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FUN TIMES WITH FLYNN

FLYNN

F ootball, adoring fans, especially the sexy ones who wanted to get in my pants, and a cheering stadium. This was my kind of fun.

“Dragons on three.” I pumped my fist in the air, and the crowd of students packed into the quad echoed my enthusiasm. “One... two... three...”

“DRAGONS!”

The responding roar was exactly what I lived for.

Game day energy, but without the pressure.

Just pure school spirit and academic excellence.

Which, yeah, sounded ridiculous, but this whole pep rally was the athletic department’s way of proving we weren’t just dumb jocks.

Hence the “Brains and Brawn” banners everywhere and the fact that I’d just had to rattle off my GPA to the crowd, which of course included my father, former National Championship coach of the Denver State Dragons football team.

“Speaking of brains,” my twin brother, Gryff, muttered beside me, “explain to me again why we’re doing this instead of prepping for the combine?”

“Because Coach says we need more positive PR for the football team.” I elbowed him in the ribs, nearly knocking him off our makeshift stage. “Especially after Xander’s InstaSnap went viral.”

“I told you that wasn’t my fault.” Gryff moved to elbow me back, then froze. “Uh, Flynn? Is that a baby donkey... wearing a purple and gold jersey?”

“What? No.” I followed his gaze to the edge of the crowd where... “Holy shit, that is a donkey. In a jersey. With... are those wings?”

A tiny gray donkey stood at the edge of the crowd, sporting both a Denver State Dragons jersey and what appeared to be sparkly dragon wings attached to a tiny harness.

The wings actually fluttered in the breeze, which was both weird as shit and adorable.

It was being led through the crowd by a one of the players from the DSU women’s soccer team.

“Freddie,” our younger brother Isak called out from where he was filming the rally for his FaceSpace followers. “What are you doing with a bonkey?"

"Isn't he cute?” She beamed up at us, practically bouncing as she walked. The donkey followed docilely at her heels, its oversized ears twitching beneath what might have been a tiny dragon horn headband. “He’s my sister’s, and she is busy studying. So, I thought he needed some school spirit.”

“You stole your sister’s donkey to bring it to a pep rally?” A tall girl with wild curls pushed through the crowd, grinning. “Classic Freddie move. ”

“Artemis,” Gryffin’s whole face lit up at the sight of his best friend. “Done crushing souls at rugby practice?”

“Never done crushing souls, Kingman,” she said and flexed dramatically. “But I took a break to see this disaster in the making. Why is it always the football players up on stage, hmm?”

“Because we win shit,” I said. Like the Snoop Cat bowl. Which brought money and fame, and did I mention the money, into the school.

Artemis slugged me in the arm which garnered nothing more than a snicker from my twin. “Uh, so do the rest of us, jackass. No offense, baby donkey.”

“Ladies and gentlemen.” The assistant athletic director grabbed the mic, oblivious to the barnyard animal in our midst. “Please welcome our beloved mascot... Drake the Dragon.”

The crowd cheered as our mascot bounded onto the stage in his oversized dragon costume. He did his usual hype dance, spinning and...

His head fell off.

The fuzzy green dragon head rolled right off the stage.

Directly toward the baby donkey.

“Oh shit,” all three of us Kingman brothers said in unison.

The donkey’s eyes went wide. Its ears shot straight up. And then...

“?Ay, no! Wait.” Freddie’s cry was drowned out by the sound of tiny hooves on pavement as her sister’s donkey took off like a shot through the crowd, sparkly wings flapping wildly.

“I got it.” I vaulted off the stage, because obviously this was what I did. I protected, defended, and made my team look good. That’s the mission when you are team captain.

“I bet I catch it before you yahoos,” Artemis called out, already sprinting after the donkey.

“Hey, who you calling a yahoo?” Why did women always call me that?

“You’re on,” Gryffin shouted, hot on her heels.

“This is definitely gonna go viral,” Isak yelled, phone held high as he chased after all of us. “Best Scholar-Athlete rally ever.”

The things I did for this school. The things I did for this team. And now, apparently, the things I did for random baby donkeys in dragon costumes.

For a tiny donkey, that thing could move.

“Left, go left,” I yelled as our sparkly-winged fugitive darted between students’ legs, causing a chain reaction of dropped books and spilled coffee. “Gryff, cut him off at the student center.”

Gryff had already been moving in that direction before the words were out of my mouth. Twin telepathy strikes again. It was no myth, and damn fucking useful in football and foot chases after donkey-bats out of hell.

“On it.” He split off toward the historic brick building, while Artemis vaulted over a bench and took the path past the fountain.

