Page 23 of Wildly Inappropriate

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“You’ve hidden in your room every night this week.”

I tug my baseball hat on my head and open the door for us both. “I’m not hiding. I’ve just been tired. I’ve been playing a lot of golf.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be injured?” Lila asks as we both climb into my rented navy blue pickup. I’m pretty sure it’s the same one I get every time I’m here. Lila is so small, she has to use the oh-shit handle to pull herself up and in, and the move gives me a view of her toned hamstrings peeking out from under the black shorts she changed into.

“What?” Lila asks, catching me watching her. “This is what Kelsey recommended I wear. I asked if this was more a jeans party or a sundress party, and she said, and I quote, ‘Jeans or shorts. Definitely not a sundress.’”

“Sure,” I say. “I’m sure Kelsey knows what she’s talking about.” I look down at my collared golf shirt and salmon-colored shorts. “Do you think I’m okay?”

“Well, you look like you just stepped off a golf course. And, as you’re a professional golfer, that feels appropriate for any occasion.”

We drive in uncomfortable silence until we reach the paved road that leads into town. Lila turns to look at me, scanning me from my flip-flop-clad toes to the top of my head. “You aren’t really hurt, are you?”

“I tweaked my back,” I say, the lie tasting a little worse in my mouth when I tell it to Lila. But Lord knows Lila would use my inability to perform to make my life a living hell. I mean, shit, even my mind immediately goes to impotence jokes. No, Lila, like the rest of the world, is best left at arm’s length. I can still be one of the best golfers in the world with a tweaked back. It’s a rite of passage for golfers over a certain age. But a guy with the mental yips? That’s not someone worth the sacrifice my parents have made.

“Suuuure,” she says. “If that’s what you want to go with. It’s definitely not—” She slams her mouth closed and smacks a hand across her lips like she has to physically restrain herself from saying whatever was about to burst out of her mouth. “Never mind.”

“Are we pulling punches now, Pipsqueak? I’m not that injured.”

“No. No, it’s just that I…I need to ask you a…favor.” The last word comes out like it’s the most disgusting thing Lila has ever said.

“You don’t say?” I reply, not knowing where this is going, but loving every second of it. “And what, exactly, is important enough to make you be nice to me?”

“I’m not being nice to you, I’m just notnotbeing niceto you.”

“I’m not sure there is a difference besides one being grammatically correct.”

She takes a deep breath, squaring her shoulders like she’s about to do battle. She clearly doesn’t want to ask me whatever she’s about to.

“Can we pretend not to hate each other tonight?”

I’m caught off guard by the termhate. I’ve neverhatedLila. Sure, she annoys the hell out of me, and I definitely don’t want to spend more time around her than I have to, but it doesn’t sit right that she thinks I hate her. “I don’t hate you,” I say.

“Come on, JT. Of course you do. We fight all the time.”

“I really don’t, Lila. I…”—I’m not sure how to explain the complex web of our relationship—“I know I said I don’t like you, but I’ve never hated you.”

She pauses like she’s considering the difference between the two, but then she shakes her head like it doesn’t matter. “Okay, well, either way. I promise to be on my best behavior tonight, but can you please help me? I can’t have these people thinking I’m some kind of shrew, and I’m pretty sure Jameson has actually used that word to describe me when you’re around.”

“Okay,” I say.

She still doesn’t seem content. She’s fidgeting with her necklace, her eyes staring blankly ahead. “Is there something else?” I ask. “We’re almost to town.”

“Can-you-not-mention-to-anyone-that-we-hooked-up?” she says it all in one go like any break between words would make her incapable of getting the whole question out. Which is fair because, fuck. I thought we would both take that right to the grave with us and never, ever speak of it again. I’m pretty sure we actually agreed on that while I had her pushed against the wall in Phoenix. Bryn’s sister had almost caught us about a minute later, and at that realization, I swore to myself that I would never touch Lila again. Jameson is my only friend, and there is no way he would continue to be my friend if things between Lila and I ever went south—the only direction that things have ever gone between us.

“Um. Sure.” I fidget with the brim of my hat. “I actually thought we weren’t ever speaking of that again.”

“Right,” she says, her tone sounding surprisingly dejected. “Oh, you need to turn right up here.”

I make the turn, but my mind won’t stop picking at the sound of her voice. The vulnerability in it. I’d only heard it one time before—when we got breakfast with her brother and Bryn in Vegas. She had asked me about a mic catching me cursing during my first couple of holes on Saturday morning, and apparently, she didn’t like my answer. Her tone confused me then, and it’s confusing me now. I’m about to pull into the empty lot in front of what appears to be the hospital when she points to the left.

“It’s just up this way a bit.”

She directs me to a red brick house set off the street with a big lawn and a couple of nice trees out front. There are already about fifteen cars lining their driveway, so I pull in behind the last one.

“Why don’t you want people to know we hooked up?” I ask, worried that maybe she, like my dad, is embarrassed by me now that I’m not playing well.

---