Crazy About Love: An All About Love Novel Read online

  The other intros are fairly similar to the first—this bachelor with an insane amount of money is brilliant in bed—followed by the same screaming and whooping, and the bid goes up and up. I’m slowly starting to panic over what Theresa put on that index card for me. I should focus more on the stripping, since I’ve done that before, and not to brag (I’m about to brag), but I’m a kickass dancer. There’s a reason I was the lead in Footloose in the theater above the pizza place.

  The highest bid so far has been three grand. At an auction in a bar. Who are these women? I know it’s all for charity, but if I get a bid that high, I’d love to roll around in it with the winner before we turn it in.

  I step forward again, now up at the curtain, and I watch bachelor number eighteen go out on the stage.

  “Bachelor number eighteen!” the girl in the green tank top says from a mike by the DJ. “He just sold his boating company and is now sitting on a heap of cash with no one to spoil….”

  Bachelor eighteen does this playboy pout that I can’t help but laugh at while the girls eat it up. Then he turns around and rips off a pair of Arabian Knights pants that are way similar to the ones I rejected earlier.

  The girls scream, and I hastily drop the curtain because I’m pretty sure I caught sight of a furry undercarriage.

  “Six hundred!” says a voice in the crowd. The music thumps and the guy behind me starts working on some moves. Oh dear God, he’s biting his lip.

  “Fifteen hundred!”

  Something tears open, and a button rolls under the curtain and hits my foot.

  “Seventeen hundred!”

  “Damn,” the bachelor behind me says, “we’re lucky we’re last.”

  I look up. “Why’s that?”

  “The bids get higher because no one wants to leave empty-handed.” He winks, then starts twerking. I laugh, and bachelor number eighteen sells for $2,200.

  “Okay, ladies,” the girl in the green says, “loosen those purse strings, because we’ve only got two left!”

  Right on cue, the song changes, and thank God it’s one I know. I crack my neck to the side, take a deep breath, and pull the curtain open wide.

  The spotlight hits me right in the face, blinding me, and there are purple and blue and green lights hitting me from the side. The only thing I hear is the music and the auctioneer.

  “Bachelor number nineteen…”

  Ah, here we go. He’s the hard worker with a good heart stuck in the friend zone for five years.

  Time to bring on the stripping skills, so I get right into it before the auctioneer finishes whatever bio Theresa cooked up for me. For Footloose they taught us street dancing, and though I’m not proud of it, I watched Step Up a time or two to study. I hop down onto the runway, getting close to the ladies in the front and slowly slide my jacket off my arms, trying to flex my biceps in the process.

  “Fifteen hundred!” the girl I’m dancing in front of shouts. Suppressing the urge to drop my jaw to the floor, I give her a grin and wink at her. She’s got long blond hair and pretty eyes. Definitely someone to help me move o—

  “Sixteen!”

  I whip around and spot a redhead waving her arm. Using the skills I’ve learned from Channing Tatum, I slide on my knees across the stage and then dance in front of her. Faux redhead is good. The natural ones always remind me of the way Theresa’s hair looks dangling over her bare shoulders in the moonlight.

  “Um…bachelor nineteen graduated with a theater and arts degree, top of his class,” the auctioneer says a little breathlessly, and I squint through the lights to catch a glance at her switching between fanning herself with the note card and actually reading it. “He’s been sought after by high-paying director Landon Wangford…”

  I laugh out loud and search the crowd for Theresa, but can’t find her. Yeah, Landon wants me in his movie because I’m his best friend. Nothing other than tha—

  “He’s also great with his hands, and amazing with his mouth.”

  I jerk back, grinning at the screams, but also at the expression the auctioneer is wearing. She smiles and adds, “From a reliable source.”

  “Two thousand!”

  “Twenty-one hundred!”

  “Twenty-two hundred!”