“You crazy little donkey, come here.” Freddie was surprisingly fast for someone so tiny, her soccer training showing as she wove through the growing crowd of spectators.

“What’s the donkey’s name?” Isak called out, still filming everything .

“I don’t have a clue.” Freddie ducked under someone’s arms.

Because that was clearly our biggest problem right now was not knowing this little terror’s name. Not the fact that there was a mini donkey in a Dragons jersey running wild across campus while half the student body filmed it on their phones.

The donkey banked hard right, its tiny wings flapping as it headed straight for the science building. A group of students emerged from the doors, arms full of project boards from what looked like chemistry.

“No, no, no.” I put on a burst of speed. Those project boards definitely looked explosive.

“I got him.” Artemis lunged, hands outstretched.

The donkey pulled a spin move that would have made our running backs jealous.

Artemis crashed into Gryffin, who’d been coming from the other direction. They went down in a tangle of limbs, and I heard my brother’s distinctive wheezing laugh.

“Dude,” Isak zoomed in on them with his phone, “this is better than the time Trixie’s rooster crashed Chris’s surprise birthday party.”

“Focus.” I jumped over my brother and his best friend, who were still trying to untangle themselves. “That donkey’s heading for the coffee shop.”

The outdoor seating area of Dragon’s Brew was packed, because it was one of those sunny sixty-degree Colorado days in January. Dozens of students sat at the scattered tables, most of them wearing headphones and staring at laptops or textbooks. None of them had noticed the chaos heading their way.

“Look alive people, incoming,” Freddie yelled in warning.

A few heads turned. Someone screamed, or maybe laughed. A half dozen coffee cups went flying.

I had a brief flash of tomorrow’s headlines. KINGMAN brOTHERS DESTROY CAMPUS IN DONKEY DISASTER.

Dad would laugh. Coach would not.

The donkey’s wings flapped faster as it wove between the tables, surprisingly graceful for something with hooves. It was heading straight for a girl curled up in one of the oversized armchairs in the corner. She hadn’t looked up from her book once, despite the chaos around her.

“Watch out,” I called, already envisioning the lawsuit. “There’s a?—”

The girl turned the page of her book, then held that same hand, palm out, right into the path of mass donkstruction.

The donkey skidded to a stop.

Just... stopped. Right in front of her chair. Then stuck its tiny gray nose directly into her palm like it was getting pets from its favorite person in the world.

What the actual?—

“Thank god.” Freddie caught up to me, doubling over as she tried to catch her breath. “Tempest, I can explain. Don’t kill me.”

Tempest. The girl in the chair must be Freddie’s sister. The one who owned a yet unnamed pet donkey.

The one who still hadn’t looked up from her book .

“Got it all,” Isak announced triumphantly, finally lowering his phone. “This is going to break my record for views. Artemis, that fall was epic.”

“Shut up, mini-Kingman.” Artemis and Gryffin joined us, both covered in grass stains. She punched Gryff, in the chest this time. She should have been a boxer instead of a rugby player. “Your tackling form needs work.”

“Excuse you, I am a Heisman nominee. I have perfect form.” Gryff rubbed his rock solid chest, grinning. “You’re the one who missed the donkey.”

“Pretty sure we all missed the donkey.” I gestured to where the little troublemaker was now contentedly leaning against mystery girl’s, Tempest’s chair, wings drooping. “Nice defensive moves, though. Both of you.”

A crowd had gathered around us, phones still out. Instead of the academic excellence PR the athletic department had wanted, we were about to go viral for chasing a winged donkey across campus.

Not exactly the senior year legacy I’d been going for.

I’d met a lot of beautiful women in my life. Came with the territory of being a Heisman-nominated linebacker for a D1 school. But I’d never met one who completely ignored me while casually taming a runaway donkey.

“So,” I cleared my throat, trying to get her attention. “That’s your donkey?”

She turned a page in her book. Actually turned a page. Without looking up.

“No,” she said, her voice low and smooth. “Currently, that’s Freddie’s donkey because they borrowed without asking. Isn’t that right?”

“Don’t be mad, Tempest.” Freddie dropped down to sit cross-legged next to the chair. “Look how cute he is in his jersey. I thought he’d love the pep rally.”

“Hmm.” Another page turn. The donkey had settled completely now, sitting at her feet like an oversized gray puppy, its tiny wings drooping.

“I’m Flynn,” I tried again. “Flynn Kingman.”

“I know who you are.” She still didn’t look up, but I caught the slight curl at the corner of her mouth. “Everyone knows who you are.”