dates, some on their own.
“Thought you said you were coming solo tonight?” one of the guys that I didn’t recognize said to Kip as he took his seat.
“I am. The event apparently hadn’t updated the list in the last five months, so Ashley decided to honor me with her presence instead of sitting surrounded by boring old farts discussing their private jets and yachts.”
Nodding understandingly, the guy held his hand out, his arm going in front of Kip who leaned back slightly to avoid contact with it. “Hey, stabby girl. I’m Tosh Sinclair.”
Taking it, I did the mandatory two shake thing, then went to release his hand, except he wouldn’t let go.
“Uh, nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” he murmured, grinning at me and looking at Kip out of the corner of his eye.
The longer he held on, the more awkward it became, and the other occupants of the table laughing quietly didn’t help.
Eventually, Kip snapped. “You can let go of her now.”
“Mm,” he hummed. “I think I’m okay. In fact, do you want to swap places and I’ll sit next to Ashley. I don’t think she likes you.”
“She likes me just fine,” he growled.
“But she’s holding my hand,” he pointed out with a grin, and I realized he was baiting Kip. “And my hands are soft, not rough and gross like yours.”
“Well, now you’ve just made it awkward,” he huffed, voicing my thoughts and tugging my hand out of Tosh’s.
Linking our fingers together, he made a point of placing them on top of the table so that everyone could see them.
Tosh hadn’t been lying—his hands really were soft. But there was something about the way Kip’s rougher one felt that…
“So, Ashley. Are you bidding on anything tonight?” one of the other player’s dates asked, and I was grateful for the distraction.
“No, I don’t think so. It’s fascinating listening to other people talking about what they’ve bid, though.” Kip rubbing his thumb over the top of my hand momentarily distracted me, and I had to give myself a subtle shake to finish what I was saying. “What about you?”
And there started the big debate about who was going to win what.
Apparently, a majority of the players had donated things themselves and they all thought theirs was going to get the highest bid out of all of them. They were also arguing over who was going to win a weekend in Jamaica, a week on an island in Barbados, a weekend in New Orleans, and weirdly enough, a day pass for two into one of the most exclusive spas in Seattle.
“The question I have,” a tall blonde in a beautiful blue dress said, “is who is going to win ‘The Bachelor?’”