“Hey.” I pasted a smile on my face. “I’m really sorry, but I have to head out early. My mom just texted, and something’s come up at home.” I prayed he’d buy my lame excuse.
He studied my face, concern etched on his. “Are you okay?” He set down the box he’d been holding. “Do you need a ride?”
I shook my head quickly. “Oh, no. I’m fine, but thanks.” I knew if he drove me home, sitting close to him in his truck, I’d be tempted to break down and tell him everything. And I didn’t want him to feel bad about what had happened.
“Sarah, it’s no problem. I’d like to drive you. You seem upset.” He reached out to push a flyaway curl from my face.
I stepped back. “I appreciate it, but really, I’m good. My mom’s on her way now.” Before he could ask any more questions, I waved and turned away.
I didn’t see Hannah, and I couldn’t even blame her for what just happened. It was my own fault, I’d asked her to come. I’d been trying to mix my personal life with all of the fake dating stuff, and look where it got me. Losing pieces of what mattered most to me.
Walking across the yard, away from the site, was one of the hardest things I’d ever done.
I couldn’t keep losing parts of my life…it hurt way too much when they were gone.
Chapter Sixteen
Chance
I play my part and you play your game,
baby, you give love a bad name ~ Bon Jovi
I hadn’t seen Sarah since she disappeared early on Saturday. I’d heard something about her getting in some kind of trouble for Hannah showing up at the site, but she wouldn’t answer any of my texts, so I had no idea what happened. I figured it couldn’t be that bad or Rick would have said something to me about it, too.
I slid into my desk. The entire class was buzzing, and everyone looked at me and started whistling and catcalling the second I walked in. What the—
“Yo, Romeo,” yelled Brett, waving something over his head.
I leaned forward to try to see what he was holding. The school newspaper. Oh man. I’d actually forgotten that was coming out today. They were always distributed to each homeroom right before last-period study hall.
A couple of girls leaned close to each other and whispered and giggled, then shot me a smile.
“Let me see that.” I snatched a paper from the kid behind me.
Dates with Heart—Benefit Auction Reaches Record Highs.
The headline made the front page. It was surrounded by tacky clip art of falling pink and red hearts. There was a photo of all the participants on the stage, but the main picture, even larger, was of me and Sarah, with the caption, The most sought after participant, Chance DuPont, and lucky Sarah Campbell, with the winning boyfriend bid.
A short article about the auction itself followed, but what obviously caught everyone’s attention was when the story continued on the next page. It mentioned how Sarah and I would be a “Featured Couple” for the next six weeks on the Full Hearts website and how the blog would be following and covering our dates. It went on and on.
Oh. My. God. They made it sound like one of those books my mom reads when she thinks no one is looking, the kind with the shirtless dude on the cover ready to rip the girl’s clothes off.
Sarah was going to be so pissed.
“What is this?” I stormed into the newspaper office and waved the paper at Erica, who was bent over a desk, marking something with a red pencil. She glanced up.
“What’s the problem?” Her eyebrow rose over her small brown glasses and she perched a hand on her hip.
“Where do I start?” I sputtered. “I thought you wanted this to be real, to get to know us, blah blah blah.” I slammed the paper down on the desk.
She crossed her arms. “And we will. Well, the website coverage will. But that…” She pointed. “That will draw them in, catch their interest.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I don’t appreciate you coming in here and cursing at me.”
I took a deep breath. “I apologize. But I thought the point of this was to raise awareness for the charity. I don’t appreciate you writing about Sarah and me like you’re making this more than it is between us.”
Deep down, the selfish part of me knew that what I was most worried about was that the article might freak Sarah to the point she would back out and not want to spend time with me.
She looked at me. “You don’t really strike me as the type of guy who cares what people think about you. So, I’m just curious, what’s the real issue here? I’ve listened to the audio feeds, and I’ve seen the photos.” She raised an eyebrow again and left her words hanging in the air like in a cartoon bubble. I wasn’t in the mood for riddles.
“Your point?”
She shrugged. “I’m just wondering if maybe this article is more on target than you think.”
I balked. “That’s not it at all.”
She just smiled.
Only then did it occur to me that we had the attention of every other person in the room. I’d been too steamed when I’d entered to take notice. I snatched the newspaper off the table and wheeled around, not saying another word. Maybe I’d get lucky and Sarah didn’t read the school paper.
Turned out, Sarah read the school paper.
Not only that, but it apparently also caught the interest of one of my classmate’s parents, who was a writer on some city paper, and the story got picked up from there. Talk about a freaking snowball effect. Before we knew what was happening, overnight, our faces began popping up on social media sites and even a few online reporting sites—talking about how some high school held an auction for charity and reached record totals after one student ended up being raffled off to one lucky high bidder.
Kevin even forwarded me a link to a photo he saw on one of the sites where someone had found a picture of me shirtless, probably from after a game or something, and in my hands, where I’d been holding a soccer ball, they’d superimposed a big red heart that said Take a CHANCE on me.
Gag.
