Page 51 of Honey Undone (The Hornets Nest #5)

JENSEN

V an pulled the truck up to the outdoor paintball facility, and everyone hopped out. I grabbed Adeline by the waist and lowered her to the ground with a kiss to her head.

“I’m excited for today, I wish you told me it was your birthday sooner,” she hummed, staring up at the welcome sign.

Her hair was loose around her face and her eyes were bright with excitement.

After our hard conversation, she had been avoiding the topic altogether while I tried to find a way to keep her in my life a little longer than just the few months she promised.

. For now, all I wanted to do was keep that smile on her face at least until I could make a promise I could keep.

“Presents are overrated, I’m just glad you were able to come today,” I said, taking her hand and leading her inside.

Everyone had come, nearly the entire team and some stragglers.

I had told the guys not to bother with a party, with everything going on in the Nest…

with Cael. It felt wrong to be out enjoying ourselves.

But Arlo had delivered word from Cael that if we didn’t do something he’d risk recovery and bolt from the hospital to make sure it happened himself.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” She stayed in step with me, and I got her a pair of coveralls and got her suited up with a paintball gun. I watched her tug her long dark hair into a low ponytail before she stepped into the coveralls. “I’ve never played paintball before,” she said looking nervous.

I stepped forward, reaching down to take the zipper from her, “don’t worry,” I lowered my voice as I pulled it over her chest to her collar while she locked her big hazel eyes on me.

Getting her more dressed went against every fiber of our relationship, but at least I could have some fun with it.

“I’ll talk you through it.” I whispered.

“What a gentleman,” she giggled.

“Don’t let him sweet-talk you,” Van said, tying a bandanna over his mullet. “Out there…” he looked through the dirty glass window to the vast field behind the shitty brick building we were standing in. “Loyalty means nothing to him.”

“Seriously?” Adeline looked between the two of us with that same infectious smile on her face.

“Last year I had twenty-two bruises coming out of this,” Dean said, from behind us. “They were all from him.”

“You were just going to send me out there without telling me you're a professional?” Adeline scoffed.

“They’re just messing around,” I tried to lie. The truth was, I loved paintball. The rush of running around, hiding, winning. It was my favorite thing to do for my birthday. I was just lucky that the guys always indulged me.

“We are not,” Dean argued. “Just watch your back, he’ll do anything to win.”

“Even if it means taking out the rookie,” Arlo added as he fixed Ella’s goggles on her face.

“If you guys are finished putting the fear of god into my girlfriend, can we play?” I asked, zipping up my own coveralls and scooping my gun to get onto the field.

“Losing team buys dinner,” Ella said, walking past me as I held the door open. “And we're drawing captains, you aren’t cheating,” she said, patting my chest gently.

“I don’t cheat.” I rolled my eyes as everyone else passed through the door into the field.

“Yes you do.” Van slapped my cheek, “We just let it slide because you’re an only child and it’s easier to let it go then fight you on it.”

“Wow, alright…” I shook my head and followed them to where Dean was already tossing names into his phone to randomly draw.

“Don’t worry you won’t get picked last,” I pressed my chest to Adeline’s back and whispered in her ear.

“Arlo and… Van.” He said, jogging back to toss his phone away .

I waited as the two of them looked over the roster of people available, knowing one of them would pick me first—

“Addy,” Arlo said, cutting off my thoughts.

“Don’t worry.” She turned to me with a wicked smile that begged to be kissed off her perfect face. “You won’t get picked last.”

“Ha, ha.”

She was wrong though, and as if they were trying to fuck with my head, I was in fact picked last. Van begrudgingly took me after Arlo stole Baker. Now we were on opposite teams, and I hated that. It felt like a cruel joke.

“Don’t you go easy on me,” Adeline said, shifting on her feet between Arlo and Dean. She looked oddly tiny between the two, and for a split second I was genuinely worried that today might have been a bad idea.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I winked.

“Lover boy,” Van snapped at me, “get your head out of your ass and pay attention,” He called me over to where he, Ella, Silas, Todd, Mattheson and Josh stood. Our team wasn’t horrible. Ella would outlast most of Arlo’s team. It was Dean that would stand in our way.

“We have to take out Deano first,” Van said like he was reading my mind. Josh grumbled.

“If we lose because you can’t shoot your boyfriend, I’ll take you out right now,” Ella teased him, pointing her gun at his boot.

“I know how to win, just don’t hit him in the face…” Josh said, looking over his shoulder.

“No promises.” Van shrugged and laughed when Josh’s expression went dark.

“We have the terminator on our team this year, there’s no reason for us to lose.” Silas was tugging at the straps on his knee guards as he spoke. “I’m not paying for dinner, again .” He said, straightening out.

