Bad Boy Boxset

by JD Hawkins

  Brian just nods and clasps his hands behind his back. That’s when I realize: the handshake wasn’t a come-on. I suddenly feel more like we’re about to negotiate a small business deal than see if we’re potentially going to fall into passionate love with each other.

  “Shall we head inside?” I say, turning away from him.

  He glances at the camera and grins toward the lens. “Absolutely.”

  Ten minutes later we have our clubs and balls and head out to the first hole, which is done up in a fairytale cottage theme. I glance around for sight of Owen and his date but don’t see them.

  “So, Brian…” I scramble to get a conversation rolling, since Tom is following behind us with his camera and I’m painfully aware of how much is riding on the success of this first dating vlog. “Um, what is it that you do?”

  “I’m in finance,” he says airily as we reach the first hole.

  “Oh, like, stocks and stuff?”

  “Yeah.” We stop, standing awkwardly for a moment around a thin strip of turf. Brian gestures at it. “Ladies first.”

  I let out a deep breath and step forward, smiling. I put the ball down, and stand over it with the club, doing as good an impression of what I’ve seen other golfers do as possible.

  “Got any tips?” I smile back at Brian.

  “Sure,” he says. “Go short on Apple stock before the earnings report on Tuesday. Even if they hit estimates, enough people are gonna cash out for a dip—trust me.”

  I look back at him, trying to keep my confused expression on the right side of polite.

  “Um...I meant about the golf. First timer over here.”

  “Oh,” Brian says, acting like I’m the one who didn’t get it. “Sure. Just try to hit the ball into the hole as best you can.”

  I smile meekly, wondering if he just made a little joke, an attempt to put me at ease, though his blank expression doesn’t fill me with hope. Brian might be super hot, but from what I can tell, it doesn’t seem like he’s got a whole lot else going for him. Which is too bad, because I have no idea how I’m supposed to break this date down on camera with Owen later and make it sound even remotely entertaining. Hopefully Owen’s date is going better than mine. Or worse. Lots worse. That’d be very entertaining. Which would be good for the vlog.

  I stare down at the ball and try to set myself, though I have no idea what I’m doing. I decide to do a few practice swings the way I’ve seen pros do, but I end up making contact with the ball on one of them, and it moves slowly off to the side of the lane, resting about six feet from where I’m standing, barely halfway to the hole.

  “Whoa! That was bad!” Brian laughs, sounding genuinely happy for the first time since we met. Tom chuckles from behind the camera and I feel my cheeks flush.

  “That was just a practice,” I say quickly. “Can I do that again?”

  Brian doesn’t hear me over the sound of his own laughter, and before I know it he’s moved me aside and put his own ball down, knees bent and eyes focused like he’s on the eighteenth of the PGA tour.

  I look up at Tom for support but he’s just moving slowly around as he tries to get the best shot.

  “Have you played mini-golf before?” I say, trying to get a conversation going again.

  Brian turns quickly and I almost detect a glare in his eyes, as if he’s irritated that I broke his concentration.

  “Pah! Mini-golf? No…I play real golf. And I’m good,” he emphasizes, nodding his head slowly to drive the point home.

  I try to think of the appropriate response to that, even though my first instinct is to laugh, but all I can come up with is a slow, forced, “Wow. Congratulations on that.”

  Brian returns to his intense, championship-level focus, and after what feels like a long wait, takes his shot. The ball moves quick, smooth, and straight, slowing down a little just before it reaches the hole, before plopping with a satisfying ‘clunk’ into it.

  “Yes!” Brian shouts, pumping his fist.

  “Well done,” I say, trying to sound enthusiastic.

  “Did you see that?” Brian says, but his eyes aren’t on me, they’re on Tom—or rather, the camera.

  Tom gives a thumbs up.

  “I mean,” Brian continues, a little concerned. “Did you get that in the shot?”

  I can’t see Tom’s face, but I can tell he’s exasperated by his voice.

  “Don’t look at the camera, Brian. Just ignore us.”

