Page 41 of Wild About You
The host nods slowly, still eyeing me like I’m foaming at the mouth rather than simply expressing my excitement for miniature sport. “Well, whenever you’re ready, you can load up and the crew will take you over.”
I am not exaggerating when I announce to everyone in the vicinity that I was, in fact, born ready.
* * *
“Thank god we have easy access to a bathroom tonight. With this many beverages, I’m gonna have to pee so many times. My pack couldn’t hold all that TP.”
Across the white linen–covered table from me, Finn chokes on his sip of water. When he regains his composure, he shakes his head mournfully, but there’s humor in his eyes. “Shame your time on the trail has come at the cost of your capacity for civilized dinner conversation.”
I tip my glass of sparkling cider—a bottle of which our dutiful waiter, Jamie, set up in an ice bucket beside our table, a champagne substitute for the underaged—at him. “Bold of you to assume I had that capacity to begin with.”
His mouth curves up in a smile that I feel like a zap of electricity. I look down into my bowl of risotto, pretending to focus hard on scooping up a bite when I’m really just trying to hide whatever ridiculously giddy thing my face is surely doing.
The few hours since we arrived at Blue Smoke Lodge have been a kind of culture shock, with the culture being that of rich people. As soon as Finn and I stepped out of the van, cameraman Hugh started filming our reactions for the little segment they show of the winners enjoying their prize after a challenge, which doubles as an ad for sponsors like Blue Smoke Lodge. A bellhop escorted us—along with a couple Wild Adventures crew members staying in a suite next door—around the grounds, as we oohed and aahed over the views and hot springs pools and generally luxurious surroundings. My responses were mostly genuine, but I had to hold in my laughter as Finn robotically delivered the line a producer fed to him about how our victory was sweet, but the swim-up ice cream sundae bar looks even sweeter.
Then we were led to our suite, where more performances of amazement ensued. It has two bedrooms with a king-size bed in each, divided by a living room that could fit twenty of our closest friends for a movie night—if we weren’t using the hotel’s private cinema, that is—and twenty more at a long dining table with an adjacent kitchenette. Hugh and his camera left for the day while the producers left for their suite next door, giving Finn and me the chance to clean up in our own bathrooms. They also gave us, much to both of our surprise, our phones for the night. Finn instantly proposed that we not look through them for at least the next few hours, to just “enjoy this experience.” I agreed, which says a lot about how much has changed since I’ve been here.
Except for the small exception of accessing my music. I turned the phone on and navigated to the app I wanted through narrowed eyes, goofily trying to keep myself from reading any of the missed messages and notifications that popped up. I picked a playlist, then relished in the ability to hear something other than the great outdoors and my own thoughts under the ginormitude of the waterfall showerhead. I become a very happy Eeyore dancing under my hot and soapy personal rain cloud to the musical stylings of The Chicks.
Things only got more ridiculous when I emerged, wearing a fluffy white hotel robe and running a comb through blissfully clean hair, to find a selection of clothes from the hotel’s boutique had been dropped off with a note telling me to take my pick for my dinner attire.
Upon entering La Villers sur Mer, Finn and I could immediately see that our trail gear would’ve caused us to stick out like a couple of sore forest gremlin thumbs. The waitstaff are all in pristine white coats with gold buttons down the front, each carrying a white napkin over one forearm and giving a little bow each time they leave our table. I think I cleaned up pretty well in the dress I landed on, a gorgeous lilac-colored number with a fitted bodice and flowy chiffon skirt that hits just above my knees. It felt very Cinderella’s-glass-slipper-ish, the fact that a producer found such a perfect dress for me in a perfect fit and my favorite color.
And damn if Finn doesn’t look like a painfully perfect Prince Charming. Upon seeing him for the first time, leaning against the suite’s couch as he waited for me to head down to dinner, I made another noise that probably should’ve been embarrassing. Something along the lines of urrrgggffhh. He’s in a blazer that has no right to fit as well as it does off the rack, over a light blue button-down and—because, even fancied up, the man has a brand—khaki pants. Much nicer, skinnier khakis than his hiking ones, and with only the standard amount of pockets. He’s also shaved again, showing off that sharp jawline to perfection.
