Page 14 of Love Resurrected
“Jesus, woman. Your hands are freezing.”
“Sorry, I was setting out bottles of ice water.” I rub my hands together to try to warm them before running them up the back of his shirt with the wire. “Can you unbutton the top of your shirt? It’s too tight at the top for me to get my hand through.”
“I work out.” He says it in a funny voice I think is from a song, then flexes. It makes me giggle and he laughs.
The shirt loosens enough for me to run the wire and my hand up to the neck. I hang the wired mic over his shoulder then move around to his front.
“You do work out,” I tell him with a smile, patting his pecs as I attach the mic midway down his chest. It’s as I’m re-buttoning his shirt I see the edges of the tattoo over his heart. I’m not sure how a tattoo can look sad, but his does. I push the material away to see more of it, my fingers grazing his skin.
He stiffens under my touch and takes a step back, grabbing my hand and pushing it away from his chest.
“Look, I’ll parade myself around like a fucking fool in front of a bunch of pathetic assholes with too much money, because it’s for a good cause. But it stops there. I don’t like to be touched. And make sure the idiots bidding on shit know that. I’m not fucking some badge bunny just because she pays for it and thinks she’s due.”
“Uh . . .” I don’t know what to say in response.
And apparently, I don’t have to.
“Tenley,” I hear a voice whisper in my ear.
“Yes?”
“His mic was on.”
“Shit. I’m sorry you guys heard that, he’s just a—”
“Everyone heard it.”
“What do you mean, everyone?”
“Um, I think you grabbed the emcee’s mic. It’s rigged to the main speakers and broadcasting.”
I put my right hand up to my ear and turn away from Brad.
“Do you mean to say theaudienceheard what he said?”
“They can still hear him.”
I look over and see Brad is mumbling to himself. I grab at his mic and yank it off him.
“Ow! What the fuck?” he yells.
“Stop talking!” I say. “Everyone can hear you. The mic is live.”
To his credit, he quiets immediately. I hang my head, not sure how to get out of this. A runner approaches with a different mic and quickly switches Brad’s out, and the emcee gets his a moment later. The auction begins soon after, right on time. And I didn’t even have to be there. Nice to know I planned things and prepared people appropriately.
“I didn’t know,” Brad says.
“It’s fine. What’s done is burnt.”
“It’sdone is done.”
“What is?”
“The saying is, ‘what’s done is done.’”
“Not from where I’m standing, Number Nine. You just torched that shit.”
He grimaces.
