21
Elijah West has impeccable timing.
I noticed this fact when one day I was getting ready to leave my house when he knocked on my door carrying Duke in his hair.
"Where are you going without me?" He asked me as soon as I opened the door.
"Out." I replied nonchalantly.
"Why?"
"Because amazingly, I have these things called legs and it's too nice of a day to be cooped up inside."
He scrunched up his nose, looking around disdainfully. I felt myself smiling because he looked like an angry puppy, but bit my lip to hide it so he wouldn't tease me about it. He noticed anyway and frowned.
"Why are you smiling at me?"
"No reason. What do you want to do instead?"
His eyes lingered on my face for a second too long before he looked at his watch. "Golfing."
I felt my eyes bulge out of their sockets. "Golfing?"
"Yeah. Mini golf. Me, you, Ruth, Tiffany."
"What?"
"It's fun, trust me. I'll see you in an hour or so, Diane Young, so don't fret."
With that, he saluted me and started to leave. I grabbed on to his bare arm, still confused about the fact that he wanted to do something vaguely normal as mini golfing.
"Have you come down with a fever? Did we stay out too long that time with the stars?"
He rolled his eyes and wriggled out of my admittedly loose grip. "No! Can't I just want to go mini golfing with a few people whose company I happen to enjoy nearly as much as I enjoy my own?"
"... No?"
"Oh!" He rolled his eyes once more and then started to leave again.
This time I didn't stop him, but Duke did stick his tongue out at the wall and grabbed onto it. I picked him off the wall without telling Elijah and went inside my home, wondering how on earth I was supposed to golf. Especially since I couldn't.
True to his word and ever the gentleman, an hour later, Elijah and Ruth were knocking at my door. He didn't even seem shocked that Duke was with me.
"He loves you, didn't you know that? He likes you even more than I do." He explained when I asked about it.
"Oh my gosh, I totes ship you guys." Ruth said after this. Elijah put his hand on her face to silence her. I was shocked, but she seemed strangely used to it.
We met Tiffany outside the mini golf place, which was near the park. Upon entering, Elijah picked up Duke and put him in his hair, stating that he didn't want him to get lost. I said that we should've left him at home in that case, and he told me to be quiet... Which you can imagine, didn't go very well for the both of us.
After I had finished pinching Elijah and he had quite surprisingly surrendered to me, we started to golf.
Tiffany went first, tying back her hair and positioning her club so it was point towards the hole. We were still at hole one, where it was just a straight hit, but then she didn't take it very lightly. Tiffany hit the ball, and of course, got it in.
"Yes!" She squealed! "I'm on par!"
"What was the par for this course?"
"Three, I think?"
I didn't get any of this golf speak so I nodded along blindly with the others as they spoke about par and birds.
Ruth went next, becoming her own personal cheerleader when she had successfully sunken the ball in two hits.
"Diane Young, do you wanna go next?" Elijah asked me. I shook my head.
"No..."
He frowned. "Okay then." He went forward and without any waiting period, he hit the golf ball into the hole. "Hole in one!"
The others booed him.
"Go on, Diane!" Tiffany said once Elijah moved out of the way.
Nervously, I stepped up to the to the course, the hole looming up ahead. It looked scary, like one of my worst nightmares rolled into a golf course, even though it was a fairly simple hole. I was dreading what the next ones would be like.
"Are you going to hit it or stand there?" Elijah complained. I turned around and glared at him.
"I'm going to take my sweet time, thanks." I snapped back. He folded his arms and pursed his lips.
I positioned the golf club and sucked in a deep breath before hitting the ball... Behind me. Everyone started to laugh, and I felt my ears burn with slight shame.
"Don't laugh at me, I don't know how to golf!" I complained.
They stopped laughing abruptly and looked at me as if I had crawled out of the earth and threatened to shave their heads.
"You don't know how to golf?" Tiffany asked. I shook my head.
"The only time I have ever done it was on one of those Tiger Woods games."
Looking very pale, Elijah stepped forward and shook his head. "You should've told me!"
"I told Duke."
"Oh, and that's the same thing?"
"I see him crawling around your head, I'd think he'd feed all my secrets into your ear once in a while."
He tried to hold back a smile, but then I could see through it. "Okay, let me teach you." At this point he was grinning.
"How?"
"Hold the club." He instructed, and I did so. His hands came gently on top of mine and he moved until he was directly behind me. It was as if we were spooning... But standing up.
The last time I had been this close to Elijah, it was early morning and I had been asleep on him. I could feel his heartbeat on my back and his breath tickling my neck any time he inhaled or exhaled.
