Catarina

Date numero dos.

I wasn’t sure how Barrett was going to react to being thrust into a stuffy country club—and moreover, I wasn’t sure how he’d be dressed. He was a sports guy, not a golf guy. The differences between football and golf are too many to number.

“You look…like a golfer,” I tell him approvingly as we place our clubs into the cart. His bag is pristine. His clubs gleaming. “I take it you don’t play often.”

“Your bag is pink. Your shorts are pink.” He lifts his eyebrows. “And you’re judging me?”

“Men dominated this sport for too long. It’s my right as a card-carrying member of this country club to rub their noses in the fact I’m a woman.”

Barrett slides his sunglasses to the tip of his nose to blatantly check me out. I stand taller in my pink shorts, pull my shoulders back, and push my breasts forward in my white top.

A smile pulls his lips before he pushes his sunglasses back up.

“I don’t play often, but I did once play a celebrity tournament with Bill Murray. So there’s that.”

“What’s he like?”

“Funny.”

We set out to play our nine holes. Barrett’s swing is atrocious, but he consistently swings about one hundred yards farther than I do, forcing me to play catch-up during all nine holes. His short game sucks, so I recoup by sinking putt after putt.

“I’m better at mini golf,” he grumbles after stuffing his putter in his bag. At least he quit swearing.

“I’ve never seen anyone eight-putt before,” I tell him sweetly, smiling as I recall his multiple lip-outs and putts that rolled waaaay past the hole.

“You try catching a fifty-yard pass with two defenders breathing down your neck, Kitty Cat, and then we’ll talk.”

When he does that I’m reminded of who he is—the man beneath the butter yellow polo and beige golf pants is a powerful and incredible football player. Or was anyway, before he blew out his shoulder.

We climb onto the cart and I reluctantly agree to let him drive. He’s thoroughly ruffled when he learns that the cart has a speed limit and it’s not a high one.

“Was it hard losing your career?” I ask.

“Football players don’t last forever. We know that. Hell, an NFL career for most of us lasts about the time mine did anyway.” He shrugs as if he took it all in stride, but he couldn’t have. He loved to play. He’s told me that several times.

“Still, you probably started to believe you’d have a career like Tom Brady or Peyton Manning.”

The sun catches the red in his hair, highlighting the fiery strands interspersed with the golden brown.

“Are we eating here?” he asks instead of inviting me to delve deeper.

“Fine. Don’t open up. But you might want to write about it in your side of the column so that readers can peek at the real man beneath…whatever this is.” I wave a hand in his general direction.

He floors the golf cart, which doesn’t make it go that much faster, but I still have to grab the oh-shit bar attached to the roof.

At the restaurant in the country club, Barrett lets out a noise of disapproval.

“What’s the matter, Fox? Don’t see any hostesses you’d like to grope?” I smile, smug.

His eyes wander over my face as his lips tilt beneath a thin layer of scruff. His slow perusal causes my heart to pitter-patter in an irritating way. Blue eyes twinkle like there’s a secret he’s not telling me.

Which is ridiculous. Beneath that asshole exterior, he’s an asshole on the inside, too. The whole world knows it and he goes out of his way to prove it.

Except for that moment when I confessed about North and I breaking up. Then Barrett was really decent…Kind of. In between offering to pity-fuck me or make out with me.

I roll my eyes in part at the memory and in part to break eye contact with him. By the time we’re being led to the dining room I’ve noticed some familiar faces ringing a table in the center.

“Catarina!” A grin splits my mother’s face as she stands.

The two other ladies at the table—Sherrie and Bette—wave and I wave back.

“What a happy coincidence.” My mother tilts her head in the direction of my date-for-hire. “You must be the football guy she told us about. I’m Celia, Catarina’s mother.”

“Damn, I guess,” Barrett says, his charm cranked to stun. He takes her hand and tugs her closer, examining her ring finger before placing a kiss on her knuckles. “Married. Good for you.”

My mom doesn’t realize he’s flirting with her. “I’m sorry to say Catarina’s father isn’t here. He would have liked to meet you.”

“Is your husband a football fan?” Barrett asks, shoulders back accentuating his broad build.

“He’s not,” I say. His and my mother’s eyes fly to me. “Can’t win ’em all, Fox.”

My mom frowns at me briefly before recapturing her always-there smile. “I’ll let you get to it. Unless you’d like to join us?”

“We’d love to,” I lie, “but this is a working lunch for us. We’re going to discuss the column.”

That’s when I notice Sherrie’s eyes on Barrett, her mouth frozen in an awed smile. Bette is leaning over whispering in her ear before smiling at Barrett in that same awestruck manner.

“Oh Lord,” I grumble through my teeth.

“One second, Kitty Cat.” He palms my back and takes my mother’s seat, introducing himself to a now tittering Sherrie and Bette. Pretty soon, they’re giggling and he’s signing their white cloth napkins.

“He’s quite the celebrity,” my mother observes. “How was your round?”

“Fine.”

She waits for me to elaborate. I don’t.

“Did he call you Kitty Cat?” Mom knows I don’t care for nicknames. She doesn’t, either. Her name is Celia, and she’s never gone by C or Lia or any other butchered form of her name.

“He’s trying to burrow under my skin. It’s his way.”

Barrett ambles between us, sliding his palm along my back. He smells like fresh air and sunshine and against my will I lean in his direction.

