Page 38 of By the Pint

He tapped the ball lightly. Too lightly. It would lose momentum as it travelled over the slight incline of the bridge. Should have lost momentum. But no, it kept going. Steadily heading towards its target, picking up speed as it rounded off the drop and … plop, straight into the first hole.

Beginner’s luck, I told him.

He straightened his cloak. “Did I forget to mention I’m fucking amazing at this?”

12.

Casey

I dropped my ball into the teeing zone and lined up my club. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, and tapped the ball with the exact right amount of force to get it to the top of the hump on the bridge. Dima stood leaning on his club, watching every move I made. Every twitch of every muscle.

The ball reached the middle of the bridge, and as expected, gravity took over, taking it on its journey straight into the first hole. Maybe it was simply a straightforward first hole. To make everyone think they had a fighting chance at—

Huh.

At the very last second, the ball veered off its path, circled around the hole and lazily drifted toward the grassy back bumper.

“One point to me,” Dima said. That fucking slick grin eased over his handsome face.

I didn’t reply. He saw my thoughts. He knew that wasn’t how the fucking score keeping went. I took up my new position behind the ball and tapped it towards the hole. Fine, two shots. Dima might not be keeping the proper score, but I would be.

The fucking thing did the same again.

That shot was true! And it was two fucking feet away.

Maybe,Dima said,you’re just not very good at mini golf. Maybe you’ve found the first thing ever that you’re bad at.

I’m never bad at anything.

The ball went in on the third try. I pushed out all the air from my lungs and fought the urge to lob the bastard thing into the moat. On the other side of the volcano.

“Second hole now. This one looks fun. We have to go underneath that giant shark’s corpse.”

Hole two featured a huge wooden frame like a gallows, and dangling from the centre, was a massive, open-mouthed, fibreglass shark. Its body was wrapped in bright red ropes. Its lifeless, glassy black eyes stared at the astroturf. A person could stand in the middle of its mouth and look like they had been part of the shark’s lunch. No doubt a photo op. The green, which for this hole was blue, meandered underneath its open maw. A few random bumpers floated along the path, but if I kept the shot true, they wouldn’t present a problem.

“It’s one-nil to me.”—Dima barely contained his snort—“So, me first. I think I’m gonna put some backspin on this one.”

“Fuck me. That’s not—You can’t put backspin on a ball using a putter, and it’s like ten fucking yards away, you don’t—” I stopped my rant when Dima tilted his head to the side and pulled his smile between his teeth.

My free hand shot into my hair. He was winding me up. And I bloody fell for his trap. Well, not again.

“Is this right?” he said, lifting the club above his head like a trophy. He paused it there, grinned at me, and wiggled his butt. I pointedly did not look at it.

I called his bluff. “Sure.”

The fucker only went and brought the club down. At lightning speed. Smacking the ball hard and firing it upwards. It pinged on the shark’s nose, bounced up higher against the underside of the wooden beam, and ricocheted to the green and … directly into the cup.

“No!” I yelled, as Dima shouted, “Ha!” punching the air with his club.

“What the fuck?! How was that even possible?”

“Two-nil to me,” he said. I screwed my fists up into balls. “Why don’t you try my trick, Moonflower?”

“No. I do things the right way,” I replied through gritted teeth.

That wasn’t strictly true. Never had been. Dima would know that now if he hadn’t already gleaned it from my mind. Rules were great. Loved rules. They held everything together. Made everything right and just. But they were for other people. Everyone else. Not me. My modus operandi had always been to prioritise efficiency and effectiveness over morals, rule following, and not being a straight-up prick.

And besides, sometimes it helped to be a prick. Kept people where you wanted them.

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