Page 28 of Honeymoon Phase
I narrow my eyes, trying to focus on him and not my best friend. “How good are you at this event?”
The kid smiles. “Pretty fucking good.”
I wince at that response. “How much for you to throw this heat?”
“Huh?” He frowns back at me.
“You heard me. How much?”
“Forget it.”
“Come on... everyone has a price.” I tilt my head and eye him head to toe. He screams...I saw this on the internet and obsessively taught myself how to do it but have no idea how to operate a real tool. “I own a construction company with my brothers... I’m sure there’s something you need done in Denver. We’re a quick drive over. Name your project.”
The guy’s brows furrow as the scorekeeper prepares the board. “You any good at custom shelving? I have this gaming setup that’s a mess and a whole vision board for how I want to lay it all out in my apartment to look sick.”
I smile gleefully. “Oh, I got you covered.”
The kid keeps his promise and throws the match, doing a good job making it look convincing. I introduce him to Calder afterward and I see the kid showing Calder photos on his phone for the shelving unit he wants created. I feel bad making this my brother’s problem but it was his idea to try to figure out other ways to win this competition.
Wyatt watches the other heats and determines I can beat everyone except maybe Ivan and sure enough, I make it all the way to final two.
And the fact that Addison couldn’t keep her eyes off me through the entire competition is all the fuel I need to finish this competition.
Now I’m in the championship round against none other than Big Nose.
Damn it anyways.
I can’t bring myself to try to bribe him out of a fair match because one way or another, he knows Addison, and I do not want this getting back to her. He was talking to her the whole time during my matches, so I’m lucky I landed the axe on the damn bull’s-eye at all.
“Hot one out here, eh?” Ivan asks with a loud sniff, his accent bleeding through.
“Yeah sure,” I murmur, barely giving him my attention as I twist my hat backward.
I grip my axe and focus hard on the bull’s-eye. I’m five throws away from sending this guy back to whatever Canadian city he hiked out of, so I can’t let him get in my head right now.
The match begins and we both stand side by side and toss at the same time. First toss we both hit a direct bull’s-eye, his a little high, mine a little low. Five points each. We toss again, both of us nailing the center right on target. We do it three more times, each of us hitting bull’s-eyes every time.
I glance over to Max, my eyes wide with disbelief because in all the practicing we did together, I never hit five in a row. I’m on fucking fire. Between that and the crowd roaring all around me, and the feeling of Roe’s eyes on us the whole time, the pressure is on.
We switch lanes and have to toss another five times in the opposite bull’s-eye and we both land bull’s-eyes again.
“Kill him, Uncle Lukey!” Ethan yells and I hear the whole crowd laugh at the small boy with such vicious words.
I smile and release my axe, wincing when I see that for the first time, I didn’t hit the bull’s-eye. I hit the three ring. “Fuck,”I murmur under my breath, gripping my hat to my head in horror as I look over and see that Big Nose nailed his bull’s-eye.
We have one more toss to go and even if we both hit bull’s-eyes, I’ll lose. And with how Ivan is tossing, the odds are good he’s going to nail it.
“Redemption,” I call out and the scorekeeper moves toward us holding her hand up to pause the play of game as she walks up to the boards.
“Player has called redemption.” She points to the green dots on the upper right and upper left side of the board, outside of the target ring. “If player hits redemption circle, the match will go into sudden death one-throw playoff.”
The crowd cheers loudly, clearly enjoying the fact that I’ve upped the stakes. We’ve got a real nail-biter at Man of the Mountain today, I guess.
“Good luck, eh?” Ivan says as he holds his axe out to me to tap.
“Thanks,” I mumble, and twist my hat around to face forward, glaring at him under my bill as we clink our blades together.
I glance over at Addison, who gives me a hearty thumbs-up but then I look back over my shoulder and see Big Nose waving back at her. Is she tossing those thumbs to me or this fucker? Goddamn it, who’s her fucking friend here?
