“Up and at ‘em, little girl!”

Someone was way too cheerful, Kate thought to herself with a groan. She rolled over in bed and buried her face in a pillow to block out the morning sunlight streaming in through the bedroom window. “Close the blinds,” she moaned.

Instead, she felt the covers being hauled away from her. “Aidan!” She rolled over and sat up.

He was standing next to the bed, dressed in a pair of garish plaid shorts and a bright green polo shirt. “Hurry up!” he said, as Kate rubbed her eyes against the glare from his outfit.

“Golf?”

He nodded, grinning at her and bobbing excitedly on the balls of his feet.

Kate couldn't help but smile back at him. Ever since the night of their argument, he'd been nearly manic with enthusiasm. The past 48 hours had flown past in a whirlwind of activity. No, not a whirlwind. More like a maelstrom. Like one of those movie montage sequences that's been so over-edited it  makes you dizzy, just watching.

“Come on, get dressed," he said. "We’ve got a 9 AM tee time.”

“I don’t think I brought any golf clothes, Aidan.”

He turned and picked up a garment bag that was resting on the bureau behind him, holding it out to her with a flourish. “I had my stylist send up some options.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You have a stylist for golf?”

“Of course!” he said, gesturing at his own clothes. “You think this happens all by itself?”

“Is that a trick question?”

He laughed, dumping the garment bag on the bed in front of her. “The hideous clothes are the best part,” he said.

“We’re really going golfing?”

“You said you wanted to go!”

“Did I say that?”

“Here,” he replied. “Look, I made a list.” He took out his phone and held it out for her to see. She squinted to read the notepad he had opened:

Age-Appropriate Activities

1- Golf

2- Scrabble

3- Lakers games

“I’ve got the Scrabble board and the basketball tickets all ready to go,” he said to her as she read.

“That’s quite the extensive list.”

“We’ll think of more as we go,” he shrugged. “But seriously, Kate, get dressed.” He reached out and tapped on the garment bag again. “We’re gonna miss our tee-time!”

***

“OK, are you ready?” Aidan asked, as Kate stood with her golf club in hand at the first tee of the El Caballero Country Club.

“I put the ball there, right?” She pointed to the tee.

“Wow.”

“I’ve never done this before!”

“This is gonna take a while.”

She looked up and scowled at him. “Maybe you should go first.”

“No, no,” he said, placing the ball on the tee for her. “Go ahead. Ladies first.”

Kate took up her position next to the ball with both hands on the golf club, as Aidan stood back and watched her with his hands on his hips. She looked up at him uncertainly.

“Stand back a little more,” he said, waving at her with his hand.

She took a step backward.

“OK, now lean forward a little bit.”

“Like this?”

He squinted slightly, examining her stance. “More,” he said.

She leaned further forward.

“Come on,” he said. “Really stick your butt out.”

She leaned even further to the point that she was nearly bent in half with her chest parallel to the ground. He left the spot he was standing and walked around so that he was positioned directly behind her. “Now say ‘Fore,’” he commanded.

She craned her neck around to look at him and saw that he was grinning ear to ear. “This is completely wrong, isn’t it?”

He shrugged.

“You’re just checking out my ass?”

“Maybe.”

She shifted her weight back and forth, wriggling her hips at him.  “How’s that?”

He tilted his head to the side with a thoughtful expression. “Not bad,” he said. “Maybe lean a little further.”

She stood up straight again and turned around to glare at him. “I thought you were going to teach me how to golf!”

Aidan scrunched up his forehead at her. “I don’t know how to golf,” he said. “I’m terrible at this!”

“Then what are we even doing here right now?”

He answered her with another shrug as one corner of his mouth quirked upward.

“Foreplay,” he said.

***

 
“It’s your turn.” Kate tried and failed to suppress a yawn as she peered across the coffee table. Aidan was sitting cross-legged on the floor, peering intently at his row of Scrabble tiles with his eyebrows drawn together in concentration.

“Pass,” he said at last.

“Aidan, that’s the fifth turn in a row you’ve passed!”

He ignored her, picking up the bag of loose tiles and exchanging two of his letters. “Go ahead,” he said, looking up at her.

“You know, that’s a bad strategy,” she explained. “Even if you end up making some amazing word, you’ll use up too many turns to catch up.”

“I know how to play Scrabble,” he replied.

