Pukui behind him or Wilson to his right. Hanson didn’t catch how Gia had slipped just rows in back of him on the bleachers. They all seemed to have a plan. Throughout the season, the Steamers had rallied around Reese. Hanson had gotten quiet as she shot field goals through the uprights, only insulting her when she performed poorly. But now, it seemed, when his team was playing against Reese’s and not performing as well as he seemed to expect, Hanson seemed a little desperate, and a desperate man will resort to the most basic of juvenile behavior to deflect his fear.
Karma did not come in the shape of a wide linebacker or the lithe lines of a quarterback. She did not come from the cool, steely side-eye shot from their insulted general manager. Karma, in fact, came right at Hanson in the form of four pre-teen girls. They wore lip gloss and pink strips of tape under their eyes. They smelled of bubblegum, and their skin shined from glittered lotion. They used the word “like” at least fifty times in three paragraphs, and they thought Five Seconds of Summer was far superior to One Direction.
But underneath that perceived girl garb were fierce warriors. They loved the game as much as their lip gloss. They were serious about this tournament and the chance they’d win to see the Magic Kingdom on the Steamers’ dime.
And they really didn’t appreciate Hanson’s insulting blabbering.
“Paint your nails!” he shouted, laughing when his team followed his lead just as Keola tagged out a smaller offensive lineman trying to make a way to the end zone for his QB. “Paint ’em, ladies!” he continued, voice louder when his lineman got stopped on the next pass, too.
He laughed when Keola missed a block, then whistled and taunted Reese when she tried to ease the girl’s worry that she’d somehow lost the game for them before the clock had run out.
“Take a pretty pic for me, Noble!”
That did it.
Those four girls stopped before the drive began. Four angry, insulted girls left the field and ran as one right into a laughing, unsuspecting Robert Hanson.
He stumbled, not overwhelmed by their weight, but surprised by their attack. Hanson went down, no longer laughing.
Then it was his turn to be insulted as his teammates, his own players, and the families around the camp laughed at him lying on the ground.
“Sucks to suck!” one of the glittered Minis told him before they jogged back on the field.
The Minis took the penalty they received for the attack—personal fouls they clapped and cheered about—and then the game resumed. But there was less bluster in Hanson’s Raiders and their coach. There was less of anything at all but fumbles, penalties, and missed throws to the end zone.
Twenty-one to thirteen.
The Mini Reeses won.
Reese clapped and shouted at the last whistle, running onto the field right into a crowd of those fierce pink warriors, getting hugs and kisses, doling out compliments and proud, ecstatic praise.
Keola Pukui stuck right to her side, her face red, her smile radiant, and the girl let Reese hug her. Then, the kicker led her team off the field, celebrating for the night and the brief reprieve from the knowledge that kept her away from Ryder.
He was going to be a father. Of course he was. Greer was beautiful. She was smart, and she’d been warming Ryder’s bed for two years. Reese was his past. Like Greer said, she wouldn’t be his future.
Across the field, Reese spotted him, his gaze on her, his expression calm. Greer was not with him. She hadn’t been around all day, despite all the other Witches and Ghouls in attendance. She didn’t know what to make of his expression. There was something old and familiar in the way he watched her. The smile that grew over his mouth was easy. It was sweet and reminded Reese of the boy she’d known back in college. It reminded her of a hundred different things she’d told herself she forgot about him.
Stop it, she thought, recalling the slip of Greer’s hand over her flat stomach and the choking sadness that had Reese running out of the lobby and straight for her car.
“We’re Ryder’s future.”
The words felt like a splinter in her brain, something you cannot be rid of easily. Something Reese thought would always live inside her.
She looked away from Ryder when her Minis converged, still excited from their win, and Reese followed them off the field and away from the