Everything But (4 page)

“All right.
  We have a bid of seventy-five dollars for Miss Beth.  Can I get one-hundred?”

The lights would have made it hard to see the hands in the audience, but the theater guy had been smart enough to leave
all
the lights on
, so Riley didn’t have to struggle to see the guys sticking their hands in the air.  On the downside, though, it made it hard for him to keep his eyes off the blonde in the bleachers.  He couldn’t even pretend to casually glance over, because the people placing the bids were part of the audience seated in the fold-up chairs in front of the stage.  The only time he could look over was when a new girl came up to be auctioned.

“Aw.  Isn’t that just too cute?  Miss Beth, is that your parents bidding one-hundred dollars for you?”  Riley felt like he might puke.

The redhead giggled. 
“Yeah.
  They love and support me.”

“Isn’t that sweet, folks?  Beth’s parents love and support her. 
So which one of you wants to love and support her more?”

Oh,
fuck
.  It had finally happened.  That joke hit like a lead balloon.  What was worse was Riley had thought this one to be closer to innocent than most of his other wisecracks.  But no one was laughing.  No one was even smiling, and little Miss Beth’s bottom lip was beginning to curl up in a pout.
  “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but I merely meant that in the most generous sense.  Would anyone like to donate a higher amount to support the cause?”

A rich kid’s hand finally flew up in the air and the good time recommenced.  Riley might have damaged his chances with the cheer coach…but he had one more card up his sleeve.

* * *

Erin felt herself growing jittery, knowing she was going to be the next
item of scrutiny.  She kept telling herself it was all for a good cause.  And all of the girls had made at least one-hundred
dollars, so she hoped she could make that much as well.  She’d lost count, but she knew they’d already made over fifteen-hundred.  Any amount she pulled in would be gravy.

But there was another reason she felt anxious as hell.  She was going to be standing next to one of her old rock crushes.  She was afraid she’d come off as a giggly teenager, not unlike the dozen girls he’d already dealt with.

No
. 
Must.
  Remain. 
Poised.

She was inhaling slow, deep breaths in an attempt to keep her cool.  All the people in the audience who already knew her would think any residual nerves were simply due to the fact that she wasn’t comfortable with being thrown on a stage.
  No one ever had to know the truth.

And the rock star?
  Well…she’d likely never see him again, so why did she give such a shit?

After Beth was escorted off the stage, Erin took one last gulp of air.  She didn’t want to stand until she was called up, but she smoothed out the fabric of her dress that was resting on her thighs. 
When she looked back up to the stage, she saw Riley walking toward the edge.  He crooked his finger at the co-captains and then walked off the stage.  Erin wasn’t quite sure what to think of that.  Either he’d had enough, having bombed his last attempt at a joke, or he didn’t know he had one more person to auction off and was bailing before being accosted by fans again.

Erin tried not to feel hurt.  It wasn’t personal.  So much for standing next to one of her rock star crushes, though.  So when John Corbin, a senior who’d never been in any of her classes, called her name
(“Last but not least, Miss Lancaster!”)
, she stood up and walked toward the stage.  Her smile wasn’t real, because part of her felt like she was in shock, but at least the nerves had dissipated.

So she kept the frozen smile on her face and walked off the bleachers toward the stage.  Part of her struggled with feeling embarrassed.  Ah…not good enough to be announced by the famous guy.  Personal or not, she comforted herself with the idea that the guy was a dick.  That’s what a lot of media had said about Riley Schultz anyway…that he was arrogant, conceited, and a bit of a control freak.  She let her mind wander through its archives.  She remembered that was at the heart of the Spawn breakup.  Sure, part of it was the drugs.  But she remembered there being some major conflict between Riley and his best friend from high school, J.
C. Gibson, the lead guitarist.  They both battled for ultimate artistic control of the band.  J.
C. wanted to go one way, Riley the other, and they wound up disbanding. 
They disagreed about the direction the band should go in.  If Erin recalled correctly, Riley wanted to continue to cross over, drawing larger crowds, while still maintaining what he’d called “musical integrity.”  J. C. had called Riley a sellout and said he refused to pander to anyone.  Erin thought they were both being stubborn, because the bottom line was they both loved the music.  Surely, they could’ve found some common ground.  Maybe there was more to the story than she knew—
hell,
maybe it
was
just the drugs.  Today,
J.
C. had already recovered and was in a new band that was already working on a second CD but Riley was only now
getting back on his feet
.

Maybe that’s what he deserved for being such a dick.

All right, her mental rant was over now and she finally made it up to the podium beside the two football players.  The other player
had
been in her Sophomore Honors English class, and he held out his arm as if displaying merchandise.  “Ms. Lancaster,” he said, grinning.

She smiled, thinking she was glad she had these young men auctioning her off.  She wouldn’t have liked having a sarcastic asshole
pimping
her out anyway.  John, the more vocal of the duo, spoke into the microphone.  “Okay, I’m afraid we’re not the showmen Riley Schultz was, but we’ll take one for the team.”  At the mention of
team
, Erin heard and then saw a large
chunk of football players in the audience practically
roaring
their support.  “All right, can I get a bid of twenty-five dollars for Winchester High’s English maven Erin Lancaster?”

