Half an hour later, the four of us are gathered around the first hole.
“Ok, teams,” says Kevin. “Seein’ as AJ and Jade are kinda not golfy, they should go with one of us,” he tells Brian.
“No guesses for who I pick,” grins Brian, wrapping an arm around me.
“Ugh, I get Kevin,” moans AJ as Kevin bends down to tee off. “Thanks Lord,” he adds dryly.
Kevin ignores AJ and makes a perfect swing to land the ball way off in the distance.
“Is that good?” I ask Brian.
“Just a bit,” he mutters before going up to tee off for our team. He knocks the ball just short of Kevin’s and we all pile into the buggies to drive down. Kevin and Brian are driving, much to my and AJ’s annoyance.
“You tee, you drive!” cackles Kevin as he weaves slowly down the green.
“Overtake him!” I urge Brian and he steps up the speed so that we race past Kevin and AJ in seconds.
“Go Kev!” I hear AJ shout behind us. I look behind and see that Kevin is going just as slowly as he ever was. Brian stops the buggy and we climb out. I look at my watch pointedly as AJ finally joins me by the hole. “Ok, ok,” he complains. “But I’m drivin’ next time.”
“Me too!” I say.
“Oh goodie!” says AJ. “Race?”
“Yup,” I high-five him.
“You are NOT racing the buggies,” says Kevin sternly.
“C’mon Jade, lemme show you how to stand,” Brian reaches for my hand and pulls me in front of him by the ball.
“I know how to stand,” I say, gripping the stick at an awkward angle.
“Yeah, it shows,” he laughs and puts his hands on my hips. “Ok, feet apart… Yeah, that’s good.” He puts his hands over mine on the stick and swings it backwards and forwards as I watch his wedding band glisten in the sunlight. “Perfect swing there Jady.”
“Huh? Oh yeah, I guess,” I lean back against him and breathe in his scent. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.”
“That right?” he says amusedly. Before I can reply, Kevin speaks up.
“Hey, no tutoring! I don’t tutor this bumpkin.”
“Sorry boss,” Brian says, letting go of me.
“Bumpkin?” says AJ, raising an eyebrow. “Bumpkin?! Speak for yaself!”
“Prove me wrong,” drawls Kevin pointing to their ball.
“Playin’ golf? Nuh uh, see golf is a bumpkin sport. That’s why you two are so good at it,” AJ explains, walking over to put an arm around me. “Me and Jade, see we’re cool people. We don’t DO golf so we’re gonna lose.”
“You got THAT right,” I giggle before turning around and staring at the golfball. “Ok, people scatter,” I swing the club and whack the ball. It’s a pretty good shot. Except for the fact that I hit it at a weird angle and the ball has disappeared into a sand bunker. “Oops,” I look at Brian who rolls his eyes.
“Hey, I wanted a challenge,” he shrugs.
“I’m up?” AJ walks over to their ball and raises his club as high as he can.
“Go AJ!” I yell, doing a ridiculous dance.
He laughs and whacks the ball as hard as he can. It flies off into the same sand bunker as mine did. We high five each other and Brian laughs at Kevin’s face. He had looked pretty smug when my ball had gone in there, but now he is looking pissed.
“Well I guess you two have a date with some sand,” says AJ. “And I’m drivin’!”
He runs for the buggy and I run for the other one. We reach them at the same time and climb in. We gun the engines and potter off, yelling at each other.
“AJ!!!” Kevin’s voice cuts through our noise and we both turn around. Kevin and Brian are standing where we left them with their golf bags.
“Oops!” I yell. “We gotta go back for ‘em!”
“Ok, but the race starts…NOW!” AJ yells, gunning his buggy and turning it violently round towards Kevin. I do the same with my buggy and we race along the green towards Kevin and Brian. Kevin’s eyes widen as AJ gets closer to him and Brian runs out of my way before I stop the buggy.
“Haul ass!!” I yell to Brian.
“Huh?” he stares at me.
“Do you wanna beat AJ or not?!”
“Ok!” he grins and jumps into the buggy.
“Get in!” AJ yells at Kevin who’s running away from the buggy.
“Stop the damn buggy!”
“Just jump in!” AJ keeps following Kevin in the buggy. “I’m gonna run ya over in a minute!”
“Stop it!” Kevin yells, running down the green.
