Chapter 8
Sophia
I reach up to touch my horns and make sure my hair is parted correctly around them, mostly because I'm nervous. A part of me is really uncertain about why I've agreed to meet Lucas for a date, especially when we've only exchanged a few messages.
Except that I do know. I could form a mate bond with him, that's not something that's easy to ignore. And so here I am, waiting for him and hoping that I'm not making a terrible mistake.
"Sophia?" he says from behind me.
I turn and smile at him in a way that I hope is friendly and not overly diplomatic.
"Hi." Do I hold my hand out for a handshake? Do I kiss his cheek? I've never thought about it until now, but I have a distinct lack of dating experience that would come in handy right now. I should have asked Lottie for more advice than if she thought my dress was the right choice.
Not really knowing what else to do, I give him a tail wave.
A genuine smile spreads over his face, and he returns it with one of my own. "Thank you for agreeing to a date."
"I want to make a better impression than I did the other night," I admit. And since I have lectures tomorrow, I won't be tempted to drink and make a fool of myself again. Hopefully.
"Me too," he admits. "I feel like I insulted you."
I shake my head and open my mouth to respond, not really sure what I'm going to say, but relying on years of royal training to lead me to the right answer.
"You don't have to tell me what you think the world would want to hear," he tells me.
"How did you know?"
"Call it intuition. But I want you to know that you can be honest with me. I won't judge you for telling me I was an ass."
"You were a little bit," I admit. "But you were also a gentleman. Thank you for not taking advantage of me. Other people would have." I shudder at the thought. I should have known better and not drunk as much. I forgot that being on academy grounds didn't automatically make things safe.
"Any decent person says no to the advances of a drunk person they haven't met before. Especially when they're sober."
"You didn't drink?"
He shakes his head.
"Why not?" I run my tail through my fingers as I ask. Maybe he's the kind of demon who chooses not to drink for whatever reason, it's not like it's the first time I've come across someone who makes that choice.
He shrugs. "I don't know. I arrived late and just hadn't had a chance to catch up with everyone yet."
Something doesn't feel quite right about his answer, but I push my doubts to the side.
I don't know anything about him yet. For all I know, he has a family member who struggles with addiction and doesn't like to drink because of that and doesn't want to say as much.
I'm sure that if we continue to see one another, he'll tell me this kind of thing eventually, but it's not exactly first-date material.
"So, where are we going?" I ask instead of prolonging the conversation about how we met.
"The crazy golf course down the road."
My mouth falls open. "Crazy golf?"
"Haven't you been before?" He gestures for me to get into the car that's just pulled up.
I slide in with practised elegance and wait for him to join me before answering.
"No."
"You've never been crazy golfing?" His deep purple eyes convey the extent of his surprise.
I shake my head. "I can play normal golf, if that helps?"
"I'm surprised."
"State duties don't often leave room for that kind of thing," I respond. I also hate normal golf, but I think it's best not to mention that, especially when it seems like he's planned a date where the idea is that the two of us can have fun.
"Then I look forward to introducing you to it."
The car sets off towards our destination. I glance over my shoulder, unsurprised to find a second car starting to tail us as soon as we're off campus.
I sigh loudly and lean back in my seat.
"Bodyguard?" he asks.
I nod. "One of the perks of being royal." I don’t see the point in pretending I’m not who I am. Lucas attends Rosewood, even if he didn’t know who I was when we first talked, he’ll have found out since.
"Does it get annoying?"
"Beyond so. Especially when they also report back to my parents.
I can't do anything without everyone in my family knowing.
" Which I hate more than anyone can ever know.
It's not that I'm doing anything worth hiding, but it's exhausting not having any kind of privacy while I'm out and about.
Some of the bodyguards my parents hire are better than others at keeping some things to themselves, but I never try to bank on that.
Franz has always been the kind to report everything back to them.
"I didn't see any bodyguards at the party. Weren't both you and your brother there?" Lucas asks.
"My parents promised that if we attended Rosewood, then we wouldn't have to have bodyguards following us around unless we leave campus. I like the idea of being able to act normal for once."
"I don't think normal academy students get drunk on sparkling wine."
