Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Ever
By the sixteenth hole, I knew two things for sure.
One, Jesse was way too good at mini golf for a man who claimed he hadn’t played in years.
And two, I still hadn’t felt that big, breathless, lightning-bolt thing I kept telling myself I didn’t need.
Little Scooters buzzed around us with the kind of noisy, cheerful chaos that made it impossible to sit too long in your own head if you didn’t want to.
Kids shrieked on the spinning ride near the center of the park, lights blinked in every direction, and the scent of fryer grease and cotton candy hung in the air thick enough to taste.
Somewhere off to the left, somebody rang the bell at one of the game booths, and a teenager yelled like he’d just won a new truck instead of a giant stuffed frog.
It was the kind of place that was a little tacky and a little ridiculous and honestly kind of perfect for a date when you didn’t want too much pressure.
Jesse stood a few feet ahead of me with a putter in one hand and his ball lined up in front of the fake little castle guarding the sixteenth hole.
The hole itself curved around a tiny blue pond with a waterwheel that squeaked every time it turned.
He narrowed his eyes at the shot like he was lining up something serious.
“You know,” I said, leaning on my own putter, “for someone who told me he was rusty, you’re awfully smug for a man who has been beating me all night.”
He glanced over his shoulder at me, one side of his mouth lifting. “Smug?”
“You heard me.”
“I’m not smug,” he said.
I snorted. “That’s exactly what a smug person would say.”
He chuckled low under his breath and looked back at the hole. “Maybe you’re just trying to distract me.”
He tapped the ball and it curved around the pond, missed the tiny castle opening completely, bounced off the plastic rock edging, and rolled right back toward him.
I barked out a laugh before I could stop it. “Wow. That was embarrassing.”
He looked down at the ball, then slowly back at me. He was not happy. “You waited all night for that, didn’t you?”
“A little.”
He grunted and stepped back from the hole, gesturing with the putter. “Alright, hotshot. Show me how it’s done.”
I moved forward, trying not to smile too much because, okay, this part had been fun.
That was the thing.
It had been a fun night.
Jesse had picked me up on time, like always.
He looked good—clean dark jeans, black T-shirt, boots.
Nothing flashy, nothing trying too hard.
Just put together in a way that felt easy on him.
He brought me here without making it a whole thing, bought our tickets, won me a cheap stuffed turtle from one of the booths after he said the first one looked too sad to leave hanging there, and had been attentive the entire night.
He listened.
He opened doors.
He smiled at me like he liked being there.
There was nothing wrong with Jesse.
Maybe I was not the kind of woman who got the spark. Maybe safe and steady and uncomplicated was the better option for someone like me—someone who had spent too many years wanting the wrong man and building up feelings for someone who had never once offered me anything back.
I bent over my ball and lined up the shot.
The fake grass was worn smooth in spots, and one of the plastic flowers near the pond was broken off halfway down the stem, but I still took my time because if I was going to talk shit, I should probably back it up.
I tapped the ball.
It rolled cleaner than Jesse’s had, curved around the pond, kissed the edge of the castle opening, and dropped in with a satisfying little clunk.
I straightened slowly, trying for calm and failing because I was already smiling.
Jesse groaned. “Unbelievable.”
I gave a sweet shrug. “Maybe you’re just out of practice.”
He pointed the putter at me. “One lucky shot doesn’t erase the rest of the score.”
“Let me have this.”
He laughed. “Fine. You can have that one.”
I picked up my ball and moved aside while he took his second shot. It went in this time, and he gave me a look like he expected applause.
I gave him a pity clap.
“Rude,” he said.
“Honest.”
We moved toward the seventeenth hole, weaving around a family with three little kids all holding putters bigger than they were. One of the boys nearly ran straight into Jesse, and Jesse caught him by the shoulders before he could faceplant into the concrete border.
“Watch where you’re going, kid,” Jesse said.
The kid said sorry like he wasn’t sorry at all and took off again while his mom mouthed a tired thank you from behind him.
Jesse just nodded and kept walking.
The seventeenth had a giant windmill in the middle that looked like it had been built sometime in the nineties and never updated since.
Red blades turned overhead while strings of lights blinked around the base.
A little girl on the next course over was crying because her ball had bounced into the water feature and disappeared, and her dad was trying to convince her that losing at mini golf built character.
“Ever!”
I turned so fast my ponytail smacked my cheek.
The train ride, or whatever Little Scooters officially called the slow-moving ride that looped around the whole park, was passing behind the mini golf course. The little open-air cars linked together and were full of kids, teens, and bored-looking adults who’d clearly been talked into it.
Eden was twisted around in her seat in one of the cars, one hand lifted over her head and waving like she was trying to flag down an airplane. Two girls sat with her, plus some guy I vaguely recognized from town but couldn’t place.
“Hey!” I called back, waving.
“Did my mom t-t-talk to you?” Eden yelled.
I shook my head. “No!”
The ride kept creeping forward.
“My g-g-graduation party is Saturday!” she shouted.
“Fun!” I called.
“You t-t-two need to be t-t-there!” she yelled, pointing right at us. “It’s at the c-c-clubhouse and it s-s-starts at three!”
That was one way to get invited to a graduation party, but then again, Eden was Alice’s daughter. Subtle had never exactly been a family trait over there.
“Um, we’ll be there!” I shouted back before I had time to think too hard about what I was committing to.