  Bids are coming from all over, and hot adrenaline starts coursing through my veins. I push up to my feet and tear the shirt off. I pump my hips, smile, and enjoy my damn self because there are about eighty women out here, and they want me. I haven’t been wanted a day in my life. After months of no callbacks, no prospects, and wanting someone who doesn’t want me, this…this feels so damn good.

  The bidding has gone up to $2,500 and halted, and I’m good with that. It’s one of the best bids of the night—and it’s for me, some average Joe that Theresa made sound pretty damn impressive.

  The lights move over the crowd, and I follow the green spotlight, which floats across Theresa’s face. She’s watching me with her mouth slightly open in a smile, caught in a daze until she notices that I’m looking at her. When she shakes herself out of it, I pump my hips at her jokingly and start unbuttoning my jeans. Her eyebrows rise, and even with all the lights around us I can see the fresh rush of blush rise through her chest. I grin, then turn around, wiggle my ass in her direction, and look over my shoulder to catch her laugh. She’s so goddamn beautiful. The song moves into another round of the chorus, and I flip around to face her, then belt out the lyrics along with Def Leppard. I get another bid, but I’m not really paying attention to where it’s coming from or even how much it is. I keep my eyes locked on Theresa, on her parted lips, her wide eyes, her frizzy hair, and my thumb slides across the zipper on my jeans. Her mouth looks like it’s about to move.

  “Four thousand!”

  18 MONTHS, 23 DAYS AGO: 2:23 A.M.

  I probably shouldn’t drive, but I find myself walking out into a heavy rainstorm anyway just to get away.

  “I think I love you?” I shake my head at the asphalt in the parking lot at Theresa’s apartment building. “What the hell are you thinking?”

  I’m not thinking, that’s the thing.

  Thunder rolls and lightning flashes across the night sky. My keys are slippery in my hand, and no, I won’t drive, but I’m not staying in there. Not where she just stared at me with those wide and confused eyes. Not where I knew after one solid glance that she wasn’t going to say it back.

  I hit the unlock button on the key fob, and right after my headlights light up the twenty feet of pouring rain I have to push through to get to my car, a voice echoes across the parking lot.

  “Alec! You stop right now!”

  I glance over my shoulder. Theresa stands huddled in a rain jacket under the main entryway to her building. She waves me back, and I wipe away some raindrops trickling from my eyebrows.

  “Don’t worry!” I call back at her. “I’m not driving!”

  Her shoulders lift, then fall dramatically. She kicks off her flip-flops and bolts into the rain after me.

  “You can’t leave!” she shouts over the storm when she gets to me. “We can’t…we can’t just leave it like this.”

  Her wide eyes plead with me to stay and talk it out, though I really just want to sleep the rest of the night away. But I’m not good at saying no to her, and although she’s shivering and the rain is pounding down onto her back, she plants her bare feet in a stance that I know means she’s not budging.

  I shake my head and pull the zipper on my jacket. May as well cover our heads if we’re going to have a conversation in the middle of a downpour.

  “Look,” I say, sheltering at least our upper halves. “I told you already. Tequila makes my tongue loose.”

  “No.” She looks at me dead on, blinking away a drop of rain. “Don’t try to shrug this off again. You said you loved me four times tonight and took it back, but you didn’t take back the last one till just now. After you ran out on me!”

  “Well…I…”

  “Alec,” she says, and that pleading look is ba
ck in her eyes. “Tell me the truth. Did you…did you mean what you said?”

  The storm decides on another round of thunder, probably to fill the silence that is now permeating the small cocoon we’ve created for ourselves.

  I’m not drunk. I may have been drinking, but I feel sober as hell. I can’t seem to get a grip on what I want to say, how I want to say it, because once it’s out there for real, I can’t take it back. And I’m looking at one of my best friends and I love her, and I don’t want to lose her, and I don’t want things to change unless they’re for the better, and I know she doesn’t want things changing either. I know she doesn’t want anything serious right now. I know that she’s been heartbroken and hurt recently and that she’s confused about what’s going on between her and her sort-of boyfriend and that this is too soon for her.

