Page 9 of The Best Parts of Him
Amusement and heat. Now there was an interesting combination.
Like Dabbs had said—both things could be true.
“It suits you,” Dabbs said, his voice a rumble that sang along Ryland’s nerves. “The nose ring. Here.” He held out a dart. “Your turn.”
Rising, Ryland took it and went to stand behind the line drawn on the floor that denoted where a person was supposed to throw from. Feet shoulder-width apart, he let the rest of the pub fall away—the music, the conversations, the laughter, the clink of cutlery against plates—visualized where he wanted his dart to go, threw . . .
Dabbs whistled. “Bullseye.” He leaned around Ryland, his chest skimming along Ryland’s shoulder and upper back as he grabbed his beer. “You haven’t lost your touch.”
Shivering at the contact, Ryland met his gaze. “I never do.”
Dabbs’ eyes flared, proving that he wasn’t as indifferent to Ryland as he’d feared.
Tucking that knowledge into the back of his mind, Ryland grabbed a second dart for another turn.
chapter three
Dabbs woke up to pitch-darkness and a tangle of limbs.
And not in the sexy way.
The Zervudachis had pitched three tents in their yard once they’d all returned from The Striped Maple. Brie, the eldest of the Zervudachi siblings, had arrived just in time to claim one for her and her kids. Bellamy and Jason had claimed a second, which had left Dabbs and Ryland sharing a third.
Dabbs hadn’t had time to worry about that before the kids had announced that they were all sleeping in the same tent.
As he and Bellamy had left Maplewood, Dabbs had second-guessed leaving his dogs with a teammate for the night. Now that he was part of a human puppy pile?
There was no way the dogs would’ve slept comfortably in this tent that currently held seven—including three jacked hockey players—but that technically only fit four.
Hell, Dabbs hadn’t been sleeping comfortably.
He quietly disentangled himself from someone’s arm and someone else’s leg. At least, he assumed it was someone else’s leg, otherwise that person was contorted into a pretzel around him. He unzipped the tent, crawled out, re-zipped it, grabbed one of the flashlights that had been left out for middle-of-the-night pee breaks, and slipped into his flip-flops.
His beers had caught up with him. He was going to burst if he didn’t take a piss in the next ten seconds.
The exterior lights on the house provided enough illumination to navigate the yard, so he rounded the fire pit they’d set the tents up around, then clicked on his flashlight when he neared the tree line.
Stepping into the forest in the middle of the night wasn’t an experience he wanted to repeat. Shadows stretched every which way and twigs snapped under his shoes. Between the rustling of the foliage and the chittering of night insects, it wasn’t anywhere near as silent as he expected.
He didn’t venture too far into the forest—firstly, he didn’t want to stumble across the farm’s tapping lines. Secondly . . .
It was creepy as fuck.
He went far enough so that no one coming out of the tent would spot him and relieved himself against a tree. A couple of moths, attracted by his light, settled on the flashlight, and he gave it a shake once he’d tucked himself back into his boxers.
“Get out of here, you annoying—ahhhh!”
He jerked backward, stepping on his own flip-flop in the process. He landed on his back, sprawled like a dead starfish. The flashlight went flying, and Jesus fucking Christ, there was someone in the forest with him. He was about to be murdered by a forest-dwelling serial killer and?—
Laughter reached his ears. He grabbed for the flashlight, shone it at his murderer, and?—
“Ryland?”
“Oh my god,” Ryland croaked through his guffaws. “Oh my god, that was the funniest shit I’ve ever seen. Ahhhh!”
That last was clearly meant to be an imitation of Dabbs.
“Jesus fuck, Ryland. You asshole.” Heart hammering fast enough to burst out of his chest, Dabbs slumped back against the ground.
