“You’re bending your knees too much,” he says, and I feel his voice vibrate through his chest into my back. “Lean over it more.”
He presses into me a little more, curving me over the ball, and now that his groin is against my ass, I realize I’ve stopped breathing. I look up, see Brian still arguing with Tom, and turn back to the ball, feeling like Owen and I exist in some other world.
“Ok,” I say, and even my voice sounds distant and quiet, my whole existence focused upon every point at which Owen’s body is touching mine.
“You’re doing this,” he says, jerking my hands from one side to the other, “when what you really want to do is swing with your hips a little more…”
He moves my body, one hand now on my waist, showing me where to twist. A smooth and soft motion, gentle and firm, and it’s almost like he’s fucking me, the way he moves his body against mine, the way my body wants to move against his. I can’t resist, and I press my ass back a little, against the bulge of his cock, hoping he doesn’t notice, hoping he does…
“You got it?” Owen says, pulling away suddenly, leaving me flustered and unsatisfied.
I keep looking at the ball so he doesn’t see how dizzy with lust he’s made me, but when I eventually look up I see the smile is gone from his face too, replaced by a look like he’s done something wrong and is expecting me to scold him for it.
“Yeah, I think I’ve got it now,” I manage to say. “Thanks. You’d better get back.”
“I should,” he says, but he’s still rooted to the spot.
Kate calls from the previous hole, “Owen!”
He looks back at Kate and waves to show he’s coming, then turns back to me.
We look at each other for a few seconds, and I open my mouth to say something, but what ends up coming out of my mouth isn’t at all what I had in mind.
“Have fun,” I manage to blurt out less-than-sincerely as he walks back toward his supermodel date.
“Will do,” he calls over his shoulder.
This whole ‘act like nothing happened’ thing is starting to feel a lot more difficult than I expected.
9
Owen
On Tuesday morning Margo and I go straight to the studio as we’ve been instructed. We haven’t spoken to each other since we were on the golf course yesterday, so that we can film a genuine post-date conversation without any knowledge of what happened on each other’s dates. I didn’t sleep great last night, my mind racing with images of Margo and Brian, who seemed to be getting along a whole lot better after I helped Margo with her golf swing. It’s not that I was jealous or anything like that, just concerned about her and how vulnerable she is right now. The last thing she needs is to jump into anything serious with some new guy she just met. Especially a guy as douchey as Brian sounded like.
I step into the small studio room—a giant blue screen set up behind a simple table with two chairs on the opposite side. Margo’s already in one of them, stretching back, bare legs poking from beneath the table. I detect some tiredness around her eyes—a poor night’s rest, or was she getting busy til dawn with her date? Tom, Mia, and Agnes are lounging around, casually checking and messing with the three cameras pointed at the table.
“Am I late?” I say, kicking the door shut with my heel.
“Early—by your standards,” Mia says with a smile, pulling a headset over her long, straight, black hair.
I share a quick look with Margo as I step over cables and between the cameras. She looks nervous, probably because she knows she has to ‘perform’ for our internet fans and she hasn’t done much video work before. It’s not like the filming of the dates, where you ignore the camera and go about your business—this time it’s all about showing off quick wit, sharp humor, and insight. Luckily, I know she has all of these in spades.
“You’re gonna be great,” I tell her. “Just try to forget you’re on film. Think of it like it’s just us two in the room.”
“That’s precisely the problem,” she says with a wry smile.
“Who are those for?” Tom asks, pointing at the coffees I’m holding in either hand.
“Me and Margo,” I say, glancing around. “Where should I put them?”
“Bring them to the table with you,” Mia says. “They’ll look good in the shot. More like a ‘morning after’ chat.”
Morning after. The words ring in my head as I move to the table to sit next to Margo. Morning after what, exactly? ‘Cause all I did last night was go straight home by myself and think about what Margo might have been doing—who she might have been doing.
“Your latte, milady,” I say, as I settle into my chair. I push Margo’s coffee toward her.
“Thanks.” She smiles, taking a slow sip and then looking up at the crew. “So how is this going to work?”
Mia steps out from behind one of the cameras to say, “However you want it to. Just talk about each other’s dates. Compare notes. The clips of the date footage will be edited into this later, but try to reference whatever you can remember. The good, the bad, and the ugly. We’ll prod you if you miss something.”
“Are you rolling now?” I ask.
Mia nods, smiles, and steps back behind her camera.
Margo and I look at each other, smile with the weight of the show on our shoulders, then break into laughter.
“Oh my god!” Margo says, covering her face. “I don’t even know where to start.”
“Ok. Let’s start at the beginning then…” I say, trying to keep things rolling. “What was your first impression of…what’s his name again?”
“Brian.”
“Brian, right. What did you think when you first saw him?”
Margo purses her lips and looks to the side. “Um…good-looking. Like, painfully good-looking. My eyeballs hurt a little bit from the blinding light of his smile.”
“Funny.” I ignore the pinpricks of jealousy that I know I can’t possibly be feeling right now. The guy was basically a walking Ken doll. What woman really wants that? “I guess, yeah, good teeth. Had that going for him. He was a big guy,” I say at the camera.
“Oh yeah. He looked kinda like Prince Eric.”
“Prince Eric?”
“From Disney? The Little Mermaid?” Margo says, like I’m supposed to know that.
I relax. “Like a cartoon character, got it.”
“I mean, if The Little Mermaid was real—which I kind of think it might be.”
“Right. Especially now that you’ve met your prince,” I say, unable to avoid a little edge in my voice. Did I sound too sarcastic there?
“Um, that’s kind of where the similarities ended actually.” Margo bursts into laughter.
I grin at her, a rush of relief washing over me, check the cameras, and take a long sip of coffee.
“Go on.”
“He was….like…I’m trying to figure out how to explain…” Margo says, slowly, her eyes searching the ceiling for clues. “Well first off, he was very good at mini-golf—I can say that for sure. Pro status.”
“And that’s exactly what ladies like in a man,” I say, a joke for the cameras, a petty sense of one-upmanship inside.