  I can see it all crumbling around us: my declaration, her not returning the feelings, and then our friends will feel like they’ll have to pick sides, and worst of all, I can’t pick Theresa’s side and she can’t pick mine. We’ll be on opposite teams for the rest of our lives.

  I can see it all, know it will happen, and still…I don’t care. She asked me for the truth, and I’m going to give it to her.

  “I love you.”

  There. It’s out there. I’ve said it and I want to say it again.

  “I love you.” I take a step closer, drop my arm around her shoulder, and pull her into me. “And I really would love to kiss you right now.”

  A small breath escapes her wet lips, warming my chin and neck. I imagine us in a different world entirely, where those words wouldn’t seem so scary to say. Where they’d be natural and playful and she’d tilt her head up to grant me my request.

  Another breath hits my chin, this one long and deep, and I adjust the jacket over us so that nothing permeates her thought process right now. Because she’s not saying no. She’s not saying anything, which means she’s truly thinking about it, and that is more than I could’ve asked for.

  “I…,” she says, her voice cracking on the small syllable. “I…can’t.” Her eyes quickly flick up to meet mine. “And it’s not you. It’s not you at all. I just…I won’t be able to give you back what you give me, and that’s not fair.”

  Even though I knew the answer I was going to get, it doesn’t make it any easier to hear. I thought that living with the secret was rough, but the way my entire soul feels like it’s just been jammed in a trash compactor makes me realize that having the truth out there will make life unbearable. My heart stops pumping, almost as if it no longer has the energy to keep going. I’m used to disappointment. I’ve been rejected in 90 percent of what I’ve set out for. Look at my resume. It’s full of almost-lead roles, almost-scholarships, and almost-loves. I’m the guy who arrives at the train station a second after the train departs. I’m used to the feeling.

  At least I thought I was.

  A wall of tears forms in Theresa’s eyes, and now I’m the one quickly coming to help explain this away.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “I get it.” She doesn’t look convinced, letting out a small indignant noise through her nose and shaking her head. Our eyes still stay connected, though.

  “I promise you,” I say, “I get it.”

  She blinks, and a tear falls from her right eye and mixes with the rain on her cheek. “I don’t want this to change anything.”

  “It won’t.” It’s the first lie I’ve ever told her that has flowed so naturally off my tongue.

  “It will,” she argues, a small smile poking through. “We’re going to be all awkward around each other now.”

  “Absolutely we will,” I joke, trying to ignore the pounding of my tired heart.

  She lets out a tiny laugh and nudges her shoulder into mine. “I’m terrified of losing you as a friend.”

  “Theresa,” I say with all the sincerity I can muster through the heavy disappointment still dragging me downward, “I promise you that won’t happen.” I manage a grin and take a step back to get some breathing space. “You’re gorgeous, but I’ll get over ya.”

  “Stop it.”

  “What?”

  “Joking around.”

  “Thought you didn’t want things to change.”

  “You’re making me laugh when I should be feeling like shit over this.” She swipes at the water collecting on her exposed wrist. “I may not be in love with you, but I do love you, and it sucks to say things that hurt you. Making me laugh is so not what I deserve.”

  “Trust me, it’s more for my benefit than yours.” Another lie, and it leaves a sour taste on the back of my tongue. I don’t want to ever get used to lying to her.

  She reaches out and pinches my stomach, then keeps hold of the material of my shirt and pulls me two steps forward. Her cheek pushes up against my chest and her arms slide around my waist, holding me tight.

  These touches are going to cripple me. I stand there, unresponsive, contemplating whether I’m angry at her for throwing easily misinterpreted signals or happy that we can hold each other as friends—that she loves me enough to not play with my head, and is honest about not being ready to give her heart away. I look down at her shaking against my chest. I feel what she’s saying without the words being spoken. She’s honestly sorry that she can’t give me what I want. It only makes me fall deeper and deeper—but that isn’t her fault or her problem.

  My tired heart gives out completely, and though I really feel like pushing her off, my arms drop around her shoulders, taking the jacket with them.

