Ollie told him.
The guy opened his mouth, but Dax cut him off. “Not how this works, Oliver.”
Ollie rolled his eyes.
Cam laughed.
“How about free game tokens for a year, a selfie for my social media, and you give me Max’s phone number?” the guy asked.
Everyone laughed. Ollie looked at Max. “Well…”
“You have to bid,” Dax said. “How much you want to put up?”
“Two hundred,” the guy answered.
Several of the girls in front of him turned on him with scowls.
“Ladies?” Dax asked. “Anyone going higher than two hundred?”
Cam scanned the crowd but didn’t see Paige anywhere. He frowned and glanced over toward Whitney again. She should be over here making sure this went according to plan, shouldn’t she?
Of course, Piper was here. And she didn’t seem concerned that Paige wasn’t one of the bidders. Maybe something had come up and they’d planted someone else. But whoever it was wasn’t bidding against this guy.
“Two hundred and fifty,” one of the women finally said.
Dax nodded. “Anyone got two hundred and sixty?”
“Two hundred and sixty!” one called.
“Two hundred and sixty-five,” the guy said.
“Two hundred and sixty-six,” the first woman called.
“Four thousand dollars!”
Everyone turned toward the voice a couple of rows behind the bidders. Cam’s eyes widened. He knew that voice. That was his little brother.
Henry and his friends pushed to the front of the crowd.
“Four thousand?” Dax asked him.
“No, not four thousand.” This came from Piper who moved in behind the boys. She leaned down and said something in Henry’s ear.
“Four hundred,” Henry amended.
Dax laughed. “Okay. You sure?”
“Yep!”
Cam frowned. Where the hell had Henry gotten four hundred dollars? He scanned the crowd for Zoe. Maybe she’d had something to do with it. But he didn’t see her.
“Dude, where’d you get that?” Cam finally asked.
Everyone in the crowd—or at least most of them—knew Henry was Cam’s younger brother.
“No, no,” Ollie said. “You can’t talk him out of this now.”
It made sense that Ollie liked the idea of an hour with three eleven-year-olds better than with any of the women. Ollie talked to eleven-year-olds all the time, both at cons and online. That was their target demographic. Even though their fans ranged anywhere from about eight to forty and were both male and female, their core was truly boys from about ten to twenty.
“Well, he can’t use Monopoly money or something,” Cam said.
“Sure he can,” Ollie said. “I’ll trade you your fake money for real.”
“It’s real,” Henry said. Then he looked up at Piper. “Right?”
She nodded. “Right.”
“You’re giving him the money?” Cam asked. Yes, he still had his mic on and, yes, everyone could hear this. But it was all for fun. And charity. No one would actually care if Piper was giving money to kids to bid on time with Ollie, right?
“Hey, he’s bidding for his mom? Does she get to go on the date too?” one of the women asked. “That’s not fair.”
Okay, maybe someone would care.
“I’m not his mom!” Piper said.
“Much older sister?” the woman asked, then turned to Dax. “Just because he’s a cute kid, doesn’t mean I’m just going to let him have this. Four fifty.”
Cam looked at Ollie. He did not look happy.
“She’s not his sister,” Dax said. “Just a friend.”
“Still, if he’s bidding then he’s the one that goes on the date. She doesn’t get to go along,” the woman insisted.
“Well, I don’t want to go along,” Piper said. “If I want to eat lemon bars with Ollie, I can do that anytime.”
“Oh really?” the woman said. “Well, maybe not after he’s spent an hour with me.”
Piper’s mouth dropped open. Then she turned to Dax. “Three thousand dollars.”
6
The woman’s eyes went round. “Hey!”
Piper looked at her. “What? Anyone can bid.”
“I thought you didn’t want to go on the date.”
“Turns out I want you to go on the date even less.”
Cam looked over at Ollie. He was watching Piper with an expression that was impossible to read.
Dax was clearly hiding a smile. He looked at the other woman. “You want to go higher than three thousand?”
The woman was clearly appalled by the whole thing. “No. Of course not. I don’t have that kind of money!”
Dax shrugged. “Then it’s going, going, gone.” He pointed at Piper. “Lemon bars with Oliver Caprinelli to the lady in yellow.”
Piper looked incredibly smug. She looked down at Henry. “You have a dollar?”
He nodded and held one up. She plucked it from his fingers. “And now you’ve bought the lemon bars with Ollie from me.” She looked up at Dax and then glanced at Ollie, then back