Page 412 of The Doctors Will See You Now

I hadn’t planned on going the auction route to purchase my home, but once I’d found out about this house—a Brooklyn townhouse, on an affluent street, being auctioned off at nearly half the value—the opportunity was unbelievable. Too fucking good to pass up.

And considering how much I truly loved the place, it was crazy stressful.

I’d never been to an auction, especially a sheriff’s auction, and I really didn’t know all of the ins and outs. It was definitely new—and a bit scary—territory for me.

I’d done my research on the house itself, but the auction part? Yeah, I probably should have utilized Google a lot more for that.

Between the nerves and anxiety, I’d decided to drag Nick along. He also didn’t know the first thing about sheriff’s auctions, but being the good boyfriend that he was, he came along for the much-needed moral support.

Once we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, the drive was surprisingly short and quick by New York standards. Nick parked his SUV—something he used so rarely it only had three thousand miles on it despite being three years old—in the back lot of the government building where the auction was being held and turned off the engine.

“Ready?”

I shook my head, and he chuckled softly.

“It’ll be fine,” he reassured. “Even if you don’t win the auction, at least you’ll have a better idea of what to expect the next time you find a house you love. Although,” he said and glanced at my white knuckles gripping the door handle, “I recommend maybe just sticking with the normal house-buying process in the future.”

I sighed and released my death grip. “It’s just nerve-racking,” I muttered petulantly. “I really love this home, and I really, really, really want it.” Sure, I hadn’t seen more than a few old MLS pictures of the inside, but even if the thing was nearly wrecked, the bones were there. And every woman knew great bone structure was one of the few pieces of beauty it was hella hard to change.

“I know, sweetheart.” He grinned. “And that’s why we need to find the strength to get out of the car and walk inside.”

A laugh escaped my lips at the absurdity of it all. I mean, generally speaking, I wasn’t a nervous kind of person, but I was obviously losing myself to anxiety over this. The tingling sensation in my fingers as blood started to find its path back to my hand was proof of that.

“Let’s go,” Nick urged and hopped out of the driver’s side before I could find a good reason to keep us both in the car.

And I had no other option but to follow his lead when he rounded the front of the SUV and opened the passenger door.

He smiled when, with a scowl on my face, I begrudgingly pushed my legs to the ground and removed myself from my seat.

With a strong arm wrapped around my shoulder, he led us into the main entrance, through the doors, and down the main hallway, until we reached an open door that had a white sheet of paper taped to it. It read, Sheriff’s Auction, in black Sharpie.

We walked inside to find a table filled with opened pizza boxes, trays of cookies, and a selection of soda and bottled water.

Between the food and the haphazard way chairs and tables were arranged in the room, if it weren’t for the sign on the door, I would’ve been convinced we were in the wrong place.

“This is not what I expected,” I whispered to Nick as we walked toward the right side of the room where the sign-in table sat. A voluptuous woman with poofed-out blond hair and a pink lipstick smile sat behind it.

“This is what things look like when the government is in charge,” he teased. “Frankly, I’m surprised there are refreshments at all.”

“Are you here for the auction?” the woman asked, and I nodded. “I need your driver’s license, proof of bank funds, and your information and signature on this sheet of paper,” she added and handed me a clipboard with a ballpoint pen connected to it with a string.

I pulled the needed items out of my purse and set them on the table and then quickly filled out the requested information—name, phone number, current address, that sort of thing.

She reviewed my form and initialed it, before making a copy of my driver’s license information on the small wireless printer sitting beside her laptop. After a few clicks and taps of her fingers across the keypad, she handed me back my license and a packet of papers. “The auction will be starting any minute. Make sure you educate yourself on the information in the packet. It will tell you everything you need to know and do if you win a real estate lot. And feel free to help yourself to the pizza and drinks.”

“Wait…” I glanced around the room and then back at her. “Don’t I get a little fan thingy?”

“Fan thingy?” she questioned with a raised brow.

“You know, the fan thingy that people use to signal their bid,” I explained and even attempted to mime it out for her with my free hand.

“No,” she responded. “Just raise your hand toward the auctioneer if you want to bid on a lot.”

Raise my hand? Seriously?

Well, that was a disappointment. Every movie I’d ever seen with an auction scene, the main characters had the fan thingys. Either Hollywood was lying, or Nick was right about that whole teasing government comment.

“Oh, okay. Thanks,” I muttered, even though I wasn’t the least bit thankful that this auction had no fan thingys.