“What?” I peer down at him, breathless, a mighty flush to my cheeks. “Nothing.”

“Nothing? I just said your name.”

“Right.” I clear my throat. Jamie cannot know I have the hots for him. We have an agenda to stick to, and having emotionless sex would absolutely compromise it. Maybe with someone else it could work, but not Jamie. We’re fake dating, and everything about Jamie screams six real dates before making slow, fervent love to his partner. He stares into their eyes and holds off orgasm for forty-five minutes. He is the consummately selfless lover. I think I’d traumatize him if I put on the moves. I’d be wild. I wouldn’t be ladylike with Jamie. I’d throw him down on a sofa with our clothes halfway off and ride him like a rodeo pony.

“You’re holding things up!” Margo calls.

Sula tugs Margo onto her lap and blows a raspberry against her neck. “Chill out and leave them alone. You remember the early days.”

Toni and his boyfriend, Hamza, trade knowing looks. Jules has the audacity to nudge Jean-Claude, throwing him a beaming conspiratorial smile. My rage is rekindled, bursting to fiery life after a fresh hunk of their gloating fuel is thrown on its embers.

“Jamie,” I squeeze his shoulders again. “We have to win.”

“We might have a chance,” he says, “if you don’t snap my collarbones with your death grip.”

I retract my claws. “Sorry.”

“Forgiven.” An almost smile peeks out. “Do not follow me this time. We barely avoided a repeat performance of your ball-meets-body fiasco earlier, except this time I nearly knocked out your teeth.”

I drop from the chair I’m standing on with a jazz-hands flourish, shuffling alongside him. These floors are slippery. I keep almost wiping out. “I’m just trying to boost morale—”

“Boost morale,” he mutters. “Back up. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I can’t help it. I’m too excited.”

He gives me a long, hard stare that sends a frisson of devious delight zipping down my spine. “Beatrice.”

Oh God, his voice when he gets extra stern. It’s lava, straight through my ears, down to the pit of my stomach, where it lands, molten between my thighs. I swallow thickly. “James?”

“Do you want to win or not?”

“Are you honestly asking me that?”

“No,” he says, facing the lane. “I’m saying it to make a point. It’s called a rhetorical question.”

I roll my eyes. “Such an arrogant—”

That’s when I realize he distracted me on purpose, long enough to snap his arm back and send the ball flying down the lane, where it lands with a crash.

Strike!