“Come on, Trouble.”

“What is happening?”

“I’m kidnapping you. Just to spare Lucrezia’s peace of mind.”

Chapter 18

I beg my heart to slow the hell down. “Where are we going?”

“To play the best sport in the world.”

“I don’t think we can figure-skate on sand.”

“Football, Maya.”

“Your football, or ours?”

“You have no football, just an organized system of overgrown men giving each other CTE.”

“Soccer, then. Well, thank you for the offer, but I take issue with team sports as a construct—”

“Hey, guys,” he announces. “Maya’s playing with us.”

Eli’s eyes turn to slits. He observes me from across the sand, skeptical. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

“Why not?” Conor pulls away, shrugging. “Diego, okay if she’s with you, Eli, and Axel? I’ll be with Sul and Paul.”

Diego gives me the thumbs-up and a wide smile. “Hope you’re ready to give it your all on the path to victory.”

I’m not even willing to give a third of my all—at least, that’s the intention. Unfortunately, anything with a remotely competitive bent sucks me in harder than a black hole. Fifteen minutes later, I’m very invested in the outcome of this inconsequential and severely dumbed-down game of soccer. Too invested.

I don’t like the person that I become when faced with the prospect of losing. Resist it, I beg my weak self. You’re stronger than this.

Then again, what if I’m not? And what if the fault lies in Axel and in subpar efforts? “Hey, Staph Boy?” I snarl after he fails to intercept the ball.

“Yeah?”

“Not a threat or anything, but if you don’t use your legs to run faster, someone might decide to cut them off.”

His expression is cowardly and not at all NHL-befitting. “W-what?”

“And they might feed them to the jellyfish hanging out in the shallow waters. The ones over there. Just saying—”

“That’s it,” Eli intervenes, facing me, hands on his hips. It gives me portentous You’re fourteen and I’m about to take away your Dr Pepper privileges flashbacks. “Maya, out.”

“What? Why?”

“You know why. She’s back—and we do not negotiate with her.”

I gasp. “She is not back.”

Paul moves closer. Looks between us. “She? Who are you talking about?”

“The Mayageddon,” Sul whispers.

“No,” I protest. “Come on, no. She’s locked in. I was just pointing out that Axel is terribly incompetent and the sole reason we might not win. But like, in a nice, friendly way.”

Eli shakes his head. “You kicked sand at Paul, you tripped poor Sul twice—you know he has a bad back—and you nearly destroyed Hark’s ability to have children with your knee.”

“I was megging him.”

“Maya, megging involves dribbling the ball through someone else’s spread legs.”

“Precisely!”

“The ball wasn’t even in your half of the field.”

“What? Come on! You can’t kick me out, I can still win this.”

“That’s exactly what the Mayageddon would say.”