Quentin
The door opened, letting in a blast of cold air, an arc of sunlight... and the most overdressed mini golfer I’d ever seen.
I looked her over, admiring everything from the short diamond-patterned skirt with tight leggings underneath to the long-sleeved matching polo with a sweater vest and her dangling golf ball earrings that sparkled like mini disco balls.
Then I looked down at my outfit, just khakis, a white tee, and an open dark-green flannel. “I feel underdressed.”
“That’s exactly what I was going for,” she said with a cheeky grin.
An unexpected chuckle passed my lips.
“Did you just laugh?” she asked, eyeing me suspiciously.
I shook my head at her, turning toward the counter. I hardly laughed around anyone with most of my time spent at work on financial matters. Was she really disarming me so easily? “Let’s see if we can find a ball and putter that match your fit.”
“My ‘fit’?” she asked, following me. She sounded impressed. “That’s a cool word. Are you trendy or do you have a nephew or niece keeping you up-to-date?”
I found a black-and-white striped putter and an electric-blue one. “Okay, we could go for matching”—I held up the black-and-white one—"or maybe a brighter accessory?”
Her eyes widened with delight as she reached for the blue one. “This actually matches my hair clip.” She held it up and twisted her neck to show the back of her head, but I couldn’t see the clip with her silky black hair spilling over it.
I reached out, pulling a delicate strand aside. The tress slipped through my fingers, so soft I almost forgot to notice the clip. It was shaped like a blue golf bag with silver clubs sticking out. “Cute,” I said, my voice sounding rough to my ears.
She turned back toward me, cheeks a bit darker than before, and she flicked her gaze down, long black lashes fanning over her cheeks.
“Do you—are there any blue balls here?” Then her hands slapped over her mouth.
“I mean. Blue golf balls. Not blue balls. You know. I...” She shook her head. “Just one blue ball will do.”
My lips curled slightly at the corners. “We may be able to find one.” I walked to the ball bins on the wall to the right and found one container full of the same electric blue. “Here you go.” I smirked. “One blue ball.”
“Thank you.” She took it from me, shaking her head as if at herself, then I found my own putter and ball, purple for the Diamonds.
As we walked through the building toward the course, which was all indoor and temperature controlled, I commented, “You must take mini golf very seriously. Do you play competitively?”
She looked up at me, confused. “Why do you say that?”
I gestured at her outfit. “Or is that ensemble for regular-sized golf?”
“Regular-sized golf.” She laughed, the sound full and throaty. Then her voice grew serious. “I take fashion seriously.”
The thought of her loving fashion was in contrast with the uniform she had to wear to work every day, but come to think of it, I had seen her in quite a few different outfits that were not the shapeless blue jumpsuit.
“Tell me about that,” I said as we approached hole one.
It was an easy little green surrounded by palm trees on either side.
She bent to put her ball on the starting spot and then squared up, face serious.
“Are you sure you want to open that can of worms?” She swung the putter, and the ball banged against the sidewall, bounced off the track and into the next green...
and into the second hole. “Yay!” she said like nothing at all had gone amiss. “That counts for two points, right?”
I pulled the scoresheet out of my pocket. “Zero points.”
“Zero?” She frowned deeply. “Are you telling me I didn’t earn anything for that? That was amazing. Objectively.”
An amused breath exhaled through my nose. “In golf, zero is a good score.”
She eyed me skeptically. “You’re fucking with me so you can win.”
Her blunt language shocked me. She really wasn’t like anyone I knew—not any women anyway. “Why would I want to beat you on a first date? If anything, I should throw the game.”
She put her hand on her hip, leaning on her putter with the other. “So you’re letting me win because you want to impress me?”
“I haven’t even gone yet!” I protested, blood pressure rising.
“Well you better not take it easy on me,” she warned, then gestured at the second hole, where we could see just a peep of her electric-blue ball. “I’m very good.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. The kind that made my belly shake and my eyes squint. And Rei smiled at me, looking pleased as punch. My knees went a little weak at her smile.
But I asked, “What are you so pleased about?”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard you really laugh,” she said. “I like it.”
My cheeks burned, and my stomach felt light. Unsure of what to say, I dropped my ball in front of me, toed it toward the in-ground tee. With a light tap, it rolled into the first hole.
“Zero points for you too,” she said like she still wasn’t convinced of the scoring system.
I got out my golf pencil and wrote down a zero.
I already felt like I was winning, regardless of the score.
We walked to the next hole, where she insisted I had to go again but she didn’t.
Before I swung, I asked, “Why is fashion a can of worms for you?” I tapped the ball, and it went up the slight slope and back down into the hole.
As I walked to the hole to retrieve our balls, she followed me, explaining, “I love fashion, but the industry doesn’t really love me back.”
I bent to pick up our balls, ignoring the tweak in my hip, and put her ball in her hand. My fingertips brushed her palm, and just that little touch made my mouth go dry. God, I needed to get a grip when it came to this woman.
