Page 18 of A Flighty Fake Boyfriend
“We have the whole day to get to the hotel.” I dug into the bag of chips he held and used one to scoop a dollop of bean dip from the can he’d also produced from his snack food cache. “Do you really want to mini-golf?”
“I love mini-golf,” he said wistfully.
“Then mini-golf you shall, Epic,” I said. “I have some work to do. I’ll wait for you in the bar, or wherever passes for a watering hole, while you play.”
“That’s adorable,” he mused while we crunched our chips. “It’s almost like you think you have a choice.”
My mouth went dry. “I don’t mini-golf, Epic. Honestly. Don’t set yourself up for disappointment.”
“Oh, I won’t.” He hummed.
I may have had a picnic’s worth of snacks and sodas in my car and a deflated pool toy in the trunk, but I had to draw the line somewhere. Epic wasn’t going to get his wayeverytime. This wasmyhorrible wedding weekend, not his. I was going to decide which horrible things I’d do, not him.
“Mini-golf really isn’t for me,” I said firmly. “There will be no negotiation. Mini-golf is off the table as far as I am concerned. You are, of course, free to enjoy yourself.”
“And I will. I assure you.”
I didn’t trust his sweet, smug smile when he said those words.
I was right not to.
Chapter Five
Three tiny hobbit houses sat at the base of a fiberglass tree with a kindly Green Man face. Two of them sent my mini-golf ball into an underground chamber, causing it to shoot out from somewhere behind me and hit the heel of my shoe painfully. Of course it took me three tries to find the one that didn’t. Fortunately, we weren’t keeping score. After me, Epic got it on the first try, but he’d played this course before and knew all the ins and outs.
A crisp breeze blew in from the ocean, cooling my skin. It bore the sticky fragrance of frying corn dogs and funnel cakes and cotton candy. Screaming children and pink adults ran amok everywhere. They obviously didn’t have someone like Epic around to slather them with sunscreen until they shone like the domes of a Russian Orthodox church.
The sun blazed down, and the light bounced off everything. I’d remembered my Oakleys at the last minute, glad they were reflective so people couldn’t see how miserable I felt.
I’d had plenty of practice keeping the impassive face of a benign diplomat, no matter what situation I found myself in. I was certain that to anyone watching, I looked like I was enjoying myself.
We moved on to another hole. This one had a giant loop-de-loop that required exactly the right speed and velocity to carry the ball through to the green without turning it into an antipersonnel device. I admit my timid approach didn’t cut the mustard for the first, oh, three tries.
“You’re going to have to hit that a lot harder,” said my fake boyfriend.
“That’s what he said.” I tried again, and this time my ball shot off a topiary hippo, landed on the cement pathway, and rolled away.
“Alas, your poor meatball. It’s under that bush.”
“Sorry, I’m not hooked into mini-golf lore.”
“Wait here. I’ll get it.”
As I waited, a woman walking a boy of about five in the direction of the entrance smiled at me. “Having a father-son outing?”
“That’s my husband, ma’am.” I don’t know why I lied. I might have gone with the father and son gag if I thought I could trust Epic not to do something outlandish like…kiss me or something. He really was taking the fake boyfriend thing very seriously.
The woman gave me a frozen smile and nodded. “Sorry.”
“Happens all the time since he was still in high school when we hooked up.” Her eyes widened. “I’m just kidding. Epic’s my friend. He likes mini-golf.”
She obviously didn’t know what to believe, so she grabbed her son’s hand and hauled ass.
Epic came back. I gave him an abbreviated version of events.
He grinned widely. “You’re kind of a troublemaker, aren’t you?”
“Not at all,” I protested. “I just reacted in a haze of fury to her calling you my son.”