“Ready to eat, Pussycat?” he asks. My mother’s shock-and-awe expression is one for the books.

“Wow,” I tell him.

“What?” he asks. “You don’t like that?”

“I never thought the moment would come when I’d prefer Kitty Cat, and yet here we are.”

His grin is puckish and charming, and even my mom visibly melts under his spell. With a roll of my eyes, I move to our table, which is only a few tables away from my mom’s table, and we sit down to eat.

---

“I thought you were kidding.” I say to Barrett who is sitting in the driver’s seat of an ostentatious, expensive convertible. The top’s down since it’s a gorgeous summer evening.

“About what?” He pulls his keys from the ignition.

“About mini golf.” I gesture to the building—a gargantuan three-story glass windowed shrine. We golfed at the country club three days ago. I guess this is the “he said” portion of the column. I’ll write about golf and he’ll yuk it up about putt-putt.

“This isn’t mini golf,” he says as we step from the car. Before we walk up the wide concrete stairs to the entrance, Barrett clasps my hand in his. Instinctively, I tug back, but he keeps hold.

“Date, Kitty Cat.” He slides strong, warm fingers between mine. “Humor me.”

Inside, he checks us in (apparently, we have reservations). The place is busy, and beyond the hostess stand a bar is filled with people drinking cocktails, their golf bags propped next to their barstools.

“Oh, wait. I’ve heard of this.” Northrop mentioned something about the “new” building going up about a year ago. All I remember is “yada yada indoor golf” and at that point I tuned out. North used to golf, but swapped golfing for working and then picked up tennis, which I can’t stand.

The hostess instructs that we’re on the top floor in bay eleven, and that our bay host will be along shortly to take our drink and food order.

“Our what will be where?” I ask Barrett as we climb several flights of stairs.

“This beats the hell out of real golf, Kitty Cat, just you wait.” We find our bay and are greeted immediately by a chipper woman named Gail. She chirps about how we pay for rounds via the kiosk at our table, and shows us how to keep score. She urges us to be careful and not tumble off the edge. We’re indoors kind of. Imagine a long balcony with a roof and floor but otherwise, you’re outside. Nets enclose the golfing area on four sides (the top is open). Neon colored circles with multiple holes are dotted on the green grass below. She explains that the special golf balls we’re about to hit have a tiny sensor inside, and each colored area on the “green” is worth a certain number of points, with the more difficult holes worth more than others.

“Thanks, Gail, you’ve been most helpful,” my date praises. “I’ll have a tall beer and Kitty Cat here will have a dish of cream.”

I slap his arm and order wine. He tacks on an order of mozzarella sticks, buffalo bites, and a quesadilla.

“Hungry?” I ask.

He leans past his barstool and comes closer to say, “Starved. I’ll share. But only because I like you.”

I swallow, attempt an eye roll but fail. He’s irrationally good-looking for such a cad.

“You didn’t tell me I could’ve brought my own clubs,” I tell him as he selects a driver from the bin next to our computer screen. Evidently Fox is “Player 1.”

“That’s because I don’t want you cheating. You have to come out here like the rest of us and hit blind.”

He takes his stance at a square of green Astroturf. Several other guests are doing the same, and the smacks of clubs to balls is interspersed with laughter and talking.

It’s definitely a different way to play golf, but I admit it looks fun.

Thwack!

His ugly swing is back, but it’s impossible not to admire his athletic form and the way his biceps bunch. He cracks the ball so far I swear it’s going to soar over the net and ding one of the expensive cars in the parking lot. It doesn’t, making its home at the back of the course and sliding into a hole that’s worth one thousand points.

“Seriously?” I’m at a massive disadvantage. I can’t hit that far. If I want a thousand points, I’ll have to be precise and hit a few into the center of the giant circles. I start calculating how to score more points than him.

“Jealous?” he asks. “You can’t always win, you know. Haven’t you learned that in life yet?” The second it’s out of his mouth, his cocky grin fades some and he saunters my way.

I ignore him and pick out a lady’s club.

“Kitty Cat.” A warm palm lands on my shoulder and I shrug it off. “You know I wasn’t referring to your situations with East, right?”

I glare.

“West? Southeast? Why is his name so hard?” He stops pretending to be obtuse and grins. “Let’s drop the perfectionism and have a good time. Let your hair down.”

That tenderness again. It throws me off so I change the subject. “How can you play golf after your shoulder injury? Doesn’t it hurt?”

He rolls his right shoulder. “Sometimes, but it’s better to move it.”

I nod slowly, having a belated realization. “That’s why your swing is ugly.”

A frown bisects his brow. “Thanks a lot.”

“Your backswing.” It makes total sense. “You tuck your shoulder to protect it. Use your hips to help with the momentum. It’s ugly but effective.” I pat his scruffy jaw. “Just like your face.”

I let out a squeak of surprise when his arm lashes around my lower back. He leans in, bowing my body back. My leg is pressed against one of his and my torso and my left boob smash against his solid chest. I grip his arm to keep from toppling over, finding my breath as his blue eyes drill into mine.

“ ’Scuse me,” he says, sliding his club into the rack from whence it came. Then he straightens, sets me on my feet, and leaves me to take my swing.

“Effective.” He drops the ball on the Astroturf at my feet.

I take one practice swing before hitting my little electronic ball right into the center hole of the neon pink area. It’s only five hundred points, but I can do this all day, and I make sure to tell him that as well.