Chapter Seven You Were Totally Prepared to Become a Climate Terrorist
Chapter Seven
You Were Totally Prepared to Become a Climate Terrorist
Owen closes his eyes, breathing slowly.
In through the nose. Hold for four seconds. And out through the mouth.
“I can do this.” He whispers the words of affirmation, hoping no one hears him talking to himself.
Owen does this a few times, urgently willing his pulse to stop beating so wildly, for his hands to stop shaking. I got this, he thinks to himself.
He swings the putter and it makes contact with the pink golf ball with a soft tink. Owen watches as it rolls forward on the faux grass, rolling and rolling and rolling toward the mouth of a giant hippo that
opens up, the only obstacle between Owen and victory.
Well, at this point, victory isn’t actually an option, not when Owen’s already well over his twentieth stroke on this hole
alone. He watches the ball, but before it even makes contact, Owen can tell that he’s messed up the timing.
Again.
The mouth closes, the ball tapping against it, leaving Owen to watch as it rolls back toward him, bumping the toe of his shoe.
“I’m going to kill myself,” he whispers under his breath, holding the rubber end of the putter to his forehead.
The only consolation is that no one else is here to witness just how horribly things are going. Around the eighth stroke,
Owen grew tired of his friends doing their best to pitifully hype him up every time he swung the putter—or offering to swing
for him—so he’d told them to move along, that he’d catch up with them eventually.
By his best estimate, that was about half an hour ago. But it’s hard to remember.
Owen sets the ball up again, spreading his feet apart, holding on to the putter tight as he readies himself again. “Come on,”
he breathes. “Come on, come on.”
He swings the putter again, harder this time, but not too hard.
Rolling in a direction that Owen didn’t want it to, the ball knocks against one of the plastic rocks that serve half as decoration,
half as an obstacle, and entirely as the bane of Owen’s existence.
“Fuck you,” he says, staring down at the ball, catching the stares of a few other cruise-goers loitering around.
“What did I do?” a voice asks.
Owen doesn’t have to turn to know who it is.
“Not you,” he says to Jacob as he places the ball back in front of his feet. “The ball. The rock, the hippo, the . . . everything.”
“What did the ball do?” Jacob keeps himself back, leaning against his own putter as he watches this travesty unfold in front
of him.
“Pissed me off.” Owen doesn’t bother with his breathing exercises; they haven’t worked up until now anyway. He just swings blindly, watching as the ball careens even further away from the hippo’s mouth, toward a flat area of the course painted blue that’s meant to represent water.
“I think that’s a penalty,” Jacob helpfully reminds him.
Owen shoots him a glare. “I think that’s a penalty,” he mocks Jacob childishly as he goes to retrieve the ball, Jacob laughing him off.
“How far above par are you?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Come on,” Jacob teases, stepping a bit closer onto the actual green. “There’s no shame here, you can be honest.”
“No, I actually don’t remember,” Owen assures him. “I stopped keeping track.”
As Jacob’s smile brightens, Owen feels his heart soften.
He does his best to ignore the way that Jacob fixates on him, but it’s so hard when those gentle brown eyes seem to focus
solely on him, as if Owen’s the only person out on the deck. Everyone save for Owen and Kaitlyn was hungover this morning,
so the two of them had grabbed breakfast and stopped at some of the shops to pick up a few odds and ends that they’d forgotten
to pack. Everyone was still asleep when they made it back to the room, so they’d gotten changed and headed to one of the pools.
Jacob joined them not long after they arrived, his thighs just out, ass stretching the fabric of his bathing suit. Owen had to put on his sunglasses just to survive, never mind that they made
it even easier to ogle Jacob’s body. Of course he tried to make small talk with Owen, and Owen tried his best. He really did. But eventually he had to leave.
Afterward, he grabbed a late lunch with Kevin, exploring more of the ship and figuring out how to navigate his way around.
By the time they made it back to their room, everyone was ready to eat again, so they picked one of the ship’s buffets, and while on their post-dinner digestion walk, they’d stumbled onto the lido deck, completely transformed from the party the day before, decorated with all kinds of booths and games like a carnival.
“You could just cheat—Kev and Abigail did on the last hole, that windmill is no joke.” There’s something about his tone that
both irks and endears him to Owen, like he’s being both patronizing and genuine all at once.
“I’m not going to cheat!” Owen insists. “It’s golf, this game isn’t going to get the better of me.”
“Actually, I think this is Putt-Putt,” Jacob corrects. “There is a difference.”
As he says that, Owen lines up another shot, and just when he thinks the ball will finally make it through the hippo’s mouth, it knocks against one of the huge teeth sticking out of the ground from where the creature
is supposed to be swimming.
