Games We Play (36 page)

“I wanted to be a majorette in the band,” she said, moving slowly to the music. She was beautiful in her red summer dress, shoeless, with red painted toenails, hair back in a ponytail. He laughed and continued to watch her move.

“Thank you,” he said, reaching for her when she was done and the sparklers had faded.

“I like you, Professor,” he said, pulling her into his lap.

“I like you too, Barnabus,” she said, leaning in to kiss him.

“I don’t like that name, though. I’d thought I’d put it to bed,” he said, smiling against her lips.

“Every now and then I think I need a reminder of how much you dislike it. I’ve forgotten already,” she said. He chuckled at that and set his lips to hers to do just that.

Saturday

Kendall was headed to the golf course this morning. She made a left onto Old Quarry Road, passing by Cooper’s home, the place where she spent most of her nights now.

Soon after she’d made the turn, she spotted Briana trudging alone on the shoulder of the road, heading for the golf course. The Calloway golf bag that was slung over the little girl’s shoulder was her clue.

She was dressed in shorts, a collared shirt, and flip-flops, and she was holding golf shoes in her hand. Kendall pulled over to the side of the road, waiting until the girl was near. She stuck her head out the window, in case Briana didn’t recognize her car.

“I’m going over to the course. That’s where you’re headed, right?” she said.

“Yes.”

“You want a ride?”

“Okay,” Briana said.

Kendall hit the latch, and her trunk opened. “Throw your clubs in the back next to mine,” she said, and waited for Briana to do so. Then Briana slid into the passenger seat next to her, placing her golf shoes in her lap.

“Nice shoes,” Kendall said, pulling away.

“They’re new.”

“Do you play every day?” Kendall asked.

“In the summer. My mom lets me go if I’ve done with my chores.”

“What are your chores?”

“I have to make breakfast for me and Ashley, and then we clean up the kitchen. We have to pick up our rooms, and then we walk over to the Diner. I help out there if my mom needs me, and after I’m done, I usually walk over here to play in the afternoon,” she said.

“You must really like golf,” Kendall said, pulling into the parking lot of the course.

“I do. I’m going to play pro one day,” she said, looking at Kendall, sizing her up again. “So are you like Cooper’s girlfriend or something?” she asked.

“We’re friends,” she said.

“He doesn’t have a lot of friends like you,” she said.

“That’s good to know, I think,” Kendall said, smiling. “Thank you for sharing that,” she said, internally pleased. “Would you like to play with me today?”

“Sure, but don’t get angry if I beat you.”

“Why would I get angry?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes adults don’t like it when I beat them,” she said, serious.

“I’ll be okay if you beat me—and that’s a big if, ’cause I’m good too,” Kendall said, smiling. Her laughter mixed in with Briana’s.

“I was going through some of Myra’s old pictures the other day, and I found of few of you and George making beer in his garage,” Kendall said, smiling. He had been cute, the younger, long-haired version of Cooper. It was midnight, and Cooper had said he was hungry. She was sitting at his dining table, watching as he prepared to make himself an omelet.

“How long have you known them?” she asked.

“Who, George and Myra?” he asked, looking over his shoulder. “Before high school,” he said in response to her nod.

“Those were the good old days,” he said over his shoulder. He was something to see, standing in front of his stove, shorts barely resting on his hips, not a stitch of clothing besides them.

“The golf course was different then,” she said. “It was larger. The clubhouse was different too. It was an actual brick building, not the double-wide trailer that’s there now. I saw pictures of staff, a swimming pool and tennis courts, and people dressed up eating dinner. What happened to it? Did it burn down or something? It’s so much smaller than it used to be. And when did it become the city’s property?” she asked.

“After Cooper Two died.”

“So your family owned it before?”

“Yes.”

“You agreed to give it away?”

“It was my idea.”

“Oh, so who maintains it? It can’t be the city; it’s too well taken care of.”

“I maintain it.”

“You personally? Why?”

He shrugged.