Sarah called me two days later. Well, that’s one way to get a girl to talk to you.
“This is insane,” she said.
“Agreed.”
“How did this happen? I thought we were just going to be on Erica’s blog. But it’s everywhere.”
I leaned back on my bed, propping a pillow behind me, and sighed. “I have no idea. How does anything end up going viral on the internet?”
“But, this is us. This is just a high school auction.” She sighed. “Why on earth does anyone care, anyway?”
I could tell she was embarrassed by the whole thing, and wished I could make her feel better, but I didn’t know what to say. You couldn’t exactly stop stuff from circulating on the internet, no matter how dumb it was. Look at all those cat memes out there.
I shook my head, even though she couldn’t see me. “I don’t know. I really don’t.”
Neither of us spoke for a minute. I could hear her breathing, though.
“Look, all we can do is go with it. I think at this point, if we make a big deal about it, it’s just going to make it worse, ya know?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Like, if we try to…I don’t know, argue with sites who have it up. Or explain that there’s nothing really going on between us. I think it’ll just make us look ridiculous.” I paused. “More than we do already.” I laughed.
I was glad to hear her laughter joining mine through the phone.
“So, you think we should just…go with it?” she said.
“Yeah, I do.”
“I have a better idea.” Her voice suddenly became stronger. It was the Sarah I’d heard the day we were walking and talking, when she’d forgotten all about the cameras and the microphones. I smiled, listening to her.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I think we should give them what they want.”
I sat up. “What do you mean?”
“Simple. They want some big rom
ance, let’s give it to them.”
I wasn’t sure if she was being sarcastic. We’d discussed this, how neither of us was looking for a relationship going into this. She’d made it crystal clear that she sure wasn’t.
“I’m still confused,” I said slowly.
She laughed. “No, this is perfect. If we have to be splashed all over the place, then let’s really make a wave. And, on the upside, maybe doing it like this will help the whole point of the auction in the first place.” She sounded excited.
“The charity? How will this help the charity?”
“I don’t know for sure, but this is all over, right? Some big uber-romantic story, and if we go with it, well, it’s a happy ending, and who doesn’t love a happy ending? People are reading about it, and it’s raising awareness. Instead of the Ice Bucket challenge, we can present it as a challenge for others to share a photo of their own date or the couple kissing while holding a heart sign for St. Jude. Something like that. Since we have to be out there anyway, let’s at least get a positive spin out of the whole thing.” She paused. “Or, do you think that’s totally dumb?” Now she sounded unsure.
“No, it’s not dumb. It sounds like a great plan,” I said. I loved it, actually.
“Really?” I could hear the hope rise in her voice again. It amazed me how someone so smart and talented could be so unsure of herself and her ideas sometimes.
“Really,” I assured her. “We can ask Erica and Hannah if there’s a way people can post their own photos to the site, too. Put a donate button on the page or something.”
“I love that idea!” she said.
“So, I say we start Operation Romance on our next date.”
She cracked up. “Operation Romance?”
“Sure. We need a code name, right?” I grinned.
“If you say so.” Her voice still held humor.
“Well, I do. So, did you hear from Erica about our week-two dates yet?”
“Yep, and this week we’re supposed to both take each other somewhere we spend time outside of school.”
“So I’m guessing no school-related activities?” That left out soccer.
“I’m not sure, but I don’t think so.”
“Well, I don’t know, then. I’ve got my job, home, and sometimes hanging out with friends. What about you?”
“Pretty much the same,” she said. “I’m thinking maybe our best bet is work? Where do you work? Is it somewhere you can bring a visitor for a short time? Maybe even just like half an hour or something?”
I thought about it. I was pretty sure my employer wouldn’t mind. “Yeah, that won’t be a problem. What about you?” I tried to imagine what kind of job might appeal to her.
“I work a couple days a week at Buy the Book. It’s usually just me and one other person, so I know it’d be cool. No worries there.”
A bookstore. It fit. I pulled at the drawstring on my hoodie and imagined her walking around a bookstore.
“So do you want to meet me there tomorrow? I have a shift then.” She sounded unsure again. “I don’t know your schedule, so if you have plans or whatever, we can figure something else out.”
“No, tomorrow’s fine,” I assured her. “I had to switch shifts with someone tonight, they needed off on Friday so I said I’d cover for them, if you want to come to my work then.” I realized she may not want to do it on a Friday. That was typically a night people went out. I felt like a jerk for suggesting it; I didn’t want her to think I was assuming she wouldn’t already have plans for the weekend.
But she didn’t seem to take offense. “I can do it then. Let me email Erica and see if it’s okay to get Hannah to come out to meet us at the bookstore tomorrow, since it’s kind of late notice.”
I hadn’t thought of that. All of this must be a pain in the butt for the people stuck with following us on our dates several times a week. Maybe they were planning to rotate them. I hoped so, for their sake. But then again, they’d asked us to do this whole thing, not the other way around.
“Okay, sounds good,” I agreed.
We set up a time for me to meet her at the bookstore. Since we didn’t exactly live in a giant metropolis, I already knew where it was, so that wasn’t a problem.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asked.
