I told Byron I’d meet him at the Wonders of the Ancient World arcade for mini-golf on Sunday afternoon for another round of “rigorous testing.” I didn’t really want to ask him to pick me up at Mr. Z’s again, but I also didn’t want to tell him where I lived yet. Paying for a ride would fit into my budget if it also meant it would keep me alive.

I still had some sense of self-preservation rattling around inside me, though I felt it quickly melting as I saw him, leaning underneath the awning by the kiosk that rented the balls and clubs.

Byron was dressed in all black, and looked like a shadow that I wanted to make out with.

Too bad it still said KILLER right over his head.

He broke into an easy smile as he spotted me walking his way. “Hey, Sunshine,” he said, giving me a once-over, and God help me I had dressed cutely for the occasion.

Elle Caputo was looking adorable in a tight pink shirt, light jeans, and sneakers that said she took her mini-golf-game seriously, was how my future obituary would start.

He turned around and paid for our game before I could stop him, then handed me my club with a grin. “So this is what college kids do with their free time?”

“Emasculate men they barely know with their mini-golf prowess? Totally.” I took the club from him.

He tossed my golf-ball over for me to catch and laughed. “Fighting words, I like it.”

“We’ll see how you feel after I slaughter you,” I said, unable to help myself. I watched him for a reaction and got…none.

“If I knew you better, I’d say you wanted to play this for money.” His eyes narrowed as he tried to figure me out in turn.

“Nah—just the stuffed purple unicorn over there,” I said, tilting my head back to the arcade stand. “And—hey—you’re not that much older than me, right?”

“I don’t know,” he teased, leading the way to the first putting course. “I mean if my uncle’s a thousand, then I’ve got to be like eight-hundred-and-two, right?”

I stopped in my tracks. I mean, if he was a vampire or something…that’d explain the KILLER, right?

Oh God, Elle, stop, I told myself, and caught up with him before he noticed.

***

Byron waited until I was just about to take my first stroke, sending my golf-ball into some sort of Greek-looking temple-thing that had pillars to avoid, to lean forward and answer me. “I’m twenty-four.”

“Wha—?” My shot went wide. “That’s cheating!” I protested.

“Totally. I absolutely do not play mini-golf fair,” he said, lining up his own shot. “You should put that in my file, so you can warn future ladies.”

He took an impeccable stroke through two of the pillars and then bounced off the third to make a right angle shot, his ball landing near the hole, before casually asking, “You? Old enough to serve liquor, I assume?”

I gawked at his shot, then muttered, “Twenty-two. And old enough to know better,” as I knelt to collect my golf ball. When I got up, he was looking at me strangely.

“Actually—am I an asshole?” he asked, seeming serious.

It felt like the last thing in the world a KILLER would ask, and completely disarmed me. “I…don’t think so?”

“I mean, coming up and startling you a minute ago,” he said, with a slight frown. “I don’t mean to be mean.”

I started blinking and couldn’t stop. “What?”

“You just seem kind of hypervigilant, is all. Don’t get me wrong—I like snarky banter—and you can put that in my file, too,” he said. Then he tilted his head a little, like he wanted me to believe whatever he said next. “But if you’ve got a stalker or something, you should tell me, so I can help you keep an eye out for him.”

Byron tossed his golf-club up in the air. It spun once, and he caught it, without looking away from me.

I let his offer hang between us for the space of a breath, then asked the only question I could. “Did you just threaten to murder someone for me?”

I wasn’t proud of how it made me feel, because I knew I should have been terrified…but in actuality, it was really fucking hot.

He snorted. “Murder’s a strong word,” he said, which was neither an acknowledgement nor a denial, then the moment between us was gone. “You’re up, Sunshine,” he said, then gave me a toothsome smile. “Good luck.”

**

We made it through the rest of the course, during which I discovered that Byron did “odd jobs” for his uncle, he’d always lived in town, and he didn’t really want to talk about whether or not he’d gone to school—only I knew he was smart, even if he didn’t have a degree.

And then he started sandbagging.

So subtly at first that I thought I really was winning—but then his golf-ball hit the blade of the windmill that was apparently the fifteenth wonder of the world.

“Byron!” I protested.

“What?” he said, giving me an innocent look, as his golf ball spun off into a tiny sand trap.

“Stop it,” I tsked. “I only want to win for real.”

He winced dramatically, on my behalf. “Then about that….”

“Okay, okay,” I said, laughing. “Fine. Maybe we can go inside and I can kick your ass at skee ball. My purple unicorn isn’t going to win itself.” I picked up my golf ball and tossed it to him, then held my club out, so he could go and turn it in.

“Do you think you know enough now?” he asked me, taking the club. “To set me up, I mean.”

I looked at him and bit my lip. Did I? After playing mini-golf he hardly seemed like a KILLER anymore. “It depends, I guess,” I said. “Where would you take her out on a date?”

Where by “her” I mean “me.”

He took a deep inhale, looking at me, and his shoulders sank a little. “It doesn’t matter. You probably wouldn’t like the places I go.”