Page 156 of Mayhem
“It’s delicious,” she responded. “You’ll have to make it for me sometime.”
“I’d love to, baby, but Lena does something to it that she refuses to tell me, and it won’t taste exactly the same.”
“What?!” she asked in mock surprise. “Something you can’t make?”
“I didn’t say that. I can make it.”
“Mm, it sounded like you said you couldn’t,” Erin countered with a playful smile.
They all shared a laugh before Cruz went into the kitchen to get the requested slice of pie. Paetyn and his father entered the living room and took a seat. Erin leaned into his side as she and Lena recommenced their conversation about the meaning of the patches and why she’d chosen them. Each represented one of them somehow, and she’d wanted to give Erin something to welcome her to the family. Paetyn thought it was sweet, and from the smile Lena received from their girlfriend, she did also.
Cruz returned with the pie, handed it to Erin, and sat on the other side of her.
Once Lena finished explaining the reasons behind the different patches, they conversed about New Year’s plans and informed their parents they’d be participating in an auction for charity. Chayse had asked them the previous evening, and since Erin didn’t have a problem with it, they’d agreed. However, Cruz had done so a bit reluctantly. Paetyn assumed he’d only done it because their girlfriend hadn’t minded. They both knew there was no way Erin would let someone outbid her, and they’d given her free rein to spend what she wanted.
They left their parents’ house later that evening, and once they returned home, Erin pulled them over to the couch to watch a Christmas movie. She leaned against Cruz’s chest, her legs over Paetyn’s lap as the movie started, and he couldn’t remember being this happy doing something so simple.
45
Erin sat in the audience between Chayse and Alijah, Lawrence on the other side of the latter-mentioned woman. They were waiting for the auction to start. It was the first time Erin had attended. She knew that Alijah and Chayse had both participated last year and was a little bummed that Gale decided to switch it up this year. She wouldn’t have minded participating for no reason other than seeing how her men would go back and forth. Though she supposed if she wanted that, she could ask for it.
“Are we still on?” Lawrence asked.
“Definitely,” Erin responded. “I think we’ll all enjoy it.”
“I think a little chaos at the auction will entertain everyone,” Chayse stated.
“I agree. I think control in these auctions went out the window last year,” Alijah added.
“Do the other women here know that Remy is gay?” Erin curiously asked.
“They might,” Lawrence started. “He doesn’t hide it, but I don’t think it’s been announced per se. In most of the interviews he’s done, they ask him if he’s dating. Not his sexual preference.”
“There might be some heartbroken women leaving here tonight,” Alijah stated.
“There’s going to be several. I know five men they have no chance of winning,” Chayse added.
They continued their small talk until the auction started. Erin didn’t pay much attention to the first ten men that came out. They were attractive but had nothing on her men. The first ten were soon out of the way, the highest bid being forty-five thousand dollars. Then Nik stepped onto the stage as they read the biography he submitted, which Erin was sure Chayse filled in for him because she’d done so for her men and was sure Alijah had filled in Kieran’s. Erin knew that they likely would have left them blank if left up to Cruz and Kieran.
“Let’s start the bidding at ten thousand dollars,” the auctioneer said.
“Ten thousand,” a random woman responded.
“Ten, do I hear fifteen?”
“Fifteen thousand,” a different woman replied.
“Fifteen, do I hear twenty?”
“Twenty thousand,” Alijah stated.
Show time,Erin thought. “Thirty thousand,” she countered.
“Thirty, do I hear forty?” the auctioneer asked.
“Forty thousand,” Chayse answered.
“Fifty thousand,” Lawrence threw in.
