by Lexi Banks
Saturday
“Right.” I stared around the room in a state of semi-panic. I was trying to squash it down because rationally I knew that I had double and triple checked everything off my extensive to-do list, but it wouldn’t go completely. “I think that’s everything, isn’t it, Tina? Please, for the love of God, tell me that’s everything.”
I hadn’t had long to throw this together, just over a week, but unfortunately, these sorts of things had to happen quickly, to get the hall booked in whenever we could. Luckily, being a charitable thing, people would always endeavor to make room in their social diary for things like this, to make themselves look good. Well, as long as they spent money and they helped with the research, I didn’t mind what their reasons for doing it were.
“Everything is fine.” Tine held onto my arms and stared into my eyes. “You’ve done all that you can, and now we’re going to make a whole load of cash for the ward. All you need to do now is stop worrying.”
I glanced my eyes to the side, watching the bachelors getting their instructions from the entertainment manager. Thankfully, we managed to get a lot of volunteers for the night, and they all looked awesome in their very dapper suits. My very grateful heart went out to all of them. They were amazing guys.
“Is Parker still coming?” Tina followed my eye line, noticing him still missing too. “We need him; he’s going to be one of our best sellers, since Buster’s taken these days, so I hope he’s still on the way.”
I checked the time on my cell phone, also looking to see if he had messaged me. I didn’t know how I would take it if he let me down at the last minute. Probably not very well! I wanted him here.
“He should be here soon,” I murmured back. “I can’t see him letting me down at this time.”
“No, you’re right. He’s a good guy. If he’s told you that he’ll be here, then he will.”
Much as I wanted to see Parker, I couldn’t focus on him right now. I needed to check the room instead. The hall had been lent out by our usual supplier for free, so it had to be a night of his choosing, when he wasn’t already booked up, hence the strict deadline. Then I checked over the tables, the donated bottles of expensive champagne for the guests, which I hoped they’d drink enough to bid high, and the staff. All working for free because they believed in the cause. In a way, that was a shame because it meant cancer was still directly affecting too many lives. I wanted to be in a world where no one had to suffer it anymore.
“I’m just going to do a last minute run through,” I told Tina, knowing that I was acting far too anally really. “Then I might get a drink, and I can actually try to relax.” I giggled nervously. “You never know.”
Tina gave me a look like she did know, but she didn’t say anything, so I started my walk around the room. As I did, I checked everything off the list once more, calming down a little. It was okay, and I knew it would be fine all night long. Maybe I hadn’t done exactly this, but I’d run plenty of events to be certain.
“All good,” I told myself firmly. “Nothing to worry about anymore.”
I was just about to grab a flute of champagne, just to calm myself down, but before my fingers could curl around the stem of the glass, a sight that shocked me to my core stood before me. Parker, looking utterly heart stopping, in a suit like no other. I often saw him dressed smart, he wasn’t a scruff ball like me, but this was something else. He somehow managed to look... different. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but it was an amazing change. His dark hair hung in his glimmering blue eyes, and I could almost see his biceps bursting through his jacket. It was strange; I had seen his body before, I knew what he looked like underneath, but today the image had my heart racing in my chest and my mouth running dry. As our eyes locked, it was almost as if the world that we had been standing upon flipped upside down and everything was falling back to Earth in weird and wonderful places. Nothing was the same anymore, something monumental had happened, and if I wasn’t careful, I would end up with some very complex feelings and nowhere for them to go.
What is wrong with me? I asked myself as I slowly raked my eyes up and down him, drinking in every inch of his body as if it was something delicious that I wanted a taste of. This is Parker, not some random hottie.
I couldn’t understand why I felt like a school girl with a crush on my oldest and dearest friend. One that seemed to come from nowhere, it knocked into me and sent me flying off my feet.
“Hi, M...” Parker started to talk to me, which would have normalized the situation and made me forget about the weird churning in my gut. There were almost butterflies flapping away in my stomach. But before that could happen, someone grabbed onto Parker’s arm and dragged him away from me to do the job at hand.
Disappointment undeniably swirled like a storm through my body, but I couldn’t get sucked into the void of that. I had an event to run! I would see him later on anyway; it would be fine. It wasn’t like he was lost to me or anything. Even feeling that way was stupid really. It didn’t make any sense.
Shake Parker off, I told myself firmly. Focus on the event. That’s all that matters.
I GLANCED AROUND THE tables as everyone sat down, satisfied that everyone was happy and tipsy enough to bid highly as the guys came up onto the stage. There were a lot of wealthy people here too, girls from old-money families, women with incredible jobs, divorcees with their husband’s money to spend... it would be good.
I looked along the line until my eyes fixed on the one person I wanted to see, the one person who I’d wanted to talk to all night long. He gave me a nervous look, which I tried to bat away with a smile. There wasn’t a chance in hell that he needed to be anxious, nor did he need to have any concern that no one would bid on him, he was easily the best looking guy up there. Not only was he hot as hell, but he also had this real magnetism about him that drew my eyes in and I couldn’t drag my gaze away. Now, I couldn’t wait to bid on him.
“Ooh, I’m bidding on number three,” Tina said a little drunkenly next to me. “He’s cute.”
