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belt, “I feel worse for those unwanted puppies that grow up to be unloved dogs living in cages at our animal shelter. Or worse, with no one to love them and no one to care for them. No real home ever. Or they could even possibly end up in a shelter that doesn’t have a no-kill policy. Neutering saves lives,” she lectured as they headed inside carrying their equipment.
    “I guess when you put it that way…” Tad looked at Candace, who was already suiting up. “I hope you’ll at least let me keep mine.”
    Despite that grin of his that often made girls weak in the knees, Candace squinted an eye and took aim at the bulge in his jeans. “Fat chance, bucko.” She made a fake gun noise as she pretended to fire off a round right at his junk.
    “Oh, it’s on.” Tad laughed, and after they’d each paid to play on the course they pushed inside the arena.
    “Like Donkey Kong.” Candace shot him in the leg as she ran and hid behind a partition where paintballs flew, splattering around her.
    * * * *
    They played for two hours until they were both exhausted, sweaty, and out of paintballs. “I slayed you.” Tad laughed on the walk out to the truck. The night was warm but the breeze was cool. Cool enough that Candace’s arms went up in a flurry of goose bumps, so she walked a little closer to Tad, hoping he would shield her from the wind a bit.
    “Psh.” Candace gave him a little push. “Did not.” The sky was the color between pink and orange, leaving a glow on everything the light touched, including them.
    “So did.” Tad stole her hand from his chest and laced his fingers between hers. Candace didn’t say anything about it at first because she was so shocked and because Tad didn’t seem to notice. The truck came up pretty quickly, and they let go of each other’s hands then.
    It wasn’t until a couple of days later when they were sitting on the couch watching the game with a big furry Sasha sharing their laps that she went to get up to go to the bathroom and found that she was attached to Tad. She vaguely recalled that this time it had been she who’d slipped her fingers between his.
    In the bathroom she took a long, hard look at herself. She silently prayed that this challenge wasn’t going to change their relationship. It was the best part of her life. Tad was there for her. Even though their past was more than rocky, as adults Tad hadn’t let her down yet. Granted, he’d only been back in her life for a little under a year, but the last several months were good for her—for both of them. She didn’t want anything to ruin that.
    He was letting her live with him, they did things together, they shared things—and not just beer and pizza. He’d been the first person she’d told about her pregnancy scare a while back, and occasionally he’d tell her things about how he felt about his brother’s long-ago death, or what it was like to be raised by his sister because they’d lost their parents as children.
    He had become her best friend again, and she didn’t want to lose that. It was way more important than some dumb challenge cooked up by her meddling sisters and his bonehead friends who she loved dearly.
    When Candace came back to the living room she took a seat in the cream-cushioned papasan chair that nobody ever sat in. She picked Charlie up, who had been in the process of cleaning himself, and cuddled him to her chest.
    “What are you doing?” Tad asked with Sasha’s head still in his lap.
    “Nothing.” She smiled at him.
    “You can’t see the TV from that seat.” He was looking at her like she was crazy, and she knew that she was.
    “I know. Remember how people used to listen to the game on the radio?”
    “No, and neither do you because we’re not fifty-some years old.”
    “Well, but you’ve heard of people listening to the game…”
    “Yeah, because they’re stuck in their car, or because they are fifty-some-year-olds and that’s how they had to do it back in the day before