Page 5 of Chance's Choice
Chapter Three – Chance
“It’s not too late to back out,” Spencer teases me as I struggle with doing up my tie.
I roll my eyes and then glare at my own reflection in the mirror. We’re in Charlie’s office at The Center, getting me all spruced up for the auction. I even trimmed my usually scruffy beard down to something a bit neater, and I’ll admit it looks good. Still, this is the first time I’ve worn a suit in God only knows how long, and this damn tie is causing me grief.
“Dude,” Spencer shakes his head and laughs at my increasing frustration, “lose the tie. Pop the first couple of buttons. Leave the jacket open.”
“Since when are you a fashionista?” I grizzle, doing as he says and realizing that I actually look pretty damn good like this. Asshole. I hate it when he’s right.
“I’m sorry, was that ‘thanks, Spence, I don’t know what I’d do without you’? Because you’re welcome.”
Despite rolling my eyes, I turn to him and sigh. “Thanks,” I say.
My friend rolls his wrist. “And the rest.”
“Thanks is all you’re getting from me.”
He makes a ‘tsk’ing sound. “I hope you’re not going to be this surly when you get your ass up on that stage. Nobody wants a grumpy Daddy.”
“Lies,” Josh interrupts the conversation as he sidles into his brother’s office. He grins. “Grumpy Daddies are hella fun.”
“YoumakeDaddies grumpy, Josh,” Spencer argues back. “Not the same thing.”
“You say ‘tomato’, I say ‘potato’,” the bratty Little of our group sasses back, deliberately turning the phrase into a malaphor to get under Spencer’s skin.
Spencer’s opening his mouth to take the bait when Josh turns to me and declares, “Anyway, you look great, Chance. Which is good, because it’s time to get out there and mingle.”
“Mingle?” I repeat, horrified.
Josh bobs his head and waves vaguely towards the door. “Yep. They -the events coordinator at The Grove and Cherie, I mean- decided that letting all the patrons get a feel for the merchandise before the show kicks off will help drive up bids…or something like that.”
“I don’t know how I feel about being called ‘the merchandise’,” I complain, trying to stall.
Did I mention I have mild social anxieties?
Josh’s personality pivots the second he senses my unease. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about the man, it’s that he is ridiculously good at reading people, and has a knack with knowing just what to say or do to ease a person’s discomfort. He’s immediately serious when he says, “All joking aside, Chance, if you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to. Charlie will understand.”
I shake my head. “I can’t do that to him. Or to The Center. I’m doing this thing.”
It’s just one night. I can handle a little bit of mingling and a few minutes on a stage. It’s for a good cause.
“In that case, we’ll keep close,” Josh tells me, definitively. “It can look like you’re chatting, but you’ll have the safety buffer of your friends.”
It’s times like this that I question why he’s earned himself a reputation as a brat. He’s obviously a sweetheart, so it surprises me that he enjoys being bratty. Still, different strokes for different folks and all that jazz.
I shoot him a grateful smile. “Thanks, man. I’d like that.”
The three of us traipse out of Charlie’s office and Josh locks the door behind us. The auction itself is being held in the community hall, which is a large open room on the far end of this building from the offices. In between the offices and the hall, there’s a big open rec room which is usually full of beanbag chairs, couches, and coffee tables. But today the space has been cleared and is being utilized as a reception venue of sorts.
People are milling about in an eclectic mix of cocktail attire and kink-related clothing. The invitations had listed the dress code as ‘whatever you’re comfortable in’ with a reminder that this event is kink-friendly. So there are people in leather, in harnesses and pet hoods, some in onesies and others in a mixture of both cocktail and kink, like the lady in the beautiful body contouring black dress and the whip holstered to her hip.
Servers with gleaming silver platters topped with appetizers and flutes of bubbling wine weave between the clusters of people, and there’s a dull rumble of conversation in the air.
On long tables down the sides of the room, pictures of all the items on auction are displayed for the attendees to check out and read about where bios and blurbs have been included. I know my photo is on one of those tables, along with a bio I asked Tony, Spencer’s boyfriend, to write for me. I’m not going to go look to confirm this, though.
Spence and Josh usher me towards the groups of people, and I find that I recognize a lot of them from The Grove. This sets me at ease, and, after snagging a glass of bubbly white wine from a passing server, I settle in to make conversation.
It’s not so bad after all. Maybe this auction’s going to work out well for me, despite my misgivings and my fears.