I couldn’t see it at all, but then I couldn’t see that any of them looked anything near as good as Parker, but instead of telling her that and risking another lecture about how members of the opposite sex couldn’t be friends without feelings of some sort getting in the way, I nodded and agreed with her.
As the auction got up and running, I was instantly blown away by how much money was being put up for each guy. Of course, some were much more popular than others, which meant Tina only just about lost out on guy three, but all I could see were the numbers adding up for our research, and it filled me with glee. Thank God I went along with Tina’s unique plan; this was going swimmingly...
And then it was time. Parker nervously stepped up to the play. I could almost feel the sweat pouring from his forehead as he did. Guilt almost consumed me as I could see how anxious he was. I shouldn’t have made him do this because I knew how it would affect him. I let Tina really get into my head about my feelings.
“We’ll start the bidding at one hundred dollars!”
I blanched a bit at that number, knowing that it would only go up from there. I wasn’t sure I had the cash flow to compete, but I needed to try. I had promised Parker that I would, so I held up my card.
“One hundred and fifty,” someone else yelled.
I turned to see Charlotte, the Vice President of High-tech Industries, with her card held high, and my heart sunk. Not only was she wealthier than me, but she was also athletic looking and gorgeous. True model beauty.
I gulped and held up my card again. “Two hundred.”
I didn’t look at Parker as the bidding went up and up, I simply focused on my own guilt that I really couldn’t put my money where my mouth was. I kept raising my card, knowing that I could hold up my end of the bargain until Parker got to a thousand dollars and I had to pull out. No way I could pay for the most expensive bachelor of the evening! I would just have to contend with spending the rest of my time with him.
> “That was wild!” Tina slurred at me. “I thought you weren’t going to stop then.”
I squeezed my fists up by my side, angry that I had been forced to quit. I felt competitive about Parker, at this moment he felt like mine, I didn’t want anyone else to have him. Especially not Charlotte with her sleek, raven hair and taut body that would certainly grab his focus.
Almost as if a red mist of anger, or maybe jealousy, not that I was ready to consider that as an emotion, overcame me, I didn’t even look at the next bachelor as he came up onto the stage. I simply bid on him until I won at a much more affordable two hundred and fifty dollars. Expensive for a date that I didn’t want, but I felt like I had something to prove to Parker... that I could get a date just like he could. Even though that made no sense, but I was past trying to work out why I was behaving in a certain way. It didn’t matter anymore.
A few seconds later, my cell phone beeped and I spotted a text message from Parker.
‘You have a real... winner there...’
His sarcasm ignited the angry envy that I couldn’t seem to control, so I rapidly fired a text back, letting off emotions that I couldn’t even explain. It was like I had gone insane.
‘I’m sure he’ll be fine... maybe not as perfect as High-tech, but I don’t demand the same standards as you.’
I didn’t even really mean anything by that, only that he dated gorgeous women exclusively. After the message was gone, I looked up at him to see him reading it, but he wasn’t even looking at his phone screen; I was completely forgotten while he smiled across the room at his date.
If he fell for her, I wouldn’t be able to stand it. I didn’t think I could see another stunning looking girl on his arm, even if they didn’t ever last too long. Not now that the world had shifted. I would have to take a step back so I didn’t see it. I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on with my feelings, but I really needed to work it out.
Perhaps Tina was right, and I couldn’t just be friends with Parker anymore, at least not for a while. That thought was like a slap in the face, but it fell all too true.
Chapter 7 – Parker
Saturday
Resentment burned through me as I made my way across the room to the woman beckoning me to her. Charlotte Lawson, famed for being so high maintenance that no man could stand her. I never liked to prejudge anyone, I often found the opinions of the masses to be widely exaggerated and often false, but today I couldn’t help but fall into the hole of expecting her to be a certain way. But that judgment came from the fact that I really didn’t want her to win spending time with me, I needed it to be Maddie. I even would have given her the money to cover the cost of spending time with me, but of course, she wouldn’t have wanted to take it.
And now... well, now she had bid on Zac Marx, a well-known asshole who slept through women like there was no tomorrow and treated them as if they were nothing. I knew that Maddie had no idea what he was like, but why the hell did she bid on him? I couldn’t understand it; it made absolutely no sense. He wasn’t even her type; I hadn’t ever seen her around any guy like him, so what was she playing at? I needed to know.
I darted my eyes across to her as I walked and felt her gaze burning back into me. There was something there sizzling between us; it felt thick through the air. It lured me in; it dragged me towards her; I could hardly resist it... but then the magic was broken by Zac making his appearance, standing in front of her and running his eyes up and down her body, admiring her in that gorgeous midnight blue dress as if he thought he was about to tear it off at any given moment. My fists balled up by my side as burning hot blood raced through my body.
Stop this! My brain screamed violently at me. Tear them apart; don’t let him have her...
“Hey there, handsome.” Before I could do anything about my emotions, Charlotte’s hand curled possessively around my bicep. She had paid enough for me, and now she was here to claim what was rightfully hers. It damn near killed me to take my eyes off of Maddie, but I didn’t have any choice. “Shall we ditch this hell?”
