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CHAPTER THREE

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,” Craig 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 Craig 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 to 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, Wilson. 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.

Does your house alarm extend to the annex apartment?

I didn’t have to wait long for his reply.

I don’t have one?!

Cursing, I read it out to Craig 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.

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:

Shit!

“I’m sending you my alarm company’s number,” Craig 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:

I’ll deal with it.

And then I was going to kick his ass when he got home.