Dating and Dragons (Dungeons and Drama, #2) (50)

“You made it!” she calls. “See, I knew you kids wouldn’t blow us off. You’re too good to do that.” She turns to the man. “You shouldn’t have second-guessed them, Jim.”

“I was just worried we wouldn’t be able to play today. It’s the highlight of my week.”

I inwardly groan. I have to play a weird game and watch an old man flirt with my grandma? No thank you.

They sign us in and walk us back to the courts. I was nervous about hanging out with Logan after yesterday, but this is the opposite of awkward—it’s easy and laid-back. This is exactly the kind of thing I should be doing with him, where there’s no tension and we can just have fun. Plus, I like seeing this playful side of him.

“Do you need to get changed?” she asks.

“We’ll be fine.”

“Suit yourself.” She hands us two large paddles that look like oversized Ping-Pong paddles. At first glance, our court appears to be a shrunken tennis court with lines drawn a little differently. The realization makes me even less worried about the whole thing. I’m not a tennis pro by any means, but I’ve played before, so I feel pretty comfortable. Logan also looks unbothered.

“Are you kids ready to get your butts handed to you?” Grandma asks.

Logan hoots with laughter. “I see the trash talk starts immediately. I wouldn’t be too confident, though. We’ve got this.” Logan and I high-five in early celebration. Grandma serves and my first impression is that you need to be fast with pickleball. In tennis, the court is big enough that you can often get a moment of lag time to assess where the ball is going to land and then ready your swing for it, but with this small court, there’s hardly time to think. Logan manages to return the serve, but then Jim’s volleying it at me and I completely miss it. I groan and run to get the ball.

“That’s okay, we’re just warming up,” Logan calls behind me.

Ugh, I don’t want to make a fool of myself. Logan serves this time and Grandma easily returns it. I hit it back, but then Jim returns it hard enough that Logan has to lunge to get it. He misses and Grandma and Jim high-five in delight.

“This is already more fun than playing Elaine and Harvey,” Grandma tells him. “Those two were hard.”

I put a hand on my hip. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

“We haven’t seen anything at all so far,” Jim replies.

“Elderly people are vicious,” Logan whispers.

I smirk and train my eyes across the net before I get distracted by him and miss another point. We do a bit better with the next few serves, even managing to score a few points, but Grandma and Jim are way better at this than I was imagining. Grandma doesn’t even need to move much and she’s still able to hit most of the balls that come her way. Jim is quick to get the others. This time, when Jim serves, Logan lunges forward immediately and hits the ball into Grandma’s court. She’s not ready and lets the ball bounce twice.

“Woot!” Logan yells, and does a butt-shaking victory dance. Of course he has to be adorable even when he’s being a dork. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

“No way, that doesn’t count!” Grandma yells. “You were in the kitchen.”

“In the what?” Logan says.

“You can’t be in the kitchen like that. You have to wait for the ball to bounce.”

My eyebrows furrow in confusion. Why is she talking about kitchens in the middle of our game?

“Grandma? We’re playing pickleball. There’s no kitchen here.”

Grandma and Jim burst out laughing. They’re so loud that the basketball game happening a few courts over pauses to see what’s so funny. What the hell is going on?

“Oh, that’s a good one!” Jim wipes at his eyes. “Have you kids looked up nothing about this game?”

I slowly shake my head, fighting annoyance that they’re laughing so hard at me.

“You’re standing in the kitchen right now.” He points to the section of the court closest to the net and painted a different color. “Now back up so I can get another point.”

I do as he says, having no idea what’s going on.

Fifteen minutes later, Logan is at my side with a wild expression. The score is nine to eight, and we’re still losing to them. We only play to eleven points, so it’s now or never.

“Quinn, we’ve got to beat them. No more Miss Nice Granddaughter. You need to smash that ball at your grandma as hard as you can.”

“Logan! She’s seventy-five—I’m not going to do that!”

Although…I’m tempted.

“We have to! It’s not like they’re taking it easy on us. They’re clearly pickleball prodigies or something!”

“I’m pretty sure prodigies are supposed to be young.” I bite my lip. His hair is tousled from running his hands through it and his cheeks are flushed. He leans farther forward until our faces are only inches apart and my heart speeds at his nearness.

“Call it out when you’re going for the ball so there’s no confusion,” he whispers. “And try to hit toward Jim’s left side. He seems weaker there. I bet he’s got a trick hip or something.”

A giggle escapes my lips. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”