  I look at Brian, a flash of wounded pride on his face, and wonder if I might not be the star of this show after all. He marches over to the hole, picks up his ball, tells me to ‘mark it down,’ and makes for the next hole, a faux abandoned gold mine. I scribble a 1 on the score card and don’t even bother reminding him that I didn’t finish the hole myself as I pick my ball up and follow him to the next one. I can already see where this date is going, and the sooner we’re done the better.

  On the second hole I try, once again, to get a decent conversation going, though it feels more like an interrogation—with me asking the questions, and Brian giving monosyllabic answers that reveal almost nothing about himself because he’s so focused on getting another hole in one that he can’t be bothered to actually interact with me. By the time we reach the third hole (which is quite a while, considering how bad I am and how many strokes it takes me to finally get my ball in the hole) I realize the reason that Brian doesn’t say much is because he doesn’t have much to say in the first place. By the fourth hole I’ve resigned myself to toying with his own oblivious ego for my own amusement.

  “So, like, how good are you at real golf?” I ask, as he gets into focus-mode for his shot.

  “Real good,” he says, delivering it like a line in an action movie.

  “Don’t look at the camera, Brian,” Tom says, stifling a snicker at my continuing feigned interest in Brian’s skill level.

  I nod at Brian, my eyes wide. “Like, are we talking pro-level good? Could you compete?”

  “I could compete professionally—sure. If I wanted to. If I put in the time and training.” Brian lines up for his swing, then stops to shake his head and do a series of stretching exercises. I watch his dead-serious expression, battling a grin that threatens to break out across my face, and then shrug at Tom when Brian returns to his starting position, wiggling his hips a bit as he lines up his club and squints down toward the hole.

  “But you’re not, like, good enough to go pro-level now?” I prod. “How come?”

  Tom clears his throat. “You’re still glancing at the camera, Brian.”

  Brian shoots me a dirty look. “I mean, you need to train. Those guys practice day and night.”

  “Right.” I nod my understanding. “So like, how badly would you lose if you played Tiger Woods?”

  “I mean—come on—Tiger Woods is Tiger Woods.”

  “So he’d beat you badly, then?”

  “Still doing it, Brian,” Tom says.

  Suddenly the air is broken by what sounds like an exotic bird of paradise’s strange mating call. All four of us turn in the direction of the sound to see Owen, Kate, and their film crew at the first hole. Kate the lingerie model is laughing like crazy at something Owen said, the kind of laugh where you fall forward, real close, and real intimate to the person who made the joke. The kind of laugh you do when you’re obviously into a guy.

  “Margo?”

  “Huh?” I answer, spinning around quickly to see Tom already following Brian as he moves to the next hole. “Oh, yeah, I’m coming.”

  We play the next hole, and now Brian’s only interaction with me is the occasional wink as he checks to make sure that I’m watching, although he’s spending more time flirting with the camera than with me. I check behind us every once in a while, Owen and Kate still laughing and falling all over each other. Owen’s pulled up his shirt sleeves now, exposing those taut muscles as he knocks the ball around, Kate clapping and cooing after every shot he makes, giggling every time he gets near.

  Somethin
g sinks in me each time I see it, until I want the ground to swallow me up like one of the golf balls. I tell myself this is good, that Owen not having any hang-ups over what happened on Saturday is exactly what I wanted. That seeing him back to his old ways shows it meant nothing, and we can just move on from it, and yet…every time I see him smiling at Kate, as if there’s some deeper connection through their long gazes at each other, I feel like I’ve lost something, like I’m losing.

  Brian takes a shot, nails it, then immediately faces Tom again while I set my ball down, mentally preparing to struggle once again against my own incompetence at the sport.

  “Mind if I watch myself back on that thing?” Brian says, holding his hand out as if expecting Tom to just give him the camera.

  “Brian, just focus on the date. Maybe you can take a look afterwards, ok?”

