“I’m trying to look at myself like a project. Giving myself permission to stretch and learn more about myself.”
“Clever.”
He bent over to place the ball on the green, then positioned himself with his club. I made no secret of the fact that I was checking out his ass the entire time.
But…I also couldn’t let his perfect, carved-by-Michelangelo ass distract me from my goal.
Plu-doonk.The ball landed perfectly in the hole. Was that a birdie? An eagle? What was with the confusing names?
Then it was my turn. I prepared to shoot, but Hudson came up behind me, slipping his hands down my arms. He stood close enough that if this were a real golf school and he a real teacher, he definitely would have gotten complaints from the husbands of his desperate-housewife clientele.
Unbidden, my back arched so my ass brushed more firmly against him. My mind temporarily blanked.
This was what we in the scientific research industry called an unexpected setback. His touch was enough to distract me from almost anything.
Not that you could blame me. Our bodies fit perfectly together. To borrow another scientific framing, for two perfectly matched people to find each other on a planet of almost eight billion people was an anomaly, and such an anomaly required extensive study.
With a flex of our bodies, we tapped my neon-green golf club against my ball, sending it sailing…straight into the water feature of the next closest hole.
Okay, so maybe couples weren’t meant to mini-golf together. We stepped apart, and the sudden post-touch clarity got me.
“You know, you’re hiding just as much as I am,” I insisted. “Maybe even more. Being nice and pleasant is not a substitute for beingyou. Let me see you. I’ve been trying to do that. With you and Leelah. Maybe you should try it, too.”
“Why? You want to ditch me when my contract is up?”
Every so often, he got thisairabout him. A melancholy that pierced his otherwise sunshiny persona.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t have fun now.”
“And what if you don’t like me once you know more about me?” he said quietly.
I promised myself I wouldn’t let my heart complicate this fling with Hudson. And I stood by that.
However, I also didn’t fail.
Failing would be to let this man think I didn’t like him. If he walked away from our relationship—such that it was—truly believing someone couldn’t both see himandcare for him, I wouldn’t justfail. I would consider myself afailure.
“That’s it. I’m instituting new mini-golf rules,” I said. “Winner of each hole gets a prize.”
“I’m listening. What’s at stake? Sexual favors?”
“Information. I get lowest score, you have to tell me a fact about you. Of my choosing.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And what doIwin?”
It was nearing six o’clock, which meant the course was switching from family friendly to adults only. A gaggle of kicking and screaming children passed us on their way out, so I whispered my filthy suggestion. His face lit up.
“All right, you’re on.”
23
Fore-play
By the time we reached the climactic hole (pun absolutely not intended), I’d made nine perfect shots and come in at two par on the other nine.
Hudson, for all the fun he was having, did not fare so well. At the Mars-themed green, with its rotating rover protecting the cup, it took him twelve tries to finally get it in.
He was, it turned out, excellent at getting a hole in one inmyhole, but not so great at any others.