“Are hippos extinct?” Owen asks.
“Not yet,” Jacob informs him. “But they’re on the endangered list.”
“I’ll need to figure out a way to speed up the process, then,” Owen adds, lining up yet another shot.
“Here,” he hears Jacob say behind him, not realizing that he’s stepping closer until it’s too late to say anything. “I mean . . .
is it okay if I help?”
“I know what to do.”
“How far above par are you again?” Jacob asks with a sarcastic gleam in his eye.
Owen sighs, relenting as he stands straight, inviting Jacob to do whatever it is he’s going to do.
“You’re holding on to the putter too tight,” Jacob starts to say. What Owen doesn’t expect is to feel Jacob stepping in line behind him, his strong chest pressing against Owen’s back briefly before he readjusts, bringing his arms around Owen’s thinner frame.
Owen can’t help the hitch in his breath, the way his body feels both repulsed and warmed by Jacob’s touch.
“Sorry,” Jacob says, realizing what he’s doing. “Loosen up, that’s why your timing is so off. Here. If you keep yourself relaxed,
and with a bit of patience—”
“I am patient!” Owen insists, only to realize he’s further proving Jacob’s point.
Jacob turns his head, his voice steady in Owen’s ear, his breath warm at the nape of Owen’s neck, goosebumps spreading up
and down his arms. “First, we wait . . . and then . . . we swing . . . now!”
Jacob controls Owen’s arms as he strikes the ball, the putter hitting it perfectly. They both watch as the mouth of the hippo
opens again, the ball coasting toward the back of the mammal’s throat to a small opening that carries the ball to the other
side of the green.
“Yes!” Owen exclaims, pulling away from Jacob, throwing his arms high into the air. “I am so fucking good at this game!”
“You realize there’s the entire other half of the hole, right?” Jacob asks with amusement, voice soft. “The hippo was just
the first obstacle.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Owen says, feeling his cheeks flush with embarrassment. “I beat the hippo.”
“You sure did,” Jacob says playfully. “Are you going to do the rest of the hole?”
“Can’t I revel in my victory for just a bit longer?” Owen asks. “Must you sour my mood with needless questions?”
“Not if we want to catch up with everyone else.”
Owen’s brows furrow. “Everyone’s done already?”
“Not too long ago? Kaitlyn wanted me to come and find you.” He looks at the watch on his wrist. “They said they’d meet us
at the arcade when we were done.”
Owen doesn’t know how to feel about the fact that Kaitlyn had Jacob come back for him, if it means anything at all.
Making his way to the other side of the hippo—where his ball has deposited itself between two rubber plants—Owen manages to
maneuver it into a better position. And after just a few more swings, he gets the ball to bounce off the barrier wall at just the right angle, watching it roll into the hole with a satisfying sound.
“Yes!” Owen hisses through gritted teeth, pumping his fist.
Jacob pulls a folded piece of paper and a tiny pencil out of his back pocket. “That’s got to be, what? Thirty over par?”
“Don’t you want to lie?” Owen pleads impishly. “For ol’ times’ sake?”
Jacob smiles amusingly as he writes something down. “We’ll say twenty-five.”
“Your generosity is overwhelming.”
“It’s honestly kind of surprising how your hand-eye coordination has just not improved a single bit since I left. Aren’t you
a tattoo artist?”
“Okay!” Owen points, knowing that Jacob is teasing him. “You know, I could argue that you’re being ableist right now. It’s obvious that my arthritis has hindered my ability to play Putt-Putt well.”
“You could make that argument. Won’t make you any better at Putt-Putt.”
They move along to the next hole, where Owen watches as a child manages a hole in one effortlessly. Owen continues to follow Jacob’s advice, keeping his stance wide and his grip loose. It’s no hole in one, but the ball certainly gets a lot closer than Owen thought that it might.
“Hmph,” Owen huffs. “Looks like I don’t need your help after all!”
Jacob shakes his head, his skin colored a blue hue by the flashing neon lights of the decoration. “Guess you don’t.”
“You know,” Owen starts to say, walking up to the ball and giving it the tap it needs to gain the momentum that carries it
over the small hill, “you don’t have to hang out with me.”
The ball goes up the hill and down the other side. It doesn’t land in the hole, but it bounces against the barrier that keeps
the balls from rolling out of bounds.
“Is that you asking me to leave?” Jacob leans a bit closer, balancing with his putter. “Or is it okay that I’m here?”
Funnily enough, the last thing he wants is for Jacob to leave.
He appreciates the company right now. Quite a bit, actually, even if it is Jacob. “You can stick around . . .” he says. “Only
if you really want to.”