She looked down at the score sheet where she’d been tallying points. “The score right now is 68 to 4, Aidan.”

He nodded. “You do it your way. I’ll do it mine.”

“Fine.” She looked back down at her letters and picked out five of them, placing them neatly across a Triple Word Score. “Let’s see,” she said, counting up points in her head. “That makes it 98 to 4.”

She looked up at him, raising her eyebrows in silent challenge. He met her gaze without even looking down at his rack. “Pass,” he said.

“Aidan!” She buried her face in her hands. “Seriously?”

He was already reaching into the loose tile bag again when she looked up. “Yes!” he hissed, as he examined the letters he’d just pulled out. “OK, OK. Hurry up.” He waved a hand at her to take her turn.

She watched him from across the table, shifting letters around on his rack.

“What’s taking you so long!” he exclaimed, looking up at her impatiently.

“Fine.” She put down another word and tallied her score on the sheet. “Go ahead,” she said.

He grinned back at her and then placed his tiles on the board upside down. “Are you ready?” he asked.

“This better be good.”

 He flipped the tiles one by one to expose the word he had placed, composed of six letters and one blank tile:

F U C _ H A L

Kate knitted her brows, looking down at the board in confusion. “What word is that?”

“Fuck Hal!”

“Are you kidding me?”

He was counting up his score under his breath. “Four. Five. Eight. Nine—“

“Aidan, that’s not a word.”

“Why not?” he looked up at her, eyes wide with innocence.

“Because it’s two words,” she said. “And one of them is a name.”

“You’re not going to let me count this?”

“No!”

He pouted. “I passed like eight times in a row to make this.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not taking this game seriously?”

He was picking the tiles back up and placing them on his rack again. “Well, I didn’t realize we were playing the anal retentive way,” he muttered.

She picked up the cover of the box where the instructions were printed, and handed it to him. “We’re playing by the rules. Do you need to read this?”

He tossed the box over his shoulder and looked back at her defiantly. “Pass,” he said.

“Oh, come on! You could make words! What about ‘flack’? That’s a good word.”

He shook his head, smiling at her lazily. “Pass,” he said again.

***

Aidan held Kate by the hand, leading her through the security checkpoint at the entrance to the courtside seats.

“OK, this is pretty cool,” she confessed, as they walked out onto the floor of the Staples Center arena.

“See?” He put his hand on her lower back to guide her toward a pair of half-court, front row seats.

“So you can just call up any time you want and get tickets like this?” she asked.

“Pretty much.” He shrugged. “Being a celebrity doesn’t always completely suck.”

“How much do these even cost?” she asked, turning in her seat to look at him.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Come on, tell me. How much?”

He looked back at her, careful to keep his face expressionless. “Fourteen."

“Fourteen what?”

“Fourteen thousand.”

He watched as her eyes went wide and her jaw dropped, and he broke into a chuckle, unable to hold back the mirth he'd been working so hard to keep off his face.

She closed her mouth again and rolled her eyes. “You’re making fun of me?”

He leaned back in his chair and draped his arm around her shoulders, bringing his mouth close to her ear.

“Never,” he whispered, feeling her shiver and bite her lip as he began nibbling at her earlobe. “I wouldn’t dare.”

***

“OK, OK,” Aidan said, holding up his hands in surrender as Kate stood glaring at him from the other side of the golf green. “Here, I’ll show you.”

He gestured for her to turn around and face the ball on the tee again, and he came up to stand behind her, wrapping his arms around her and placing his hands on the club on top of hers.

“Stand back a little further,” he said. She shimmied backward, pressing her back against his front.

“Like this?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

Kate closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation of his body enveloping her completely. She let her arms relax as he pulled the club back and then guided it forward in a swing.

“Where did it go?” she asked a moment later. She opened her eyes and squinted down the fairway in search of her ball, but she couldn’t see it. She turned and looked up at him questioningly.

“You weren’t watching?” he asked.

“My eyes were closed,” she confessed, feeling her cheeks starting to flush under his gaze. “Where did it go?”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t watching either.”

“What were you doing?”

“I was looking down your shirt."

She rolled her eyes at him in annoyance. “It could be anywhere!” she said, holding up a hand over her eyes and looking back toward the fairway again.

“I think it’s there, actually,” he said, pointing to a ball resting two feet away from where they were standing on the green.

“That’s my ball?”

“I’m not sure we actually made contact.”