“Get in you…BUMPKIN!”
“Do you think I have a DEATH WISH?!” Kevin yells back.
“You will have if you don’t GET IN!” AJ catches Kevin up and slows down slightly. “C’mon, make like Bond and jump!”
“James Bond never had to jump a golf buggy!”
“No, he just jumped helicopters and boring crap like that,” deadpans AJ as Kevin finally jumps into the buggy. “Finally!”
“Where’s AJ?” I look over my shoulder and giggle when I see how far away AJ is. “I’ve SO won!”
“Whoa!” Brian yells as I look back. He grabs the wheel and yanks the buggy around to the left to avoid a tree. The buggy teeters on the side wheels for a second or so before righting itself and I slam on the brakes just before we head down into the sand bunker. “Jade!” Brian yells as I climb out.
“What? It was totally under control!”
“Yeah, if you were aimin’ to HIT a tree!”
“Oops?” I say with a shrug.
“Oops,” Brian agrees before laughing. AJ and Kevin reach us and fall out of their buggy.
“AJ!” Kevin yells, brushing down his pants. “I can’t believe you tried to run me down!”
“Well if you’da gotten in straight away instead of running screamin’ like some old woman…” retorts AJ. Before Kevin can respond we hear a yell and turn in the direction it came from. A group of three girls are jogging towards us, swinging golf clubs excitedly.
“Well jeez,” mutters Kevin. “First AJ tries to run me down, now I get brained by over-excitable girls.” We all laugh at his comment as the girls reach us. They look about 17 and kinda ok in the fact that none of them have ‘I Love Nick/Brian/AJ/Kevin/Howie’ written across their foreheads, nor are they screaming or crying.
“Hey y’all!” says the first girl. “We THOUGHT you looked familiar from a distance.”
“Yeah! This is SO cool. We saw your show last night – it was AMAZING!” says girl number two.
“Thanks,” smiles Brian.
“I swear I just MELTED when you came up-front and sang More Than That,” the third girl tells Brian with a little giggle.
“Again, thanks,” he says with a grin. “So, y’all from Vegas?”
“Hell no! We’re from New York.”
“New York?” AJ raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you girls a little far from home?”
“Oh yeah! But New York was sold out and Lisa has a cousin in Vegas. So he got us tickets and we came here.”
“Tenth row back,” says Lisa proudly.
“Did you see us?!” asks the first girl excitedly.
“Uh, well…there were a LOT of people there,” says AJ.
“Oh duh Leigh!” she smacks her forehead. “I can be SO dumb.”
“That’s ok,” Kevin grins. “I kinda hang out with four dumb guys…” He looks at me, “Oh sorry, plus a dumb woman…Or two.” I stick my tongue out at him and he laughs.
“So, you’re playing golf?” Lisa states the obvious.
“Golf? Nuh!” AJ look down at the stick in his hand and jumps back, throwing it down with a yelp. “Jeez! How’d THAT get in my hand?! Get thee away from me!” The girls giggle at him and we just roll our eyes. “Golf is for bumpkins,” AJ informs the girls.
“I like golf,” says Lisa. “So I guess I’m a bumpkin…” she smiles flirtatiously at Kevin.
“What’s your handicap?” he asks her.
“Nine.”
“Impressive,” he nods.
“Yeah,” Brian agrees.
“Huh? Handicap?” I say. “You mean handicaps are GOOD in golf?”
“I wanted to ask that!” says AJ. Brian, Kevin and Lisa give us dumb looks and AJ shrugs. “But I figured it was a dumb question.”
“Just kinda,” says Lisa with a giggle towards me.
Before I can decide whether to be offended or not, Brian puts an arm around my waist and kisses my neck softly. I smile at him and relax into him.
The third girl stares at us. “You guys are….?”
“We knew Brian had a girl Nikki,” says Leigh. “Get over it already.”
“Over it,” she waves her hand flippantly before smiling at me. “I’m Nikki, and these two are Lisa and Leigh.”
“Hi,” I shake her hand with a smile. “I’m Jade.”
“You hooked my favourite Boy,” she says semi-sternly. “I guess I’m gonna have to switch allegiance.”
“Oh like you ever stood a chance,” Leigh rolls her eyes and Nikki pulls a face at her.
