Page 44 of As a Last Resort
I rolled my eyes at her.Of course, it was Vanessa.I took her here for a date and bought her a round of golf and a soda pop.It was the summer after tenth grade when I could finally drive.It was our first real date, since our parents had always driven us before that.It was packed.Everyone who was anyone wanted to be seen here.And there’s nothing like shooting a ball into the mouth of a crocodile and watching it roll out its butt, only to be dropped six feet below onto a deckhand’s head.
Sam craned her neck around me.“Is he watching us?”
I looked over and sure enough, there was a pirate peeking through the palm fronds by the ship, which immediately flapped together again once I caught him.
“If I’ve survived seven years in New York City just to be kidnapped and skinned by a pirate wearing polyester on a rundown Putt-Putt course, I’m going to be really pissed off.”Sam swung her club and sunk the first hole-in-one of the night.
Lexi’s phone dinged.“Rex is going to meet us after actually.His practice ran late.You guys cool to grab a drink after this?”
“If we make it out alive, I’ll buy.”
“I think I’m going to need more than one after this.”I turned away and smiled.
“And then,” Lexi laughed so hard she could barely get the rest out, “she falls into the moat surrounding the pirate ship!”
“Wait, there’s a moat?”Rex desperately tried to keep up with Lexi’s storytelling abilities.
“It wasn’t amoatmoat.”Sam laughed as her entire body shook.“It’s only two inches deep, but it was freezing and the crocodile took me by surprise.”
“Mechanicalcrocodile,” I corrected.
“To be fair, there weren’t any signs,” Lexi added.
Rex nodded toward Sam’s shirt.“I was wondering if the wholeman’s-work-shirt-and-kitten-heelsthing was a city fashion trend I wasn’t aware of.”
Sam’s half-soaked dress was hanging off the bed of my truck while she donned one of my large work shirts I had in the back.And my mind was not behaving.I kept telling myself it had nothing to do with Sam, and just the fact I had never seen a woman wear one of my Scuttle’s Ferry work shirts before.
“Did you just call them kitten heels?”Sam’s eyes shot up.
“I have four sisters.”Rex brushed it off nonchalantly.
“Ah.Makes sense.Well, Creepy Pirate Guy knew exactly what he was doing.He clearly sent the alligator after me.”
“It’s amazing how realistic it was too,” I joked.“The sun-bleached avocado green is probably really close to its natural color.”
“And those teeth!Like miniature marshmallows, all perfectly square and lined up.”Lexi was laughing so hard, tears were gathering in the corners of her eyes.“Totally believable.”
“You guys are miserable together.”Sam flicked condensation from her beer at both of us.“Kudos to you, Lexi.Getting pushed into a freezing cold moat by amechanicalcrocodile and being stalked by an old dirty pirate certainly checks the box of something to distract me.”
Sam’s eyes were locked on mine.I liked being around her.I liked hearing the sound of her laugh.She brightened everything near her.
“She would have been a goner if Austin hadn’t jumped in and saved her.”Lexi batted her eyes at me.
“Just doing my part.”
I couldn’t take my gaze off Sam.Her eyes were so brown they looked black and they could swallow me whole.
The beer bottle paused on her lip, barely hiding a smirk.
Lexi leaned across the table like she was spilling a deep, dark secret.“You know Creepy Pirate Guy was watching from somewhere too.Probably lurking around, loving every moment we looked behind us.”
Sam finally took a drink from her bottle.She did this thing where she barely bit the glass and smiled into it right before she took a sip.Her eyes flicked up at the last second and caught me staring at her.
“You’re turning into a grog blossom!”she cried as she grabbed my face and turned it toward her.
“A what?”My ears immediately heated at her touch and a warmth crept up my neck.
“A grog blossom!Someone whose nose turns red after they’ve been drinking.”
