Badger to the Bone (Honey Badger Chronicles #3) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,57
shame in that.”
“Isn’t there, though? When, you know, it makes me call my teammates whores?”
“Max, don’t overthink this. Enjoy that first flush of liking a guy . . . before you find out what an asshole he really is and dump him by throwing him out a third-story window like you did to Danny Parker in tenth grade.”
Max laughed at the memory. “He just screamed,” she said, waving her hands the way he had when she’d picked him up and thrown him out that window.
“They’re coming over,” Streep whispered. “Everybody be cool! Be cool!”
Max watched as her four teammates attempted to “be cool” by striking poses like they were at a 1993 Beverly Hills pool party photo shoot.
She closed her eyes and sighed. “Such idiots.”
* * *
Zé followed the two players down to the court where Max and her friends were standing. He’d never had women come up to him and open a conversation with “Hey, we saw you sitting here all alone . . . We’re cheetahs.”
And Zé could think of no other reply than “That is the weirdest introduction I’ve ever gotten.”
They were confused by his response, and that was how his backstory had come out. They were surprisingly nice and he’d laughed when they’d told him he was now “officially part of the spots-r-us club!” Apparently a common joke among jaguars, leopards, and cheetahs.
“We met your new friend here, Maxie,” one of them said to Max. “He’s cute.”
Max took a step toward them but Nelle quickly cut in front of her. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“Look, we heard you’re trying to help Zé.”
“And?”
She put her hand on Zé’s shoulder in what he thought was just a friendly gesture. “We can teach him something right now, as a matter of fact. In front of everybody.”
“Whores!” Streep yelled, pointing a damning finger.
“Okay!” Nelle raised her hands, palms out. “Everyone just calm down. We’re all on the same team.”
The cheetahs gawked at the badgers—another sentence he’d never in a million years have believed would come from his brain—and one of them asked, “What is going on with you guys?”
“Maybe,” Tock interjected, “and I’m just spitballing, why don’t you just tell us what you’re talking about.”
“A race. Around the court.”
“Why?” Zé asked.
“Are you afraid?” one cheetah asked. “Hate to lose, do ya?”
“Not to be insulting, but I’m taller than you. Way longer legs.”
They all laughed, then.
“He really doesn’t know what we are, does he?” the other cheetah asked.
“Come on, cutie,” the first cheetah prompted. “You don’t even have to change clothes. Three times around the court. Whoever gets back here first . . . wins.”
Zé sighed, rolled his eyes. But when he looked down at Max, expecting her to agree with him about not wasting his time, she asked, “Scared?”
No. He wasn’t scared. But he was competitive.
Leaning down so he could look right into Max’s face . . . “Fine. You guys wanna play . . . let’s play.”
* * *
The entire team sat on the sidelines, watching as the two cheetahs and Vargas lined up at one corner. Coach came out of her office to help, her whistle at the ready. She raised her arm. “Get ready! Get set!” She waited another few seconds . . . then blew her whistle. The three took off, charging down the line toward the first turn.
Immediately the cheetahs fell back, Vargas taking the lead.
“Is this just going to humiliate the poor guy?” Max asked, already cringing.
“How does he not know that cheetahs are the fastest land animals?” Tock asked.
“Because he doesn’t understand that the women he’s racing are also one of the fastest land animals in the world. He still hasn’t put two and two together.”
“That’s why he’s still floundering,” Mads tossed in. “Why he can’t shift on his own.”
“He’s not floundering,” Max argued. “He just doesn’t see it yet. Hopefully this will help with that and not just humiliate the fuck out of him.”
“Believe it or not,” Nelle explained, “they’re not trying to humiliate him. They’re trying to do exactly what you’re saying, Max. By pushing that competitive nature he so clearly has.”
Max wasn’t so sure . . . until they hit the second lap.
Vargas had just shot around the corner when both cheetahs powered by him. So fast that he almost stopped. He definitely stumbled, his eyes blinking wide. He’d most likely never seen humans move that fast. Not in his old neighborhood. Not in a combat zone. Not in the Olympics.
But unlike most full-humans, who would stop, stare, and possibly