  Chapter 3

  PRESENT DAY

  The bid came from the back, and with the lights and so many hands up in the crowd, I can’t get a good look at who just dropped a boatload on my dancing skills.

  “Sold!”

  The auctioneer in the green tank top signals the DJ to switch songs, and I glance at Theresa, her jaw open in deep shock. I’m unsure what to think of that expression. Does she not think I’m worth four grand, or is she just as shocked as everyone else in the room?

  I pull my zipper up only to be booed at, so I smirk and shrug at the crowd before hopping off the stage. Bachelor number twenty quickly takes my place.

  My instructions were to head to the back rooms to change, but I’m trying to get through a very handsy crowd to Theresa because I have no clue where the back rooms are. Girls keep touching me, and I love every second of it. I guess those living room sit-ups are doing something. I better keep that shit up.

  “Excuse me,” I say as I weave through the crowd. A girl with crazy long pink hair not-so-subtly crushes her breasts into my chest and blinks up at me like, Whoops! Then her left eye suddenly loses its lashes.

  “Whoops,” I say through a laugh, plucking the fake things from where they landed on my shoulder. “Might want to go fix that.”

  Instead of being cool and confident like she was seconds ago, she covers her eye and bolts away from me, calling me a jackass on the way. She forgets her eyelashes, and I sure as hell don’t want them, so I find the nearest trash can.

  “Hey, bachelor nineteen,” a voice hisses at me, and I find the auctioneer covering her mike and tilting her head. “You’re supposed to be back there.”

  I follow her line of sight and give her a wave of thanks. As high as I am on the rare attention I get from the opposite sex, I’d like to put on a shirt.

  After one more sweep of the room for Theresa and not finding her anywhere, I shrug and hide in the back. A couple of the guys are talking to each other—well, to be more accurate, they’re gloating over their bids. If I was a more outspoken person I’d probably gloat too, but I keep it to myself as I towel off all the oil, deodorize, and yank a white T-shirt over my head and a button-down over that. I’m rolling the sleeves up when bachelor number twenty walks in and does his signature hip thrust.

  “Thirty-eight hundred, bitches.” He points at me. “What’d I tell ya? Great spot in the lineup.”

  He gets pelted by nineteen sweaty and oily towels from every
direction. I laugh and shove my wallet in my pocket.

  “Anyone see any butterfaces out there?” a guy with a man bun asks. “Butterface” is a well-known euphemism for a girl who has a great body but a face that leaves something to be desired. But-her-face. I haven’t heard the term since I was in high school.

  “I think my winner’s one, but I’m okay with it,” bachelor number seventeen says. “Better than who won Harris over there.” He puffs up his cheeks and makes circles with his arms around his middle, suppressing a gutful of laughter. A guy with a wicked back tattoo—I’m assuming it’s Harris—looks over his shoulder and tells him to go screw himself.

  Successful, handsome bachelors in their late twenties. I get it now.

  “What about you?” the guy on my right asks. “Catch a peek at your winner?”

  I shake my head.

  “Damn,” he says, pulling a fresh shirt over his head. “I was wondering who just wasted four grand.”

  I grin and casually scratch my eyebrow with my middle finger.

  “It was probably Rian. I heard she was in the crowd tonight,” bachelor number twenty, the twerker, says.

  I tilt an eyebrow at him. “The street artist?”

  He nods. “Yep, that one.”

  “Well, business must be good if it was,” says bachelor number seventeen.

  “Chump change for someone like her.” Bachelor number twenty smirks. “So yeah, probably Rian.”

  The door screeches open and my stomach dips. Theresa’s been the one directing us where to go and what to do, so I expect to see her, but instead it’s our green-tank-top-wearing auctioneer.

  “Hey, guys. All the winners are at the bar and they have your number. They pretty much have all the say over what they want to do with you until midnight tonight. If you haven’t already by then, you owe them a kiss.”

  The guy with the man bun whistles and the rest of us laugh, a few much louder than others. I blame early drinks.