Page 13

Saylor

“All right!” Dove called, her voice clear and commanding. “First up—we’re playing Sharks and Minnows!”

I tilted my head to the side. “I have no idea what that is.”

“You say that like we know what it means,” Sloane laughed beside me.

Dove grinned and planted her hands on her hips. “Allow me to explain.” She marched to the center of the yard and spun in a slow circle. “On this side”—she pointed to the left—“will be the sharks.” Then to the right, “And on this side will be the minnows.”

Simple enough so far.

“Each round,” she continued, “the minnows will have to get to the other side of the yard without a shark catching them.”

“I’m a shark,” Dice immediately called out.

“Nope,” Dove said and shook her head, her smile downright evil. “Your ass—and the rest of the guys—are the minnows.”

The girls collectively burst out laughing.

“Bullshit,” Throttle groaned. “The minnows are gonna annihilate the sharks.”

Dove shrugged innocently. “I guess we’ll just have to see about that.”

Pirate leaned in close to me, a mischievous smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You up for this?” he asked, and nodded toward the yard like it wasn’t about to become an all-out war zone.

I gave him a lopsided smile. “Uh, sure. I mean… I am a shark after all. I’ll just swim in the shadows and let the girls do all the work until we pick off the minnows one by one.”

He chuckled, eyes warm. “Good thinking.”

The men shuffled to the right side of the yard—Dice, Aero, Throttle, Yarder, Compass, Cue Ball, Pirate, Fade, Rocky, and even Drew and Mark. The girls spread out on the left—me, Sloane, Olive, Fallon, Poppy, Mac, Adalee, Dani, and Dove, who looked far too smug to be trusted.

Harley and Davidson were darting back and forth between both sides while barking and panting. Their tails wagged at full throttle. They didn’t care about teams—they were just thrilled everyone was outside and moving.

“Do we tackle them?” Adalee asked and rubbed her palms together.

“Just touch them,” Dove laughed. “Tag counts. But if you want to tackle…”

“I’m tackling Fade’s ass,” Adalee grinned.

“No plotting over there!” Yarder called across the yard.

“We’re not plotting,” Poppy said sweetly. Then she leaned closer to the group and whispered, “I’m tackling Yarder. His ass is grass.”

We all cracked up.

“Ready?” Dove shouted.

The guys whooped and hollered in response.

Dove raised her hands in the air like she was starting a race. “Ready, set… GO!”

We took off running toward the guys, shrieking and laughing as we charged full-speed.

But the guys didn’t move.

Halfway across the yard, we stopped, confused.

“What are you doing?” Olive called out.

“Just waiting, Mom,” Rocky called back innocently.

We all looked at each other.

“Waiting for what?” Dani asked.

The guys exchanged a quick look—then took off, sprinting straight at us.

“Oh shit!” I squealed and pivoted fast.

“THE MINNOW REVOLT!” Dice yelled, with his hands in the air as he barreled across the grass.

So much for sharks chasing minnows.

Now the sharks were screaming and fleeing in every direction as the guys charged like linebackers.

Olive and Fallon teamed up. They circled Cue Ball like a pair of tactical ninjas. He tried to double back, but Fallon lunged low while Olive swatted his back.

“TO THE SHARK SIDE!” Olive screamed and pushed Cue Ball toward the girls’ side while Compass started chasing them down.

I fell back to the original shark line and just watched for a moment, breathless with laughter. This was insanity. Absolute, unhinged chaos.

Watching a group of women chase a pack of grown-ass bikers around the yard was prime entertainment.

Compass zeroed in on Fallon, but she stopped short, turned fast, and slapped her hand across his cheek. “Got you!” she screamed, triumphant.

“God damn, woman!” Compass laughed, scooping her up and slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “You almost took my head off.”

“To the shark line!” she squealed as he tickled her ribs.

“You’re a minnow! You can’t carry her to the line!” Sloane yelled and darted past with Aero hot on her heels.

“This is the minnow revolt, babe!” Aero called, clearly loving every second. He managed to corner her by the back fence, grabbed her around the waist, and lifted her with a growl. “You’re coming to the minnow side!”

“Nooo!” Sloane shrieked through her laughter and kicked her legs.

One by one, the girls got picked off.

Even Mac was cornered by Drew and Mark, laughing too hard to escape.

Eventually, it was just me, Rocky, and Pirate left standing.

Dove held her hands up. “We’ve got one left!” she announced like a referee. “Saylor! Resist!”

