Page 8

"Here’s your packet. I've got listed here that eleven people are on your team. Is that correct?"

"I'm sorry, did you say eleven? We're only supposed to have seven." Me, Millie, Evie, Hillary, Dani, Miles, and Landon, the husband of our landlord and former roommate, Rachelle.

“If you give the link to more people, they are allowed to sign up under your team," the woman says smugly.

She hands me the paper that lists the names and my stomach drops.

There are the seven of us who'd planned to make it. Rachelle didn’t want to risk her pregnancy at twelve weeks, which is totally understandable.

Then Drew, Spencer, and Jack, along with the one name I’ll break out into hives if I ever see in real life again.

Trey Hatch.

4

KENZIE

Of all the friend groups Dani had to marry into, why couldn’t they have been ugly and unwilling to do anything but play video games?

Okay, so Trey is friends with Miles, which means Dani is friends with him. But she knows about my insane knowledge of his hockey career after Miles set us up with box seats to the Breeze playoff game a few weeks ago. Maybe the guys have to jump on the bandwagon, as a sort of friend code.But I don’t have to be happy about it.

I take the bag of shirts and walk over to my little carpool.

"Did you all know we have extra team members?" I put a hand on my hip and stare at each one of them.

Guilt. It’s carved into their expressions.

"Dani thought it would be good to invite the guys," Evie said with a small smile.

I frown. "Why didn't she ask me first?"

I have to take a deep breath. I can't control everything, but it's not that hard for me to be reasonable when people are upfront about things. Sure, I would've said no if Dani had asked, but that's neither here nor there.

“Because she knew you’d be like this,” Hillary says, waving her hand up and down in my direction.

Miles pulls up in his black car and out steps Dani, as well as Spencer and Jack.

I blow out a breath, relieved Trey isn’t with them. He's the last person I want to see right now. My brain needs to focus on the race, not be constantly distracted by the guy.

Except he drives up right then. And all the cute swear words, he looks good. His dark hair seems to fall perfectly whereas my messy bun needs to be fixed.

I hand out the shirts to the team and give the rest of them to Dani to give to the guys. I'm acting like a female neanderthal, but this whole morning has thrown me off my groove.

"Thanks for putting this together, Kenzie," Spencer says. He pulls on his t-shirt and it's several sizes too small. He's got one arm sticking up in the air and the rest is bunched up around his middle.

The others laugh and I grin, shaking my head. "Spencer, don't you know you're supposed to check the size before putting it on?" I walk over and help him out of the shirt, managing to smack myself in the face once the shirt inches past his shoulder blades. My nose burns and my eyes have to blink several times to stop seeing stars.

"You all right?" Trey asks.

"Great, just amazing." I try to smile even though I’m hurrying to wipe away tears so I don’t look like I’m crying. That wall hasn’t been breached in months, and I won’t let the dam go because this morning isn’t how I thought it would be. At least my nose doesn't start bleeding.

Dani switches out Spencer's shirt. "Sorry, I gave you mine." They laugh and put them on, the new sizes working much better.

"We'll need to get started over here," I say, pointing toward the start line.

"Okay, Kenz," Jack says, coming a bit closer. I see Hillary shrink away in my peripheral vision, but tuck that away to ask about later. "What are we playing for?"

I frown. "For the enjoyment of running through mud without having to clean up at home."