  “It’s just that, I know how different lenses and stuff can make you look. I saw this thing once where they filmed a guy with different…I don’t know, apertures? And in some of them the guy’s head looked twice as big. And his nose—”

  “You look great, Brian. Trust me. Try talking to Margo instead of me a little bit, eh?”

  As they go back and forth, I take my shot. If anything I’m getting worse. At the start of the course I was nervous enough to at least try—at this point, I’m just trying to get this over and done with. The fact that Brian doesn’t seem to care what I do before he moves onto the next hole is fine by me.

  Except this time I’m so bad that not only do I miss the ball entirely, but when I bring the club back I accidentally lose my grip on it, so it goes flying backward, out of the course, popping up against the path’s edge to land in the grass beside Owen and Kate with a metallic thunk.

  “Sorry!” I call back, and Kate laughs loudly.

  Owen grabs the club off the ground and jogs up to me to return it.

  “Thanks,” I say as he hands it to me, his hand brushing against mine the most stimulating contact I’ve had all day.

  “Are you really that bad at this? Or is your date just going too well for you to want it to end?” Owen asks with a wry smile.

  “What do you think?” I say, nodding toward Brian and Tom, who are now deeply engaged in a completely one-sided conversation.

  “…even thought of starting a YouTube channel once I was so good at it. Do you know what a GoPro is?”

  Tom sighs. “I do, Brian, but anyway we really need to get back on track here—”

  “I was in on their stock from like five years ago—but they’ve been going sideways for a while now. You want me to tell you why that is?”

  “No, Brian, I want you to—”

  “It’s those wide-angle lenses—doesn’t look good. Never has, never will…”

  Owen looks back at me and smiles.

  “How is yours going?” I ask, looking over his shoulder at Kate, who’s playing with her phone with a big smile.

  Owen looks at her too.

  “She’s a Victoria’s Secret model,” is all he says, like it’s all anyone would need to know.

  “Yeah, so I heard,” I say, trying to sound as happy as he does. “She looks…interesting. No chance of calling it a day, then?”

  Owen laughs gently. “No chance. Sorry. At least it’ll make for great comedy in the editing room, right? But listen, if you really want to move this along any faster you’re gonna have to stop playing like you’ve got double-vision.”

  “It’s not intentional.” I sigh and look up. “I’m doing my best, believe me.”

  “I’ve been watching you,” Owen says, and I try to figure out how, when his eyes seem like they’ve been permanently glued to Kate’s incredible body this whole time. “And you’ve got to get over the ball a bit, less backswing, more follow-through. You’re not playing baseball.”

  I grin. “I used to love baseball, actually.”

  “I can tell,” Owen says, as he plucks the ball back from my hands, drops it between us, and moves behind me. “Here, I’ll show you.”

  Before I know it, Owen is pressing himself against my back, hands on mine as he shows me how to hold the golf club. I smell his cologne and immediately feel like I’m naked, the size of his body engulfing mine, so that all I want to do is push back against him, fall into his body. His head over my shoulder, so close I can hear his breathing, a light touch of his stubble against my cheek making my pulse race…

  “You’re bending your knees too much,” he says, and I feel his voice vibrate through his chest into my back. “Lean over it more.”

  He presses into me a little more, curving me over the ball, and now that his groin is against my ass, I realize I’ve stopped breathing. I look up, see Brian still arguing with Tom, and turn back to the ball, feeling like Owen and I exist in some other world.

  “Ok,” I say, and even my voice sounds distant and quiet, my whole existence focused upon every point at which Owen’s body is touching mine.

  “You’re doing this,” he says, jerking my hands from one side to the other, “when what you really want to do is swing with your hips a little more…”

  He moves my body, one hand now on my waist, showing me where to twist. A smooth and soft motion, gentle and firm, and it’s almost like he’s fucking me, the way he moves his body against mine, the way my body wants to move against his. I can’t resist, and I press my ass back a little, against the bulge of his cock, hoping he doesn’t notice, hoping he does…

  “You got it?” Owen says, pulling away suddenly, leaving me flustered and unsatisfied.

