Page 60 of Dream On, Ramona Riley

Because she was pretty sure that’s what they were doing. Granted, other than with Logan, whose flirting strategy consisted ofso you wanna get outta hereandtake your shirt off, she hadn’t flirted with anyone in a while.

“Okay, hotshot,” Ramona said. “Let’s see what you got.”

“Hotshot?”

“I live with my father,” Ramona said. “Cut me some slack.”

Dylan laughed, and then they played. They made terrible shots and got several holes in eight and holes in nine, but no holes in one as they made their way through the course, battling haunted windmills with moldering ghosts popping out of the rotating arms and clowns scarier than Pennywise, aiming at their gaping red mouths.

By the time they reached hole fifteen, Ramona’s stomach was sore from laughing and the college kids were gone.

“This is it, I can feel it,” Dylan said, wiggling her hips as she set up her shot. “A hole in fucking one.”

“Dream on, Dylan Monroe.”

Dylan stuck out her tongue but smiled, then eyed the giant plastic orange cat on the green, through whose animatronic paws she had to hit the ball. “Okay, I can do—”

“Dylan, who’s your friend?”

Dylan froze, and when Ramona turned toward the deep voice just outside the course’s peeling-paint fence, a flash went off in front of her face, momentarily whiting out her vision.

“Who are—” she started, but the flash ignited again, and she put up her hand instinctively.

“Dylan, come on, give us a name,” the man said. He wore a maroon Dr Pepper T-shirt and sunglasses, and as he angled the camera for another shot, a second car rolled into the parking lot, spitting out a woman with frizzy blond hair and a green bomber jacket.

“Dylan, over here,” she said, jogging toward the fence.

It took Ramona a second to realize they were paparazzi—actual, real paparazzi—and those college kids had probably called someone for ten bucks or free pizza or something else completely pathetic.

“Fuck,” Dylan said under her breath. “We need to go.”

“Yeah, okay,” Ramona said, still dazed, and headed toward the gap in the fence that emptied into the parking lot.

“Not that way,” Dylan said, grabbing her hand and pulling her away from the cameras.

“Right, sorry,” Ramona said, but the flashes kept going, and Dylan’s hand kept holding hers, the paparazzi’s voices still pummeling them with questions.

“Who is she?”

“What’s her name?”

“Are you two dating?”

“How did you two meet?”

Dylan answered none of them, just headed toward the wooden building that held the run-down arcade full of games from the seventies and eighties. As they climbed the steps, Dickie came out on the porch.

“Oh, no,” Ramona said, but a smile tipped her mouth upward.

“What?” Dylan asked as they ran past Dickie, who was a famousget off my lawnsort with anyone who didn’t pay a fee.

“Hey, jackasses,” his cranky voice called. He stuck his hands in his cargo pants’ pockets, rolled back on his heels. “You got exactly five seconds to either pay for eighteen holes or get the fuck off my land.”

The paparazzi ignored him, still clicking away as Dylan and Ramona ran inside the building. Ramona looked back to see Dickie take out his flip phone, gnarled fingers poised to dial. “One…two…”

“God bless Dickie…what’s his last name?” Dylan asked as they shot out of the front entrance and toward Ramona’s car in the corner of the parking lot.

“I don’t think he has one,” Ramona said, laughing as the paparazzi spotted them and aimed their cameras in their direction. They threw themselves in the car, tires squealing as Ramona reversed. She slowed down on the way out though, giving Dylan plenty of time to present both of her middle fingers at the photographers as they drove away.