The miniature golf course is crawling with kids at this time on a Friday night, but I never mind coming to play. Seeing Rachel’s competitive side always makes for incredible comedy. It must run in the family because given what she’s told me about Bash and Jameson, it seems they’re all a little overly driven to win. Probably comes from their father. She knows she’ll never beat me, but she insists on coming back for rematches anyway. Then she gets all worked up when she loses, or she tries to cheat and thinks she can get away with it. 

I deal with numbers all day, so there’s no way she’s sneaking something like a dropped stroke or altered scorecard past me. I’ve called her out on her shenanigans more times than I can count over the years, yet she still tries. And I still laugh. 

Every. Single. Time. 

Because she’s just so damn adorable doing it. 

This is making the whole “get over her and move on with my life” thing even more difficult. I spent this week trying to get my head on straight about the entire situation. To get myself to a place where I could look her in the eye and tell her I’m not in love with her, if it came to that. But if she asked now, or pushed, I would crumble faster than a weak foundation. 

Her ball whizzes through the alligator mouth, past the hole, bounces off the rear bumper, and comes all the way back to us. I lose it and dissolve into an uncontrolled fit of laughter while she stomps her foot and shakes her club at the ball. 

“What the heck was that? I had that lined up perfectly!” 

I snicker as I shoulder her out of the way to take my shot. “What’s your definition of perfectly?” 

She glowers at me. “Okay, Tiger, let’s see what you got.” 

I grin as I line up my shot and swing the shitty little putter the course provided. My ball shoots forward perfectly straight through the alligator’s mouth and into the hole with a satisfying plunk. “You mean like that?” 

Which means Rach is going to be pissed. She hates losing. At anything. Especially to me. I turn back to her in time to see her scowl again and stomp her foot like the kindergarteners she teaches. 

“That’s not fair! You grew up playing golf.” 

I walk over to her, wrap my arm around her shoulder, and squeeze her gently. “True, but it’s not like I’ve played much since high school.” 

Other than a few rounds with clients, I barely have time to relax, let alone play on a regular basis. That fact doesn’t seem to appease Rachel, though. 

“Still, hardly a fair matchup. You played varsity golf, and I learned to putt on a course like this with a damn clown laughing at me trying to get a ball in his mouth.” She slides out from under my arm and goes over to hit her ball again. This time, it heads straight for the hole and drops in. She jumps up and down and pumps her fist in the air. “Killed it this time. That’s two for me and one for you.” 

We walk up toward the hole—around the fiberglass alligator and “water hazard”—which is currently inundated with the noise of screaming kids at the surrounding greens and lit by glaring overhead spotlights. 

She reaches down to grab both of the balls. Her jeans stretch taut across her ass, and I have to look away. 

My dick swells, and I surreptitiously reach down and adjust it to a less conspicuous position. Hopefully, no one saw that; otherwise, I’ll have the cops swooping down on me in minutes, accusing me of touching myself around kids like some sick pervert. 

I may be a pervert, but I’m not that kind of pervert.