Dally shook his head.“As I was saying.Zero.Shame.”
“You’re surprised about this why, again?”Callahan laughed and exchanged a grin with Danny, who was drinking from a cup in one hand, while his opposite arm was wrapped around Taryn.She smiled shyly at the conversation.
Taco and Dalton strolled out the front door and headed straight for us.
“Rumor has it the Sigma Nus arrived with a couple of ringers.Hope all the practice you guys got at football parties last fall hasn’t worn off over the winter,” Dalton said.
“Yeah, I play better when I’m loose.”Dally took a step in the direction of the bar.“You want a beer, Cash?”
“How is that even a question?”Bax asked.
I smirked.“What he said.”
Dally snorted something incoherent and sauntered up the front sidewalk toward the deck.By the time he’d returned with five beers in his massive mitts, Taco and Dalton had set their sights on a couple of wrestlers wearing Sigma Nu colors.Neither of them had even a shadow of a beard, which gave our buddies the idea the Sigma Nus were new pledges.
“Bet they rushed them just for their cornhole-playing skills,” Taco grumbled.
“Guess we’re going to find out,” Dalton replied with a narrow-eyed glare in the direction of the guys in question.
“At the risk of sounding like a dumbass, what does it matter?It’s just cornhole,” I said.
Two pairs of eyes lasered into me.
“Do you know what’s on the line here?”Dalton asked rhetorically.“The Panhellenic Cup, the most prestigious prize in the Greek system.We’re the defending house champs, but if we lose this tournament, the cup is leaving SCR for a year.”
My brows shot up.“Well, we can’t have that, can we?”
“We absolutely can’t,” Taco said, my sarcasm sailing directly over his head.“The Sigma Nus recruit wrestlers and track athletes.The SCRs rush football players.The rivalry is bigger than the cup.It’s about National Championship-caliber athletic programs competing with each other through the Greek system.This is about team pride.”
When he put it that way…
“So how does this work?We declare whose side we’re on, or what?”I asked.
“You have to have one SCR on your team.Can be one of the brothers or one of the Little Rhos,” Dalton explained.“It’s why we wore our colors tonight.”
I downed a gulp of keg beer and nodded.“Got it.”
Soft, feminine laughter drifted down the street toward us, and a wild tingle rippled over me.When I glanced over my shoulder, I caught sight of Bax’s “purple-haired hottie,” another brunette with a headful of curls—and a blonde.
Somehow, I knew it was her.
I was about to meet my mystery lady.
Chapter Eight
Cash
“Nice shirt, Wyatt,”the purple-haired girl said with a smirk.
“You know you love it,” Bax said, smiling as he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her into his side.
She stood on her toes and whispered something in his ear.Based on the way the temperature rose about ten degrees around us, Bax’s girl wasn’t only going to let him get away with that shirt, she was going to take him up on it as well.
“Hello, Hotshot,” the curly-haired girl said as she stepped into Callahan.
“Hello, Island Girl.”
The scorching-hot look the two of them shared as he wrapped his arms around her increased the temperature another ten degrees, forcing me to down about half my beer to cool off.Then my gaze strayed to the blonde, and I almost choked on my drink.With those snappy hazel eyes staring back at me, I didn’t have to guess.My mystery woman had the heart-shaped face of an angel.The delicate light brown wings of her eyebrows rose slightly as she gazed at me.In the late afternoon sunlight, I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I detected a slight pink staining her high cheekbones.The sensation of her full pink lips pressed to mine ghosted over my mouth, and I had to stop myself from taking a step toward her.