"Now move it like..." He moved my hands until they did this little twitch and then the ball was shooting along the course until it was very close to the hole. "That's it." Then he got off me.
"Thanks.."
"Can you take it from here?"
"Of course?"
He gave me a very weird look. "Were you making a pun there?"
"No, I -"
"Could the both of you stop airing the Elijah - Diane show and hurry the heck up?" Tiffany hollered. "We have like, seventeen holes left and you're flirting on hole number one? Do I look like I have time for this?"
I cleared my throat and went forward to hit the ball into the hole, scoring a four in total. Apparently, since I hit it behind me, I got a penalty which cost me. I didn't, and probably would never, understand the rules of golf.
"Do you think you can go to the eighteenth hole?" Ruth asked me.
"What, am I gonna flip flop during the time of the championship?" I replied. She stared at me, and Elijah who was walking next to her, smiled at the air.
"Try to go at it alone for your own for a bit." He added.
We were nearing the last hole, the eighteenth one, which according to everyone else was the hardest thing they had seen in their lives. I was scared out of my wits, especially since I was losing by a very big lead.
I felt sick to my stomach when I saw the eighteenth hole. It had three hills, a windmill lane, some of those holes you hit your ball into and it pops out somewhere else and of course, it had one of those twirling loop - de - loops.
"How did they even make this?" I muttered.
"Sorry Diane, welcome to your own personal hell hole." Ruth said, then her eyes lit up. "Literally. It's hell and there's a hole. I made a pun!"
"Have any of you ever even made it to the actual hole?" I asked. They all shook their heads.
"I nearly did.." Tiffany said. "Ellie and I came here and I was soooooo close, like literally, if I had two more hits then bam, I would've been on the hall of fame."
"Sure you would!"
"Shut up, Elijah West. Ruth, tell your brother."
"I agree with you, vapid brother of mine." Tiffany shoved Ruth in response and I held back a laugh.
We went one by one to face the hell hole, and might as well have thrown away our turns, because none of them got to sinking the ball. Elijah even managed to double his score, but he was still in the lead. When it got to my turn, there was little faith in the world left.
"Okay, so we all know I'm going to absolute fail at this." I commented.
"I can't lie, I'm just watching this for fun."
"Whatever," I replied, too tired to even take offence. We'd been at this for almost two hours and I was pretty exhausted.
I hit the ball blindly and it went shooting off into a random direction, underneath a windmill and into one of those holes. It popped up out of nowhere halfway across the course. I made a face at how far it'd require me to walk.
After a few more half hearted and blind hits, it was all over and I was allowed to get off the course. We tallied up the scores, and I lost with a 'record breaking' (the employee's words, not mine) loss, while Elijah won.
"This parlour is strategically placed to lure worn out golfers to buy their ice cream." He stated once we were out. When we looked at him with confusion, he pointed towards the ice cream parlour across the street.
"Well, it doesn't work because all I really want now is my mom's jelly." Ruth muttered. "She makes the best jelly. Isn't that right, Di Young?"
"It is really nice." I agreed.
"Shall we go then? Tiff, do you wanna come with?"
She checked her watch (for some reason, we all had watches. It was like we were Totally Spies and Elijah was Jerry). "Ah, no, I think I'll pass. I gotta go see my grandma. See you later guys."
She waved at us and then started down the road, to the bus stop that went in the opposite direction from us.
"Bye Tiffany!"
If anything, I learned that day that I should never play mini golf in a controlled environment. Heck, I should never play mini golf at all. Especially not around expertly cynical people who use me for their entertainment and as their scapegoat because there's a ninety nine percent chance I'd lose.
Elijah walked me home after we had eaten our hearts full of jelly. Even though home was literally just a ten second walk away.
"Did you have fun?" He asked when we were at my door. I got my keys out before I answered him.
"Will you berate me if I say no?"
"Yep."
"I had a blast."
He wrinkled his nose. "Don't say that. Doesn't suit you."
"Oh yeah? What does suit me then?"
"This."
He grabbed my hand tightly and smiled lightly at me before leaning his head close to mine and kissing me full on the lips.
And I agreed; kissing him really did suit my fancy.
a/n:
ok Lotta and Carmen asked me how Elijah West looks like (soz to name drop hah)
Imagine the child of Lana del Rey and Ryan Gosling who wears skinny jeans like it's his religion and has an array of black t shirts and dark green t shirts and leather jackets and you know when you curl your hair with a curling iron yeah that's how his hair looks but it's really thick
I'm sorry I didn't do a good job of explaining how the characters look like probably when I get back from camp I'll post character profiles or something???