Love to Hate You (Hope Valley #9) - Jessica Prince Page 0,51

likely that, at some point, at least one old person’s gonna get wasted enough to start taking their clothes off.”

Sweet merciful hell.

“You know what? This might be the best party I’ve ever been to in my entire life.”

I looked to McKenna. She was staring out into the yard at her man Bruce with a glazed look in her hooded eyes, and burst into laughter.

At some point in the afternoon, someone had come up with the brilliant idea of starting a touch football game in the side yard. The longer the game went on, the sweatier the men playing became, until one by one, they started stripping out of their shirts. Ms. M hadn’t been wrong. This town was full of seriously good-looking men. I was surrounded on all sides by my new girlfriends, and as I watched their men running plays, I was seriously happy that these incredible women were going home to the likes of all that. Seeing them all now in their full glory, it was a wonder Eden was the only one currently knocked up. I made a silent bet with myself that there were going to be at least two more pregnancy announcements before the spring.

I bumped my shoulder against Mac’s. “You act like you don’t see your man without a shirt every single day.”

“It’s not about seeing our men shirtless,” Gypsy insisted, fanning her face as her gaze remained riveted to the makeshift field. “It’s more the group as a whole. All these fine men, half naked, glistening with sweat . . .”

She trailed off on a dreamy sigh, so Tempie finished. “It’s like some sort of witchcraft. I mean . . .” She waved her hands in front of her. “Behold.”

She wasn’t wrong, it was definitely something to behold. And we weren’t the only ones beholding. As soon as the game started, the old ladies lost interest in drunk bingo, and pulled their lawn chairs over to watch while they sipped their cocktails, rooting for their favorites. Or in some instances, heckling the players.

“You call that a throw?” Ms. M. had yelled at Eden’s husband, Lincoln, a big, blond Viking-looking dude. “I could throw better than that, and I got arthritis in my entire body!”

“Get it together, Castillo!” a woman Gypsy had introduced to me earlier as Odette yelled at her man, Marco. “I put money down on this game. Don’t you go blowin’ my social security check!”

I looked back to the game—or to one player in particular—and felt my pulse begin to race. My libido was in the red, warning sirens were going off left and right in my head. Micah was dead center of the fray, his ripped chest and thick arms shining with sweat under the bright sun. The nice seventy-something degree weather began to feel almost sweltering the longer I stared.

“Go, Mike, go! Go, Mike, go!” Ivy chanted from her chair right beside Sylvia. She jumped up and down, cheering for her best friend at the top of her lungs as one of the guys called out the play.

Someone snapped the ball, bodies started crashing together, and I used that as my opportunity to duck away and grab a drink, hoping a few minutes by myself would help tamp down the heat building in my blood.

Moving to the coolers, I flipped the top on the one with the beer and pulled out an ice-cold bottle. I’d just popped the cap and taken a refreshing swig when a pair of hands landed on my hips from behind.

Jumping in fright, I whipped around, nearly choking on the beer I’d just swallowed. “Jesus, Greg,” I croaked, placing a hand over my pounding heart. “You scared the shit out of me.”

He held his hands up in apology while giving me that charming smile that, the more often I saw it, the more I felt it was strictly for show. Nothing genuine seemed behind that smile. “Sorry, beautiful. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s all right.” I gave him a small, shaky grin and took a step back, trying to put some space between us. “I-I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on it at first, but if I can’t take you out on a date, at least we can still spend some time together here.”

“Oh, um . . . That’s nice.” I looked around, trying to find any reason to get away from this guy. The other day at Divine Flora, my gut was telling me something was off, and after talking to