“I’ll see you then.” I paused, wanting to say more, but not sure what. I settled for a simple, “Night, Sarah.”
“Good night,” she answered and hung up.
I lay back down, thinking about the unexpected plan she’d come up with. I couldn’t believe this was the same girl who’d looked at me like she wanted to stick me with pins just a couple of weeks ago. I chuckled.
I liked this Sarah.
Chapter Seventeen
Sarah
When you show me the truth
Yeah, I’d rather be with you
Say you want the same thing too ~ Joshua Radin
“He’s going to be here soon, and now I feel like a giant goober about the whole thing and I never should have even suggested it. What in the world was I thinking?”
I’d confided the whole plan to Emma and Megan, since I knew they’d never believe it when they saw the stories printed about some whirlwind romance happening out of the blue between Chance and me. But now I was freaking out, which was what led me to my panicked phone call to Emma from the bookstore minutes before Chance and the newspaper crew were due to arrive. I was ready to throw up.
Probably not good for the bookstore’s business. Definitely not good for Operation Romance. I got even more nervous just thinking of the cute code name Chance had come up with.
“Sarah, just breathe,” Emma said. “You’re at work. It’s not like they’re going to expect you to start making out in the self-help section.”
I took a deep breath. She was right. I was overreacting.
She laughed. “Then again, you may want to stay away from the erotica.”
“Shut up!” Omigod.
“Fifty Shades of Chance. I love it; maybe I’ll make a meme and post it on one of those sites where they’ve been writing about you gu—”
I hung up on her.
So. Not. Helping.
I paced back and forth and quickly looked up to make sure I wasn’t in the erotica aisle or even the romance section. Science fiction. That I could deal with.
I swallowed. I could do this. We could do this.
I hoped.
Claire, a student at the local college, was working the single front register and knew to let me know when they arrived. She didn’t seem all that interested in why they were coming and hadn’t asked me much about the article. She was usually focused on her phone when she didn’t have a customer. All the better.
And thank goodness, tonight wasn’t busy. Two women had just finished purchasing a few paperbacks and left, and only one older gentleman remained in the back, perusing the shelves. He came in each week, and pretty much kept to himself, poking around for hours without buying anything.
Buy the Book was a small, independent bookstore, and we were never super busy, but we had loyal customers who kept the store going. I got the feeling that the owner, a tiny woman in her sixties, didn’t really need the income from the shop, but kept it open more for her love of books and her disdain of large chain bookstores.
A bell tinkled as someone entered the store. My heart beat faster, and I reminded myself to breathe. I peeked around a tall shelf displaying local authors’ works. Josh had arrived, but instead of Hannah, a short girl with purple hair and a Twenty One Pilots sweatshirt stood next to him, carrying a camera bag.
“Sarah! Your people are here,” yelled Claire.
I had to hold back a laugh. I have people?
I walked out from where I’d been hiding behind the shelves to meet Josh and the new girl. “Hey, welcome to Buy the Book!” I smiled and spread my hands out.
Josh grinned. “Hey, Sarah. Cool store. I love places like this. I can’t believe I’ve never been in here before.” He loo
ked around.
The store used to be a small movie theater back in the fifties. The front section, where they used to sell concessions, now held a long narrow baker’s bar with coffee urns and hot water. Small baskets held tea bags and packets of sugar. Paper cups rested close by in stacks. There was a navy loveseat, two comfy chairs, and a bistro table with a few tall stools. Not exactly chain-store seating, but I liked it. So did our customers.
“I’ve seen you in here before, haven’t I?” I spoke to the girl standing next to Josh. I didn’t recognize her from school, but she looked familiar.
She grinned. “Probably. I’ve been in here plenty, just not lately. I take classes over at Penn State now, but before I graduated I used to haunt this place pretty regularly. Erica’s my sister.”
“Elle graduated from Auburn last year,” Josh explained. “She helps Erica out with the blog, too. She and Hannah will take turns with the pictures. Hope you don’t mind.”
I shook my head. “Of course not. Welcome to the crazy train, happy to have you aboard.”
They both laughed.
Elle reached down and unsnapped the camera bag to take out some fancy-looking digital camera. “I even brought my own,” she said. “I usually have it with me most of the time anyway.”
“Are you studying photography?”
She nodded. “Well, dual major, actually. That and writing. I want to be a photojournalist. That’s my dream, anyway.”
“Cool,” I said.
“Do you mind if I get a couple of shots?”
“No, not at all. Go right ahead.” I looked at Josh. “Chance should be here soon.”
He nodded. “No worries. Gives me some time to look around.”
I smiled. “Go browse away.”
He wandered off as Elle snapped some photos of the store. I walked over and sat down to wait.
A minute later, the familiar bell tinkled again, and Chance walked in. Claire looked up as he entered, and then looked over at me. She wiggled her eyebrows and gave me a thumbs-up. Subtle.
I stood and smiled. “Hi.”
The Boyfriend Bid (The Girlfriend Request) Page 9