Page 85 of What We Burn

“Pride. Glory. Naming rights. Psychological dominance. Also maybe the onion rings, depending on how flush everyone’s feeling.”

Nancy stares at me for a long, flat second.

Then, to my immense delight, one corner of her mouth twitches.

“Right,” she says. “He’s yours to manage, is he?” That last part is directed at Sage, but I’m the one who answers.

“No one’s ever managed me, I’m untamable.”

Nancy’s brow lifts. “That’s obvious.”

Connie pats Sage’s arm like they’re already old friends. “He’s funny.”

“He’s exhausting,” Holden says.

“Thank you, Holden,” I say warmly. “Support from the bench means everything.”

Nancy plants her bowl carrier at her feet. “Fine. Winner takes all. Drinks, snacks, and the spiritual collapse of the losing side.”

“Accepted,” I say at once, then turn to my people. “You hear that? We’re now fighting for honor.”

“We weren’t before?” Sage asks dryly.

“No, kitten.” I place my hands on her shoulders. “Before this, we were merely participating in a community pastime. Now we’re gladiators.”

Nancy gives me a look that says she has absolutely murdered better men than me with a smile and a steady hand. “Cocky little thing, aren’t you?”

I grin. “You have no idea.”

“You know how to play properly?”

“Define properly.”

Slowly, she smiles. “All right, kid. You’re on.”

The Perimeno-Bowls are not a casual lawn bowls team.

They are a precision-engineered, hormonally fueled execution squad, and we are the thing they execute.

Nancy draws her first two bowls to within an inch of the jack, back to back, like she has magnets embedded in the lawn. Beverley has a delivery so smooth I want to weep into my warm beer. Lori bowls left-handed, which I’m now certain is psychological warfare. Connie hustles around like a flustered aunt right up until she rolls a draw shot through a gap the width of a coaster. Pat doesn’t speak. Pat hasn’t spoken once. Pat rolls kill after kill with the flat indifference of a woman who does not require your validation or, apparently, oxygen.

And Maeve—youngest of them, maybe late forties, with a tattoo on her forearm of a uterus flipping the bird—is the heckler.

“Lovely form, sweetheart!” she calls when Eli steps up. “Now try it with your eyes open!”

We are not good.

I’m good—I draw three shots in the first six ends that even Nancy nods at. Knox bowls like a man operating heavy machinery, every delivery identical, every result a small tragedy for the other team. Holden tightens up as the gap narrows, which is when he’s dangerous. Sage’s technique remains a war crime, but she draws one shot close enough in the fourth end that the whole rink stops to acknowledge it.

“YES, GORGEOUS!” Connie screams. “THAT’S MY GIRL!”

Sage curtsies. Then bowls her next one into the ditch.

Micah plays steady and unbothered. Between ends he sits close to Sage, his hand on her knee, her head finding his shoulder like it lives there. And Eli⁠—

Eli sits on Micah’s other side.

A close, deliberate distance. When Micah leans back to say something low to him, Eli leans in to hear it. Then Micah’s hand lifts off Sage’s knee and lands on the back of Eli’s neck. Brief. Easy. The kind of touch that used to be nothing between them and is trying to be nothing again.