Page 41 of Their Greatest Strength

“Yeah, I’m starting to believe that.”

“I hate to break up the moment, but where did you book this paintball at?” Maddox cuts in.

I release Oliver and turn my body to follow his stare out the tinted glass. The name of the venue is right, but the stickers on the windows look completely wrong. Splatter Studio is there in big painted letters above the door . . . yet the vibe is very wrong for what I was expecting.

“Did you look at the website for this place before booking?” Cooper asks, always the calmest person in any room.

“Of course I did.”Not.

I made an online reservation on the way to my post-game interviews weeks ago. It’s a miracle that I could even do that with cameras flashing in my eyes.

“It sounds like a paintball place,” Oliver says, trying to ease our growing worry.

Maddox shakes his head, amusement curving his lips. “Cream Filling can sound like a donut shop while also being a porn studio.”

“Who the fuck is naming a donut shop Cream Filling?” I choke out.

Maddox shakes his head. “I don’t know! You’re the one who booked us a paintball afternoon in a place with flower and heart stickers all over the window.”

“It’s purse painting,” Noah grunts.

Cooper clears his throat. “What?”

“That’s what you do here. You paint purses.”

We turn to look at him now. The rock star’s got his chipped phone screen turned toward us, displaying a part of Splatter Studio’s website that I didn’t look at.

The photos of painted purses draw a laugh from deep in my chest. Oliver joins me a beat later, and then the bus is full of rough male laughter.

I guess Blakely will be getting her first gift from me sooner than expected.

14

JAMIE

The guys are gruntingand growling with effort as if I had taken them to a CrossFit gym instead of a purse painting class.

I’m one more snarl from Noah away from starting to colour his tattoos in with paint to distract him. The last thing we need tonight is to get arrested because he’s tossed his hideous purse through a window.

I don’t know how I would explain that to my brother’s soon-to-be wife when she came to pick us up in the morning.

“Do you know who you’re giving these to?”

The old woman standing at the front of the room has stopped drifting between us and offering her help and suggestions. After she told Easton that his purse would look better with other colours besides black and he stared at her blankly for three minutes straight, she’s kept her distance.

Her question now is awkward and forced, like she just can’t stand the silence anymore.

“My daughter,” Oliver says, smiling loosely from the alcohol in his system. The paintbrush in his hand is crusted halfway down the handle with blue paint.

Cooper, the literal art professor, has made this project his bitch. He’s shown all of us up and then some. There are patternsand blended colours on both sides of the bag that look like they should belong on a canvas instead.

“My wife. But I have a feeling she’ll insist we keep it for our baby girl.”

“How much did Cooper pay you to take us here instead of the paintball place, Jamie? Look how much better he’s done than all of us,” Maddox complains, furiously dabbing the tip of his brush against the side of his purse.

“I didn’t pay him anything.”

“Can confirm that he didn’t pay,” I note, turning back to my project.

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