I glanced at Holly, who stared back at me with a little smirk. “Having second thoughts?” she taunted.
My eyes narrowed. Yes, she was baiting me, but I was easily baited. “I’m playing.”
Jeremiah made an annoyed sound. “Lennon?—”
“What?” I snapped.
He ground his molars together. “Nothing,” he gritted out.
“Great.” I beamed at him. “Then I’m playing.” I picked up the last mallet—green—and rolled the matching ball under my foot. “How does the game end? If no one is taking turns, how do we know when it’s over?”
“The first player to reach the home pole ends the game,” Seb said. “Yellhomeand the game stops. We look at the video to determine who won. Winner is the player with the most points, even if they never made it to Pole Z.” Seb pointed across the field, to where a camera was set up on a tripod. “There’s the camera. Don’t knock it over. It’s an automatic last place for fucking with the evidence, and you get latrine duty. Got it?”
I nodded. “Got it.”
They lined up their balls at Pole A, so I did the same.
“Go!” Holly shouted, and then?—
Chaos. Mallets, balls, bodies everywhere. Holy shit, I was going to get myself killed. I maneuvered my way tothe outskirts of the field. No one noticed. They were too busy knocking each other down to pay any attention to what the weak little city girl was doing, and?—
No one noticed.
A slow grin spread across my face.
I knew how to win.
11
JEREMIAH
It wasa damn good thing I didn’t need to have eyes on Lennon to know exactly where she was, because after what I had done in the shower this morning, I couldn’t look her in the face.
She must have come to her senses and realized she didn’t belong in this game because she hugged her corner for dear life. That suited me perfectly. With Lennon at my back, I could keep my attention focused on what really mattered.
Those fucking cowboys.
Running rescue missions for a decade had left me with certain skills. I knew how to account for multiple enemy combatants at once.
Holly was farthest away, on the other side of thefield, but that didn’t make her safe. She was the fastest out of all of us, and deceptive in her tactics. She was also the most likely one of us to make Lennon bleed. It was a safe bet that Mateo, Liam, and Seb wouldn’t do anything to truly hurt a guest, especially a woman. Holly had fewer qualms about that, and she’d had it in for Lennon from the moment she’d arrived. She wouldn’treallyhurt her, but she would absolutely scratch her up a bit.
Holly was dangerous, but she wasn’t my top priority. Mateo would keep her in line. The two of them were more interested in besting each other than actually winning.
Liam…he liked to win, but he wouldn’t see Lennon as a threat. He’d go after Mateo or Seb first. Eventually he’d come for me. Maybe he’d try to get the drop on Holly, but he wouldn’t go straight for her because, unlike Seb, he wasn’t big on suicide missions.
Seb was the one I needed to watch.
Would he hurt her? Fuck no.
Would he take advantage of the opportunity to get Lennon in his arms? Hell yes, he would.
And then…well, then I’d have to kill him.
“You gonna get in the game, Jay?” Seb jogged backwards in a circle around his ball, green eyes glinting, mallet across his shoulders. Fucking showboat.
“I’m in it,” I growled.
Only it wasn’t a fucking game to me.