I looked around like, Really? Me?

I was still sore. My bruises ached. And I wasn’t about to outrun a teenager and a very agile, very determined Pirate.

“You wouldn’t capture a hurt shark, would you?” I said sweetly, and turned to Rocky and gave him my best wounded Bambi eyes. “You wouldn’t want to be responsible for taking me out, would you?”

Rocky hesitated—just a little—but glanced toward Pirate.

“Don’t fall for it, Rocky,” Pirate warned. “This one’s for the minnows.”

“What?!” I gasped. “Maybe we can talk about this. Come to an understanding?”

Rocky shook his head slowly, and a wicked little grin pulled at his lips.

Oh no.

“Now!” Pirate shouted.

They both charged.

I turned to run, but I didn’t get two steps before Pirate’s arm was around my waist.

“Got you!” Rocky crowed, and ran in a circle around us like he’d just won a prize.

Pirate pulled me back against his chest, and his arm was snug around me. His mouth was right by my ear, his voice low and rough. “Got you, baby.”

I turned just enough to catch his face, and a huge smile spread across mine. “You don’t play fair.”

“Not when it’s something I really want,” he whispered.

His words sent a delicious shiver down my spine. My stomach flipped, and heat bloomed low and slow.

“That’s it!” Dove yelled. “Now it’s boys against girls for the rest of the day!”

“Oh boy,” I giggled, turned fully in Pirate’s arms, and placed my hands on his shoulders. “You pissed off Dove.”

He looked down at me, and everything around us—dogs barking, people shouting, footsteps stomping across the grass—blurred. The way he looked at me like I was the only thing in the world he gave a damn about, like he saw me and nothing else… it nearly stole my breath.

And just like that, I didn’t care about the game.

Didn’t care about anything else but him.

Pirate

It all came down to this.

The guys had won three games. The girls had won three games. And now, after a day of chaos, shouting, and more competitive smack-talk than an entire season of football. It was all down to the final event of the Iron Fiends Cup.

The Egg Walk.

Dove and Olive were in the middle of the yard, setting up what could only be described as a haphazard obstacle course—four old tires, a scattered pile of two-by-fours, seven buckets lined up in a zigzag, and a sprinkler going wild at the far end of the yard.

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m surprised we didn’t do a sack race.”

Dice, standing next to me with a cupcake in one hand and a water bottle in the other, snorted. “Don’t give her any ideas.”

He wasn’t wrong.

“I actually had fun,” he added after a beat, like it was some big confession.

I had too. Pretty sure we all did. Even Yarder, though he kept pretending he wasn’t grinning the whole damn time.

“I’m going to get dinner ready,” Adalee called from the patio.

“No!” Dove said instantly and threw a hand in the air. “It’s not fair if you miss the final round.”

Adalee shielded her eyes from the sun. “Fine—then Fade has to come help me. That will even it out.”

“Anyone want to tell her it hasn’t been fair all day?” I muttered under my breath.

The girls had Mac, which gave them ten, but we still had two extra with having Drew and Mark on our team. Not that we’d complained.

“No,” Dove repeated. “You guys can just go first.”

She motioned toward the starting point, and the rest of us wandered over. From where we stood, it looked like someone had just dumped random crap in the yard and called it a challenge. Tires, wood, buckets. Absolute chaos.

“Uh, what exactly are we supposed to do?” Adalee asked, with her hands on her hips.

“Come on,” Dove said, way too cheerfully. “It’s easy.”

We all looked at her like she’d lost her mind.

“First,” she pointed to the tires, “you do a figure eight through these. Then zigzag through the buckets. Then climb over the first pile of wood, then figure eight through the second set of tires, climb the second pile of wood, run through the sprinkler, and turn around and do it all again back to this line.”

She smiled. Like it was reasonable. “Easy peasy.”

“Doesn’t sound easy,” Fade muttered.

“The first one to do it the fastest wins for their team,” Dove added.

Everyone stared at the course in silence.

“I don’t think I could do this without an egg,” Saylor whispered behind me.

I looked at the wood piles again. “How about we just go around the piles of two-by-fours twice?” I offered. “No one wants to break their ass today.”

“Agreed,” Yarder said immediately. “Prez call. No climbing the wood.”

Dove pouted but crossed her arms. “Fine. Whatever. Fade and Adalee, you’re up first. That way, you can still get dinner ready.”

“Jesus,” Adalee whispered as she stepped forward.

