308
a pool noodle, a toilet plunger, a feather boa, a spatula The rules, such as they are: Everyone is given a ridiculous object person without being caught or adjusting it. Last one standing wins.
–
and has to “hide” it on h
Rooster tosses me a rubber chicken.
I stare at it.
“You serious?”
“Hide it, Hayes. SEAL style.”
Max immediately shoves his pool noodle down one pant leg, limps across the floor like he’s lost a bet, and says, “Don’t judge me.”
Luc sticks a whisk into his hoodie sleeve. Anna tapes the feather boa around her waist like a tutu.
Boomer tries to pretend the plunger is a back injury support brace. It fails.
And Penny? She smiles sweetly at me, tucks a spatula into her ballet wrap skirt so it curves naturally against her thigh, and winks.
Showoff.
“Three minutes on the clock!” Rooster shouts. “Blend or die!”
2
By the end of it, Max trips and the noodle bounces halfway across the room. Anna’s boa falls off mid–spin. I forget the chicken is under my shirt and nearly
elbow someone in the face with it.
Winner? Penny.
Obviously.
The moment Rooster starts hauling out red balloons from behind the sound system like he’s detonating a minefield, I know it’s about to get worse.
Way worse.
He’s grinning like he’s ten seconds away from committing a federal crime. “Alright, nerds! Next up is what I like to call the Bomb Squad Relay.”
He punctuates that with a dramatic spin and slams a bright orange Home Depot bucket down on the table. Glitter spills over the rim like radioactive dust. A collective gasp rises from the crowd, like we’re all about to witness an execution.
“You will be crawling across a battlefield,” Rooster announces, motioning toward the middle of the studio, where dozens of red balloons are now being taped to the floor by Anna and Mila with chaotic enthusiasm. “Inside each balloon is a slip. Some say ‘SAFE.‘ Some say ‘BOOM. You pop three. Your mission:
retrieve only SAFE slips. Too many BOOMS and…”
He picks up the glitter bucket, lifts it above his head like a trophy.
“You get glitter bombed. Brutally. Without mercy.”
“Define ‘too many,” Boomer calls out warily..
4:49 pm P W
Chapter 308
“One,” Rooster replies.
Luc groans. “That’s all it takes?”
Rooster nods. “Glitter is unforgiving.”
I glance at Penny, who’s biting her lip to keep from laughing. She’s perched on a folding chair nearby, still barefoot from her Hostage Extraction win, hair escaping its braid, cheeks pink from laughing through three rounds of chaos. She looks over at me, eyes sparkling, and says under her breath, “I’m going to
destroy them.”
Of course she is.
Boomer goes first. He’s careful, strategic, crawling low to the floor like he’s back in training – or pretending to be. He pops one balloon. SAFE. Second
balloon… BOOM.
Rooster dumps a handful of glitter down Boomer’s shirt before he even makes it back across the finish line.
“Welcome to hell,” Rooster whispers, deadpan.
Boomer coughs, spits glitter. “Why is it mint–flavored?!”
Rooster shrugs. “Just in case you inhale it.”
2
Then it’s Max.
5
Max dives face–first onto the balloons like he’s skydiving into enemy territory. He’s screaming the entire time.
“FOR THE EMPIRE!”
“Wrong fandom!” Mila calls out.
He pops three in record time. The first? BOOM. The second? SAFE. The third? Another BOOM.
Two glitter bombs.
Max glitters for the rest of the night. I don’t think he even cares.
Then it’s Penny.
T
1
She walks toward the balloon field like a panther in a silk skirt, all quiet precision and focus. No dramatics, no yelling, no chaos. Just grace.
Rooster raises a brow. “You sure, Ballerina?”
She gives him a look. “Try me.”
3
He gives her a thumbs–up. “Your funeral.”
She crouches, studies the terrain like she’s reading the floor for seismic pressure. Her fingers test the tension in the balloon rubber. She selects three–each one deliberate, each one popped with a surgical flick of her ballet calluses–and then stands.
2/4
4:50 pm Pal
Chapter 308
Three slips. All SAFE.
She raises them over her head.
Rooster stares. “Did you cheat?”
“No,” she says, smiling sweetly. “I observed. You taped them in patterns. Two rows of every three have at least one BOOM.”
Rooster blinks. “You counted rows?”
“She counted everything,” I say.
He whistles. “You spend too much time with Tank.”
Penny just bows like it’s curtain call.
She walks back over to me, tucking her SAFE slips into her jacket pocket like war medals.
I catch her hand and pull her in gently, pressing a kiss to the top of her hair.
“You’re terrifying,” I whisper against her crown.
“I’m efficient,” she replies.
And she is. Scarily so.
Rooster calls for the next team, but the energy in the room’s shifted. Everyone’s side–eying Penny now like she might blow them up just by looking too hard.
Can’t lie. I kind of love it.
She grins up at me and mouths, “You’re next.”
And I am. But right now?
I’m just watching her glow in the soft studio lights, red balloons still deflating behind her, glitter still floating in the air like battle smoke, and I think-
Hell of a girl.
Hell of a night.
3/4
Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
