Outside the Lines(28)

Ben’s face goes slack and I’m sure he’s thinking that’s the stupidest thing in the entire fucking world to suggest we do on a first date. We’re adults, after all. He puts his hands on the steering wheel. “That sounds awesome,” he says and the smile returns to his face.

I sit back in the seat, grinning ear to ear.





*





“You’re cheating!” Ben laughs after I get my third hole-in-one. “I don’t know how, but you’re cheating!” He sets his beer down on the bricks that outline the eighth hole and drops his ball, using his foot to line it up with the hole.

I grab my ball and hop off the AstroTurf, piña colada sloshing down my hand. “Yes, cheating with my telekinetic powers,” I laugh back.

Ben hits the ball. It bounces off the side of the little brick path, rolls halfway up the slopped course, and comes back down. We both laugh. It takes him five more attempts before we can move on.

“I didn’t know these places served booze,” Ben says, grabbing his beer. “Well, the last time I was at one, I wasn’t old enough to drink.”

“I assume they started doing it for the parents who come with small children,” I say. “You know, the ones that take even longer than you. They have to drink to keep their sanity.”

He takes my arm as we walk across a wooden planked bridge. It’s not the easiest thing to do in heels.

“You’re probably right.”

We stop at the next hole, and I step aside. “Go ahead. Let’s see if you can get it in the hole on your first try.”

Ben turns to me, a devilish glint in his eyes. “I always get it in the first try.”

Oh boy.

I open my mouth, wanting to say something sexy and witty back to him. But only a garbled, “I bet” comes out. He flashes me his bedroom eyes and sets the ball down.

I stare at his tight ass, thinking of it sans clothing with my nails digging into his flesh as he goes to town, pumping and thrusting into me. I get hit with a hot flash, and I know it’s not from my oncoming period.

I take a big gulp of my drink and shake my head. A group of teenagers shriek and laugh across the course. It’s a group of three couples, and they are all over each other in a typical juvenile public display of affection.

“Young love,” Ben muses, looking up. “They don’t know how easy they have it.”

“No bills, no jobs, just homework and parents to deal with,” I say. “But still, I’d never go back to high school if you paid me.” Unless I was undercover, like in a movie. Then maybe I’ll consider it. Maybe.

Ben’s ball rolls into the little white hole next to a fake pond filled with water so scummy the fountain is clogged and just spitting up bubbles instead of spraying the water into the air.

“You really hated it that much?” He steps off the course.

I drop my ball, hit, and miss. It goes into the water. I grimace and walk up to get it, using my purple golf club to pull it from the water. “I’d never go back, if that tells you anything,” I say. “But it was years ago. I’m over it.”

“I loved high school,” he admits and it doesn’t surprise me. He’s always been good looking, I can tell, and I’m sure he’s always been athletic and talented too. “But I wouldn’t go back either. College, yes.”

“Oh me too,” I say. I’d go back for a do-over. I fucked up big time in college. “That was fun.”

I get a hole-in-two and Ben and I exchange party stories as we finish the course. I win, by a lot, but I stopped keeping score after the fourth hole and it became apparent I’d dominate.

“Are you up for go-karts?” I ask Ben when we turn in our golf clubs and balls. I finish my piña colada and toss the plastic cup in the recycling bin next to the trash.

“If it involves you, I’m up for anything,” he says and I can’t help but wonder if the “up” reference has to do with his penis.

I’m so fucking mature, I know.

“Let’s see if your Mario Kart skills carry over into the real world,” he teases and buys us tickets. There’s not many people left this late, and the park closes in twenty minutes. It’s more than enough time. We get into our little cars and the attendant comes over to check our seat belts. Ben revs his engine, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

“You’re going down,” he says. Another sexual reference? Gah, I need to stop.

“So are you,” I threaten and rev my own engine, getting a stern look from the man in charge. Mine was a sexual reference, by the way. I love a man who goes down on a woman.

The green light flashes and we take off, passing the three other people on the course—who are all twelve years old or younger. Ben jerks his wheel, slamming into me. My car shutters and hits the wall, bouncing off the rubber tires lining it.