Page 69 of The Fullback
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Bailey
“Hang on a minute.I’m sure your ball was over there,” I said with a knowing smirk, waving my putter at Hunter and using it to point at the fake sand trap where the bright green ball he was using had been a few seconds before. “Put it back!”
“What? I didn’t do anything!” Hunter threw his arms out in mock outrage, the putter looking comically small in his hands as he grinned at me.
“Yeah, you did. You nudged it.”
“You have no proof.”
“I do.”
“What is it?”
“That I can’t fucking see it anymore,” I said, casting my eye over the hole we were playing. We were about halfway around the eighteen-hole course, and what had started out as something vaguely serious and professional had rapidly devolved into childish antics and over-the-top attempts at cheating.
We hadn’t established any rules, but the general unspoken agreement seemed to be that cheating was okay but if you gotcaught you had to admit it and start that hole again. There was some sort of penalty system in place too, but we hadn’t talked about what we owed each other. Probably because we were all thinking of stuff that couldn’t be discussed in public.
And yeah, the three of us broke out giggling every time someone said hole.
“It’s here,” Hunter said, tapping a spot slightly further down the course, under the little drawbridge we were supposed to be going over. The place had a medieval fantasy theme, with castles and dragons and all that shit, and each of the holes was apparently a miniaturised version of some of the most famous, and difficult, greens from across the world, with themed additions like drawbridges, tunnels, moving parts, and dead ends.
It was bloody ridiculous, and I was having the best fucking time.
“How the fuck did it get down there?” I asked as I took a step closer, tilting my head to try and get a better look.
“Aiden knocked it,” Hunter said with a pointed look at our third, who was stood at the other end with a smug smile, his neon blue ball sitting right by the hole.
“What? You were right in my way,” Aiden said. “Was I supposed to go around you?”
“You weren’t supposed to hit me! That is cheating.”
“No, it’s not. It’s totally fair.”
“Boo, bad sportsmanship!” Hunter said, cupping his hand to his mouth and booing playfully.
“Fine, move it back then. But you still have to go into the rough bit. Otherwise that’s cheating,” Aiden said. “Bailey, ruling?”
“Hunter can go back to the sand trap,” I said with a sombre nod, like I was casting a great judgement. “And Aiden… you owe us something for unsportsmanlike conduct.”
“What? That’s not fair,” he said, but he was laughing, so I didn’t think he disagreed that much.
“That’s my ruling.”
“Fine, add it to my tab.”
I chuckled and made a little mark on the scorecard I’d been given. There were four marks next to his name, three by mine, and four by Hunter’s. There was going to be a lot of penalty owing later.
“Can I move my ball now?” Hunter asked, stooping down to retrieve it from under the drawbridge. Aiden and I both stared at his arse as he did, because it was impossible not to. The jeans Hunter was wearing were like a second skin around his thighs, hugging his arse and making it look fucking edible.
“Perverts,” he muttered under his breath when he caught us looking, a little smirk on his lips. “Surely that counts as a penalty too?”
“Nope,” Aiden said, popping thep. “We’re simply admiring the view.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” I added.
Hunter hummed, clearly not believing us. “When you two do it there is.”
