Kiss My Putt (Summersweet Island 1)

Because maybe that’s what it is. A guard. Because I’m standing around wondering what the hell he’s feeling, and maybe he’s doing the same thing. At least he came clean about the Bradley thing. I haven’t opened my mouth and uttered one bit of truth to him since he got here.

I take one final deep breath of courage before I start walking toward the deck, watching Palmer pull the club down from around his shoulders to rest the heel of it on the floor before throwing his head back and laughing. Butterflies start flapping around in my stomach as I start moving away from Adam, an excited smile hurting my cheeks that I’m finally going to stop being a wuss and tell him how I feel.

That smile falls right off my face, my feet come to a stop, and all the butterflies die when I see Palmer lean down closer and press his mouth right against the ear of Miss Bradford, a kindergarten teacher who just made him laugh like she told the funniest joke in the world.

Miss Elizabeth Bradford, a young kindergarten teacher who looks like the kind of teachers you find in teacher porn instead of a real classroom, with her big pouty lips, long, thick, luscious red hair, and boobs that could poke someone’s eyes out. I graduated with Lizzy, and I always thought she was sweet, but she needs to die now in a painfully tragic way. Palmer continues talking right next to her ear, and even from here, I can see her blush and shiver a little when he pulls back to smile down at her, running one of his hands down the side of her arm. Oh God, I think I’m going to be sick.

“Shit! I forgot to grab the Closest to the Cup pins from the finals out on the 8th hole with everyone’s name on them so we know who won,” Adam suddenly curses from behind me, where I’m frozen six inches away from a man loudly slurping his clam chowder, still staring at Palmer not being shy at all across the room and out on the deck. “It should be fine though. We wrote the names in Sharpie, so it’s not like they’ll wash off and we won’t know who won the two grand Miss Abigail donated.”

Palmer’s hand is still resting against the side of Lizzy’s arm, and my own arm burns like he’s touching me. Except he’s not. He’s touching her. And he’s laughing with her, and he’s leaning in again to nuzzle her goddamn fucking cheek as he talks to her, and I have to press my hand to my stomach so the cheeseburger he brought me out on the 5th hole earlier and forced me to eat because I skipped breakfast and forgot about lunch doesn’t come up out of my mouth and land in the bowl of soup this motherfucker next to me is taking seven years to finish slurping. Oh my God, you got like ten tablespoons of soup, not an entire bathtub, man!

“I need to get out of here before I kill someone,” I mutter, soup man looking up at me, and now I realize it’s Mr. Grega.

“Should have gripped the shaft a little tighter, and then you wouldn’t feel so murderous.” He smiles up at me, grabbing a homemade roll from next to his soup bowl and taking a big bite out of it.

“…but this wind is starting to kick up, so maybe I should go out and get them just in case. If they blow away and we can’t tell everyone who won two thousand dollars, they will not be happy.”

I realize Adam is still blathering on about the stupid pins with the stupid winners’ names on them that were left out on the 8th hole and quickly turn away from the teacher porn being filmed out on the deck, preferring to keep my threesomes out on the golf course, to walk back to Adam and right on by him.

“I’ll go out and get the pins.”

“Birdie, it’s pouring!” he shouts after me as I zigzag between tables, trying to get out of here as fast as I can before I start crying in front of all these people.

“It’s fine!” I shout back, finally making it to the French doors on the other side of the restaurant that lead out to the course, muttering to myself as I shove one open, “I need to cool off anyway.”“What in the fuck are you doing out here?”

I don’t even bother turning around as I pull another marker out of the grass, blinking the rain out of my eyes as it continues to come down harder and the sky gets darker around us. I should have known Palmer would come out here and get me when he heard I went out in the rain. This idiot has been following me home for fifteen years, thinking I didn’t know he was lurking behind me in the cottage lawns, tripping over shrubbery and cursing loudly every time he forgot about Mrs. Mitchell’s ankle-biting Chihuahua who would attack him every time he walked through her yard. He still thinks I’m a child and can’t take care of myself.