KICK IT | JENLISA

59

Jennie

Thwack!

"Ugh." I grunted, swivelling on the balls of my feet. Paused in my twisted spinal position, I tracked the arcing ball's wicked hook left. The tiny white ball met the barrier net and slid to the green. Fuck, I was rusty. I also choked my club.

"You're choking up." Jackson called out from behind me. "Stop trying to kill the ball."

Mister PR Image Maker's reaction to me attending Lisa's charity event was a behaviour lecture that I zoned out during and forced range practice. Irene stopped Jackson's insistence that he attend the event as a 'personal chaperone.' Like he thought Lisa and I would sneak off on the back nine for our own action. I couldn't say the same for Lisa's ex and her new boyfriend. Unholy inappropriate tabloid images, although I appreciated the diagonal jagged paper rip between her and Lisa.

At Jackson's insistence, Irene and I rehomed the spiders residing in my golf bag. We dragged it out of its garage corner and cleaned my clubs until they spit-shined. I scowled at the scrutiny of me whacking at a ball here. "I'm pretending it's Lisa's face."

Drawing back, more discomfort in my shoulders and waist chipped off. My aim was shit; the end of my driver toed the ball again. It took a wicked hook right that earned me curious eyes from that side of the range. I bent over with a grunt and placed another ball on the tee.

"I'm standing right here." the ass on the other side of the plastic partition called out because, of course, she came to 'practice and inspect my form.' Ye of no golf faith.

"Focus on your own game, Manoban." I muttered. "It's weak as shit." It wasn't, annoyingly.

"Better than your first shot." She smirked, then wound back and swung through with a fluid swish. Her thwack sent the ball low and straight. Forward momentum and lucky bounces carried it past three hundred yards.

"Snakeburner." I teased, although Lisa was right. My first shot was horrendous, followed by ten that weren't much better. On number eleven, I caught the ball with the toe of my club and shot it horizontally at her ankles. Was that impressive or a bad omen? Both?

"Jennie, you need to take this seriously." From the peanut gallery behind us, Jackson wagged his finger. "The press will be everywhere, waiting to pounce on your first mistake."

"Take the starch out of your shirt, Jackson." I tipped my chin to my chest and glared at him from under my lashes. "Thanks for the vote of confidence on a first mistake."

"It's Lisa's biggest charity fundraiser." he replied with a frown.

The 'charity' word stung me with the reminder of being fired and sank a weight in my stomach. I hadn't shared the wasteful fraud outside YG Accounting, not even with Jackson and Irene. The more time I spent with Lisa, the more I questioned if she knew. I blinked at the back of her head as she lined up another drive. A ripple of muscles unfurled before my eyes as she rolled her shoulders back. She deserved to know if she was being taken advantage of.

Jackson's scrutiny was on full display as I whacked my twelfth ball. Another sharp hook right. "Fuck."

"None of that language either." the self-proclaimed etiquette drill sergeant warned.

Lisa turned, the weight of her eyes on me as I exhaled and lined up another shot. "Maybe stop choking your grip?"

"Maybe stop choking your..."

"Jennie."

"... ego. A little breathing space, please?" I grumbled. With a slow breath, I closed my eyes. The bones in my shoulders cracked as I rolled them. The tightness in my neck released as I pulled each ear to my shoulder. "You guys are cramping me more than my worst day of PMS."

Lisa fired off another short, straight-line shot. She squeezed a success fist, then shot me a smirk. A flip tugged in my chest.

"Irene." Jackson's muttered words hit my ears, which meant Lisa also heard. "Please tell me you'll take Jennie shopping for something more appropriate."

Fuck, now my clothes? What's with the mother hen's clucking? My skin burned where Lisa's eyes dragged over her shoulder. "The fuck is wrong with my clothes now?"

Any range worked to erase my golf dust, but the four of us stood on the upper-level deck area at Tophill Golf. Jackson insisted on here. My ripped jean shorts and tank top were a notch down from all the stuffy polo shirts, chinos, and golf gloves sticking out of back pockets like an ass ascot. I wasn't ready to admit, especially to Lisa, that my high school golf clothes were tighter than a slutty Halloween costume. Instead, I directed my efforts to curling my ponytail and putting on sunscreen.

Did they give me credit for showing restraint? Nope.

"Lisa's trying to secure matching donations, Jennie." Not a single wrinkle presented on Jackson's white collared wicking shirt and khakis because the only fucking clubs he ever swung happened while shooing mice out of the garage.

Matching? My stomach coiled at the mention of charity donors. Jackson inspected me from behind his transition glasses. His face wrinkled more than an accordion stuffed with more judgment than a Thanksgiving turkey. "You need a little more refined, less flea market flipper look."

A flare of stubbornness made me clench my teeth. I snuck a look at the back of Lisa's head, tipped down for her next drive. My eyes dragged across her broad shoulders, bouncing with her low chuckle, down her tapered back, to the curve of...

Snap out of it. A trickle of sweat dripped down between my breasts. Disgusting. I squeezed my upper arms into my breasts for a more pronounced look and smirked at Jackson. "Better? Now I look like Kendall."

Lisa whirled around and, in one step, Godzilla's frame invaded my AstroTurf. Her eyes narrowed, and her hand clenched around her club's grip. "Jennie, do you know why I paid for her implants?"

I shook my head so fast that my ponytail became a happy dog's tail. "I will happily live my life without..."

"Because she was self-conscious about herself."

Horrible reason. Talk about feeding insecurity. "Plastic surgery wouldn't fix that."

"I argued that too." She crossed her arms, the club hanging under her armpit. "For two years, she hated how she looked. I finally broke down because it was her body, and her choice."

My nose scrunched with tension. "Like you didn't complain after she got them."

"Drop it, Jennie." The sunlight cast highlights on Jackson's black waves as his head shook. "Nothing is wrong with Lisa wanting Kendall to be happy."

"It's so shallow." My mind reeled through the timeline of this ridiculousness. Chesticles were inflated... "Wait. She had surgery this year, right? So, before she left you... oh..."

Kendall used Lisa for her money.