Erin started laughing, afraid she was becoming
hysterical,
giggling just like the cheerleaders had moments earlier.
  She knew it was because everything was heightened, what with being on display and all, but it seemed like
forever
before anyone made a bid. 
Shit
.  That would be the ultimate humiliation.  Not even a twenty-five dollar bid.  But finally Ron Gill’s hand went in the air.  And she wasn’t sure what to think about that.  Ron was nice enough but they’d butted heads quite a few times during faculty meetings.  They had d
ifferent
ideas. 
They were supposed to agree on a Shakespeare play every year.  Ron was supposed to have his students study it in Drama II and she had to dissect it with her seniors in Honors English, but it was almost as if Ron just wanted to pick a fight.  If she said
Julius Caesar
, he’d insist upon
Macbeth
.  If one of the history teachers jumped in and asked about
Henry V
, he’d dig in his heels and demand
Othello
.  If she wanted to focus on a comedy that year, he’d demand drama.  He was infuriating.

And then it hit her.  He was like a boy in middle school, picking fights because…he
liked
her.  Oh, God.  Why hadn’t she ever seen it before?  And…he
was
a nice enough guy.  But he really wasn’t her type.

And, again, just whom did she think she was kidding?  The last
guy
she’d fallen for
, a
bad boy
at
that,
had crushed her so badly she’d sworn off men forever.  So…let him bid.  She’d enjoy dinner with him and then go home.
  She just hoped she could earn at least a little more than twenty-five bucks.

“Ca
n we get fifty?”  This question
was followed again by a few moments’ silence until she heard another voice
booming in the back
.

“Five-hundred.”

Erin was certain she hadn’t heard correctly.  Her eyes scanned the crowd, unable to find the
face that owned the
voice.

John said into the microphone, “Was that
five-hundred
?”

She saw someone step forward. 
“Five-hundred.”

Fuck
.  It was Riley Schultz.  What the hell?  She felt all her composure
melt
away.  What was that she’d been thinking about an arrogant dick earlier?  She looked down at him as he got closer to the stage and tried to smile, but instead she knew her mouth was just hanging open, in shock.

“Whoa, dude,” John said into the microphone.
He looked back out at the crowd.
“Um…can I get five-fifty?”

And the rest was a blur. 
Riley Schultz
won
the bid
, spending more money than anyone else had, and she had no idea what to say or do.  But at least she’d
finally
managed to smile.

Chapter
Five

SO IT HAD
been an asshole move. 
Riley
was good at that kind of shit.  But he knew it would get that gorgeous blonde’s attention.  Erin Lancaster…that’s what they’d said her name was.  He’d decided the only way to really catch her eye would be to drop a wad of cash on her, more than any of her little cheerleader girls had pulled in.  If it wouldn’t have seemed decadent, he would’ve
bid
a thousand on her.  As it was, it had worked.

He could see the expression on her face when she first walked up on the stage.  That was
a
good
sign
.  In a million years, he never would have guessed a high school English teacher would show the slightest interest in a guy like him, but he saw something
there
.  She looked almost disappointed that he wasn’t the one auctioning her off.

And that’s when he knew he had a good plan.

Sure as shit, when he bid the five-hundred, her face lit up like a Christmas tree.  He could tell she was trying to control her
self, but apparently the Riley c
harm had no limits.  High school English teachers, religious grandmothers, and teenage girls—they all loved him.
  She was shocked until she saw it was him
and then her jaw literally fucking dropped. 
Classic.

He couldn’t help it.  The cocky rock star expression he’d seen
himself wearing
in dozens of magazines slid over his face as he continued walking closer.  And
,
of course
,
no one overbid him.  He’d made sure of that.  And even if they had, he would’ve kept bidding till he’d won.  Until he’d seen her expression and knew she was interested, he might’ve allowed himself to be overbid, but not now.

And he got lucky.  The jocks closed the whole shindig, allowing him to hang close to the stage until she walked toward the edge.  When she approached the stairs, he held out his hand.  Her knees were almost at his eye level and he was glad her dress barely covered them with its wispy, uneven, flowing hem.  She had nice legs.

She smiled and took his hand, allowing him to escort her to the floor.  She said, “I suppose I should thank you on behalf of the cheerleading squad.  That was a lot of money to spend on this auction.”

He sneered. 
“
Nothin
’ but a thing.
 
Happy to help.”
  He hated letting go of that tiny hand.

She acted uncomfortable, as though her car was sitting in the parking lot, ready to change into a pumpkin. 
“Do I call you Riley?”

He couldn’t help the grin that crossed his face.  It sounded nice coming out of her mouth.  “That’s my name.”  But he couldn’t help the attitude, could he?  “And…it’s Erin, right?”

She nodded. 
“Yep.”
  She started inching away from the stage.  “So…I’ll see you here tomorrow night, right?”

“I
kinda
thought maybe I could pick you up.  Make it like a real date. 
Unless, of course, that’s against the rules.”

She laughed then, and Riley could see her letting go of some of the nervousness.  “No rules, at least not for grownups.”

He pretended to shudder.  “That’s a bad word in my business.”

She raised her eyebrows. 
“Really?”

He cleared his throat.  “Can I walk you out to your car and get your phone number, address…?”

She inhaled a deep breath. 
“Yeah…about that.
  Actually, I have a small meeting here once the crowd has filtered out. 
Last minute stuff.”
  She shook her head, closing her eyes and breathing in once more
, as though she had to force out the garbage up there
.  God, that was cute.  When she opened her green eyes, she said, “Oh, but I can give you my info right now if you want it.”