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Adam grimaced and shrugged his shoulders. He hadn’t said very much about his time with Nicole at the ruins earlier in the day, but it seemed like they must have talked about something momentous if he was now interceding with his mom.
Everyone gathered around the small selections of putters, but I knew it wouldn’t matter which one I picked up, and not just because the clubs were so dinged and scraped, they looked like they’d been fed through a woodchipper. Despite my dad’s attempts to teach me over the years, I was terrible at putting, lacking both the control to get the ball at the right speed and the knowledge of angles and breaks to aim it properly.
“Is this going to be like the surfing?” I asked Adam.
He gave me a questioning look.
“When you turn out to be semi-pro and have to rescue me?”
He grinned. “Nothing like that, I promise. I haven’t done this since I was a kid.” He raised his putter in the air like he was surrendering. “You?”
“I’ve done it a couple of times as an adult.” It had actually been my first date with Westin. We’d gone to a local amusement park, and he’d asked permission to hold my hand. At the time I’d thought the date was cute and sweet, but now the memory made me queasy.
My feelings must have displayed on my face. Adam’s voice broke through my thoughts, gentle and concerned. “You okay?” he murmured, his eyes searching mine. “We don’t have to do this if you’d rather not.” He might have been talking about the mini-golf or our relationship.
I looked up at him, taking in his sincere expression, and felt a warmth spreading through me. Adam cared about what I wanted. “I want to.”
He smiled, kissed me briefly on the lips, and slipped his fingers through mine as we walked to the first hole.
Grandma had some trouble hitting the ball hard enough at first, sending it only an inch or so at a time.
“We’re going to count those as practice swings,” Nicole announced, leaving the tiny golf pencil behind her ear instead of recording the high number on our scorecard.
“All right, this is going to be a big one,” Grandma announced. She pulled the club back a little farther and hit the ball with respectable force. To our astonishment, the ball rolled straight for the hole and hovered around it for a second or two before falling neatly in.
We all clapped and cheered, nobody louder than Beverly. “Way to show these kids what we old ladies can do.”
Grandma smiled at her former daughter-in-law. “I’m ancient, but you’re just as pretty as the day I met you.”
Beverly’s eyes grew misty, and she hugged Grandma close. It appeared the key to Beverly’s gentler side was to compliment her youthful appearance.
It was my turn next, and after it took me six putts to get the ball in the hole, I informed everyone that it was only a preview of what was to come.
Nicole overshot her distance, and the ball ricocheted off the back edge and came nearly all the way to the start, but she still managed to sink it in four strokes. Beverly shot par, hitting the ball like a professional even though she claimed it had been ages since she’d played.
Then it was Adam’s turn. He crouched down and investigated every blade of fake grass, measuring distances with his club.
A large family group waited at the start of the course, two smaller boys whining loudly about the sun and demanding to know when they could play.
“Oh, great. We’ve awakened Adam’s competitive side.” Nicole sighed and shook her head.
Ignoring all distractions, Adam angled himself to the ball and made his first putt, sending the ball neatly down the center of the path to stop two inches from the hole. Adam tapped it in and then turned to Nicole. “Two.”
Nicole rolled her eyes. “I got it, thanks.”
Grandma smiled beneficently upon us all. “He just wants to show off for his love.”
Adam’s eyes darted to mine and then we both looked away. As my eyes looked for another subject, I caught Nicole watching us with raised eyebrows. Was she aware of her brother’s viewpoints on love?
Grandma got tired after just four holes, so Beverly gave up her putter to sit with the nonagenarian on a bench nearby where they could watch us. I ended up with a score that would have been amazing if we’d played eighteen holes but put me last for nine.
Despite Nicole’s best efforts, Adam beat her by four points, then bragged about his win more eagerly than I had expected from a man who’d beaten out his sister and the woman he’d been dating for a day.
“Still a few more hours until dinner,” Nicole announced. “We haven’t done the ropes course. Or there’s a movie we could see.”
“I’m pretty comfortable right here.” Grandma patted the bench she was sitting on. “But you kids should go and have fun!”
“I’d honestly rather sit with you.” Nicole smiled affectionately at her grandmother and took a seat.
