“That's it. We're switching balls now,” I said and walked over to the hole, grabbed his ball and stomped over to my ball and switched them. Then I tapped it and it didn't go in; it skidded around the edge and pushed out, rolling four feet before bumping into the edging.
“What! Seriously? Okay. It has to be my club,” I half laughed at Collin as he just busted out laughing. “Sorry, but I've never seen such luck at, at mini golf,” he said.
“Glad I'm amusing you,” I said with some fake pouting.
Then, Colin strode the ten feet to me, captured my face in his hands and next thing I knew, he kissed me.
This wasn't a simple peck. This was passion. Anyone looking on would undoubtedly swear we were in love. Time stopped. I didn't care where we were or who was around. I dropped my club and, going up on my toes, I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck. His kiss only deepened.
The sounds of giggles pulled us back to reality. We looked over and saw a couple of schoolgirls watching from the next hole. Both were smiling cutely.
“We should probably continue playing before the next group comes up.” Colin softly kissed me again then bent down to grab my club and handed it to me.
I was still too light-headed from the kiss to register what he was saying until he was handing me the club.
We finished playing, though the rest of the day was a bit of a blur.
*********
“You a’right, Jo?” Dale was staring at me with an eyebrow raised.
“What? Huh? Oh, sorry. I'm fine.” I sounded almost dreamy and continued wiping the same glass I had been cleaning for the last 20 minutes.
“Ya sure?” he pressed.
“Yeah. Why?” I frowned.
“Because you've been kind of dazy-like all night, plus I'm pretty sure that glass is beer clean by now.”
I looked down, finally realizing I hadn’t been cleaning multiple glasses, like I thought, but only one.
“Yeah. Sorry. My mind wandered,” I said, trying to play it off as I put up the very clean glass and grabbed the next.
“Okay. Out with it. What's up?”
“What do you mean?”
“Tell me what's going on.” Dale was a bit uppity sounding.
“What do you mean, ‘What's going on’?” I immediately began blushing and trying to clean the glasses faster so I could get away from Dale's probing questions and inquisitive stare.
“What happened today? You weren't like this last night and I haven't seen Loverboy yet tonight. So spill it. What happened?”
“Nothing. He probably won't come tonight. We went out this afternoon.”
“Okay. So what happened?” Dale was beginning to get protective. I could hear it in his voice. He probably thought Loverboy, as he called Colin, hurt me or tried something.
“Nothing, honest,” I insisted, turning away to clean the bar top at the other end. Anything to avoid talking to him. But Dale wouldn't drop it.
“Jo, out with it. What did he do?” His concern was apparent.
“He kissed me. All right?” I practically shouted from the other end of the bar. The few customers stopped what they were doing to see what was going on, then went back to their own lives when they realized it was nothing.
“He kissed ya?! Ya mean he hadn't yet?” Dale was chuckling and laughing. “So you're all gooey googly-eyed and space-cadety because he kissed ya?” he asked, laughing all the harder.
“See? That’s why I didn't want to tell you. I knew you'd make fun.”
“Then ya shouldn't’ve been actin all weird. I wouldn't’ve known somethin’ was up.”
I could tell this was only the beginning of what would no doubt be torment for at least the next week.
*********
“We were playing minigolf. Well actually he was playing and I was pouting because I couldn’t get it in the hole and he kissed me—”
“Wait, what? Slow down girl.” Layla was laughing at my babbling.
“Sorry, he took me to play minigolf yesterday and I was having a hard time putting, so I was pouting. Next thing I knew, he was kissing me.”
“Like silly kiss you to get you to stop pitchin’ a fit?”
“No like world-stopping kiss.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah”
“So it was good?”
“Omg! That kiss…good doesn’t even come close to describing it. Ya know how in the movies the guy just walks over and kisses the girl passionately?”
“Uh huh…” I could tell she was hanging on every word.
“Like that. He literally dropped his club and strode over to me and tilted my face towards his and kissed me. I swear the world stopped. No joke.”
“Wow!”
Chapter 8
As the months rolled by, I could tell feelings were growing, though neither of us had verbalized anything. There hadn’t been many weeks where we had not gone out; in fact the only times we didn’t was when he was in the field training. We had fun getting to know one another. We went to the movies, dinner, get togethers with friends, and even some silly and fun dates at the minigolf park and go-kart track. We spent hours talking and laughing. It was amazing to be with him.
What would most people think of as the best place to hear the words, I love you? Restaurant, movies, after an intimate time together. Not many would say the batting cages, except for me. Time flew by; next thing anyone knew, summer was in full swing with the fourth in a week.
Colin and I rarely met up for dates on the weekends with my schedule at the bar. So when he took me to the batting cages on Thursday, late afternoon, it was nearly empty. I was not one to
