I directed my attention toward the makeshift stage, just in time to see Jared Pink gyrate his way off and into the arms of the elder gentlemen who had bid on him. The young gun pitcher was a showman, for sure, but as I had learned while writing an in-depth profile on him, there was a lot more lurking beneath the surface.
Kylani, the event’s auctioneer, banged her gavel. Her voice rang out, smooth and unapologetically flirty. “Alrighty, folks! Up next, you know him as number two on the field, but he’ll always be number one in our hearts. Give it up for the Roaster’s second baseman, Johnathan Tucker.”
The crowd exploded. Men and women whistled and cheered when Tucker stepped into the light. I was too focused on regulating my breathing.
There he was, tall, solid, and in desperate need of a haircut. His fluffy mullet had grown out long enough to reach the tops of his shoulders. He had traded in his typical tee for a charcoal blazer and black button-down, dark jeans, and a pair of well-worn boots I had seen him kick off at my place more than once. His mullet looked like it had grown out a few inches in a matter of weeks, and the curve of his mouth—fuck, that mouth—was twisted in a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
It hit me all at once. How much I missed him. Not just the look of him, but thefeelof him. The quiet steadiness, the way he used to lace his fingers through mine without thinking and braid my hair after a bubble bath. The way he always listened more than he spoke, like he wanted to understand me even when I didn’t make any sense.
I hated that I couldn’t read him now.
He looked . . . guarded, more so than usual. Like someone who had built up a wall and was still testing its strength from the inside. And now, he was standing on a literal stage being auctioned off to the highest bidder.
It should’ve felt ridiculous.
Instead, it felt like my last shot.
Kylani waited for the crowd to settle, her grin practically carved from starlight. “We’ll start the bidding for this World Series-bound bachelor at a modest five-hundred dollars.”
A hand shot up near the front. “Five hundred,” someone called out, followed quickly by a shout of, “One thousand!” from another.
Damn, that was fast.
Not that I could blame them; Tucker was a fucking catch.
While people scattered amongst the room called out their bids, Tucker stood onstage with his hands in his pockets, shifting slightly from foot to foot. His smile was polite, careful, the kind you might practice in a mirror. Gone was the cool confidence I was used to, and I hated the fact that I was the one who had stripped that from him.
“Two thousand,” a raspy voice shouted from the back of the room.
Kylani fanned herself. “Whew, things are heating up faster than a summer doubleheader!”
Tucker’s eyes scanned the crowd, sweeping across the audience like he was checking for familiar faces. Or maybe the quickest way to make a clean escape.
My fingers clenched around my drink as the auction continued, and the dollar amounts skyrocketed.
“Twenty-four hundred.”
“Twenty-six.”
“Three thousand!”
The crowd fucking loved it, drunk on playoff fever and artisanal cocktails.
And then Kylani asked, “Do I hear thirty-one hundred?”
I stepped forward without thinking.
“Four thousand.”
There was a sharp gasp, followed by a ripple of murmurs across the crowd—disbelief, curiosity, maybe even a little awe.
But I barely noticed.
All my attention was fixed on Tucker.
His expression didn’t change much, not at first. Just a tiny shift—his brow twitched and his lips parted like he had forgotten how to breathe for a second.That makes two of us.But his eyes . . . they found mine andheld.
No flinch or flicker. It was quiet chaos, that look.
