Doing the only thing I could to feel better, I sat on the couch in my one-bedroom apartment over my brother’s garage, with Able, my hospital banned Yorkie, curled up beside me, and ate ice cream with Baileys poured over it.
Two weeks later, at the Lust for Life Gala…
I hated wearing ballgowns. Every time I took a step forward, I had to make sure I wasn’t standing on the bottom of the dark red strapless dress I’d bought. And would it kill shoe designers to do something to the sole of them to stop them from slipping on the floor?
Sighing, I smiled at the waiter as I took a glass of champagne from his tray and looked around the room, taking a small sip. I was a lightweight, so I drank sparingly and carefully so that I didn’t end up making a fool of myself. I could just see the news tomorrow—a photo of me lying on my back, making marble angels on the floor of this hotel, while grinning up at the crystal chandelier hanging above my head.
Regardless of all my complaints and irritation, I was hugely supportive of what the money being raised tonight was for.
Lust for Life was a charity that renovated old buildings into mental health wellness drop in centers. People of all ages could go and either sit and talk or speak to one of the counselors. Therapists and mental health professionals from all over the city had volunteered to take on hours at the center once it was completed, and if they thought that the person needed further help or treatment, they would refer them on and support them throughout. There were even debt advisors, grief counselors, people trained to help kids… it was a huge deal and had already proven successful in other cities.
“Ashley,” a familiar voice called, and I turned around to see Will Montgomery walking toward me with a beautiful auburn haired woman that I recognized from the news as his fiancée, Meg.
Smiling back, I raised my hand in greeting, doing my best not to blush at the memory of the last time I’d seen him. “Hey!”
As they reached me, he chuckled. “Meg, this is Hayden Wilkes’s sister, Ashley. She was the one who—”
“Landed on Kip and then stabbed him in the thigh,” she snickered, not looking at all ashamed for interrupting him. Shocking me, she held out her hand. “Trust me when I say that it’s a huge pleasure to meet you. The videos didn’t do you justice, but they were absolutely awesome.”
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?’”
Thinking she was talking about the TV show—something I’d never watched an episode of in my life—I zoned out of the discussion and looked around the room. There were celebrities and movie stars at tables with people that were clearly just your average joes, talking to them like they were of the same elk. It came as a shock, but I made a point of memorizing their names so I could buy their products or watch their movies in support. I loved it when famous people didn’t care what ‘level’ other people came from.
I was brought back into the conversation when someone asked, “Will you be bidding on him, Ashley?”
Not wanting to make it obvious that I hadn’t been listening, I nodded and smiled. “Of course. Who wouldn’t?”
The smiles and laughter the response got didn’t clue me in to what we were discussing, but the way Kip’s eyes softened on me
definitely put me on guard.
Before I could ask what was up, the emcee announced that our meals were being served, and a plate with some sort of fluffy foam, some small toast points and what looked like a brown mush was placed in front of me.
I could only assume that this was meant to be ‘fine dining’, something I’d never understood. If my food came in a portion that wouldn’t feed a toddler, was something that I couldn’t pronounce, and looked like this, how was that ‘fine’?
Not wanting to embarrass myself, though, I picked up a toast point and gingerly nibbled on a corner. When it didn’t invoke my gag reflex, I took a slightly bigger bite, bracing for the moment the mush hit my taste buds.
“It’s not going to kill you,” Kip murmured out of the corner of his mouth before popping the whole thing in it.
“Like I’d trust anything you said,” I muttered, taking another small bite.
It actually wasn’t bad. There were definitely herbs in it, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.
Shrugging, I popped the rest of it in my mouth and almost moaned when the full flavor of it hit me. Holy shit, that was good. In fact, it was so good that I put the other piece in my mouth and then looked around the table to see if anyone wasn’t eating theirs. There were two women—both brunettes—who were looking at their plates with distaste.
Seeing where I was looking and guessing why, Kip asked, “If you aren’t eating yours, could Ashley have them, please?”
Both women looked at me like I had two heads, and one of them screwed her face up.
“I don’t know how you can eat fois gras. Who eats goose liver and fat and calls it a delicacy?”
Gulping as the words registered, I started taking deep breaths to stop the toast points coming back up.
The problem was, with each breath in, I could taste it all over again. It was so good, but it was the liver of a goose, man!
A glass of something fizzy appeared under my nose.
“Drink this. It’ll help.”
Desperate to get rid of the taste, I grabbed it and shot it back like it was water. In fact, in my panic, I’d actually thought that it was sparkling water, but it turned out to be champagne. Did that stop me? No, I finished that glass like a boss.
I really should have ended the night there, but instead I stuck it out. I would say I regretted it, but I ended up having way too much fun for that.
Chapter 3
Kip
“And now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” the emcee said excitedly into his microphone as he walked across the stage. “At least, the women have been waiting for,” he winked.
“Oh, I dunno,” Will drawled, leaning back in his seat with a big grin on his face. “This part is going to be the highlight of my evening.”
Yeah, he would say that. Our PR team had decided that it would be a good way to raise money for those of us who didn’t have significant others to be auctioned off for dates. Seeing as how he had Meg, he didn’t have to do it and could laugh at our expense.
Once the excited squeals that had followed the emcee’s words died down, he continued, “This isn’t the television version of The Bachelor, he isn’t going to be holding a rose and choosing amongst all of you fine women. No, you get to choose him. Tonight, we have players from the Seahawks who have offered themselves up for this segment, and whoever bids the highest on them, wins a date.”
