Page 10 of Fraternizing with the Enemy
Logan popped his door open. “See, then you can’t truly knock it. Not til you try it.”
“Actually, I think I?—”
He shut his door before I could finish. I sat still in the passenger’s seat, staring at the wooden watermill that sat at the entrance, dumbfounded. Jade would be horrified when she found out this was where he’d taken me. No, she’d beembarrassed, and tell me not to tell a soul so that it didn’t end up on Babble. The girls on the squad wouldn’t be swooning over my future boyfriend; they’d be giggling at his middle schooler state of mind.
My door opened, and Logan offered a hand down to me.Gosh, why does he have to be so handsome?a small part of me wailed, while the larger part refused to move an inch from the passenger’s seat. “Don’t tell me you’re too cool to have fun, Madison.”
It wasn’t fair to put it that way. “I’m not.”Mini golf so didn’t qualify.
“Then take my hand.” He gave his fingers a wiggle.
I stared at Logan’s palm. This was not at all turning out how I’d imagined it. No romance—justputt-puttandjeans. I could see the Babble article now.First date? More like Playdate!
For a moment, I thought of what Jade would do.You can’t risk him losing interest.
She’d be right, of course. I needed him—it was either mini golf orKyle. Logan would still be perfect to walkdown the halls holding hands with. Everyone would still be jealous of how he looked. Maybe I could just lie and say our first date was something else. A picnic, a dinner, or a movie. Anything else.
So, with that thought in mind, I hesitantly put my hand in his and let him pull me from the car.
Minnie’s Mini Golf was forest themed. At least, I thought it was. There were a lot of faux tree trunks and broken logs, with a wooden bridge crossing over a small stream of water that the watermill pitifully pumped. Very corny.
Logan’s steps were confident as we walked to the main office, as if he’d come here a million times.Oh my gosh, please tell me he hasn’t come here a million times.
“The blue one is the closest to my size,” he told me as he picked one of the putters out from the big barrel they were clustered in. He reached to the next barrel over. “I think the red should work for you.”
“Cool,” I muttered, though it was anything but.
We shuffled forward through the small office, past a girl and her mother trying to figure out which putter was her size. “Pick your ball,” Logan told me as we came to a metal contraption that held various colors of golf balls.
There were no more blue ones, of course, so I picked the next best—pink. Logan picked black.
When we got in line to pay for our rentals, Logan looked at me, putting his weight onto his putter. “How about this? Loser buys ice cream.”
To win meant I had to take it seriously, though. Logan clearly wanted to, with the perpetual tilt he had to his lips. If I was being honest, it was the only thing saving him, because… it was cute. The whole thing should’ve icked me out from him, but there was something infectious about his smile that made me want to respond to it.
Knock his socks off, Jade had said. So, even though I felt like a dweeb, I mumbled, “You’re on.”
The little girl behind us suddenly started crying, a shrill sound that caused me to jump. “Just pick another color, sweetie,” her mom tried to coax. “Red is really close to pink!”
“I’m glad you were free today,” Logan said, drawing my attention back to him. “I’m actually busy the rest of the week.”
I turned my pink golf ball over in my palm. “Any fun plans?”
“Working.” He shrugged his shoulders a little. “I picked up a few shifts for a friend.”
My eyes traced the little blonde girl, the distress on her face making her cheeks go blotchy. “Where do you work?”
He hesitated for a second, as if debating on telling me. “You’ve heard of Expresso’s over in Jefferson? The coffeehouse? I work there.”
The little girl definitely didn’t want the red ball her mother tried to persuade her with, tears rolling out of the corners of her squinched shut eyes. “One sec,” I told Logan, and then stepped away from him toward the little girl. I crouched down in front of her, offering my palm out. “Here,” I said. “You can have mine.”
She was hesitant to take it from my palm, but at least her wailing dissolved into sniffles.
I reached out to swipe one of her big tears off her small chin. “I think I want the red one, anyway. Your mom’s right—it’s super close to pink.”
Her small, chubbyfingers wrapped around the golf ball as best as they could manage, and her mom shot me a look of weary gratitude.
“Sorry, I was listening, I swear,” I told Logan when I straightened, gripping my putter. Guilt and a bit of panic sank in—hopefully he didn’t think I was ignoring him. “You picked up shifts for a friend. That was really nice of you.”
