Once everyone was at the table, they bowed their heads and said grace, and then he took a bite of the casserole. It was warm and filling and settled in his stomach like a hug. After everyone had their delicious first bite, it was all smack talk about game night as they ate with everyone steering clear of any wedding discussions. Adalyn still hadn’t come down for dinner, and while everyone was trying not to draw attention to it, her empty chair was a physical reminder.
“So,” PawPaw said as he stood from the table and picked up his plate. “Are you ready for Pictionary?”
“Nooooooooo,” Hadley said, groaning.
“There’s no avoiding it.” PawPaw shrugged. “Louise must have used weighted dice when we rolled for who got to pick the games.”
“Stop accusing me of cheating, you old bugger,” Aunt Louise hollered from over by the sink as she rinsed off her dishes and put them in the dishwasher. “I won fair and square.”
“Pictionary sounds great.”
Looking around at everyone—Louise grinning, Hadley groaning, and PawPaw glaring at his sister—Will was having a hard time trying to figure out what the fuss was about.
Thirty minutes into the family’s version of the drawing game and he understood. Hadley was a detriment to any competitive person’s sanity during the game. First of all, she was awful at drawing—even her stick people were a strange alignment of squiggly lines and circles. Then, there was her insistence on drawing the same pattern of shapes over and over as if on the twentieth try, he or PawPaw would understand that the arrow shooting out of the circle at the end of another line was a lightsaber, leading them to the correct answer of Star Wars. The real killer, though, was how she called out the most bizarre answers that made zero sense and the house rule that each team only got to throw out three answers. Invariably, at least two of those came from Hadley and were a full 180 degrees from the correct answer.
By the time it came down to the last phrase, PawPaw was stress pacing in the back of the room while Hadley read her clue and started for the giant dry-erase board up on an easel. Meanwhile, Will kept getting distracted by the way she chewed on her bottom lip while she drew squiggly vertical lines with what looked like lightning shooting out from the top in every direction and a rectangle that looked like maybe it was on fire. She put the cap on her marker with a snap and turned to him and PawPaw, a hopeful smile on her lips.
“Explosive farts,” PawPaw said.
“Do you have to be so crude?” Aunt Louise said without even a hint of censure in her voice.
“Look at the picture!” Taking the bait, PawPaw’s voice rose as he waved his hand at the dry-erase board. “What do you see?”
Will cocked his head to the side and squinted, trying like hell to see something besides a stick figure with an impressive amount of gas, but there was no hope. Once PawPaw put that image in his head, there was no seeing anything else.
“It could be interpreted in many ways,” he said, grasping for something—anything—else that it could be.
The timer on Stephanie’s phone rang out, and Aunt Louise gave a celebratory hoot. Hadley shot him and PawPaw a glare.
“It’s Jungle Book. How did you not see the trees?” She pointed to the vertical lines and then the exploding rectangle. “And the book?”
Will took a billionth look at what she’d drawn on the dry-erase board, but even with her explanation, he couldn’t see any of it.
“Well,” PawPaw said, shaking his head. “That puts us in the consolation round.”
Hadley took another look back at her drawing and, judging by the way she cocked her head to the side, even she figured it was a lost cause. “Sorry, PawPaw.”
Her grandpa got up and gave her a quick hug. “All you have to do to make up for it is beat Louise’s team in the next round.” He lowered his volume so only Hadley and Will would be able to hear. “There’s no way I want to spend the next month getting snarky texts from her.”
“Whatever it takes,” Hadley said. “You got it, PawPaw.”
“That’s my girl.” He turned to Will and leveled a do-not-fuck-this-up look at him. “I know you two will make that happen.”
Aunt Louise picked that moment to interrupt their pep talk armed with the next game—Taboo—and with the announcement that since Adalyn wasn’t there, one of them would have to sit out the final round.
“I’ll be an observer,” PawPaw said. “After all, you two really do make a great team.”
Hadley’s cheeks turned pink, but Will couldn’t help but think the old man might be on to something there.