I frown. Did I tell him that's what I'd been drinking? I don't know, the middle part of Drake's party is a bit of a haze.
"Maybe not," I admit. "Normal people do have parties, make friends and mistakes, that kind of thing."
"That's fair."
"The quality of the drinks surprised me too," I admit. "None of the non-royal parties I went to back home had such expensive drinks." Then again, Lottie did tell me that Drake knew how to throw a party.
"You went to parties like that back in the demon realm too?" he asks.
"Sometimes I just want to forget who I am, even if it's just for an evening."
Our conversation is cut short by us pulling up the crazy golf course.
Relief floods through me that I can stop talking about this stuff.
Something about it is making me more uncomfortable than it should, especially when I haven't really been doing anything wrong.
I'm old enough to drink, and it's been several days without a hint of the papers knowing what I was up to.
The chances are high that I got away with it.
Lucas helps me out of the car and leads me towards the entrance. Despite my dislike of the golf game, I'm excited for this. Lucas must have a reason for choosing crazy golf as a first-date activity. Maybe it's more fun than the full-sized alternative.
The woman behind the kiosk takes his money and hands us a pair of golf clubs and two balls.
"Do you want yellow or blue?" Lucas asks, holding out the balls.
"Yellow, please." I reach forward and take it from him, brushing my fingers against his as I do. My skin tingles where we touch, even if I don't mean it to happen.
Mate.
The response has been fairly subdued until now, but the word rings around my head as if determined not to let me forget it.
I swallow hard and pull away from him. Despite the strange line of questioning in the car, and the bodyguard lurking beyond us, I feel at ease around Lucas.
Maybe that's because of the mate reaction.
Or maybe the mate reaction is because I feel comfortable around him, I don't actually know how it works.
"Do you want to keep score or shall I?" Lucas asks, holding a pencil and a small card in his hand.
"You can." The suggestion is only partly because he knows what he's doing. I also don't have much room in the single pocket of my dress, and it already has my mirror and keys in it.
"All right. We should get going to the first hole."
I frown. So far this seems identical to regular golf, though with brighter coloured balls. They do make it more fun, I suppose, but they're not what I'd describe as crazy.
Lucas leads me around the corner, and I let out a small gasp at the sight stretched in front of me.
"Have you really never seen a crazy golf course?" he asks with a perplexed expression on his face. It looks extra endearing with the way it moves the horns on the top of his head.
"I've never had a reason to. But the name makes sense now."
Everywhere I look, there are bright colours and moving parts. Each of the different holes appears to have a different theme and a decorated mechanism that seems to be powered by magic to make each of the holes harder. Maybe golf can be fun after all.
"Are we playing for anything?" I ask.
"Do you want to?"
"I don't mind," I admit.
"How about the winner gets to pick what we do for our second date?" he suggests.
"And you're assuming that we're going to have one because..."
"You can always say no," he assures me. "But I'd like to think this is going well so far."
"We've barely even started."
"I could let you win if it will increase the chances of you saying yes," he teases.
"Absolutely not. If I win, then it will be fair and square, not because you decided to let me." I place my ball at the starting point. "The scoring works the same as in normal golf, right?"
"Yes. The lowest score wins."
"Do we have pars for the holes?"
"Yes. But most people ignore them."
"That's probably for the best." As much as I don't want to admit it to him, I'm not that great at usual golf, though that's mostly because I'm bored.
I line up my club. With a quick wing, I hit it in the direction of the first hole. This one seems fairly easy compared to some of the others I can see up ahead, with only a slight slope incline to get the ball up before it's where it should be.
Despite my dislike for the main sport, I find myself enjoying this version more than I thought I would. Though there's a chance it's partly due to the company I'm keeping.
My gaze drifts to Lucas as he jots down the number of hits it took me to get my ball into the fifth hole. Frustratingly more than par. I suspect I'm going to lose the game by a big margin.
Not that I mind. If he picks another date as fun as this one, then I don't mind losing.
"Ready for the next one?" he asks when he catches me looking.
"Only because I'm going to beat you at this one."
He snorts, then tries to cover it up. "I'm sorry..."