“Hmm?” I asked her dumbly, clearly missing the point of what she was suggesting.
“Well...” She twisted her finger up in her hair and fluttered her eyes at me. Usually, any sort of blatant flirting made me feel special because I could still clearly recall the days when I didn’t get any attention, but today it made my organs shrivel up and recoil in disgust. I didn’t want to be here! I should have stuck to my initial instincts and ignored it when Buster baited me into doing this. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want to be at this lame ass party. Why don’t we start our date night early and ditch this joint?”
As she wiggled her eyebrows at me, I found myself stuck in a dilemma. One the one hand, I didn’t want to leave Maddie with Zac, I didn’t want to go out with Charlotte, and I just wanted to crawl into bed... but on the other, I didn’t want to see Maddie with Zac, I wanted to get my unescapable date with Charlotte over and done with as quickly as possible, and this was the quickest way for me to forget this whole mess.
“Sure, why not.” I gave her the brightest, fakest smile that I could manage. “Let’s do it.”
I tried to catch Maddie’s eye before I left to let her know that I was on my way out, but she was laughing loudly at something Zac had said to her. My gut twisted painfully; I felt all light-headed and dizzy; it was definitely best for me to escape this hell before I really had to see something. What if he kissed her? What if she responded? I really didn’t want to be in the room to witness that monstrosity. The way I felt tonight there was no telling what I might do if it came down to it. Maybe I would even freak out and say something I’d regret...
No, leaving was much better for all of us. The sooner I got out of here, the better.
Charlotte tried to take my hand, but I couldn’t have that, not when it was sticky with sweat, so I offered her my arm instead, allowing her to link hers through mine. It still felt far more intimate than what I wanted, but she had forked out a thousand dollars to spend time with me for some reason, the last thing I wanted to do was ruin that with rudeness. I could be polite at the very least. Get through the night with my dignity intact.
“I cannot believe how expensive you are,” Charlotte cooed in a giggling tone as we got through the door in the cool nighttime air. “But I have a feeling that you’re going to be so very worth it.”
Her words felt all too full of meaning, as if she would actually expect something to come of tonight. Something more than just dinner. Great, that was going to be damn near impossible to deal with politely. What the hell had I gotten myself into? All for the friendship of a woman who was currently fawning over Zac in that beautiful figure-hugging dress of hers. She was well and truly dressed up tonight, and she looked incredible. So stunning that it actually hurt me to not be by her side. I was far more jealous than I should have been, and that freaked me out. Why did I suddenly feel so much different about everything now? What was going on?
“Come on,” Charlotte insisted, shaking me from my thoughts. “Let’s go to eat in here; I’m starving!”
I guess it was time to put all thoughts of Madison to bed for a little while so I could properly hold up my end of the bargain. Much as I didn’t want to be here, I owed this woman at least some of my attention. It wasn’t ever going to happen, I didn’t need to go through the charade of this date to know that, but she also didn’t deserve me to be acting weirdly moony over my best friend. I needed to get over that feeling, and sharpish!
AN HOUR AND A HALF with this woman was more than enough time for me to confirm that she wasn’t the one for me. I knew it right away, and I still knew it now. I guess when everyone made their assumptions about Charlotte, it was for a good reason. She truly was everything they all said about her and then some! High maintenance didn’t even cut it. We were in a posh place with very well trained serving staff who as far as I was concerned were very professional, the food was exquisite, and the restaurant looked incredible... but n
othing was good enough for Charlotte; she complained about everything, she made an embarrassing scene in front of everyone, and I basically could not wait to get the hell out. I would never be seen anywhere with this woman again.
And it wasn’t just that either; she had spent at least half the night trying to get me to invest in the company she worked for. Half the time it was like a nightmare date, the other half like a horrible business meeting! Not the way that I wanted to spend the night at all. If Madison had won, we would have been having such a laugh...
I wonder if Maddie is having the same problems with Zac, I thought idly to myself as Charlotte ranted on in a nasal tone about how everything was so much better in Europe than here. How we had gotten on to that subject, I had no idea; I stopped properly listening about fifteen minutes in. Luckily, Charlotte only needed the odd agreeable noise every now and again for her to feel fine. Or maybe she’s falling for him...
No, stop it! I pushed myself up straighter and shook my head angrily. It doesn’t matter, does it?
Every single time I allowed my mind to wander, it went to thoughts of Maddie, I couldn’t seem to stop it from happening. I kept trying to tell myself that it was only because I didn’t want her out with Zac, but I had a funny feeling that any guy other than me would have annoyed me. I wasn’t starting to like her... was I?
All of a sudden, my pulse began to jackhammer in my wrists, nausea swam inside my body. I couldn’t like Maddie, not like that, it would destroy us. The last thing I wanted to do was lose our friendship because I’d seen her in a nice dress and Buster’s words had gotten to me. She was my friend, that was all!
“Hmmm?” Charlotte asked my idly. “Did you say something then?”
I quickly realized that I had been muttering the words ‘just my friend’ aloud like a crazy person. “Oh, no I just said let’s get out of here.” I tried to cover it up, hoping that she was too tipsy to notice. “Are you done?”
