I Hate You More

XXV

"Well, I saw Terrence duck out of the room, took it upon myself to follow him, and got his number. I talked to him, and he's willing to meet up with us."

"What? How?" I asked.

"Didn't take much," Link answered. "I just told him that you needed his help, and that it was about your mom. He was confused, but he didn't ask questions and just told me to contact him later. Seems he had other affairs to tend to."

"He left? Why? He's a special guest." Aiden noted, unwrapping a piece of gum and sticking it into his mouth.

Link finally put his hand down, shrugging.

"Beats me."

"What are you three over here colluding about?"

"Nothing Rena," Aiden lied as Serena and Noah joined us. She thought nothing of it and quickly brought up a new topic of conversation.

"Noah's bidding," she beamed.

As she said this, Noah moved to be closer to be me.

"That's nice," I smiled, a little bit surprised.

Confidently, Noah placed a hand on the small of my back. I shivered at his touch, eliciting a knowing smirk on his face.

Humbly minimizing his good deed, he simply said, "It's for a good cause."

"Oh yeah, what are you bidding on?" Aiden questioned.

I squinted my eyes at him, catching the mischievous glint in his eyes. "Babe," Serena groaned as Aiden pulled out a flask from his suit jacket and took a swig. The rest of us said nothing, heck, we were all guilty of an underage drink or two. Besides, Aiden clearly had no shame considering the fact that we were at a public event with cops lingering around as security.

"I was thinking about that painting that we were looking at earlier, it's growing on me," Noah replied.

Not even a second after he said this, everyone was called to be seated in a room adjoining the display room that we were currently in. At the front of the room stood an auctioneer at a podium and next to him, a man behind a table with an iPad, presumably to record the highest bidders for each item.

On each plush seat laid a number card and a booklet, inside of which were ordered photographs of all of the art that was for sale.

We filed into a row of seats in the back of the room with Aiden at the left end, followed by Serena, Link, myself, and then Noah.

Link leaned into my ear slyly, "This will be a penis measuring contest if you've never seen one," he whispered. My mouth dropped in shock at his candor, and I had to cover it to keep from laughing out loud. He pointed towards a row of men at the front of the room who were obnoxiously flipping through their booklets as if they hadn't seen the art already two minutes ago, pretending that they hadn't already made the decision to place bids—outrageous bids. You know, the type of men who use their centurion black cards at Whole Foods.

"You're probably right," I agreed, casually hooking our arms together. "Can't expect anything less from Ellington's aristocrats."

Turns out Link was more than "probably" right, and the auction was turning out to be quite the spectacle.

"Hey, your painting's up next," I whispered excitedly to Noah.