Page 9 of Hazel and Elijah Find Out: First They F*cked Around

We shared a collective blink, shocked into silence for a few seconds before falling into a laughing fit that had me wiping the moisture from under my eyes. “Should I get a sexual harassment training video? I think we might have a toxic workplace.”

“I will consider it harassment if you make me watch that video.” The patch of skin on Brooks’ cheekbones was bright red, which I knew was from the laughing and not from embarrassment.

“So, what do we do?” She held her arms out as if welcoming new ideas. “We’re not gonna make the kind of money we need selling cookies. I know Ben would let us hold it at Benji’s Place—he probably wouldn’t even charge us for it. We could sell tickets at the door that provides a drink or two and a buffet. We could have dancing before the main event, so everyone is having fun.”

“How did you get from selling cookies to…” Remi’s lip twisted as if he’d tasted something gross. “I don’t even want to say it out loud.”

I stared at the colorful rows of files organized vertically behind him and wondered how I hadn’t found a better solution. The unfortunate reality was this was the lowest cost event I could think of. Nora was right about the venue, and it already had a speaker system to hook up one of our phones to play a playlist—no need to hire entertainment.

She was punching away on her phone screen—probably looking up the best songs for auctioning a date.

There was no way we could do it, and it was very annoying that nothing else worked as well.

I was so lost in my irritated thoughts that I didn’t notice the phone she was typing on was mine. “What are you doing?”

She didn’t even look up, she just continued with her task. “Texting the menfolk to see what kind of interest we can get in participating.”

“You’re not much of a listener, are you, Nora?” Remi remarked.

“Well, if you’re right and no one will participate, then we can move on completely.”

I tried to keep my voice nonchalant, but even I could hear I wasn’t successful. “Nora, what menfolk are you texting?”

She kept typing. “Just the guys who aren’t in my phone.”

“Have you gotten to the E’s?”

Her thumbs froze, and she slowly looked up from the screen. “Oh no, Hazel…”

“You didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?” Remi asked.

“Whose name starts with an E that’s so bad?” Under his baseball cap, Brooks’ eyebrows drew together.

My stomach was somewhere around my knees. “What did you say?”

She pursed her lips and shook her head. With jerky movements, she extended the phone for me to read.

I might be sick. Blood rushed from my face, and my vision went dark on the edges.

On the screen was a message from me to Elijah March. It was the first communications we had between our numbers. After all these months of trying to figure out the right way to start a conversation with him—of typing and deleting possibility after possibility, of questioning if I should just leave him alone to live his life—there on the screen, was a single message.

Would you be interested in auctioning your body?

Chapter 4

Hazel

Ilookeddownatmy phone. Again.

It had been two days since Nora messaged Elijah. That goddamn text. It was ruining my brain. When I woke up, behind my closed eyes were those stupid words. When I drove to work, the only traffic light in town blinked a chorus of,He hasn’t texted back. I’d eat my lunch and reason that he probably doesn’t have my number, anyway. I probably wouldn’t reply to someone I knew asking if I’d auction off my body, let alone a strange number. He’d never have to find out it was me. If, for any reason, he actuallyaskedfor my number, I’d lie through my teeth and get a new one.

But regardless, I couldn’t stop checking my phone. Mostly because now, I didn’t have a way to reach him. Now I just had to hope to run into him.

I shook my head, disgusted with myself. It’s not like I was using his number, anyway.

The familiar sinking feeling pressed into my chest. I should have texted him a long time ago. Building up the courage to ask Ransom Strauss for Elijah’s contact was stressful, and it shouldn’t have been hard to actually send out a little,Hi, this is Hazel.

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