Always and Forever Read Free Page B

grumble, “Especially now that he’s decided to
     man up.”
    ~~~
    “So, I heard Brody paid you a visit today,” Ryan says when she calls me at home that
     night.
    See? It’s like there’s a gossip hotline around here.
    I bend my head, holding my phone between my shoulder and ear as I squirt a buttercream
     frosting bow onto a high-heel shaped sugar cookie then place it onto the wax paper
     where the rest are. Tomorrow is Saturday and it’s the annual After the Holidays Hullabaloo
     where every business in town offers huge sales and other goodies. I’ll be giving a
     twenty-percent discount on everything in the store and giving out my signature cookies
     which are always a big hit.
    The Hullabaloo has been a major to-do in Serenity Point ever since I can remember
     and practically the whole town comes out for the fun. There’s a silent auction to
     which most of the businesses donate goods, anything from Mags’ homemade pies or cakes,
     a free haircut from The Mane Event, a flower arrangement from Patty’s Petals to new
     tires offered by Hale’s Garage which is down the street from my store. This year I’ve
     donated an antique quilt I purchased at an estate sale in Richmond. There will also
     be a carnival (the same one where Brody won Dory all those years ago) where local
     organizations have game booths, a cakewalk is run, different bands play throughout
     the evening and finally a bachelor/bachelorette auction is held with all the proceeds
     from everything going to the maintenance of the city library and park.
    Now, as for this bachelor/bachelorette auction? Only men can bid on women and women
     on men, so in previous years, Brody and I hadn’t participated because, well, we were
     together. Last year we hadn’t because we’d just broken up and I think we both were
     in a stupor from it, but this year I’ve decided to enter just for the hell of it.
     I mean, all that happens is someone bids to win a particular person then that person
     is theirs for a day, usually doing yardwork for them or something of the sort.
    Well, except for two years ago when old Mrs. Neely, former Miss Virginia and who’s
     about a hundred years old and has been a widow for as long as I can remember, bid
     and won Mike Heller who’s in his early thirties, owns the local gym, is a boxer, and
     is pretty much an all-around badass. She’d had him take her to Richmond where they’d
     had dinner then attended the opera. Afterward, Mike informed Kade, Brody’s older brother
     who owns the lumberyard in town and who Mike works part-time for, that they’d taken
     her early 80s Lincoln Town Car (where, according to him, she tried groping him a couple
     times as he drove) to one of the fanciest restaurants he’d ever been to. He said she’d
     ordered oysters on the half shell first, telling him they were an aphrodisiac as she
     waggled her eyebrows at him. For dinner they’d had lobster, which had been served
     whole and he admitted he hadn’t known what to do. She’d taught him how to take it
     apart, crack the shell then eat it which he said was messy but pretty cool. He also
     said their conversation had been good until she kept trying to talk him into becoming
     her own personal American Gigolo to which he’d graciously declined. Overall, he said
     the “date” had been fun until they got home and she’d tried to kiss him after he’d
     walked her to her front porch. He relayed that the worst of it all had been when she’d
     puckered up, her dentures had shot out and he’d had to retrieve them from a flower
     pot on her porch.
    So to help my town—and maybe to make Brody a little jealous but whatever—this year
     I was going up on the auction block in the hopes that I’d get someone who only wanted
     me for something easy like raking leaves or vacuuming their house. I’d asked Dad to
     make a bid so I could help him clean out the shed but he’d laughed and said he’d have
     me do it for free another