“Sometimes getting information from you is tough. Just an observation,” she said, making a face. “It’s lucky for you that I don’t mind asking questions. So you pay for the upkeep?” she asked, continuing with her line of questioning.

“Yes,” he said, pouring eggs into his skillet.

“Oh,” she said, surprised, but it answered the upkeep question.

“The course was originally designed by my grandfather, Cooper One. He hired a pro golfer to design it. There were later additions courtesy of Cooper Two, who turned it into this even bigger and fancier thing. Like you said, it was exclusive, and only those who were living large could afford it. It sat empty most of the time. I thought it was a waste of money, so I changed it. Golf, as you know, is at its core a game played by a person with a ball and club against a course. Simple.”

“True,” she said, smiling, looking at him oddly now.

“What?” he asked.

“You chose not to live in your family’s mansion, selected a cooperative for your business model, and you’ve made the golf course more affordable so that it’s available to everyone. You want to make a difference too.”

“I don’t. I just have more money than I have good sense,” he said.

She was right about a few things. He wanted to be different, and he wanted the course to be different. It
had
to be different, or else he wouldn’t have been able to play there, not after all that his father had allowed to happen on it under the cover of darkness. Cooper One and Two had left too many bitter memories behind from all their deeds. It had the potential to overshadow all of the good times he’d spent there learning to play the game.

There had been good times, plenty of them, playing with Hank—the lost boys, they’d called themselves—sneaking in Luis and Juan in an act of childhood defiance to Cooper Two. So yes, the only way he could continue to play there was to change it, and he had. He’d stripped it bare of any doodads and frills, tearing down, digging up, and carting away until only the essentials were left. It kept the fees low, so anyone who wanted to play at one of the best courses in the state could. The changes had opened it up to everybody, regardless of sex or race. He looked up and found her staring at him.

“You’re doing it again, that not-sharing stuff, and that’s cool, ’cause we’re not really serious, right? But if it ever did get serious, and I’m not saying I want to be serious with you, but if I ever did, you’d have to share your stuff with me.”

“Duly noted,” he said.

“However, since we are friends—it goes without saying, but I’m saying it anyway—if you ever wanted to share your past with me, you could. I promise to be judgment-free,” she said.

He nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, sliding his omelet onto a plate. He turned off the heat, pulled silverware from a drawer, and set it on the table. She watched as he poured juice into a glass, and walked over to take the seat across from her.

“Do you want any?” he asked, pointing to his eggs.

“No,” she said, watching as he smothered them with Tabasco.

“Ugh,” she said.

“I like it,” he said, grinning back at her as he took a bite.

“I played golf with Briana this afternoon,” Kendall said.

“You did?”

“She really is a good little golfer,” Kendall said.

“She is.”

“So the course is open all day for her to play?”

“Yep, all day, any day. Free to the kids in town. They have to help take care of it, though. And they do. Once a week they pick up the balls from the driving range or fish them from the ponds, whatever I find for them to do,” he said.

“I watch the kids that play at some of the courses I play on, and most of them live around or near the courses. Their parents have memberships, so they can play whenever they’d like. I wish all kids could do the same, just roll out of bed, grab their clubs, and head for the nearest golf course, just how you would with a basketball court. And it’s like that here; it’s access, Cooper.

“Introducing new and different players to the game of golf, reducing the cost of learning the sport, giving players the time and opportunity to develop real skill. That’s what you’re doing for Briana and others like her. It takes years to play golf well, and it takes instruction. None of which comes cheap, as I’m sure you know,” she said.

“I’m doing all of that. I am a nice guy, aren’t I?” he said, and chuckled, finishing off his eggs. His plate sat empty now.

“I think you’re more than you let on, but we can continue to pretend otherwise if you’d like.”

“Aunt Myra Two,” he said, standing up. He walked his plate over to the sink, and turned on the water, turning to face her as the sink filled. He smiled.

“What?”

