I shoved the sheet and mini pencil back at him. “Oh, shut up.”
“It’s fine. You’re my wife. You’re allowed to glare at other women if they eye me up. I don’t mind.” His eyes sparkled. “In fact, I’m rather enjoying it.”
“Enjoying what? The endless ogling from strangers?”
“No. Your obvious jealousy.”
“I am not jealous.” I put the ball down way too hard and swung my club even harder. “I have nothing to be jealous about. I just happen to think it’s incredibly rude to stare at someone when he’s obviously here with another woman.”
“You’re jealous.”
“I am not jealous,” I repeated, making a connection with the ball. Unfortunately for me, the connection was far too strong, and the ball went flying into the next hole, almost knocking someone’s ball out of the way. I winced. “Sorry.”
Smirking, Kai went to retrieve my ball from the laughing couple and handed it back to me. “Maybe you don’t try to take someone’s eye out with it this time.”
“I’ll take your eye out with it.”
“Or just aim for the women you’re glaring at.”
“Shut. Up.” I retook my shot and needed three tries to get it in the hole.
“Four,” Kai said, taking my score.
“Four? That was three!”
“No. The first one counts, too.”
“Ugh.” I picked my ball out of the hole and, after taking the paper and pencil from him, said in a low voice, “If we were really married, you so would not be getting laid tonight.”
“Then there’s no need to worry about sex on the first date, is there?” He chucked me under the chin with a wink and moved to take his turn.
Ugh.
I knew mini golf was a bad idea. I should have guessed it would be super busy here, and I knew all too well it was one of the local hangout places for first dates and groups of single friends.
Sigh.
Not that I had any right to really be this annoyed about all the women who were now not trying to be so obvious in their staring.
Did I?
Huh. Maybe I did have a right. This was a date. All the people in town did think we were married.
I wasn’t against using those two things to my advantage.
All right, maybe I was jealous.
Whatever.
“Three,” Kai said, joining me at the start of the next hole.
“Three what?”
“Hits,” he said slowly. “My God, you’re really not paying attention, are you?”
“No, I’m not, and it’s making me play badly.”
“You told me in the car that you almost hit yourself in the head with a club, Ivy. I don’t think you being distracted has anything to do with it.”
“Yes, it does, so ignore what I’m about to do so I can kick your ass at this game.” I cupped the side of his neck with my left hand and rose up onto my tiptoes so my lips touched his.
No, I hadn’t thought this through.
Yes, I might regret this later.
The kiss only served to draw us both deeper into our lie, but it was hard to care about that when Kai wrapped one arm around my waist, holding me against him, and kissed me back like he didn’t give a damn who saw.
He probably didn’t care.
And for a moment, neither did I.
Because all that mattered was his warm, soft lips that were pressed against mine, and that my heart dared skip a beat at the touch.
I pulled back. “Now move so I can take my shot.”
He laughed under his breath, stepping away so I had the room I needed to hit it.
It took four tries.
“Yeah, that worked,” he snarked as I took the paper away from him.
“Oh, shut up.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN – IVY
“You’re thirty dollars deep. It’s ridiculous. You can buy like five bears for that in any normal store.”
“I know, but I want this one.”
“It’s just a stuffed bear.”
“It’s a cute stuffed bear.”
“I think you’ve lost your mind.”
“I think you’ve lost yours.”
“I have. That’s why I’m still standing here waiting for you to attempt to win this thirty-dollar bear,” I said, leaning against the next machine.
Kai ran out of turns and put more coins in the slot. I shook my head. I had no idea why he was so desperate for this bear, but I was getting tired.
Although it was funny to see him lose so miserably after he’d totally kicked my ass at golf.
I sighed. “I’m tired and hungry. That took a lot out of me. Can we go if you don’t win this time?”
He looked between me and the bear he was desperately trying to win. “I suppose.”
That was better than ‘no,’ I guess.
I watched as he tried two more times to no avail. Gritting his teeth, he maneuvered the grabber for his one final try. I didn’t know why he was trying so hard—it was just a bear, just a stupid freaking bear from a grabber that probably cost the owners of this place fifty cents in some mass purchase from China.
Look, just because I’d spent all my allowance here when I was a kid didn’t mean I couldn’t be a hypocrite now, okay?
The grabber claws closed around the bear and lifted it up.
I raised my eyebrows. This had happened like fifteen times already, and not a single one had made it into the tub.
So shock jolted through me when this bear not only made it to the edge of the machine, but into the chute that meant Kai had won it.
“Ha!” He punched the air and bent down.
He stuck his arm through the flap and retrieved the cream bear with a red tartan ribbon tied around its neck in a bow. I had to admit that it looked softer outside of the glass than in, and it was kind of cute in a lopsided-eyes kind of way.
He held it out to me. “Here.”
“You spent thirty-five dollars on this bear for me?” I raised my eyebrows.
His lips pulled to one side. “No. I just spent thirty-five dollars and ten minutes of my life trying to win this bear for the baby.”
My lips parted, and I reached out to take the bear from him. It was ugly as hell with its lopsided eyes and its loosely stitched nose, and its bow looked like something out of Scotland in the seventeen hundreds, but oh, my God.
I didn’t know if I’d ever loved a bear more than this one.
“Are you going to cry?”
I swallowed. “Maybe. Can I?”
He choked back a laugh and wrapped me in his arms, squishing the bear between us. I hugged it tightly as Kai did the same to me, and thankfully, I didn’t actually cry.
Phew.
Thank God for small mercies.
I pulled back and shrugged off any lingering emotional moments. “I’m just hungry.”
“Of course you are,” Kai said, wrapping his arm around me. “What do you want to eat? Chinese?”
I shook my head.
“Thai food?”
“Ugh, no. I don’t like Thai on a normal day.”
“A burger?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Two pints of ice-cream?”
I paused. “That’s not really dinner, is it?”