“Oh no, I was miserable alright.” I laughed, leaning my elbows back on the table. “But Tate was the silver lining. He was the thing that made it all bearable. He was what made me happy. He’s also the reason Drew and I crossed paths.”
“Now that I remember.”
“I think the entire pack does. What a night to try and rip off the Hounds.”
Libby started laughing, her eyes moving back to the yard and finding Tate sprinting toward the makeshift end zone with Kenny and Moose at his heels. He made it over with time to spare, but it didn’t stop Kenny from plowing into him. I was on my feet in a second, my hands cupped around my mouth to project my voice.
“That’s a foul, asshole! Get off the field.”
Kenny pushed up from the ground and looked in my direction, his hands slapping his chest as a challenge before he shrugged.
“Rules are rules, butthead. Move it or lose it.”
“Pipe down in the cheap seats,” Harry shouted, waving his beer at me. “I got a wager on this game, sweetheart.”
“You bet against my brother, Harry?” I gasped in feigned horror.
“Better odds.”
“How do I get in on that?” Deeks asked, his tone just as teasing as Harry’s was. I loved seeing the club like that, unified and relaxed. A lot of them were still on high alert of course. That was only natural, but days like this were rare and I enjoyed them.
“Oh, y’all are going down.”
“How you gonna manage that?”
I shrugged, pulling off my sweater, just leaving a T-shirt underneath. Handing it to Libby, I put my index finger and thumb to my lips and whistled as loud as I could. Tate’s head popped up from his huddle and found me on the sideline, his eyes lighting up. It had been a while since I’d been on the field with him.
“You sure?” he shouted.
“What are you implying, Tater?” Tater was the name I’d used for him when he was born. I knew it wasn’t right, but I used to tell Mom it was because he looked like a little tater tot all wrapped up in his swaddle blanket.
“You can be on Kenny’s team.”
“What? Why? I wanna be on the winning team,” I shouted back, knowing what I was about to start.
“Hey!” Kenny’s eyebrow shot up and his tone was full of incredulity. “You saying we’re not winners, Hanagan?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I shot back, bouncing on my toes to taunt him further. “I could beat you alone with a hand behind my back. You’re the worst player I ever saw, K-Dog.”
“Come here and say that.” Kenny laughed, spreading his arms wide. “I dare you.”
Every man in the yard started to laugh, the whoops and hollers egging me on until I pushed off my toes and sprinted toward Kenny, stopping only when I was about four-feet away. There was a method to my madness. The mud was pooled by my feet. In an act of innocence, I clasped my hands behind my back and angled my body forward in a lean.
“You are theworstplayer Ieversaw, Kenny.”
The moment he moved to grab me, my foot kicked out,spraying a line of mud right up his front and into his hair. He froze, I think in disbelief, as he tried to calculate just how much of a mug he’d been to fall into my trap. It wasn’t like you could really tell all that much. They were all covered in mud anyway. My attack was just a little more deliberate.
“You got a little something…” I said, trailing off and pointing to my eyebrow.
“I’m gonna give you a head start.”
“You think I’m scared of you?”
“One.”
I was gone, my feet slipping and sliding in the mud as I headed straight for Deeks and Harry. Harry was laughing, but Deeks looked unsure, his humor evident only in a small smile as I dodged and cut a path in the opposite direction behind Tate’s team.
Kenny didn’t buy into my little game. He was like a train on rails, and he kept coming, his laugh maniacal as he finally caught me and took us both down and into the mud. He twisted to make sure he was on the bottom, ensuring my landing was softer, but he had one hand holding my arms as the other grabbed handfuls of wet mud to rub in my hair.
