Page 82 of The Ruthless and the Strong

Gage, unsurprisingly, ended up not scoring during that round.

Hayden ended up with the ball for the third round, and it wasn’t long before we realized she and Logan had planned ahead of time, when she walked over to touchdown while Logan stood guard for any of us coming at her.

He was a sucker.

I wiped off the sweat from my forehead. I wasn’t sweating because of the exertion, but the heat. I looked over at Logan when the rest of my teammates made their way over to me, to grab another cold beer from the cooler.

Logan wagged his finger at me. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Colluding with the enemy? I think you should wash the dishes by yourself.”

“Me? What about Gage guarding Kiera’s way to victory?”

Gage shot us his signature scowl. “Better than Mason pushing his own teammates out the way because of‘Olivia’s big brown eyes.’”

Mason rolled his eyes and pounded on Gage’s back, causing the other man to spit out his beer. I moved over one step to avoid getting sprayed at. “At least I wasn’t like Max. Fuck, that was almost embarrassing to see.”

It was my turn to glare at him.

Gage nodded. “Pathetic, really. At least we put up some fight.”

Logan laughed at that. “He didn’t even hesitate when he handed Lizzie the ball.”

“I don’t regret it one bit,” I said, and Mason grinned. I looked past his shoulders to the girls, where they were all crowding around Hunter and Emma, and I watched Lizzie as she said something, then smiled.

I would do anything for that smile, I realized. Throwing a silly football game so she could be happy was nothing compared to what I wanted to do for her.

She must have felt my eyes, because she looked up suddenly, her smile frozen on her face. One long second passed between us before Hayden said something to her, and she looked away.

I was happy to note the way her green eyes twinkled in happiness.

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