The screams started up again making me wince.
“First up, we have Kip Sutherland.”
We hadn’t been told which one of us would start, only that we would be called up individually from our seats, so I wasn’t prepared. Regardless, I got up and walked toward the stage, flashing a grin out at the sea of people at their tables.
The emcee reeled off my position, statistics, and some of my likes and then asked me, “So, where will you be taking the lucky winner?”
Leaning into the microphone, I murmured, “Wherever they want to go.”
“Twenty thousand dollars,” a voice screamed, making the audience laugh.
“Well, we hadn’t started the bidding, but twenty thousand seems a good place,” the emcee chuckled. “Do I hear an advance?”
Immediately, voices started calling out figures. We were on forty-three thousand, when Will yelled, “Forty-five, and I want a pair of his underwear as a souvenir.”
Audible gasps followed it, but then a voice I hadn’t expected to hear, my ex, Missy, yelled, “Forty-six, and I want his watch.”
This time, no gasps followed it, most likely because of the tone it was yelled in.
She was a malicious bitch and the very reason why I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to be in a relationship again, and she knew that the watch had been a gift from my grandad before he died. I’d even called it my good luck charm in interviews.
Oh, and she’d tried to sell it while we were together for three times the value of her bid.
Refusing to give her the satisfaction of a reaction, I merely smiled. “I’m sorry, my watch isn’t part of the deal.”
Before she could answer, another voice that surprised me yelled, “Fifty thousand.”
Glancing over at Ashley, I watched as she slapped her hand over her mouth as if she hadn’t meant to yell out and burst out laughing.
As it turned out, her bid was the highest.
And on the front of the papers the next day was also a photograph of me with my head tipped back as I laughed, doing my best to remain upright with the force that it came out of me when the hammer went down.
As soon as I finished my egg white omelet the next morning, I hopped the bushes that divided the properties—having found an area of them that was able to be jumped instead of commando crawling under them—and went to the kitchen door at the back of the house.
Hayden had text me the code to the door after the ‘break in’ so that I could help if Ashley was in trouble.
Tapping in the digits, I pushed the door open and grinned when I saw the coffee dripping in the coffee maker.
She wasn’t up yet.
So, like any normal person, I sat down on top of the kitchen table, and then decided to go a step further and moved into the middle with my legs crossed, facing the door that she’d come through when she came down.
I only waited for roughly five minutes before the door pushed open and she shuffled in with her eyes half open. My plan had been to announce my presence as soon as I saw her, but I was too focused on what she was wearing to do that.
She had a tiger onesie on, the hood with ears pulled up over her head, and white bunny slippers on her feet. Then, as she turned her head sideways, something sparkled in the light from the window.
Something that turned out be freaking whiskers on the sides of the hood.
Laughing totally defeated the point of my visit this morning, though, so I had to take a deep breath to get control over it.
Once I was sure I could do it, I asked in a slightly shaky voice, “So, where are we going on our date? And can you wear that?”
I’d expected her to jump, but what hadn’t crossed my mind as a possibility was her turning around and launching the cup in her hand at my head.
Fortunately, I’d just leaned to the side to flick a crumb off the table, so the cup missed me by an inch and hit the wall behind me.
Seeing the thought going through her mind, I was off the table and running out the door before she could pick something else up to throw at me, and jogged back to the safety of my home.
Pulling my cell out my pocket as I walked through my kitchen door, I huffed, “Okay, Montgomery. Tell me how you did it.”
He’d tried to give me advice earlier, but I’d been confident she’d find my plan cute. Eventually. Maybe not immediately, but definitely eventually. Now, I had a smug asshole telling me how he got Meg to come around.
I put it on speakerphone while he outlined it all and tapped out a text to Hayden.
Me: Does your house alarm extend to the annex apartment?
I didn
’t have to wait long for his reply.
Hayden: I don’t have one?!
Cursing, I read it out to Will who echoed it. “Shit. What the hell’s he thinking? She’s on her own in that house with no security? Even he needs security.”
Just the thought of something happening to her made my gut hurt.
Me: Are you insane? You’ve left your sister alone with no security?
The three little dots on the screen moved, then stopped, then started moving again. I’d expected an essay by the time the response arrived, but all I got was:
Hayden: Shit!
“I’m sending you my alarm company’s number,” Will told me. “They were quick when I wanted one put in Meg’s house, and they’ve done the rest of the family’s homes, too.”
Glaring at the response from her brother, I finally tapped out:
Me: I’ll deal with it.
And then I was going to kick his ass when he got home.
Chapter 4
Ashley
Throwing the cup hadn’t been my best idea, and trying to find all the pieces of it now was impossible. Every time I walked through the kitchen another piece would turn up even though I’d vacuumed it twice already.
Picking up the most recent shard which was at least an inch long and had somehow escaped the vacuum cleaner, I got as far as taking one step in the direction of the garbage when a sharp pain shot up through the sole of my right foot.
With a squeal, I dropped the piece in my hand and lifted my foot up to see where the pain was coming from. Unfortunately, that involved me hopping onto my good foot, and right onto the just dropped piece of porcelain, which promptly went into the bottom of that foot.
Dropping to my butt on the tile floor, I tried to figure out what to do.
First, I should probably see how bad it was.
I’d never been flexible. Even as a kid, it was like torture doing gymnastics in gym class, and with the way I was currently sitting, pulling both feet up to look at the bottoms of them, I looked like a turtle that was stuck on its back.
Out of Bounds: A Quick Snap Novella Page 2