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“Picky. What was the album, Dad?”
“Surrealistic Pillow.”
“I love a bonus point.”
John answered the next few questions easily, but then was stumped when the announcer asked the birthplace of Austrian composer, Wolfgang Mozart.
“Vienna,” Callum answered, at the same time as Leah said, “Salzburg.”
“Salzburg. He was buried in Vienna,” Leah said quietly.
“Right. Okay. Salzburg,” Callum said to Nora. “Sorry,” Mikayla heard him say softly to Leah.
“No, it’s okay.”
Oh, you two, just make out already, Mikayla thought to herself.
They left the geography round mostly to Rafe and finished with general trivia. Then the MC advised a break while final scores were tallied and advised everyone to check their silent auction bids. Mikayla stayed seated at the table, chatting to her Mum and Dad. She’d put in the only bid she wanted to for the night. But then she spied Rafe, standing in front of the fish, looking from it to the sheet and back again, before picking up a pen.
“No way!” She bolted out of her chair and hurried across the room. “Hey, Juniper’s buying that for William.”
“Bullshit,” he said, throwing the pen down and giving her a laughing, challenging look.
Mikayla grabbed the pen and looked at his bet. Two hundred dollars. Bloody psychopath. She wrote her own name and three hundred dollars on the sheet. She’d barely dropped the pen before he’d picked it up, bidding four hundred dollars. She grabbed another pen and jostled against him as he wrote his amount. Five hundred dollars. Before he’d even finished, she was writing her name and amount underneath. Now it was six hundred dollars. She took great satisfaction in watching him pause and seriously consider outbidding her. How much did she want to win this? she asked herself as Rafe looked at her, his eyes gleaming as he picked up the pen.
“Um, excuse me, I’m supposed to collect the sheets now.”
Mikayla heaved a sigh of relief as Rafe handed the sheet over. She thought there was a good chance she would have pushed it to one thousand dollars, which probably would have meant hitting Callum up for a loan. And how crappy would that have been? Please, brother, can you spot me a few hundred bucks to pay for a singing, rubber fish I accidentally bought?
“You’re partly to blame for that, so you can go halves with me.”
“Fair call,” Rafe replied.
They headed back to the table together, Mikayla with her hands shoved into the back pockets of her jeans.
“Okay, everyone. While we’re still tallying the scores, we’re gonna announce the auction winners.” The MC rattled off the first few bid winners. Juniper got her pamper pack, Leah the nail kit, John expressed surprise at the scarf he bought for his wife.
“Nice!” Mikayla said to William when he’d won the golf kit with a top bid of one hundred dollars.
“And here we are, folks. Big Bad Billy Bass. Always a crowd favorite.” The MC glanced down at the sheet and had Mikayla grinning when his eyes goggled. He reached into his shirt pocket for his glasses and put them on to check again. “Ah, no, it’s not a mistake, folks. I can’t quite make out the names, but it looks like…” he peered closely, “Ah, Rafe M something and Mik…Oh, Mikayla Sinclair have paid…wait for it…Six hundred dollars!”
“You didn’t!” Nora gasped.
“That’s right, six hundred dollars for the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. But it’s for a great cause, so good work, you two.”
“Utterly insane. That’s what you two are,” Juniper said, grinning at them.
“It’s only three hundred each,” Mikayla replied, gulping on her beer and turning to Rafe. “And we can share it. One week at your place, one week at mine.”
“Or we could have a sacrificial burning.”
“Now there’s a plan.”
After that, there wasn’t much left to do but announce the winners. “Oh, fun!” Mikayla said when their table was named the winners, she went to collect the prize - A hamper and half a dozen bottles of wine. Then, to Mikayla’s great relief, it was time to go home, where she could just snuggle in the dark with Rafe and not have to worry about boundaries, and clinginess and keeping her hands to herself.
Chapter 10
Rafe watched as Callum reversed the gleaming, silver Mercedes Vito carefully down Mikayla’s driveway. “My brother’s not a snob, but he’s not going anywhere unless it’s in absolute comfort and luxury.”
