“Yesss…” Damon hissed.
“I’ll come and watch, and you can hang out with me afterwards.”
“You heard the lady,” the guy snatching the ball back from Reed said. “Game’s on. Let's head out the back of the house.”
“Away from my washing line!” Barb growled, but she was soon smiling as she got to her feet along with everyone else. People seemed to come from everywhere, streaming towards a big open field at the back of the house.
“Skins or shirts?” the guy with the ball asked Jasper.
“If you’re taking my time away from my mate, then we’ll be skins,” Jasper said, then he and his brothers converged on me.
I blinked. I was surrounded by four massive men, my view of the field, the world beyond, now narrowed down on them. There were some smirks and jostling as they started yanking their shirts up and off their heads.
Oh.
It was hard not to visualise it. I tried really, really hard to avoid it, but as all those bare chests emerged, it was impossible not to see it. The idea of being in a bedroom with all four of them, those big hands going to their jeans as well, undoing buttons, unfastening belts, then shoving the taut denim down and off…
“Like what you see, beta?” Ben asked.
“Ah… what am I seeing right now?” I stammered. “Like I get it, you take your shirts off so we know which team you’re on, but why are you all here?”
With me, I wanted to add.
“You’re our mate,” Damon answered. “It’s your job to look after our stuff. And give us vigorous sports massages afterwards.” Reed smacked him up the back of his head, but he continued. “Some orange wedges at half time would be lovely, too.”
“Sport, fighting, all that sort of shit,” Jasper explained. “It’s supposed to be to either attract a mate or to entice the one you’ve got.” He reached down, tipping my chin his way until I was forced to inspect the broad expanse of his chest. “Birds flash fancy feathers around. Rams butt heads and wrestle. Alphas… Well, we—”
“Kick Ray Bradshaw’s arse,” Damon said, shooting a look over his shoulder at the guy with the ball, who was shouting increasingly more creative insults at my pack.
My pack. I blinked again.
“In your honour, of course,” Damon added.
“You need to keep your attention on the ball, not your balls,” Reed rumbled, then speared me with his gaze. “Win the game, then later tonight we work out just what the beta was thinking when we were all standing here shirtless.”
I went to protest, to splutter something, but the men just thrust their shirts at me and then jogged onto the field. Someone had set up wheelie bins on either end as temporary goal posts. Barb ushered us over to a lovely outdoor setting that had been placed here for just this purpose, Evie coming to sit beside me.
“Are my dads playing footy?” she asked.
“They’ve played football here since they were younger than you, Evie,” Barb replied. “They used to come down here for the holidays and my mates showed them how to play to try and burn up some of that endless energy.” She turned to me. “Young alpha packs tend to butt heads a lot, so Tom got them focussing all that competitive energy into a game.” She shook her head as she smiled. “Now every bloody time they come together, it's on for young and old. You might want to cover your eyes, young cub, because this game gets kind of brutal.”
And it did.
There were four against five, because my pack was missing a member, and the Bradshaws seemed intent on taking advantage of that. Jimmy went to the centre of the field and then bounced the ball to fly up in the air. Jasper and the leader of the Bradshaws, Ray, both leapt up to grab a hold of it. Jasper snatched it before the other man could, immediately turning to go and kick the ball, but Ray Bradshaw went for him, trying to tackle him before he could perform the manoeuvre. This skewed Jasper’s kick, much to his disgust, if the flurry of swear words leaking past gritted teeth was anything to go by, and one of the opposing team members standing down near their goal grabbed it from the air.
I didn’t really understand Aussie Rules football, or any kind of football for that matter, but AFL was easy to watch. I’m fairly sure the tackles, the grabbing of the Bradshaws’ shirts or any of the men’s belts and using them to swing them out of the way was not a legit move, but everything was so fast-paced, it didn’t really matter. The ball was stolen from the air, handballed, kicked or run down the field with lightning speed. And then Jasper seemed to come to the fore.
A beautiful kick went sailing across the ‘oval’, people shouting as they expected it to go through the goals and then Jasper was up and on the back of one of the opposition, using him as a launch pad to throw himself onto the ball. Shouts and curses filled the air, but Jimmy waved everyone off as Jasper scrambled to his feet and then booted the ball through the opposite goal. Evie jumped to her feet cheering and now it was starting to make sense.
Despite being a man down,my pack were neck and neck with the opposition according to the impromptu scoreboard that had been created using a well-worn piece of wood that had once upon a time been painted with chalkboard paint. Each side was huddled together right now as they discussed strategy. That was interesting to watch because Jasper often took a fairly low key role in the pack usually, but in this arena he was the master. He gestured, stabbed his fingers into the air and they all listened intently. But when they all separated, Jasper seemed transformed.
His hair had pulled free of his ponytail and it flowed freely over his shoulders, making him look like a warrior prince of old as it lifted in the breeze. He stared down the Bradshaws, then strode over to the centre of the field with all the grace of a panther. Jimmy eyed him as he brought the ball to the centre again, both men dropping down, ready to jump. But right as the ball was thrown to the ground, mumbling from the people surrounding the makeshift footy field alerted me tohispresence. He charged onto the ground like a steam train, arms and legs pumping, then threw himself into the air as the ball went up.
Logan.
Both Jasper and the other man stumbled back at his appearance, and he capitalised on that success, turning and booting the ball down towards the goals. We all watched it sail past, spinning end over end to go smashing down into the space between the bins, cheers going up through the crowd. Logan stood tall, a brash smile spread across his face, but Jasper… He just stared at his brother for a good few seconds before shaking his head, as Damon tossed the ball back to Logan. Jasper side-eyed Logan as he passed, the other man’s grin fading somewhat until I wasn’t sure who was on which team. But Logan fell back, letting Jasper take the lead as he jogged over to us.
“Barb…” Logan said, giving the omega a nod before standing in front of our chairs and reaching for his shirt hem.