“Take it easy on Adeline, it’s her first time,” I said to them and they all nodded in agreement.

The fifteen-second horn sounded and sent us all scattering for cover, the start horn would follow and no one would be safe until there was only one person left standing.

The giant field was covered in patches of long grass and areas of pure dirt or mud, the perfect landscape for all the haphazardly placed junk cars, two large broken down buses and about a dozen structures either recycled or built out of wood.

We had been coming here for years, nothing like a little team building that allowed the veterans to get their frustrations out on some rookies.

The first year I was allowed to come they thought they had me cornered and I ended up taking down Arlo, Nick and Silas by myself. Since then whenever we did birthday stuff I picked paint balling. Everyone enjoyed it and I loved the ego boost that came with knowing how good I was.

The horn echoed through the air and the sound of shuffling feet was the only thing that filled the remaining silence.

It didn’t take long for the first crack of shots being fired to pop out into the sky loudly as I circled one of the destroyed cars to the left side of the field.

They had changed the layout a bit but if I was right, Arlo was stashed up inside the tree house.

The ladder was squeaky, making it nearly impossible to sneak up on him, but there was a stack of boxes near it piled just high enough to get a decent vantage point on him.

I flipped my gun over in my hand and used the other to hoist myself up on the boxes.

I needed to be quick, or someone else would take me out before I even eliminated Arlo.

I shuffled across the top of the box, pulling up my gun and staring down the scope, and within seconds a head full of dark hair popped up in my sights.

He crouched, turning his back to the window for a fraction of a second.

Just enough time for me to pull the trigger.

“Fuck you!” He called out, making noise. “He’s over here!” He shot off his gun a few times in the air, standing up straight to get sight of me. “You’re a dead man, Jenny.”

“If they can catch me,” I hopped down off the box into the dirt and scurried away through the massive pipe tunnel to my right. Reyes was easy to find because he was stalking Josh and making too much noise. I popped him twice in the back before finding Baker hiding in a cubby off one of the buses.

Ella swore loudly as Dean found her just before she got to Josh, but luckily loyalty meant nothing and Josh took out Dean without remorse.

“Wow!” Dean hollered, “does our love mean nothing to you?!”

“Take your hissy fit off the field,” Josh called out running away from the commotion to keep himself safe .

I watched from the bus trying to get sight of Adeline but it meant she was hiding somewhere. Van, Josh, Silas and myself were left on our team. While the others still had Adeline, Louis, and Johnston. We had successfully cleared out all of their most dangerous players.

Unfortunately for Louis, he was loud, he’d never been good at being sneaky and I heard him before he had the chance to sneak up on me. I whirled around and unloaded on his leg, spraying neon pink paint across his coveralls.

“Where’s Adeline?” I asked quietly, as he groaned rubbing his leg.

“She broke off from us early,” Louis offered in broken English.

“I don’t know,” he huffed. I aimed the gun at him again, teasingly placing my finger on the trigger only enough to make Louis panic a little.

“Hey! I said I don’t know, Jenny!” His accent was thick as he started to swear at me in French.

“Oh come on Louis, give her up….” I said again but he only shook his head.

Another round of paintballs echoed through the air and seconds later, Silas’s voice could be heard across the yard claiming victory over Johnston only to have his announcement cut short with more shots and screaming.

Louis took his window and ran off darting across the field away from me as I took the other exit. I crisscrossed down through some long grass behind one of the broken down trucks following the sound of yelling and gunfire.

When I broke into the clearing Adeline was laying in the grass, her hair covering her face and her hands wrapped around her body. I waited for a second, looking around, but quickly realized she was crying.

“Fuck,” I dropped my paintball gun against myself and jogged toward her, “what happened?” I questioned and was met with the consequences of underestimating my girlfriend.

She was fast, her hand whipped out and there was a flash of paint splattered across my chest right above my heart before I could even reach for my gun. My skin stung where the ball exploded but it was numbed by the wicked grin on her face.

“I win,” she giggled.

Fuck .

“I thought you said you never played paintball before,” I groaned, rubbing my chest from the close contact shot .

“I didn’t say I haven’t shot a gun,” she said, pushing off the ground and cleaning herself off as everyone came out of the woodwork covered in paint. “Besides, we knew that would work.” She gave a high five to both Arlo and Dean who had clearly played their roles very well.

“What would work?” I asked.

“Boost your ego, make you think you won…” Arlo explained.

“See your girl injured, you’d act chivalrous and—”

“Bam,” Adeline finished Dean’s sentence, pressing the barrel of her gun against my chest.

Ella slow clapped, “it was smart. Rude, but smart. I hate losing.”

“It was for the greater good, Blondie.” Arlo smiled at her and threw his arm over her shoulder.