“You sounded like your aunt there for a minute there, all
let’s make this world better than we left it, Coop
,” he said, smiling.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You should. It was meant as one,” he said, shutting off the water. “There’s that First Tee program, sponsored by the World Golf Association. I hear they’re trying to introduce new faces to the game of golf,” he added, hitting the kitchen light. It was dark in here now, some glow from the moon shining through the windows.

She watched him as he made his way over to her, his hand extended for her, pulling her to him. She loved the way he felt, loved being in his arms.

He kissed her mouth, open and warm, loving the smoothness of it. All she had on was his T-shirt. He reached for the bottom of it and began to run his fingers over her skin, tracing softly the smoothness underneath, moving over legs, hips—any part of her, really—before one of his hands settled at the core of her, touching softly, loving that her reaction was so strong, so powerful, her arms holding him, gripping him tighter as she moaned into his mouth. He turned them then, walking her backwards toward his bed as he continued to kiss her, taking in her sounds of pleasure, his tongue tangling with hers. She moaned when he hit a particularly sensitive spot; he was learning all of her spots.

He used his other hand to slide his boxers over his hips, stepping out of them as he continued to walk her to his bed, single-minded in his purpose, his desire to be inside her now. She reached for him, or tried to, but he pulled his hips just out of reach of her hands and smiled against her mouth at her whimper of loss. They were a step away from the bed, so he turned them again, and the backs of his legs bumped against the edge of the mattress a few seconds later.

He placed his arms around her waist then, and held on to her as he fell backwards onto the bed. He laughed at her yelp of surprise, and then before she could think, he turned them again, wanted her on her stomach. He hadn’t quite gotten his fill of looking at her ass tonight. He took one lingering glance at what he had come to love and treasure—not just her booty, all of her. He slid over her then, his head next to hers, looking into her eyes. He read so much in them. He was sure that love stared back at him, although she’d never said it, and there was a challenge in them too, and he so loved that. She was always ready to take on whatever gauntlet he decided to throw down.

“Please,” she said, smiling. He kissed her then, pushing her legs open with his, and he groaned as he slowly made his way into her body. She moaned into his mouth, and he so loved that he always knew what she liked.

His kissed her again as he smoothly pushed into her, a nice slow glide into the heat of her, his home. He groaned again at the way he felt, like this was where he belonged, and he was no longer frightened by that prospect.

His fingers found her core again, and he moved his hand in time with the movement of his hips as he moved above her, his mouth at her neck, until he couldn’t do more than two things and had to lay his forehead against her shoulder blades, unable to concentrate on anything but his desire to as go as far and as hard into her body as he could. He pumped and pushed with a fierce desire he’d be hard-pressed to explain, other than that she was his, and he needed to prove it to her.

He let go and lost himself in this moment, pushing, thrusting as he held her arms above her head, and moving his hands to her hips to lift her or hold her still, whichever way would best to allow him to plunder, pillage, and hammer his hips hard, in and out of her. Her moans of pleasure mixed in with his, fuel to his fire, and he continued to pump, thrusting faster and faster until he couldn’t stave off his climax any longer, and he came, one final hard thrust into her, lifting her hips from the bed, his hand still at her core, bringing her along with him, lost in the pleasure of one mighty climax, made more powerful because he knew without a doubt that he had so fallen, that he was in love with one Kendall Edwards, his final thought as he closed his eyes and gave up thinking altogether and just tried to breathe.

Second week of July, Monday

P
ortia saw them immediately after she entered the dining area. They were seated at the counter.
So the Proctor brothers have finally come to see me. Saving the most difficult for last, huh?
she thought, making her way over to them.

“Let me guess, you’re here to tell me what an evil man Cooper is, right?” Portia said. She stood in front of them, a pad in her hand for taking their orders. She knew why they were here. “You two have got the whole town in an uproar.”

“Do I know you?” Hugo asked.

“The proposal would be good for the town. It would bring so much business into this town for you and your wife…or are you the one who’s the wife?” Stanley said, laughing at his joke.