Page 13 of Playing Dirty

“Blasphemy!” Phoenix shouts. “The Penny Play is a sacred tradition, one we both know you’re just as deep in as we are.”

“Exactly,” Wyatt agrees, and the two of them share a high five. “It’s my solemn duty as the Leighton team captain to hide our pennant from the grubby clutches of those Falcons, and I take it very seriously.”

He does make a point. The Penny Play might be themostsacred part of the rivalry Leighton has with Blackmore University. How can it not be, when it’s been around for nearly as long as the baseball programs?

It started way back in the early 1900s when the Blackmore baseball team stole Leighton’s championship pennant right out of the stadium locker room. So, in obvious retaliation, the year after Blackmore won their first championship, the Leighton team returned the favor.

It’s been a battle between the schools every year since, with a list of agreed upon rules put into place after they had to replace the pennants one too many times—like when Blackmore lit ours on fire back in the ’70s.

The pennant is to be hidden by the captain of each team on the last day before winter break. It must be hidden in a building somewhere on campus, cannot be behind a locked door—like a professor’s private office—and it must remain in that location until our rivalry game before the playoffs. Other than the standard “no destruction of property” and “no breaking and entering” bits, it’s pretty much free rein.

“I don’t know about you, but I’d like to end our last year at Leighton on a high note by bringing home that damn thing,” Wyatt muses, his face taking on a wistful expression. “Blackmore has captured our pennant every year we’ve been here. It would be a nice change of pace.”

My teammate makes a good point, but there’s just one, itty bitty problem.

“Okay, but if he holds this duty as captain even half as sacred as you do, then what makes you think he’s just gonna hand over this kind of info?” I ask, arching a brow.

Phoenix hums, looking at Wyatt. “He’s got a point.”

“And there’s also the wholewe don’t fucking like each otherbit.”

“So play dirty.”

I shoot Wyatt a pointed look. “We tried that last year, and look how well it turned out.”

Our right fielder, God love him, thought the best way we could get some intel on the Blackmore pennant was to sleep with the previous captain’s younger sister. Let the record state, it did not work in the slightest, and when that information got back to Blackmore’s captain, it also landed him a pretty set of black eyes to go with his broken nose.

“That was the dumbest thing we ever tried. You’d definitely have to dosomething a little more covert,” Wyatt reasons, and I scoff.

“What? Like rifling through his suitcase, hoping he decided to bring it on vacation with us?”

Phoenix makes a buzzing sound. “Against the rules. The pennant has to be hidden in a public building on campus, and it has to stay in the same place once it’s hidden.”

“You could search his phone?” comes from Wyatt.

Phoenix hums. “It’s probably locked.”

“Facial recognition when he’s asleep?”

I frown. “As if he wrote down the coordinates in his notes app?”

Wyatt leans back and sighs, the picture of defeat, before tossing his hand in my direction. “Well, then I guess your only other option is to try seducing the information out of him, T.”

A little zing runs through my stomach at the suggestion, and I swallow. “Did we not just rule that out as the dumbest idea we’ve ever had?”

“Not quite. You’d be going directly to the source, not using someone else as an in-between,” Phoenix reasons, and from the way his brows have lifted, he might actually be considering this as an option.

“One, apart from my drunken lapse of judgment with Cam, still not into guys. And two, just because Maddenis,doesn’t mean he’d be intome,” I point out while ticking off each with a finger. Rolling my eyes, I continue, “Even if I did go with this idiotic plan, which I’m not, he’d probably laugh in my face.”

“Well, I can’t speak on how he’d react to you coming onto him,” Wyatt starts, only to shake his head and blow out a dramatic breath. “But from the tension between you two during last year’s rivalry game, I sincerely doubt he’s not into you.”

I scoff, waving him off, but Phoenix is quick to back Wyatt up on it.

“Yeah, I’m definitely with Wyatt on this one. You’re a good-lookingguy, T. There’s not a chance in hell he hasn’t noticed.” His eyes take on a weird, daydreamy haze. “I bet the hate sex would be great too.”

Oh, Christ.

My pulse thrums beneath my skin as I bounce my leg and mutter an indignant, “Why are we still talking about this?”