The Rivalry

Kayla’s attention swung from Marcy to me. “Actually, I can’t talk about it.”

“Talk about what?”

“Sports,” Kayla said as Marcy cleared her throat, “. . . bras.”

What the hell? “You can’t talk about sports bras?”

“Sure can’t.” She gave a definitive nod.

“Well, that’s disappointing. I mean, I had so much I wanted to discuss with you about them.”

She feigned seriousness. “Sorry. It’s just too controversial of a subject.”

“I guess so.”

It was quiet, and slowly Marcy and Dave drifted away. Kayla seemed to relax, but her voice stayed low. “I made a promise to Marcy I wouldn’t talk about football tonight. Or any sports, really.”

I tensed at the mention of football, hoping she couldn’t feel it. “Why’s that?”

“Because Marcy claims I’m ‘obsessed.’ I would say I’m ‘enthusiastically interested,’ but I want to prove a point to her. She challenged me to go one night without bringing up the subject.” One of her hands slid down over my collarbone, coming to a stop on the center of my chest. Her expression was pleading. “So, we can’t talk about sports. It’s too risky. I’m already going through withdrawal and I’ll cave if you say anything. Even though I really want to ask if you were offense or defense when you played in high school.”

Whoa. My brain didn’t know where to focus first. A whole evening not talking about football? Yeah, I could handle that. My life was about to shift back into it fulltime. It’d be great to hang out with a girl who was interested in me as the guy, not the player.

“Okay, no worries,” I said. “I don’t find that idea . . . offensive.”

She smiled wide at my thinly disguised answer. “That’s not cheating, right?”

I grinned right back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

As the song faded out, a thumping, up-tempo beat replaced it, and Kayla’s eyes lit up. She stepped back and began to move her hips to the rhythm, but I was less excited. I could deal with a slow dance, but fast dancing was a hard pass.

The deejay encouraged people onto the floor, and as they filled in around us, I put my hand on her shoulder and whisper-shouted in her ear. “You wanna take a walk with me?”

She slowed to a stop. I could see she wanted to dance, but her gaze turned to the back wall of the ballroom, which was mostly glass. The country club’s clubhouse had a great view of the eighteenth hole.

“The sun’s gonna set soon,” I added. “Let’s take a walk on the golf course before it gets dark. C’mon, grab your drink. You can spank the planks when we get back.”

“Spank the what?”

I wasn’t going to make it easy for her to turn down my offer. I left her standing on the dance floor and strode toward our table. Good. She was following me. We made our way out of the ballroom, through the main clubhouse space, and ducked out the back door.

“They couldn’t have asked for better weather,” Kayla said when we stood on the stone patio.

“Yeah.” I sensed she was looking at me, but my focus was finding the right trail to go down. There were three golf cart paths, and the one on the left wound into the woods.

Left it is.

I tried not to walk too fast, but keeping up didn’t seem to be a problem for her. Her dress swished quietly as we strolled down the narrow, paved path. It was humid, but not awful, and the sun was so low in the sky, it had disappeared behind the tree line.

We didn’t talk as we moved deeper into the forest. We took sips of our drinks and moved further away from the clubhouse. All the way until it felt like it was just us and the noisy bugs humming in the trees.

“I can’t believe Marcy and Dave are married,” she said. “They’re, like, adults.”

“No shit, right? Next time I hang out with Dave he’ll probably be driving a Volvo and complaining about taxes.” I laughed. “I get it, though. Marcy seems cool.”

“She is.” Kayla’s expression was warm. “She’s the first of my friends to get married, but she swears this is it. Her getting hitched is going to unleash the floodgates, and all of our boyfriends are going to start putting rings on it.”

I heard a needle dragging across a record, but she must have heard it, too. She wasn’t single?

Her face went blank. “I meant all of the boyfriends of my friends. I’m boyfriend-less, so I’m safe from the threat of jewelry.”

“Oh,” I said. “For a second there, I thought this was gonna be a busted play.”

She slowed. “Yeah? Is that what this is? You making a play for me?”

I pretended to be offended. “Was that not obvious?”

“I thought you just wanted some fresh air.” Her electric eyes said otherwise.