Eden pumped her fist in the air. “Yay! Have fun! You g-g-g-uys look cute together!” And then the ride carried her away, her voice fading as she kept waving.
I stood there for a second holding my putter and staring after her. Then I looked at Jesse. “I should’ve asked you if you wanted to come with me,” I said.
He shrugged and set his ball down at the next hole. “If you want to go, we can go.”
That easy.
No pressure.
No weirdness.
He took his shot and then glanced up at me. “Is it at a country club or something?”
I blinked.
Then laughed.
“Um, actually, no. Eden’s dad is the President of the Fallen Lords Motorcycle Club. The clubhouse is where they, well…” I made a vague motion with one hand. “Pretty much do everything.”
He nodded slowly, like he was filing that away. “Like Sons of Anarchy?”
That made me laugh harder. “Yeah,” I said, “except I don’t think they’re running drugs and killing people.”
Something sparked in his eyes for half a second.
Small.
Quick.
Gone so fast I almost thought I imagined it, then he laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Probably.
Weird word choice.
I stepped up for my turn at the hole, trying not to think too much about the fact that I had just casually invited Jesse into Jude’s world.
Or more accurately, into Jude’s territory.
My ball hit the edge of the windmill and bounced wildly off course.
Jesse winced. “That one hurt.”
I sighed. “I’m not great at this.”
He chuckled, then tapped his own ball straight under the turning blades and into the hole like it was the easiest thing in the world.
Show-off.
We finished the game after that, and because apparently I had no natural athletic gifts whatsoever, Jesse beat me by five strokes.
Five.
He gloated just enough to be annoying about it. “You want a rematch?” he asked as we handed our putters back in.
“Not unless there’s a handicap for people who clearly suck.”
He grinned. “So that’s a no.”
“That’s a strong no.”
He laughed and hooked a thumb toward the concession stand. “You hungry?”
A little while later, we were sharing a basket of cheese curds and a lemonade at one of the red picnic tables near the bumper cars while the sky finally tipped from dusky blue into real night.
The park lights had gotten brighter now that the sun was gone, throwing everything into that strange amusement-park glow where people somehow looked both better and more suspicious.
Jesse stretched one arm across the back of the bench behind me, not touching, just close enough to remind me that he could if he wanted to.
I picked up a curd and dipped it in ranch. “You really not going to tell me anything about your mystery trip?” I asked.
He took a drink of his soda before answering. “There’s not much to tell.”
“That makes it sound like there’s definitely something to tell.”
He smirked at that. “You always this nosy?”
“Only when people act weird.”
“I’m not acting weird.”
I gave him a look.
He laughed and reached for another cheese curd. “They’re old friends. We drank some beer, talked shit, caught up. That’s about it.”
“That’s still not details.”
“What details do you want?”
I shrugged. “Anything. Who they are. Where you stayed. What you did besides apparently drink beer and be vague.”
His grin stayed in place, but something about it thinned. Not enough to be rude. Just enough to make me notice.
“You ask a lot of questions,” he said.
“I own the Dairy Bar. Asking questions and talking to people is like half the job.”
He reached over and grabbed another cheese curd. “My trip was nothing, Ever.”
I let it go, but it was still weird that he wouldn’t tell me anything. Not even his friends’ names.
Jesse reached over and brushed his thumb across the corner of my mouth. “You had ranch there,” he said.
I froze for half a second, then nodded like a normal person and not someone who had suddenly become hyper-aware of the fact that his hand was still near my face.
“Oh,” I said. “Thanks.”
He smiled at me.
A good smile. Easy, manly, not too polished. The kind that probably got him what he wanted more often than not.
And I liked him.
I did.
I needed to remember that.
“You’re quiet,” he said after a minute.
I looked down at my lemonade. “Just thinking.”
“Dangerous.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“What about?”
I hesitated.
Because I couldn’t exactly say, I’m trying to figure out why safe feels good but not enough and why the thought of bringing you to the clubhouse makes my stomach do weird things because of another man.
So I went with, “Saturday.”
“The party?”
“Yeah.”
He leaned back slightly. “You don’t want to go?”
“No, I do.” I picked at the paper wrapper from my straw. “It’s just…”
I paused again, because how did I explain the Fallen Lords to someone outside of them without sounding ridiculous?
Jesse waited.
I blew out a breath. “That world is… a lot.”
“That bad?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Not bad. Just loud. Big personalities. Everybody in everybody else’s business. Once you get pulled into it, you kind of just…” I made a vague circling motion with my hand. “Get absorbed.”
He watched me for a second. “And you don’t want me absorbed?”
That wasn’t exactly it, but it also wasn’t not it.
“It’ll be fine,” I said finally.
“We can go for a little bit, and then go do our own thing if you want.”
I shrugged and nodded. “We’ll see.”
At one point, he convinced me to ride the Tilt-A-Whirl with him, which was a terrible choice because I spent half of it laughing and the other half trying not to lose the cheese curds all over my shoes.
He kissed my temple while we stood in line for lemonade refills, and it was sweet and warm and nice.
Nice.
That word kept coming back.
Nice.
Good.
Easy.
All the words that should’ve been enough to drown out the low hum of everything else.
And yet, as the night wound down and we walked back toward the parking lot with the lights of Little Scooters blinking behind us, all I could think about was Saturday.
About walking into the Fallen Lords clubhouse with Jesse beside me.
About Jude.
Because it was his place. His people. His world. His stomping grounds.
And I was about to bring the man I was dating right into the middle of it.
Oh boy.