Page 71 of Unrivaled

“Oh you little shit,” said Max’s dad.

Grady waspretty surehe was talking to Max.

Then he continued, “I owe your mother twenty bucks.”

Max cackled.

His dad turned around in his seat and offered Grady his hand. “Big Max.”

Of course he was. “Grady.”

“Oh, I know.” He shook his head. “Max played this one close to the chest.”

Grady looked at Max, who was still grinning. “Something tells me he enjoyed it.”

Max had been right about his family—they were nuts. Grady didn’t mind, though. It was kind of like spending the holidays with a multigenerational coed hockey team, but not like the Firebirds or his juniors team—one that actually liked each other.

Nora had graduated dentistry school in April, but she wasn’t allowed to do Max’s teeth because, in her words, “After the way we went at each other as kids, he’s not letting me near his face with a drill.” She had the same manic gleam to her eyes Max got when he was about to start shit, so Grady figured that was probably the right call.

Stay-at-home-dad Logan was built more like Big Max, who stood close to six foot four, than his brother. Maybe that explained why his kids, Carly and Milo, seemed to view him as a human jungle gym. Tanya, his wife, worked as a software developer; she took one look at Grady and said, “Oh thank God, a sane person.”

Behind her, Logan covered a laugh. “Babe, that’s Grady Armstrong. Max’s, like, archnemesis from the Firebirds.”

“Nemesis is such a strong word,” Max said, at which point Carly and Milo swarmed him demanding he throw them in the pool.

He let them carry him off, leaving Grady alone with Tanya and Logan.

“You want a drink?” Tanya offered into the sudden awkward silence.

Perfect icebreaker. “I knew I liked you.”

The house they’d rented was on the beach, with a beautiful pool area and an airy open-concept design. Grady and Max had the ground-floor bedroom, while the other four were upstairs, so Grady had a small amount of insulation from the Lockhart family circus. The bright sunshine and warm weather meant it didn’t quite feel like Christmas, but someone had strung fairy lights over a potted palm tree on the patio. Grady approved of swapping out eggnog for margaritas and sangria and didn’t care who knew it.

If it weren’t for his phone buzzing like crazy in his pocket, he might have forgotten to miss Jess at all.

Grady let himself out of the kitchen and took the call in the bedroom. “Hey, Jess.”

“I can’t do it,” she hissed.

Alarmed, Grady closed the door. “Do what? Is everything okay?”

“No!” She was still speaking in a shouted whisper. “Half the girls canceled at the last minute, so they put us in a smaller chalet!”

Uh-oh. “Who’s ‘us’?”

“Me, Amanda, and Polly.”

Grady winced. Her, her ex, and her ex’s new girlfriend. “Yeah. That could be awkward.”

“That’s the problem.”

“That it’s awkward?”

“No. Polly keeps beingniceto me.”

Oh, the horror. Before Grady could be a smartass, Jess went on. “Like, okay, she was the one who organized the whole trip because Amanda was having this crisis about turning forty, I guess. So we’ve been emailing back and forth a lot. And she’s been nice the whole time. And funny.”

“Well,” said Grady, at a loss. “How dare she.”

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