  I keep looking at the ball so he doesn’t see how dizzy with lust he’s made me, but when I eventually look up I see the smile is gone from his face too, replaced by a look like he’s done something wrong and is expecting me to scold him for it.

  “Yeah, I think I’ve got it now,” I manage to say. “Thanks. You’d better get back.”

  “I should,” he says, but he’s still rooted to the spot.

  Kate calls from the previous hole, “Owen!”

  He looks back at Kate and waves to show he’s coming, then turns back to me.

  We look at each other for a few seconds, and I open my mouth to say something, but what ends up coming out of my mouth isn’t at all what I had in mind.

  “Have fun,” I manage to blurt out less-than-sincerely as he walks back toward his supermodel date.

  “Will do,” he calls over his shoulder.

  This whole ‘act like nothing happened’ thing is starting to feel a lot more difficult than I expected.

  9

  Owen

  On Tuesday morning Margo and I go straight to the studio as we’ve been instructed. We haven’t spoken to each other since we were on the golf course yesterday, so that we can film a genuine post-date conversation without any knowledge of what happened on each other’s dates. I didn’t sleep great last night, my mind racing with images of Margo and Brian, who seemed to be getting along a whole lot better after I helped Margo with her golf swing. It’s not that I was jealous or anything like that, just concerned about her and how vulnerable she is right now. The last thing she needs is to jump into anything serious with some new guy she just met. Especially a guy as douchey as Brian sounded like.

  I step into the small studio room—a giant blue screen set up behind a simple table with two chairs on the opposite side. Margo’s already in one of them, stretching back, bare legs poking from beneath the table. I detect some tiredness around her eyes—a poor night’s rest, or was she getting busy til dawn with her date? Tom, Mia, and Agnes are lounging around, casually checking and messing with the three cameras pointed at the table.

  “Am I late?” I say, kicking the door shut with my heel.

  “Early—by your standards,” Mia says with a smile, pulling a headset over her long, straight, black hair.

  I share a quick look with Margo as I step over cables and between the cameras. She looks nervous, probably because she knows she has to ‘perform’ for our internet fans and she hasn’t done much video w
ork before. It’s not like the filming of the dates, where you ignore the camera and go about your business—this time it’s all about showing off quick wit, sharp humor, and insight. Luckily, I know she has all of these in spades.

  “You’re gonna be great,” I tell her. “Just try to forget you’re on film. Think of it like it’s just us two in the room.”

  “That’s precisely the problem,” she says with a wry smile.

  “Who are those for?” Tom asks, pointing at the coffees I’m holding in either hand.

  “Me and Margo,” I say, glancing around. “Where should I put them?”

  “Bring them to the table with you,” Mia says. “They’ll look good in the shot. More like a ‘morning after’ chat.”

  Morning after. The words ring in my head as I move to the table to sit next to Margo. Morning after what, exactly? ‘Cause all I did last night was go straight home by myself and think about what Margo might have been doing—who she might have been doing.

  “Your latte, milady,” I say, as I settle into my chair. I push Margo’s coffee toward her.

  “Thanks.” She smiles, taking a slow sip and then looking up at the crew. “So how is this going to work?”

  Mia steps out from behind one of the cameras to say, “However you want it to. Just talk about each other’s dates. Compare notes. The clips of the date footage will be edited into this later, but try to reference whatever you can remember. The good, the bad, and the ugly. We’ll prod you if you miss something.”

  “Are you rolling now?” I ask.

  Mia nods, smiles, and steps back behind her camera.

  Margo and I look at each other, smile with the weight of the show on our shoulders, then break into laughter.

  “Oh my god!” Margo says, covering her face. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Ok. Let’s start at the beginning then…” I say, trying to keep things rolling. “What was your first impression of…what’s his name again?”

  “Brian.”

  “Brian, right. What did you think when you first saw him?”

  Margo purses her lips and looks to the side. “Um…good-looking. Like, painfully good-looking. My eyeballs hurt a little bit from the blinding light of his smile.”