Page 13 of Highest Bidder
“Hey there, Hershey.” I lean back and look her right in the eyes. Her mouth is slightly agape, and I’m entranced by the rise and fall of her chest. That’s when I see it. I affect her as much as she does me. Before I can say anything else, she spins around, and her wild brown hair whips me in the face as she storms away.
JT walks over and slaps me on the back. “Well, that was fun.”
I pry my eyes away from her to shoot him a look, and a guffaw bursts from his mouth.
10
HUNTER
“Hey,want to go get some drinks?” Jess asks while we’re walking off the auction block. “A few of the block clerks like to go to this place close by after the sale. It’s like a midweek decompression.”
“That sounds like fun. I hope they don’t mind me crashing the party,” I say as I pull my hair into a messy bun. The humidity today is off the charts.
“Heck no, this group is the best. They’ll be ecstatic to have another face joining us! Not every block clerk you meet will be so welcoming, but stick with me and you won’t need to worry,” she says. We both laugh, because I know what she means. I’ve met some nice block clerks and some reallyinterestingones. Most are only nice to your face.
I follow her to the bar, and we walk inside. There are pool tables everywhere, and I gasp, “I love playing pool!” I realize too late that I said it too loud when the bar goes silent, and almost everyone is staring at me. I give a sheepish smile and wave.
Jess snorts and pulls me over to a table where several other girls are shooting pool. “Hey, everyone.” Jess motions to me. “This is Hunter Smith. Hunter, this is Lydia, Charley, and Blake.” She points to each girl as she says her name.
“Oh, hey again, Lydia,” I say to the girl with red hair and a slender figure who was on my block earlier. “You did awesome today.”
“Yeah, you too.” Lydia smiles. “You’re so smooth. I love listening to you.”
“Oh, well thank you,” I say, pressing my hand against my chest. “I’ve only been practicing my whole life.” This makes everyone giggle.
“What was that like?” Charley, the girl with light brown, curly hair, asks. “Everyone knows your dad and most have seen videos of him selling things at one time or another. Has it been hard? What was it like working with him?” She’s nearly out of breath from the back to back questions.
I blink a few times and give a nervous chuckle. “My dad and I are very close. He’s why I chose this line of work. But he does have a huge reputation, and that’s made it hard. We struggled with our relationship in the beginning, figuring out our father-daughter relationship versus our mentor-work relationship. He only wanted what was best for me, but that also meant hours of practice until any chant that wasn’t flowing well was fixed. He expected a lot out of me.” Becoming an auctioneer was a lot harder than I like to admit. Not only did I have to live up to my dad’s expectations, my colleagues made it harder to even get a job.
"It is impressive.” Blake, whose caramel-colored hair is twisted into an elegant bun, adds. “You’ve made your mark by getting hired at all the Manheim auctions around here. It’s amazing!”
“Well, Jess is the reason the rest of the auctions hired me.” I nudge Jess with my shoulder. “She called the GMs at Lakeland, Tampa, and St. Pete.” The girl already has my back, and I love how close we have gotten so fast. I’m deeply indebted to her.
“Hey,” Jess says. “I only told them how good you are and that everywhere was hiring you. They would be stupid not to do the same!” The other girls hoot in agreement. I already feel accepted by these girls. I’m relieved I have some friends to hang with now. I never felt like I fit into any clique before. People were either getting close to me to get close to my dad, or they were friends of Steve’s. During the time we were together, he isolated me, so I didn’t have many close friends to hang out with.
A loud commotion brings our attention to the other side of the bar. That’s when my eyes land on a worn, tan hat, blue eyes, and an ego the size of Texas.Oh great.Right when I was having such a good time.
“We know them!” Charley states the obvious.
“Yeah. Let’s ignore them,” I mutter. They all turn to stare at me like I’ve grown a third head.
“Why would we do that?” Lydia asks, furrowing her eyebrows.
“Well—” Jess begins and looks at me. I give her a small smile. “Hunter and Myles kind of have some problems with each other.” I’m thankful she is here to back me up.
“Why?” Charley asks while folding her arms across her chest. “He’s always been nice to me, in his own kind of way,” she says and looks at the other girls. “Do you guys remember when my ex-boyfriend was threatening to kick me out of my own apartment? Myles was the first one to volunteer to help move my stuff to a safer place. He also talked to my ex and basically threatened him to leave me alone. He even got JT involved. They convinced my landlord to take me off the lease, so I didn’t get fined.”
Charley’s story has my mind muddled. Who she describes sounds nothing like the Myles I know.
“Do you remember the time my horse got injured?” Blake asks. “JT and Myles showed up to see if they could help keep him calm while the vet took care of his injuries. They came back several times to check and make sure he was okay.”
All the girls are smiling while exchanging stories about Mylesthat paint a different picture than what I’ve seen. It makes me wish I knew this side of him. JT has already shown me how nice he is, but Myles has never been kind to me. Maybe we need to hang out in a non-work setting?
“We should have them join us, or we could join them,” Blake says.
“Let’s go!” Lydia adds.
All the girls walk over, and I reluctantly follow. The guys cheer when they catch sight of us.
