Maggie marks the board. “Millers still need the double-ten. Hal, you’re up.”
And here’s the part we’ve been farming for forty minutes.
Hal swaggers to the line, rolling his shoulders, his toothpick sticking out of his mouth. He only needs to hit that outer double-sixteen ring to win the match.
“Watch and weep, Millers and co,” he says, holding the dart up to the light like he’s appraising a diamond. “Sixteen years Ibeen throwing this lane. Doug, get my coat, ‘cause we are goinghome.”
Beside me, Ash murmurs, barely moving his lips. “There it is.”
Because, again, everybody knows Hal Brody chokes when he’s winning. Every time.
He draws back, confident, and lets it fly—
—and it skips off the wire with a sad littletink, dropping to the floor.
The pub howls. Doug puts his face in his hands as Hal stares at the board and mouths something.
“Tough break, Hal,” Bram says.
And just like that, the match is back in our hands. One final dart. Hit the double-ten ring, or we lose.
“Luna, you shoot,” I say.
She takes a breath and steps to the line, the noise of the pub fading to a low hum. She rolls the dart between her fingers, eyes locking onto that thin slice of double-ten at the top of the board. I swear the rest of the room drops away from her entirely.
She draws back—
—and throws.
The dart flies in a clean, high arc.
Thwack.
Right in the middle of the double-ten ring.
The pub detonates. Pete’s napkin goes flying. A stool goes over backward. Maggie hits the bell over the register, and Hal lets out a wounded bellow.
Ash roars, and Bram is grinning, his hand coming down hard on my shoulder. The three of us are already shouting, closing in to celebrate, when Luna spins around. Her face is lit up, mouth wide open, glowing.
“We did it!” she yells, running straight toward the three of us.
I’m the one in the middle, and she jumps right at me. I catch her by the waist and haul her up off the floor. Bram’s big armswrap around both of us from the side, and Ash hooks his arm over her shoulder, pulling us all tight. Just like that, we’re a knot of flannel and heat—three lunatic alphas and one delighted omega in a screaming pub. She’s laughing, her hands braced on my shoulders, her body pressed warm against mine.
... Which is when the rest of me wakes up.
The friction of her against me. The rush of her scent, that sweet thing gone suddenlyverythick... makes my blood go south.
Luna goes still.
“Reed,” Luna says. Perfectly conversational, her face an inch from mine. “What is that thing poking me?”
God is real, and He hates me specifically.
I set her down like she’s a hot stove. “That’s—”
My mouth, the one that rarely fails to have something to say, gives me nothing.
“Uh,” I manage.
