Page 18 of As a Last Resort

AUSTIN

You want me to go where?” I asked Lexi over the phone, positive I heard her wrong.

“Putt-Putt golfing.” She was exasperated, like I was severely putting her out by confirming her harebrained idea just one more time.

“I thought that got shut down by the city years ago.”

“I’m seventy percent sure it’s still open.”

The last time I went Putt-Putt golfing was in high school, when pimple-faced kids downed Mountain Dew and Pixy Stix.

The old course was on the south tip of the island.

The whole island was beautiful, but if you were forced to pick an area that needed a coat of paint and a tiny exorcism, that would be it.

“Sam needs a distraction. She’s seeing her mom this afternoon so we need something that’ll drag her out of the inevitable slump her mother will put her in.”

Lexi told me she had reconnected with Sam and all was water under the bridge, which was great. But I didn’t feel the overwhelming desire to aid in the distraction.

“And drag her into what, exactly?” I asked.

“Something different.”

“And you want me there because…”

“I refuse to go down there alone. It’s not safe.”

I laughed. She was kidding, right?

“Don’t mock me. Anything can happen in the south tip. We’re picking her up at six p.m.”

As Sam walked out of her bungalow, I tried to ignore how her dress clung to her waist and how the fabric swung in a way that made everything seem to go in slow motion.

Lexi caught me staring.

“What?” My voice carried a little too much aggression.

“Nothing, geez. Chill.”

My truck door swung open. “You do realize we’re going to a miniature golf course, not an actual golf club .” Sam and her high heels climbed into my truck.

“They’re kitten heels.” She looked at me like I knew what that meant. “They don’t even count as high heels.”

“Leave her alone.” Lexi turned to Sam. “He’s just grumpy that we messed up his nightly loner routine. So, do we want to talk about what went down with your mom or are we pretending like it didn’t happen?”

“She never showed. But she eventually texted that she was off the island for one more night and isn’t coming back until the morning.” The relief in Sam’s voice was palpable.

“So we’re celebrating dodged bullets tonight! In kitten heels .” Lexi flashed her biggest over-the-top smile as her phone dinged. “Oh, it’s Rex. He’s going to meet us there too.”

“The more the merrier.” I eyed her.

“I guess you can both chaperone us.”

I could tell she wasn’t ecstatic about the unintended double date setup. She wanted me to stay far from Sam when it came to dating.

I drove south about twenty minutes past all the familiar landmarks.

Most of the streets leading to the water on the island were lined with small beach cottages, one right after the other, passed down through generations.

Front doors were usually open, only a screen standing between the family living there and every other neighborhood kid who threatened to bombard the house.

Moms could look down the street at any given time to see which house had a pile of bikes in the crushed shell driveway, a sign of where the kids landed that hour.

I drove until a large neon sign poked into the sky. The lights were blown on a couple letters so it read PIRATE’S BOOTY UTT-UTT . A few of the streetlights flickered. It looked a little more like something out of a thriller than the miniature golf park I remembered.

I drove up to a half-lit parking lot. “Lexi, I don’t think this place is still in business.”

“There’s a light on over there.” She pointed to an old, dilapidated palm hut. A CHECK-IN sign hung crookedly off the roof. I parked a healthy distance away from the one brown Crown Victoria parked in the lot.

Sam closed the door to my truck and looked out over the empty lot. “This is definitely the beginning of a horror film.”

“Huh. I really thought other people would be here. People still play miniature golf, don’t they?”

“In general, or at this establishment in particular?” Sam asked.

I chuckled.

There was a large fake mountain in the center of the course, with little putting greens throughout.

At the top, a large pirate ship sat in the middle of the course, a ripped skull-and-crossbones flag sagging straight down.

A life-sized plastic replica of Captain Hook stood at the front of the ship pointing to a huge open-mouthed crocodile below.

Although the crocodile was more of a faded avocado green from years of being hammered by the sun.

A small turnstile squeaked as we walked through the entrance and up to the hut. A wooden sign hung above us with a huge bite out of the corner— ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK !

“We’re positive we’re doing this?” I asked.

“We are so doing this,” Lexi replied as she walked through.

Sam looked at me and stepped closer. “Don’t you dare leave my side,” she whispered. “If there’s a sacrifice demanded, she goes first.”

“Deal.” I focused 100 percent on not looking at her cleavage.

Lexi rang the bell on the counter.

Thump. Shuffle, thump . Shuffle, thump .

“What do you think that is?” Sam whispered. I caught a whiff of her strawberry scent again.

“A dead body would be more of a shuffle, shuffle thump,” I whispered back. She cracked a smile and a small victory curled in my chest.

The sound grew louder and the wooden door swung open to reveal a very old, frail man decked out in a brand-new shiny polyester pirate costume. The smell of bourbon, cigarettes, and plastic followed him.

“Ahoy, mates!” His voice was scratchy and surprisingly loud, like he was greeting the audience opening night of a Broadway play. I looked behind me just to make sure we hadn’t missed a Greyhound bus of patrons walking in after us.

“Welcome to Pirate’s Booty Putt-Putt. How many of ya will be walkin’ the plank tonight?”

“You’re open for business?” It poured out of my mouth before I could stop it. The pirate narrowed his eyes on me.

Lexi jumped in to try and save me. “Oh, we just weren’t sure if you were open or not. With the parking lot. And the lights.”

“And the general lack of humans,” Sam finished out of his earshot and I chuckled again. She was funny.

“Well, consider yerselves lucky tonight. Ya’ve got the place fer now. Watch out fer the crocodile on hole eight. He’ll snap at yer barnacles if ya get too close.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Lexi saluted him.

“Sticks and stones are around the hut. If ya finish the course, I’ll have some grog waitin’ fer ya when yer done.” He motioned us through the back door and disappeared.

Sam looked down the hall to make sure he was gone. “I’m not drinking a single thing he’s offering.”

“Sticks and stones?” I asked as we walked through the back of the hut to the course.

Lexi laughed. “Golf clubs and balls. C’mon, Austin, get with the lingo.”

“What exactly are my barnacles?”

“Now that, I can’t help you with.”

“I don’t think you want to know.” Sam led the way as we headed toward the first hole, stepping over a small stream of water trickling its way in and out of the pathway.

“You guys never came here in middle or high school?” I asked.

Sam lined up her teal ball on the green. “Absolutely not.”

“I did once. But I don’t remember it looking quite this… charming.”

“I came here on a date once.” They both whipped their heads toward me.

“Eleventh commandment.” Lexi narrowed her eyes at me. “Thou shalt not say the V word out loud.”

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 a moat moat.” Sam laughed as her entire body shook. “It’s only two inches deep, but it was freezing and the crocodile took me by surprise.”

“ Mechanical crocodile,” I corrected.

“To be fair, there weren’t any signs,” Lexi added.

Rex nodded toward Sam’s shirt. “I was wondering if the whole man’s-work-shirt-and-kitten-heels thing 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.”