We all backed up to give them space. Dove handed them each a spoon and placed an egg delicately in the dip. “Hold it straight out in front of you,” she instructed. “No touching the egg with your hand.”

They took their places at the starting line. Dove threw her hands in the air. “Ready… set… GO!” Her arms dropped, and they were off.

Adalee was focused with her tongue poking out slightly, and the spoon trembled in her hand. Fade had a steady lead, as he moved fast but careful. The figure eight, the buckets—he was golden.

Until he hit the second wood pile.

His boot slid in the grass. And then—down he went.

The egg went flying and spun through the air like a doomed little comet before it splattered in the grass with a dramatic splat.

“No!” Fade yelled. He sat up and stared at the ruined egg as if it had personally betrayed him.

“Oh yes!” Dove cackled. “Just finish the course, Adalee. No dropping the egg!”

Adalee was right behind him. “I’m so sorry!” she called as she carefully passed him.

Fade lunged for her ankle, but she skipped sideways with a surprised squeal.

“No roughing your opponent!” Saylor called out, with her hands on her hips like she was the ref of the damn Super Bowl.

I watched her—face lit up, laughing, having the time of her life. She looked healthy. Happy.

Adalee made it to the finish without a single crack in her egg.

“One minute, fifty-seven seconds,” Dove announced. “And you—” she pointed to Fade—“are disqualified.”

Fade stood up and brushed grass off his jeans. “You put soap in the grass.”

Dove grinned. “It was the water. Did exactly what I wanted it to do.”

Fade grumbled but pressed a kiss to Adalee’s cheek. “Good job, babe.”

“Let us know who wins,” Adalee said, and they headed inside to start dinner.

The rest of the match-ups were pure chaos.

Sloane nearly tripped Aero on purpose. Cue Ball somehow got tangled in Olive’s hair (don’t ask). Dove and Throttle accused each other of cheating before they even started. Mac raced Rocky like her life depended on it. Poppy threatened Yarder with a wooden spoon if he beat her. Fallon and Compass turned it into a literal dance-off mid-course as they showed off how well they could balance their eggs. Dani somehow got Smoke to carry her and the egg halfway through, which caused another disqualification and a lot of laughter.

And then it was down to me and Saylor.

Final round.

Final two.

She smiled at me like she already knew how this was going to go.

We took our spoons. Dove set the eggs.

“Ready…” she called. “Set… GO!”

We were off.

I stayed steady. Careful. Focused.

Saylor was just a step behind and laughed the entire way.

I hit the sprinkler, and I was confident I had this made.

My boot caught on wet grass, and suddenly, I was airborne. SHIT.

I landed right on my ass—and on the egg.

“SHIT,” I called.

There was egg everywhere. In my jeans. On my jeans. That thing had exploded like a damn grenade.

“Oh no,” Saylor laughed as she ran past me. “You fell.” As if I didn’t know it.

“You’re disqualified, Pirate!” Dove called.

I sat up and watched as Saylor headed back down the obstacle course. All she had to do was not drop the egg, but she was flying. She crossed the finish line a few seconds later, victorious with her egg intact and a smile on her face.

“Fastest time of the day!” Dove shouted. “Girls win the first-ever Iron Fiends Cup!”

The girls screamed and jumped and high-fived like they’d just won the World Series. The guys groaned and muttered—but it was all good-natured. Mostly.

Fade and Adalee reappeared with trays of burgers and hot dogs. The guys moved to help man the grill while Adalee and Fallon brought out sides—pasta salad, baked beans, chips, and corn on the cob.

Everyone else sprawled across chairs and blankets in the grass and soaked in the sun.

I dropped onto a chair, still damp from the egg, and pulled Saylor down into my lap. She went willingly, soft and warm against me.

“You doing okay?” I asked and brushed her hair back from her cheek.

She leaned against me with a content sigh. “Way better than your egg is doing.”

I groaned. “Yeah, well, I never said I was an athlete, babe.”

She laughed softly and wiggled a little as she settled deeper into my chest.

I wrapped my arms around her, and held her tight.

“I like this,” she said, her voice lower now. “Not just today. I mean… I do love the girls. But I was talking about this. You and me.”

Her words hit me square in the chest.

I wasn’t surprised by the feeling—I’d been dealing with that. But hearing her say it, out loud, with no hesitation?

Yeah, that surprised me.

In the best way.

She leaned her head against my shoulder again, completely at ease.

“I like it too, baby,” I murmured and held her close.

I liked it a fuck ton.

And I wasn’t about to let it go.