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No wonder I’d never managed to be friends with this man. Something about him scrambled my actual brain.
Which is why I had half a freaking pie on my plate.
“Who decided this was a good idea?” I hissed. “Who decided aphysical competitionwas a good idea?”
“Someone very smart,” Ivy said unashamedly, her eyes locked on my brother’s torso as he passed the ball to Jax.
A friendly post-dinner game of touch football. Sure.Justwhat we needed.
Except it wasn’t very friendly. Someone tried to suggest not keeping score, and it didn’t go over well.
“Honestly, would it kill this family to drop the intensity just a little bit?” I asked.
No one answered because we all knew it was rhetorical.
The teams were … lopsided. Greer said she was too tired, Ivy hated organized team sports, and when I tried raising my hand as an option, everyone yelledNoimmediately, which I thought was a little excessive, but whatever. Thankfully, Sage—Harlow’s daughter—volunteered as quarterback for the second team.
And Olive, God bless her, had no idea what she was supposed to be doing, but she agreed to play with Sage when she asked to have another girl on the other team.
So we had Ian, Jax, Parker, and Olive matched up against Cameron, Dean, Beckett, and Sage. The disparity in a few of the players provided mixed results. Olive was far more interested in plucking weeds from the grass, but would occasionally run when Uncle Cameron chased her. Ian played defense against the QB because he wouldn’t let anyone else guard his stepdaughter and risk hurting her.
This meant he wasn’t trying very hard to tackle her because I honestly thought he’d rather lose than see Sage not do well.
Parker and Beckett, as teammates for the Voyagers, they were the only two who could meet each other step for step.
And that left Dean guarding Jax.
I couldn’t even tell you how fun it was to watch the two of them try to sprint past each other or the shoving that was just past the limits of polite during certain plays.
Jax caught a pass from Sage, snagging it over Dean’s head, reeling in the ball for a beautiful catch. His teammatescheered, and I kept my pie-filled mouth shut, I’ll tell you that much.
Their team lined up again, and my eyes locked on the two men on the end. Dean swiped at his forehead with the collar of his shirt, and the quick glimpse of his chiseled abs had me digging the fork into my pie again.
Jax had lost his shirt after the first play because he hadn’t dressed for football. And it was not good for my sanity.
When he pulled his shirt off and tossed it on the ground, I kept my attention right the hell on my mother’s face, and I didn’t like how she raised an eyebrow in challenge. When I narrowed my eyes in a glare, she only laughed under her breath.
Not that I was doing anything laugh-worthy.
Because what I wasn’t looking at was the light smattering of dark hair across his chest. I wasn’t looking at the sculpted curves of his pectorals or the rounded muscles on his shoulders.
And I wasn’t looking at the stacked lines of his abs either. Or the way the sweat glistened on those abs in the light of the setting sun.
Fuck, I mouthed silently, right before taking another bite.
Beckett snapped the ball to Sage and took off running, and so did Jax, spinning around Dean to cut into the middle. Olive stayed right where she was, pulling up a dandelion and holding it out to Cameron with a smile. He scratched the side of his cheek and accepted it from her, tucking it behind his ear with a wink.
“He’s too tall,” Sage yelled, trying to dance around Ian as he made a few half-hearted attempts to ‘tackle’ her with a simple touch.
“Better run faster then, kid,” Ian said, darting around behind her, laughing when she ducked under his arm and shot forward. She set her feet and heaved the ball in the directionof Beckett. Parker swore when he realized he was a step behind where he should be.
Beckett caught it with a yell but whirled when Parker tried to grab him. He shouted for Jax, then pitched the ball sideways for a lateral pass. It was almost perfect, but Dean’s long arm shot forward and knocked the ball out of the air.
He shouted, pumping his fist like he’d just won the Super Bowl. Dean turned to me and grinned happily. I waved, wondering when I needed to break it to him that winning this backyard game of football didn’tactuallymean anything.
Greer shook her head, chuckling quietly. “You know, in the olden days, men did shit like this all the time to gain a woman’s favor.”
Just as she said it, Parker lowered his shoulder and tackled Beckett onto the ground. Beckett laughed, shoving Parker off before he hopped back up to his feet.