“Say I stood a chance!” Nikki pleads Brian dramatically.
“Oh sure!” Brian laughs. “If only I hadn’t met Jade first y’know…”
“Gee thanks,” I say with a grin as everyone starts laughing.
“You guys are engaged?” asks Leigh as she shakes my hand.
“Uh…” I say, not knowing what to say.
“I noticed the rings,” she points out.
“Yeah, we are engaged,” Brian smiles. “And I guess you are the first to know, I only asked Jade last night.”
“Oh cool,” Leigh smiles. “Congratulations.”
“Yeah, ditto,” Nikki says with a grin. “Even though it means I’m gonna have to declare a period of mourning…” Brian and I laugh.
“So, you like golf?” AJ asks Lisa.
“Big time!” she grins at him. “I used to play with my dad ALL the time.”
“She’s pretty good too,” says Leigh proudly.
“Wanna take my place?” I offer hopefully.
“Sure!” Lisa smiles. “I’d like that… If you don’t mind?”
“You’re doin’ me a BIG favour,” I grin. “I’m not big on golf.”
“Not fair!” yells AJ. “I was gonna offer up my place.”
“Ya snooze, ya lose,” I repeat one of Nick’s favourite AJ-baiting phrases and AJ lunges for me. I side step him but lose my balance on the edge of the sand bunker. I manage to grab AJ’s arm before I fall, taking him down with me. We roll into the sand bunker and sit up, shaking the sand out of our hair.
“Oh man!” AJ complains, spitting out some sand and standing up.
“You lunged!” I laugh.
“Ok, I lunged but you stole my get-out!” he grins at me.
“You snoozed…” I start but don’t finish as AJ lunges at me again. I drop back down into the sand and hold my hands up in surrender. “I give up!”
AJ laughs wickedly and climbs out of the bunker. “Hey Leigh, you wanna take my place in golf?”
I sit up slightly and look up to see Brian and Kevin are laughing hard and the three girls looking a little bemused. I look at Brian, “So, gonna come help me up?”
“Oh, sure honey,” he grins and runs down the side to me. He reaches out his hands to pull me up but I resist with all my strength and he loses his footing and falls into the sand beside me. I giggle and roll on top of him.
“Mm, I guess I have you JUST where I want you now.”
“No place else I wanna be,” he says wrapping his arms around me as I lower my head to his. Our lips touch and I feel his warm tongue flick the corners of my mouth before meeting mine.
“HEY! No PDAs on golf courses!” we hear Kevin yell.
Brian groans as I lean back off him. “Sometimes I wanna do that cousin of mine some SERIOUS harm.” I giggle and kiss him again before standing up and offering him my hands. He takes them and stands up. We climb out of the bunker and rejoin the others, brushing the sand out of our hair and off our clothes. AJ has managed to persuade Leigh to take his place at golf.
“JADY!” he yells at me. “We can go SHOP!”
“We can?” I raise an eyebrow with a grin.
“Yup! Lisa is gonna play with Brian, and Leigh is playing with Kevin. So…let’s go shop!”
I laugh, “What about Nikki?”
“Oh, sorry Nikki!” AJ runs over to her. “Are you good at golf?”
“Nuh, I’m BAD,” she replies.
“You can join Leigh and Kev’s team then!”
“AJ, the poor girl might not WANT to play golf,” I say.
“Oh, DO you?” AJ asks.
“Uh, sure,” she shrugs. “I’d probably bungee jump if you asked me AJ,” she bats her eyelashes at him and laughs.
“I’ll remember that,” he winks at her and turns to me. “So, Jady?”
“Uh…” I look at Brian. I really want to go shopping with AJ but seeing as I was the one who talked him into golf, I feel bad leaving him.
“Just go shopping Jady,” Brian says, pulling me close for a long kiss. “But you BETTER get me somethin’!”
“Ok,” I laugh and kiss him quickly before handing my stick to Lisa and heading off with AJ. “Have fun girls.”
“Bye!” Lisa is already eyeing up her next shot.
“Good to meet,” grins Leigh.
AJ waves at the girls and then breaks into a mini-run. “I heard there’s a GREAT mall near here!”
“Yeah?”
“Discount Nikes!”
“Whoa!” I start running as well and we reach the road pretty quickly. AJ flags down a taxi and the driver takes us to the discount mall.