…
Will was sitting too close to Hadley and it was making her brain fry. Instead of being able to listen to him as he gave her clues about the secret word, she couldn’t stop looking at his mouth and remembering exactly how he’d used it a few hours earlier.
A sudden, sweeping hot flush made her lungs tighten as she sucked in a quick breath. Holy hell, how had it gotten so hot in here? She grabbed the scorepad and started fanning herself.
“Tease,” she said, blurting out the first word that came to mind that she could say in front of her family.
Will looked up from the Taboo game card at her and raised an eyebrow. “The clue was handbag.”
Because of course it was. She closed her eyes for a second and took a bracing inhale. “Maybe I’m really into purses.”
His grin told her he knew exactly what she was into—him. “Next clue is that it costs a lot.”
Sure, she’d always known he had green eyes, but how had she missed the light amber flecks near the iris? Or the way they crinkled at the corners when he smiled? Or that his lashes were twenty-eight miles long?
“Earth to Hads,” PawPaw said, cutting through her distraction.
Fuck. She’d done it again.
“Can you give me the clue again?” The question came out in a rush, as if that would cover the fact that she’d been making moon eyes at her nemesis.
And he was still that. Right? Hate fucking didn’t change anything. But is that what it was? Because it sure didn’t feel like it. Mentally telling that voice in her head to shove it, she tried to concentrate on the clues and not the man giving them. The one who had this thing he did with his fingers that—
“Oh for the love of Tom Osborne,” PawPaw said with a tortured groan. “Stop your flirting. This is the last question. Get your heads in the game and win. After that, you two can go off and finish whatever this is because for the rest of us it’s very awkward—and that’s coming from me.”
Cheeks burning, Hadley jerked her gaze away from Will and scanned the crowded living room where easily a dozen Donavans, Martinezes, and Donavan-Martinezes were watching them. Aaaaaaand there was nothing quite like being reminded in such a public fashion that her entire family was there watching her forget how to play the one family game night game that she usually kicked ass in. Well, almost everyone. Adalyn was still a no-show. Guilt and regret did a you-suck-Hadley tango in her gut, stomping out all the distracting lusty thoughts that she’d selfishly let take over.
“Sorry, sir,” Will said, looking anything but regretful. He turned back to Hadley and gave her a conspiratorial wink. “Well, now that I’m properly motivated—”
“We’re still here, Holt,” Weston said.
He and Knox stood by the fireplace, arms crossed, brotherly glares in place, and overprotective attitudes on full display.
Will shrugged, seemingly not bothered in the least by the growly brothers. “Seems you’re always around.”
“Not quite enough, it seems.” Knox tapped the side of his neck in the exact location where Hadley had tried to cover up her hickey with makeup.
“Clue,” she all but hollered out, flustered by the weird testosterone-fueled drama, and slapped her hand down on Will’s thigh a little harder than she meant. “Give me a clue.”
“Michael Kors,” he said.
“Designer.”
He nodded, scooting forward so their knees touched as they sat across from each other. “More.”
Somehow despite being suddenly and overwhelmingly aware of the erogenous zone formerly known as her kneecaps, the synapses in her brain continued to function. “Designer-brand clothes.”
“Yes.” Will shot up out of his chair, then picked her up, bringing her in close before spinning in a circle. “We win.”
“That’s right, Louise.” PawPaw cheered, raising his arms in the air Rocky style. “I gotcha.”
Aunt Louise rolled her eyes. “Only until next time.”
It was the usual post-family-game-night smack talk, but Hadley barely noticed because Will was right there, his face so close to hers, as he held her up even though they’d stopped spinning. Instead, the room had spun away and it was just them. Awareness crackled between them, electric and enticing as he lowered his mouth—
“Hey, Holt,” Weston said, his voice low.
The shock of her brother’s voice was enough to make her jolt. Slowly, Will lowered her until her feet touched the floor, but he didn’t step away from her.
“Winner has to clean up,” her brother said, his perma-glare around Will on full display before he turned and walked away.