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Tab’s gaze wanders up there, and then she grabs her chest. “Is that Micah Freeman?”
“Yes!”
“Shh,” she chastises as more people peer back at us. She sits at the extra seat at the table that we saved for her.
Peggy asks for other bids. She counts down as if it’s my last chance to do something, and of its own volition, my hand shoots in the air. “Fifteen thousand one hundred dollars.”
Tab’s “What the fuck are you doing?” almost drowns out the woman in the front who counters with “Twenty thousand!”
Tab grabs my hand and forces it to the table, but then I flash Micah’s black card at her. “He told me to bid on him. Whatever it took to save him.”
Her eyes go from crazy to sappy in a flash. She covers her mouth with her hands. “Oh my God, are you serious?”
“Yes, I’m freaking out.”
She swallows about half my water then sets the glass down too forcefully, water sloshing over the side.
“Twenty-five thousand!”
I peer over to see who bid, and it’s Jasmine Esperanza. Why, though? She’s married, and how did Micah know she would end up bidding on him? My stomach clenches.
“Bid!” Tab whispers vehemently.
“It’s so much money!”
“It’s notyourmoney.”
“Thirty thousand!” I yell, my heart dropping into an empty cavern that’s filled with nothing but frayed nerves and agitation.
Jesus, hell, I have no business spending this kind of money.But then my eyes connect with Micah’s again. He looks pleased. The cocky smirk that graces his face must spur the other women to bid, though, because a sudden flurry of activity means we’re up to fifty thousand within thirty seconds.
I grip the table, heart pounding. It feels like it’s going to come right out of my chest, like a drummer is pounding on it from the inside.
Tab squeezes my free hand. “You can do this, Rae-bae.”
“Fifty-five!” I shout.
The woman in the front peers over her shoulder at me. I want to shrink back into my chair when the snarky grin that crosses her face is filled with venom.
“Seventy-five thousand dollars.” Her bid slides off her tongue with a confidence I’ve rarely heard, and it’s obvious she thinks she’s putting the nail in the coffin.
All my life, people have treated me like dirt. I had to hide away from who I was. Made fun of by other kids because I couldn’t afford to buy school lunch or my clothes weresecondhand. They would ride their bikes by my trailer and call me trash.
I don’t know what comes over me, but a fierce wave of passion and the same will to fight that used to overwhelm me when I was a child forces my hand into the air. “One hundred thousand dollars!”
I hold my breath, then release it in an audible shock when the last few seconds repeat in my head. In the front, the woman raises her chin and crosses her arms across her chest.
“One hundred thousand,” Peggy gushes. “We have a bid for one hundred thousand.”
A new rush runs through me. That’s a lot of homeless pets helped. A lot of cuddly animals that can get medical assistance and food and a warm place to stay.
My belly flips and elation fills me.I did that.
Well, Micah did that. Micah’s money, to be exact.
“Do we have any other bids?” Peggy asks, her eyebrows permanently stitched in her hairline. “Going once. Twice?” She peers around the large room, and it falls silent. “Sold to Raeann Gorman of Pet Threads.”
Tab squeals next to me, and my chest fills. I like the sound of that.Raeann Gorman of Pet Threads.Like I have a purpose. Like I have an identity.