Page 42 of Love in the Time of Conversation Hearts

“And now, get your pocketbooks ready, everyone. It’s time for our last bachelor, and he’s a cutie.” She leans into the microphone and says conspiratorially, “I can say that because I’m old.”

Laughter rises again from the audience as Dorothy wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. Charlie and Harrison make their way to join me at the back of the crowd. Aubrey tracks their movement across the space, then turns to say something to the man she’s sitting next to—her neighbor, I think, though it’s hard to tell in the darkness of the room—and leaves him to join us.

“You all don’t have to stand back here with me,” I say when we’re all together.

Aubrey shrugs. “What are friends for?”

“Yeah,” Charlie says. “We want a front-row seat so we can see what you’re gonna do.”

I eye her sidelong. “To think I was starting to feel warm and fuzzy at your kindness,” I say flatly.

“We’re here for you,” Lauren assures me with a squeeze of my shoulders.

“Even if he didn’t come with the roses I told him to bring,” Harrison grumbles.

“You mean the ones on his table?” Aubrey muses.

“Wait, you told him to bring roses?” I ask.

Harrison’s eyes grow wide, as if he’s just gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “He asked. I mean… shit. Was that bad?”

My gaze flicks back to the catwalk as Adam struts down the runway. God, that man is so full of himself. But it works for him. Dorothy is right. It’s cute.

“I don’t know,” I say honestly as Dorothy opens the bidding.

“You know the deal by now. Let’s start the bidding at one hundred,” she croons into the microphone.

“Three hundred,” Daphne calls from her table, her ringlets jittering with excitement.

“Oh.” Dorothy barely masks her surprise. She glances in my direction. “That’s quite the jump.”

“Four hundred,” comes a shout from the edges of the room. I can’t see who said it, but it doesn’t matter because Daphne jumps right back in at five hundred. The other woman counters at six. Dorothy glances at me, then drops the hand holding her microphone to her side while Daphne shoots exasperated daggers across the room at the invisible bidder.

My heart is beating so quickly that I’m surprised I can hear the bidding over the rush of blood in my ears. Lauren leans in and whispers to me, “It’s probably now or never, Cora.”

Daphne pauses for a minute, chewing on her bottom lip before she counters with a less confident, “Seven hundred!”

Am I really going to let these women win a Valentine’s date with this man? The man who sought out my brother to ask him about my favorite flowers? The man who needles me, but who also respects my opinion and expertise about this city we both love dearly?

Adam turns in the direction of the other woman, his eyebrows raising expectantly. I stifle my exasperation at his need for attention.

“Okay then,” the hidden bidder says just as Dorothy is bringing the microphone back to her mouth to call it. “Eight hundred?”

Adam winces, which seems a little weird, but I don’t have time to process it before I jump forward and yell, “One thousand!”

Every head in the room whips around in my direction. Gasps sound from all my friends. Especially Dorothy, whose sharp inhale echoes into the mic. Sturge narrows his eyes at me from his seat near the back. And even though I know it’s exactly the ridiculous public display we had been avoiding, I don’t care. Adam Sullivan is mine, and everyone is going to know it, here and now.

Adam’s high-wattage smile spreads over his face as his gray eyes catch mine from across the room. I’m walking slowly toward him as if my feet have minds of their own, and he’s tracking me the whole way. That look has single-handedly raised the temperature in the room at least ten degrees.

“One thousand fifty,” the unknown bidder calls from her place on the outskirts of the room. Adam breaks eye contact with me to shoot an annoyed look in her direction. My heart soars at the gesture. Even though he suggested I bid on him, it’s nice to know he really did want me to.

“Too rich for my blood,” Daphne mutters as I walk past her seat.

“One thousand one hundred,” I say. I’m close to the catwalk now, and Adam’s heated gaze lands on me again. It barely registers that I’m paying four figures for a date with a man who already wants me. Hell, who already has me. It’s the message that counts. He’s mine, and I want everyone in this town to know it.

To her credit, Dorothy does give it a painfully long moment before announcing that I’ve won. There is polite applause, and some slightly confused chatter, as Adam reaches down and helps me onto the catwalk. Instead of the customary side-hug for the photo op, he spins me to face him, his broad hand landing on the small of my back as he pulls me closer.

“I’m glad you won,” he says softly as the camera clicks somewhere in the distance.