Page 17

“Wow,” Lydia snorted as Michael flipped Eve off over his shoulder. She shook her head as Jack slid to a stop and turned around with both of his hands lifted in a way that clearly signaled he wanted them to wait. “They’re gonna race.”

“Of course they are,” Eve groaned.

“I knew the five of them together would be trouble,” Alder declared. She sounded equal parts amused and resigned. “Aspen, Zann, and Michael always feed off each other, and with Kit and Jack thrown into the mix, we’ll be lucky if nobody ends up in the emergency room or jail.”

“Jail?” Bonnie squeaked.

“Nobody’s getting arrested,” Eve assured her. She squeezed Lydia’s arm. “But just wait until this one joins in. We called her, Kit, and Jack the Troublemaking Trio at my parents’ gala two years ago.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “To be fair, it’s mostly them. I just don’t do anything to discourage their fuckery. And—” She pointed up the trail, where Aspen and Zann, burdened with the weight of another person on their back, had begun sprinting toward Jack. “It doesn’t look like your fiancée is, either.”

“Of course she isn’t,” Eve muttered..

Lydia laughed as Eve’s hand tightened around her am and she was hauled forward. She broke into a half-jog to keep up, and her eyes widened as she watched Kit kick a foot out at Aspen as she and Zann sailed past Jack to victory. “Oh god.”

Eve gasped. “Christina Hawthorne! Keep your feet to yourself.”

“Oh shit!” Aspen’s cackling voice carried down the hill as she stumbled over their finish line and promptly dropped Michael so she could whirl around to tauntingly jab a finger in Kit’s face. “You got full-named!”

“Jesus Christ, Aspen!” Michael shouted as he fell onto his ass.

Kit laughed and slapped Aspen’s finger away. “Oh, fuck you.”

“Michael. Get up,” Eve said. She dropped Lydia’s arm and pinched the bridge of her nose. “You’re a goddamn surgical attending at the most prestigious hospital in New York. Please act like it.”

Michael brushed his dirty-blond hair away from his face and gaped at Eve in open betrayal. “What does my job have to do with her breaking my ass? Whose side are you on, here?”

“Not yours, clear—” Jack started to reply, but the rest of whatever he was going to say was lost to a decidedly undignified squeal when Michael grabbed his ankle and hauled him off his feet.

Lydia barked out a laugh as she watched him hit the dirt beside Michael, and glanced over at Bonnie, Alder, and Shannon, who’d just caught up with them all as Jack grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it at Michael with an indignant, “What the fuck, man?”

Alder looked like she was fighting the urge to laugh while Shannon gave into it and was giggling at their antics, but Bonnie…

Well, Bonnie looked hilariously aghast.

Which fit with the little Lydia knew of her, but she still couldn’t help but wonder if Bonnie would survive a week of their antics.

Michael shoved Jack onto his back as he leapt to his feet. “All right, Mister Sassy-pants. Let’s go again. You and Kit, versus Zann and—”

“Lyds!” Zann yelled, pointing at her with a grin.

Lydia huffed a laugh. She really didn’t want to get roped into this, but Zann’s wide grin and bright eyes were unfairly irresistible, and she shook her head as she went to join her. “Y’know, I don’t think that’s a fair fight. I mean, yeah, Jack is a wimp—”

Jack glared at her. “I am not a wimp!”

Lydia winked at him. “But he does have a physiological advantage over Zann in this scenario.”

Zann chuckled and pulled Lydia into her side. “Are you sure about that?” she murmured against her ear. “I did hold you up with one arm when I fucked you against the doorframe last night.”

Lydia’s stomach somersaulted deliciously at both the feeling of Zann’s breath tickling her skin and the memory of Zann masterfully working her to her fourth orgasm before they’d even reached the bed. “Good point,” she admitted breathlessly.

Zann hummed and nipped at her earlobe. “You know, I wouldn’t mind trying th—”

“Down, girls,” Kit shouted laughingly. “And, okay. That’s a good point. Boys versus girls! Mikey and Jack—”

Michael scrambled to his feet and brushed the dirt off his ass as he grumbled, “You know I hate being called Mikey!”

Kit flipped him off and blew him a kiss. “Lydia and Zann. And me and Aspen. Alder and Eve, you’re the judges.”