It also let Kate remember the names of Pompadour and Button. The problem was that Kate knew people with those same names and were better used with those people and not the Principal's kids who'd been giving her a range of looks Kate could not identify. Then came the others. There was Young Striker, Skinny Frenchman and French Striker, Point Guard. Young Striker was apparently so Young that he was so far ahead of his age demographic that he'd been included in the main team.
Young Striker was tricky to pin down. He was nearly her age. Only a couple years older, and actually fairly huge, all things considered. But it was in his eyes, the roundness of his cheeks, the ease of his smile. It had nothing to do rich boy ease.
Golf was alarmingly boring. But it worked for the daughters. Because the 'players' were eager to play, but, when she looked at them she just wasn't sure it was golf they wanted to play.
First came the girls' watching, then came the girls not knowing how to play, the giggly voices, which was so surprising from Pompadour who had looked so capable of violence before.
Then came the lessons, she'd seen movies of girls who pulled off what she was looking at. Kate really needed to see the romantic trip and fall, followed by the manly catch of love and then her life would be complete.
Skinny Frenchman had his arms around Pompadour smothered her arms in his as they 'practiced' the motion of a golf swing. The gap between waist and waist had started fairly wide, daylight between them, and slowly with joke after joke, in the space of a minute, any and all daylight vanished so tightly it became a vacuum seal.
Kate pictured two rocks grinding together along with their practice swing, Kate wanted to see how long the lesson would last before they broke apart. If she'd held her breath, she'd have gone purple before Young Striker pulled her aside, an arm around her shoulders leading her away. He was strong, which made sense, not as strong as the cousins so nothing to panic over, but she was numb. A strange large man foreign man was dragging her away into the night. Only... he wasn't a stranger was he? And she'd just established that he wasn't a 'man' either. And such a perfectly maintained area wouldn't have dark spots. And he'd given his name even if she could not remember it. He was foreign at least. She'd take it! Her heart, as if being given the correct paperwork as acting, did the appropriate amount of fluttering. Goodness, he even smelled nice.
"You're watching them. You trying to get yourself a golf lesson from Frenchy there?" He said, he sounded more French, leaning into the stereotype.
He was not half as cool as he thought he sounded, his voice way too chipper as he tried to grind it down to something more manly, the screeching of iron on stone being heard like a brake being pulled. It was fun to listen to. He was fun to listen to.
"No. Thank you." Kate said with a nonchalance she had not expected From herself. "It's golf."
"Golf is boring. There's not enuf, tension." He agreed, he was being weird. That made her warm inside.
"I bet there's a shooting range." Griff interjected.
Kate had literally forgotten him. Had he been attached to her the entire time?? It explained a lot actually. At least in terms of all her talking.
"You guys good at shooting?" He asked, goodness he'd finally manage to make something of that voice, something swarthy.
"Kate is, it's super weird." Griff said, taking over.
Kate was stuck blushing, unsure of exactly what to say. She couldn't even get angry.
"That guud?"
Kate snapped back to reality and grabbed Griff's mouth, pulling him aside, doing her best to make it a fluid motion.
"No, I am not. Not to Olympians!" Kate said with a guffaw of loserdom.
She ploughed through the embarrassment, shoving Griff back and forth.
"Come on let's go see." Griff had tried to say but was smothered to silence only for Young Striker to repeat the words as if he'd formed them naturally.
"No, you goddamn don't. You both have promises to fulfil. Don't mess with your promise." Skinny French softly sang, the dick had one hell of a voice.
But wait Kaitlyn. Why was he a dick? Was he interrupting something? Said a voice in her head, she immediately stiffened.
"Fair enough. You guys weren't bluffing right?"
"No, we weren't. But you guys have to back me up, whatever I do okay? Including your more grown-up friends."
"Deal!" said Young Striker.
"Why are you getting excited, you waiting for girls too?"
"Is there such a thing as too many girls?"
If she didn't know how she felt before, then, at that moment she really had no idea how she felt.