She felt her shoulders slump in defeat as he went over and picked up the ball, placing it back on the tee for her. “No problem,” he said. “Mulligan?”

“Mulligan.”

He came back and put his arms around her from behind again, shuffling his feet to inch her into position for another swing. She smiled and let out a sigh as she felt him dip his head and start to run his lips along her neck.

“This is going to take awhile, isn’t it?” she said. She could feel him shrug his shoulders in response.

“Why?” he murmured into her ear. “You got a hot date?”

“Nope,” she replied, leaning back against him and letting her eyes drift closed again. “I’ve got all day.”

***

“What’s the score now?” Aidan asked, as Kate tallied her points on the Scrabble scoresheet.

“Do you care?” she replied without looking up.

“I think I still have a shot.”

She looked up at him. “Aidan, it’s the last turn of the game. All the tiles are gone.”

“What’s the score?”

“264 to 4.”

He grinned at her. “I got this.”

“You can’t pass anymore. There are no more tiles left.”

He nodded, looking down at his rack. “I’m all set,” he said.

She watched as he pulled off all seven of his letters, placing them face down next to an  E that was already in place on the board.

“Go ahead,” she said, waiting for him to flip them over.

“Are you ready?”

“I’m ready,” she replied, pursing her lips. “I was ready a good 45 minutes ago.”

He grinned at her again. “Good things come to those who wait.”

With that, he began flipping his tiles over, exposing the letters one by one:

F U C _ K A T E

Kate covered her mouth with her hands, unable to suppress the laughter bubbling up as he looked at her from across the table.

She was still desperately trying to compose her face into a stern expression as he stood up and came around to her side the table, tackling her and knocking her sideways on the couch. She gave up on scolding him, collapsing into helpless giggles instead.

"What's the score now?" he asked, as he rolled her onto her back and held himself above her, supporting his weight on his hands and knees.

"You lose," she said, reaching up and putting her hands on his shoulders to pull him down on top of her.

"Oh no, little girl," he said, as he brought his mouth down to meet hers. “No, I think this means I win."

***

“So how much were the tickets really?” Kate asked, as Aidan pulled his mouth away from her ear and sat up straight in his seat.

He shot her a puzzled look. “How much? They’re free.”

“For real?”

“Well—there’s a price. It just doesn’t involve money.”

She looked at him nervously. That sounded ominous. “What price?”

Her words were lost in the uproar as the Staples Center crowd suddenly broke into raucous screams and cheers. Aidan looked up and pointed at the jumbotron scoreboard on the other side of the arena. “That’s the price.”

She followed his gaze and saw the enormous image of the two of them sitting next to each other. “Wave,” she heard him say into her ear.

She lifted her hand waved shyly, watching on the scoreboard as his image smiled and waved next to her.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

She turned her head and looked at him. “Ready for what?”

He put his arms around her and dipped his head, catching her mouth in a long, deep kiss.

The crowd broke into a pandemonium of hoots and hollers, as moments ticked by and the kiss continued.

“Aidan!” she exclaimed, breaking away from him at last. He looked up toward the scoreboard one last time, smirking now and gesturing like a movie director for the camera to cut.

“What was that?” Kate asked, when their image was finally replaced by a shot of the Lakers mascot on the other end of the stadium, pretending to plant a kiss on one of the assistant coaches.

“You wanted to confirm the relationship,” he replied, putting his arm back around her shoulders.

“You couldn’t have just sent out a press release?”

They were interrupted before he could respond by the sound of his phone vibrating. He pulled it out and answered the call on the first ring.

“Hey, Annette,” he said. “You saw it?”

Kate’s eyes went wide with surprise. “She saw that?” Kate asked, pointing up at the jumbotron. "Already?"

“Yeah,” Aidan said into the phone, nodding. “Yeah, you can confirm it. Close personal friend.”

He met Kate’s eyes, and she shook her head at him.

“Oh wait. Hold on a sec.” He put his hand over the phone. “No good?”

“Girlfriend,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

She nodded.

He grinned and put his arm back around her, as he spoke into the phone again. “Annette? Yeah… I think we’re gonna go with girlfriend,” he said. “You can confirm it. That’s right.”

He pulled Kate close, and she smiled happily as she looked up at him.

“Girlfriend,” he said into the phone, grinning back at the sparkle he saw in her eyes. “For now.”