Page 31 of Wild Catch
“Are you jealous, Starr?” Audrey asks from a camping chair across the fire pit that we lit up just a few minutes ago.
Cade frowns. “Yes.”
For the first time in my life, I witness Logan’s hard expression morph into amusement. And I’m not the only one who remarks on it—Audrey’s jaw is equally as dropped as mine. In fact, we even exchange a glance that saysare you seeing what I’m seeing?
He’s obnoxiously perfect when he’s serious, but just a hint of a smile makes him almost ethereal. Something in my mind shifts and I have the certainty that from now on, his face is the one I’ll picture every time I’m reading a romantasy hero.
Ugh.
“There’s no need to be jealous, Cowboy. Hope and I just went out ononedate,” Logan says as he hands over his helmet to Hope, and unzips his jacket.
I restart walking over to the serving table by the grill, finally placing the bowl on it. I dust my hands, all proud of my contribution to the party, and turn around.
I choke in my own saliva.
Logan Kim has removed his jacket and he’s wearing one of those tank tops where the openings go as low as his waist. And I didn’t know his torso was tatted up too. Like, I don’t make it my business to glimpse at the players’s naked bodies. The one time I did it backfired tragically.
This time, as Hope walks into the house, Lucky’s the one who comes out. He takes one look at Logan and asks, “Dude, where’s the rest of your clothes?”
“At home, where I wanted to be tonight,” the other guy sasses right back.
“Hey, I’m telling you.” Cade points at Logan with a big frown on his pretty Texas boy face. “If you want to keep calling my girlfriend by her first name, you’ll have to call everyone by their first names too.”
“Fine.” The big guy in the man bun shrugs powerful shoulders. Copying Cade’s gesture, he starts pointing at each person, “Audrey?”
“Yep.” She salutes him.
Logan moves on. “Lucas.”
“I go by Lucky. I’m the team’s lucky charm.”
“Lucas it is,” Logan confirms to himself. Right then, Hope marches back out to the yard and he points at her. “Still Hope.”
She freezes and glances back. “Uh, yeah. Last I checked.”
Then Logan’s finger veers to the pitcher. We all can tell this one’s tough by the way Logan’s jaw muscles jump. He grits his teeth and finally, painstakingly, he grumbles, “Cade.”
Audrey mutters, “Atta boy.”
And that’s when Logan’s finger turns to the last person. Me.
“Rosalina.”
I gasp in Spanish.
And then, in a fraction of a second, I know that I wasn’t supposed to show a big reaction to this. After all, the earth has spun exactly twenty six years since people have been calling me by that name, and no one’s voice has made me break into goosebumps all over. My damn goosebumps have goosebumps, and I don’t get it.
So I mask it by choking and waving my hands, hoping they think it’s because of the smoke from the grill next to me.
“She goes by Rose,” Audrey adds in a breezy tone.
“Then Rose,” he says without inflection, looking around as if searching for other people whose first names he’s going to have to get familiar with.
Lucky frowns. “How come she gets her preferred name and not me?”
“That’s not the important question here.” Cade grunts. “Was using Hope’s name so important that you’re willing to make these many changes at once?”
That’s when I figure out that Logan wasn’t looking for other people, but for the cooler full of chilled bottles. He sinks down to a camping chair that looks like a toy beneath him, and I’m satisfied by the disappointment in his face as he opens the cooler and doesn’t find beer inside. Hope filled it up with sweet and unsweet iced tea.
