Page 5 of Crazy About Love (All About Love)

The line goes quiet, and I’m ready to let out a laugh and pretend I was kidding. Maybe we’ve gotten to the point when we can joke about what we could’ve had, what I thought we did have for a moment.

But I can’t laugh. We haven’t gotten there yet.

Theresa clucks her tongue twice, something else that is so damn small but ties my gut into a thousand different knots.

“I can do that.”

My eyebrows lift. “Really?”

“You do this for me, I will totally do that for you.”

The cab stops at the station. I look up at the giant billboards and keep my ass firmly planted in the backseat.

“Can you bring me a tux?”

She breathes a sigh of relief, and I can sense her smile, which makesmesmile, then it makes me frown. Getting over someone is a real bitch, pardon my French, especially if you gotta be friends with this person.

“Not that kind of auction, but yes, I can take care of wardrobe. Jace has a guy over on 33rd Street.”Of course he does.“I’ll text you the exact address and you can meet up with him there. Thank you…you are a lifesaver.”

“I know.”And a sucker.I slump back against the taxi seat. “See you tonight.”

—

“Dude, what the hell kind of auction is this?”

I yank at the very thin and tight red T-shirt I’m sure only went on so easily because my torso is covered in oil. Jace told me it’s what Theresa wants me to wear, and because she could literally tell me, “Dance, monkey, dance!” and I would, I squeezed myself into it.

“You gotta wear something that tears easy,” Jace says, waving a piece of black fabric at me. He fists each side, and it rips like paper. “More you rip off, the higher the bid.”

I stare down at my stomach and wish I’d at least had a six-week warning to prepare. “I thought this was for charity.”

“It is.” Jace shrugs and tells his “guy” to find a shirt that isn’t for a “twelve-year-old,” and the guy nods in exaggerated agreement. I look down again and the tight shirt has rolled up to show off my belly button. I’m a belly-dancing monkey.

I grab the back of the neck and slide it off, chucking the now oiled-up shirt at Jace’s face. He tosses the shirt away as though it were on fire, and it gets wedged between a pair of blue-and-red Nikes. We’re in a walk-in-type man closet, the likes of which I’ve only seen in the movies. Lots of suits and blazers and ties and shoes, et cetera, et cetera, but there are other clothes in here for metro guys. I assume dressing rooms for big-time theaters look like this.

“Don’t you have any jeans?” I pull at the crotch of the flimsy-ass pants I’m wearing. Pretty sure they’re trying to castrate me.

Jace shakes his shaggy head and opens up a drawer on his right. “You’re wearing about a thousand dollars there. Enjoy it.”

“These are a thousand dollars?” I ask, pulling the material away from my thighs. I look like I belong inArabian Knights.

“I saidenjoy it.”

“This coming from the man in average-Joe clothing.” I wave at him. “I’m not a woman.”

He laughs and crouches down to get blindingly white and red shoes that I most likely will scuff before I leave the premises. “Why’d you agree to do this thing if you didn’t want to get out of your red vest?”

He’s talking about my Bed Bath & Beyond uniform. At least that thing doesn’t cut my scrotum in half.

“Theresa asked me.”

He nods. “That’s all it took, didn’t it?”

“She’s a friend.”

“Bull. If I asked you to oil up and get bid on by a bunch of strangers, would you?”

“Hell yeah. I love you, man.”

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