Erik coasts to a stop behind me, bumping me, just a little. I unsnap my harness and jump out. “You just got owned,” I say, still grinning.
“You cheated!”
I put a hand to my heart. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
He chuckles and throws an arm over my shoulder. “You win this round, but you haven’t won the war.”
“What’s next?”
“Putt-putt.”
I look up at him, my eyes wide and innocent. “You know my uncle is a world-class golfer? He’s played against Tiger Woods.”
Erik’s jaw goes slack. “Seriously?”
I snort. “Nope!”
He laughs, rolling his eyes at me. Then he leads me off the track, back into the big warehouse, with its overhead fluorescent lighting and saccharine-sweet pop music. A group of tourists—obvious from their sunglasses and floppy hats—gather around the front ticket booth. A few groups linger in the putt-putt area, but the first few holes are empty. I follow Erik to a long rack of golf clubs, selecting one with a neon-pink-and-black polka-dot grip. Erik grabs a longer one with a powder blue grip.
I follow him to the start of the green Astroturf, and take in the first hole. It involves a long winding strip of green carpet bordered by white-painted boards. Erik hands two tickets to a woman sitting next to an enormous trough of golf balls and picks up two of them, tossing one my way. I barely catch it in time.
“Ladies first,” Erik says, gesturing to the rubber mat where I’m supposed to put the golf ball. I raise a brow and regard him skeptically, wondering if there’s an advantage to going second. Then I decide it probably doesn’t make a difference and trot over to the beginning of the course.
I place the ball on the small rubber mat, then stand up and study the course with fake seriousness. I lick a finger and hold it up to the air, as if checking for wind even though we’re inside. Erik snickers.
I don’t know why I’m being so silly, but I feel like I need this—to be utterly, stupidly goofy, to finally make up for the two years of nothing but melancholy emptiness.
Finally, I take the shot. I hit the thing so hard it ends up bounding right over the top of one of the boards, ultimately coming to a stop in the fake gravel. “Ooopsie,” I say, grinning for the thousandth time.
Erik rolls his eyes even as he smiles. He has a beautiful, wide, all-encompassing smile.
He looks back at the course and chews his lip. “So… uh…what’s your favorite ice-cream flavor?” he asks, bending over to place his ball on the mat.
“Huh?”
He stands up and turns to look at me. “Shouldn’t we know more about each other? If we’re going to try and make this work?”
I smile. “And ice-cream flavor was at the top of the list, huh?”
He shrugs. “Ice cream is pretty life changing.” He hits the ball gently, and it rolls across the turf, knocking into one of the boards. It crosses the curve and hits another, then another, pinging back and forth until it finally rolls to a stop a few feet shy of the hole.
Huh. Maybe he will win this one. I walk over to the fake rocks and retrieve my errant golf ball, then line it back up at the beginning of the course. “Vanilla. With chocolate syrup. You?”
“Rocky road. Favorite color?”
I hold up my wrist, where Sienna’s bracelet dangles. “Blue. Aquamarine. Teal. Anything like the ocean.” I pause. “Which is stupid, because then it just reminds me of swimming. But I can’t help being drawn to it anyway. It’s a love-hate thing.”
To take my mind off this turn in the conversation, I abruptly go back to my golf ball and give it a whack, a little gentler this time. It nearly jumps the course again, but instead just bounces hard off the boards, pinging back and forth much faster than Erik’s, more like a pinball.
But then it rolls right into the hole, and I turn back to him, triumphant.
“Nicely done,” he says, walking over to me. He picks up my hand and for a second I’m confused, but then I realize he’s trying to get a better look at the bracelet. Goose bumps race up my arm. There’s something strangely electric about his touch.
I wonder if that’s because we really are meant to be together.
He lets my fingers slide through his, but just before letting go, he twists his hand and takes mine in his, so our fingers interlace. “I prefer red myself.”
“Really?”
“Yes. The opposite of the water. Nothing like the curse.”
“Oh.” That makes more sense. But still, somehow it doesn’t seem right to me.
He lets go of my hand and steps over the Astroturf, walking to where his ball still sits, a few feet shy of the hole. He plants his feet shoulder width apart and rests his club on the turf for a second as he lines up the shot. “What do you want to major in when you go to college?”
Before I can respond, he taps the ball, and it rolls gracefully toward the hole, dropping in with a quiet clack.
I shrug. “Something with science. I’m not sure exactly. I was afraid to dream big before. You?”
He leans down and fishes our golf balls out of the hole. Then he walks back over to me. “I used to think I wanted to be an engineer. Build great big buildings, create a legacy that had nothing to do with the water.”
He places my golf ball in my hand, and I grip its cool, uneven surface. “And now?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I stopped dreaming a while ago, when I started to wonder if I’d ever succeed in finding you.”
My cheeks warm, and I look away, toward the next hole. It’s romantic that he spent so long looking for me. He’s so sure I’m the only girl he could ever be with.
He nudges my shoulder. “So this homecoming dance . . . When is it?”
“Two and a half weeks,” I say.
“And do you have a dress?”
I think of the plastic-wrapped gown hanging in my closet, then look down at my feet. “Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
I nod and meet his beautiful blue eyes, so much like the pair I see in the mirror. “Yeah. I bought it . . . two years ago. Before my, uh, priorities shifted.”
I’ve never told Erik about Steven. Oh, sure, he knows I’m the one who drowned him. But he doesn’t know I was in love with him. Doesn’t know how much I still mourn his loss. Someday, I’ll tell him everything. Someday, he’ll know what happened. But right now? I don’t want to think of it or speak of him; I want to pretend I’m normal.
He steps forward, wraps his arms around my shoulders, and pulls me into his chest. I rest my cheek against his skin. I feel my troubles sliding away, just as if the water were washing it off me. It’s amazing, to think that he knows my biggest secret, and yet he doesn’t care. Two years, and now I don’t have to hide it.
And that’s when he kisses me for the first time, right there in the middle of the golf course. I don’t move at first. Erik is gentle, slow, barely brushing his lips against mine. Until I lean into him and he laces his fingers behind my neck and pulls me closer, deepening the kiss for just a moment.
And then the loudspeaker in the warehouse clicks on, and the blaring voice is enough to startle me away from him.
“I . . . uh . . . I’m . . .”
I’m what?
He smiles, looks me right in my wide eyes. “I knew it could be good between us.”
I nod. Good is an understatement. That was ... amazing.
“Do you want to see where I live?” he says.
“What?” For some reason, I hadn’t pictured him living anywhere. But of course, he must.
He smiles shyly. “I thought . . . I could show you. If ... when . . . we start spending more time together, you know, to try and break the curse.... Well, I thought it would be nice for you to feel comfortable there.”
The idea of this—of having a life with someone—makes me so happy. “Okay.”
He grins and leans forward again, giving me a quick kiss on the lips.
“Come on. It’s just down the street a ways.”
It’s at the beach. That’s all I can think as I stare at it, a quaint little beach shack, so different from Cole and Sienna’s oceanfront homes just a mile or so down the shore. This one looks about a thousand square feet, all adorable clapboard accents and white-trimmed windows. Even though it’s a fraction of the size of Cole’s house or Sienna’s house, it’s far more charming. It’s a home. With a big cedar porch swing suspended on chains and little pots of mums lining the walk to the beach. Round, aggregate steps lead to the sand.