“I’m retired,” he reminds me. “And I’m a heart patient. I have no real social life thanks to my fucked up family. I take what I can get.” He shrugs, boasting an absolutely acerbic grin that has me regretting pulling away from him back at the motel room.
“You’re serious?” I’m confused by his comment about his family and the only thing that I can imagine is that his family is as stifling as mine, but maybe they do it from afar? It’s difficult to believe that though. If they were the smothering type like mine, they’d be at his side all the time or at the very least, calling, texting and Facebook stalking him. I ditched all social media a long time ago. It was just too much.
“Of course. I know the owner. I come hang out sometimes.” He shrugs his defined shoulders again, distracting me from my thoughts. His body as a whole is distracting. He isn’t bulky, but he’s tall, lean and sculpted. It’s difficult to imagine a heart patient as anything more than a pale, feeble-bodied person in a hospital gown, but Zander is quite the contrary. It’s obvious to me that he takes care of himself and keeps himself in order. It makes me happy to see. “Shall we?” he asks, opening his door to get out of the Jeep. I smile and nod as he rounds the front, letting me out. I’m glad that I wore capri pants and flats. Horsing around like teenagers isn’t a dress-friendly activity.
“So you’re telling me that the former pro golfer plays putt-putt and races around the track in go-karts?”
“I get my thrills where I can.” Zander’s smile is an attack of the most gorgeous kind. Every brick of the wall that I’ve formed around myself seems brittle when he smiles at me like that.
He leads the way to the first hole of the course. There are two putters and two golf balls sitting there, waiting for us.
“Don’t we have to pay or something?” I glance around, looking for a line or a desk or something.
“Nope. Just us for a while.” Zander sets a fluorescent yellow golf ball on the green then holds a putter out to me.
“What? How?” I idly take the putter, staring disbelievingly at Zander the entire time.
“Asked a favor.” He shrugs and holy fuck. I’m an oozing puddle of congealed estrogen and all things girl.
“Wow. You know how to make a woman feel special,” I admit, stepping up to the ball that he has set up for me at the first hole.
“Not women. Just you.” Even his short and choppy Zander McBride style explanation has me swooning. I’m in deep. “Okay. Get ready to lose to a golf master,” he quips, popping his neck and straightening his shirt, feigning cockiness.
“We’ll see about that!” I smile at him, feeling so damn girly. It’s disgustingly sweet.
And incredible.
***
Eight holes into the nine-hole course, it’s blatantly obvious that I suck at mini golf. Badly. So. So. Badly. Zander has had to hunt down my ball in the landscaping three different times. The only upside to my severe lack of skill with the putter has been Zander’s laughter. He’s been in stitches nonstop as he traipses off to retrieve the golf balls that have made their way into various bushes.
He bends over and places the ball on the green at hole nine for me. I’m so glad this part of the day is about to be over. I’m a sore loser. I’ll admit it.
“Need lessons in putt-putt,” I mumble, doing my best to “visualize the putt,” as Zander suggested. What the fuck does that even mean? He might as well have been speaking Greek. I nodded, then missed the shot so many times I snatched up the ball, marched right over to the hole, and dropped it in. Zander, of course, doubled over laughing. It was worth missing the shot. All eight of them.
“Well, if you need lessons…” he says from behind me in a deep voice that seems to caress every inch of me.
I turn my attention to him. All laughter has ebbed away. A lusty look has filled his eyes and my stomach flutters delectably. “I guess I do,” I mumble, barely loud enough for him to hear.