And yet, I couldn’t help reaching for the hem of her skirt, working the material between my fingertips and muttering, “I think fashion is loving you today.”
She didn’t shy away, flicking her gaze up toward mine. “You think this looks good?”
I swallowed, hard, and nodded. “I do,” I rasped.
“Well, I’m glad, considering I had to order a skirt stretchy enough for me to squeeze into a straight size. And this shirt? It’s the only option they had in my size at the golf outlet at the mall, and it was in the back corner of the store like an afterthought.”
I nodded in understanding. Mom used to take my brother and me to the big and tall store in the sketch part of town. Now, shoppers handled all of that. “There’s not a plus-size store for women?”
“Oh, honey.” She shook her head and waltzed to the next hole.
Once her ball was set up, she leaned on her club, explaining, “For men, fashion is easy.” She waved her hand at me.
“Thirty waist, thirty-two inseam, you’ve found your size for life.
A good pair of pants and a flannel and you look like a model.
” My chest puffed slightly at that. But she sighed.
“For women... you get numbers one through thirty, but sometimes jeans are one through thirty-eight and not in the regular sizing system. They add W’s sometimes for “wide”, like that’s what we want to be called.
” She rolled her eyes. “Some stores say they carry plus sizes, but they only have up to a twenty in stock. And the sizes? They’re not consistent.
An eighteen at one store could fit more like a fourteen at another.
Don’t even get me started on the fit models they use. ”
Apparently, I didn’t need to get her started, because she continued.
“Most brands use size-two models as fit models and then make everything bigger instead of actually considering the fact that women are shaped differently.” She shook her head and swung.
This time, her ball banged into the right side of the tunnel and bounced back so fast she had to stop it with her foot. “That didn’t count,” she muttered.
“Mulligan,” I agreed.
She frowned at me. “My name is Rei.”
“No,” I said, smiling slightly. “Mulligan means do-over in golfese.”
“There’s a language?” She looked horrified at the prospect.
“No, just some jargon.” I chuckled. “I’ll be your guide.”
“Thank you, Gandalf,” she muttered before trying again. After three tries, she picked up the ball and walked it to the hole, dropping it in.
“I’ll write a two,” I said.
She arched an eyebrow.
“One?”
“Bingo.” She gave me the finger guns.
I laughed and then took my shots, eventually writing a three next to my name. “So what about plus-size brands?” I asked as we walked to the next hole. “There have to be some that use larger women as fit models.”
She huffed a laugh. “Those are great... if you love loud prints and cold shoulders and—”
“The salespeople are mean?”
“Jargon,” she teased. “I’ll be your guide.”
“Okay, Glamdalf.”
She laughed heartily. “I see what you did there.”
I smiled far too proudly. It was easy to laugh and smile with her, and it set me off kilter. My business brain brought me back though. “It sounds like plus-size fashion is an underserved market,” I said.
“Big time.” Then she laughed. “Ha. Big time. Get it? Big time, big clothes?” She giggled again. She laughed at her own jokes. That was almost as adorable as her next shot was terrible.
About halfway through the course, we stopped keeping score, and she quit using her club altogether, claiming she was better at mini bowling than mini golf. I was worried about what damage she’d do with a thirteen-pound ball after seeing her with this little dimpled one, though.
Eventually, we made it to the end of the course, and I walked her to the bar, where several frozen drink machines were already set up along with urns of coffee and cocoa. “Any preference on drinks?” I asked. “We have plenty of options.”
“Cocoa sounds amazing,” she said, eyeing the urn labeled hot chocolate and the tubs of marshmallows and whipped cream next to it.
While I doctored up her cup, she looked around. “Are we really the only ones here?” she asked.
I nodded. “Us and Steve.”
“Who’s Steve?”
“The...” I set down her cup to check my phone. “‘Big man with the scary gun.’”
“His name's Steve?” I nodded, and that seemed to amuse her.
I passed her the cup and then poured myself some cocoa. Once we sat down at a table, she said, “Steve needs a nickname. Like Axel. Or Sledgehammer. Something scary. Not Steve.”
“Is he a wrestler now?” I retorted.
She nudged my leg under the table. “Don’t make fun.”
“Don’t make it easy,” I countered with a smirk.
She gave me a sarcastic smile and took a sip of her cocoa. “Ugh, it’s so good.”
I tried mine and then nodded in agreement.
“You know,” she said, “I was worried about today.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Just...” She hesitated for a moment, then finally said, “Bryce told me you were a good guy, and any time someone has to argue that their friend’s a good guy, it’s usually because he acts like a douche, so you have to get used to him being douchey, you know?”
“I think I follow,” I said, despite a heavy weight growing in my stomach. I didn’t know she’d spoken with Bryce about our date, and I wondered what else had been said. Did Jada tell her about the marriage clause?
“But Bryce was right,” Rei said with an encouraging smile. “You are nice. No scary skeletons in your closet, right?”
I swallowed. “Actually... there’s something I should tell you.”