Page 38 of To Have and To Hold
Needless to say, everyone laughed so hard they couldn’t breathe for a good five minutes.
Chapter Nine
“For future reference, JJ isnotallowedto handle any team events,” Luca said, directing his comment at him, as though Baz had the ability to control what JJ did or did not do.
Baz was having a hard time keeping a straight face. Of course, he’d been recording when Atticus passed out the rest of the shirts, so he’d captured Luca’s words for eternity. And since he was responsible for sending them to JJ, and she was Luca’s self-proclaimed nemesis, there was no doubt those words would haunt him for a long,longtime.
“I hate you, by the way,” Luca muttered. “I can hack your phone and erase that shit.”
Yes, he could. But he wouldn’t. Probably. Baz knew for certain Luca would, however, hack the internet once that video got out, but considering the look on Luca’s face and the words that had spewed out of his mouth, it would go viral before that could happen.
Baz held up his hands in a sign of surrender. “I’m just doin’ what I’m told.”
He waited until everyone had pulled their shirt on before he addressed the group.
“Are we ready for—” Baz stopped when Brantley held up a hand, waving him off while he dried the tears from his eyes. He’d been laughing so hard he cried.
It was a beautiful thing, really.
“Okay,” Brantley finally said, although he started laughing again.
Baz cleared his throat. They had to get a move on in order to get to the track in time. “In case it wasn’t clear already, there are two teams. Evan’s and Atticus’s. The four people who finished after Atticus are on his team. The three who finished before Evan—not including me—are on Evan’s, along with Magnus, when we meet up with him.”
Baz jotted down who was on which team. Atticus had Killian, Slade, RT, and Griffin. That left Luca, Trey, Cal, and Magnus on Evan’s team.
“So how is it that I have to perform all the tasks when Z came in last?” Evan asked.
“Because my eggplant’s bigger than yours,” Z deadpanned, gesturing toward the images on his shirt.
“That just means you’re a bigger—”
“Let’s go over the scavenger hunt details, shall we?” Baz said, purposely interrupting the eggplant measuring contest that was surely going to start any minute. “There are four categories. Each one’s the number of points you can earn for those sets of tasks. Five, ten, fifteen, and twenty.” He tapped his phone screen to send the link for the details JJ had created. A moment later, phones started chiming with the incoming message. “There are four tasks in each. You can only perform the task once per person. But if you want to rack up points, everyone on your team can do it, but it has to be done separately and at a different location. The team with the most points wins.”
“And what exactly do they win?”
“JJ didn’t tell me,” he lied, waiting while everyone had a chance to look at the lists before he started explaining them. “You can get five points if you take a picture with someone wearing a hat, buy a stranger a shot, and take it with them, feel someone’s beard—”
“That’s a good one for you,” RT told Killian. “I’d pay money to see that.”
“Me, too,” Cal added with a chuckle.
“And the fourth in that category is to sweet talk someone at a restaurant into buying you a drink.”
“Can it be the staff?” Griffin asked.
“As long as you don’t pay for it, it counts,” Baz confirmed. “For ten points, you have to serenade a stranger, introduce yourself to a stranger using a foreign accent, perform a cheer for a group of people—”
Baz paused again as everyone pointed at Z.
“What?”
“You’re gonna do that one.”
RT looked at his husband and a slow smile formed. “Thatisa good one for you.”
Z’s expression hardened, but his eyes had a definite gleam of amusement.
“Or you can sing to a group of people,” Baz finished. “For fifteen points, you have to arm wrestle a stranger or get a girl to spank the bachelor—either one, it doesn’t matter.”