Needless to say, I’m doing great at keeping this crush under wraps.
“Need a top-up?” Mr. Business Casually Wrecking Me asks, eyes twinkling as he reaches for the cider bottle.
“Fillah up, bah-tendah.” Apparently my new act-natural coping mechanism is bizarre accents. Finn laughs, though, so that’s worth plenty of unhinged behavior. The whole dinner has been full of laughs.
It’s also been full of me asking when we can play mini golf.
“All right,” he says over dessert, bringing his napkin up to swipe away some of the berry compote topping from our crème brûlée. I definitely had not been picturing myself licking it off. “What’s the deal with you and mini golf?”
I sit up straighter in my seat, savoring the last of the sweet, custardy cream treat on my spoon. When I look his way again, his eyes are on my mouth around my spoon. Very interesting. I give it one last slow, indulgent lick…in the name of science. He clears his throat abruptly, eyes darting away as he reaches up to tuck a finger into his shirt collar and tug it around, and I finally register his question.
“Oh. Uh, I don’t know, I just really enjoy playing it? And I guess it’s kind of sentimental.” I set my spoon down and start straightening all the remaining dishes and utensils around me. “My family didn’t take a lot of vacations growing up. It’s just my parents and me, and their jobs never allowed for much time off, nor could we swing any fancy getaways on our budget. I spent most summers with Granny Star in Pigeon Forge anyway, which was all the getaway I needed. But Mom and Dad always managed, for one weekend in the summer, to come down to the mountains and visit with us. Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, that whole area in the Tennessee Smokies, some of it’s touristy as all get-out, but it was my Disneyland. And you can’t go more than a block or two without seeing a mini golf course. My parents enjoyed it, so it became our thing on their mountain weekends, trying out all the different courses—pirate golf, hillbilly golf, volcanic island golf, whatever we could find.”
I smile into my cider glass as I take a sip. The bubbles tickle my throat as I drink them down, then I shrug before continuing. “I’ve told you already that I don’t have a great relationship with my parents, but even as I got older, when my grandma was gone and things at home kind of worsened, those trips were still special. We still went for a weekend every summer when we could. And mini golf was still our best family time, when we laughed together and could joke around and just play. I’m grateful for that.”
I pause before looking up at Finn with an awkward grin. I imagine he was expecting more of an “I was on the golf team in high school” rather than “Let’s revisit my childhood trauma,” but that’s the Natalie Hart Special, I suppose. And maybe he’s come to expect that after all, because he’s just watching me with that intense, warm brown gaze, taking it in.
“So what I’m hearing is you’re about to destroy me in mini golf,” he finally says, dry as can be.
My head falls back on a laugh. It’s the response I didn’t know I wanted at the moment—not dwelling on the Daddy-and-Mommy Issues, just bringing things back to the light on this night when I want to celebrate and have fun.
“One weekend per year of playing lots of mini golf doesn’t make you a pro,” I answer.
His eyes narrow, but they also glint with humor. “Yeah, and that is not a denial of the fact that you, specifically, are really good.”
I wink. “Guess you’ll have to find out for yourself.”
We’ve completely lost our bearings since the initial tour of the lodge, so we get directions from the restaurant’s maître d’ to the mini golf course right beside the main building, mutually deciding not to change from our fancy getups yet. I haven’t felt this pretty in a while, and I plan to get some mileage out of it. I’m also just too eager to let anything slow me down.
But then something does. The Closed sign hanging on the gate to the mini golf course.
“Noooo!” I wail. I would sink to my knees in despair, but I have enough sense left to not want to ruin my dress. “This is like expecting Leslie Odom Jr. to host the Tonys, but they replace him at the last minute with James Corden.”