Page 82 of This Changes Everything

“Just don’t kill anyone.”

“Ha!” I squared myself to the ball, and as I swung back, I shouted, “No promises!”

THWACK!

Rory was smiling hard as he watched my ball crack down the center of the range. I got a few whoops and whistles myself. I even heard one of the guys off to the side say “sexy” to his friend.

“Alright, back off. She’s with me.” Rory turned to the guys, who were all laughing. He shooed them away, then shifted back to face me, and our eyes connected. My stomach dropped, and his mouth tightened. He put his hands on his hips again and shrugged, clearly not as self-conscious as I was. “Old habits.”

I moved away from the mat so Rory could take his next turn. “We were never together, you know.”

As I walked by, he whipped off my Dodgers hat and popped it on his head, flipping it around backward. “Yes, we were.” A smile spread across his face, then he stepped onto the mat and hit his next ball.

“You can’t just take my hat, Campbell,” I protested playfully. I could see his body react to my calling him by his last name, something I had never done before.

“I just did, McCain.”

“I have hat head. Our first proper hangout in eight years, and you really wanna do me dirty like that?” I plopped myself down on the couch, crossed my legs, and picked up one of the menus that were sitting on the coffee table. “Mini cheesecake balls? Jesus Christ, yes.”

Rory walked to his bag and unzipped the side while simultaneously flagging our server.

A beautiful young woman dressed in a polo and a white skirt ran over to us excitedly. She pressed her short black hair behind her ear and gave us an award-winning smile. “What can I get you?”

Rory pulled out his black Titleist hat from the side of his bag. He then walked over to me and placed it on my head, pulling the rim down so it fit me perfectly.

“Apparently, cheesecake balls,” he said, not acknowledging that he’d just given me his hat. He sat down on the couch opposite me. “Anything else?” He leaned back, waiting for my order, and picked up a menu himself.

“Um.” I had stopped thinking. I was wearing Rory’s black hat. Not only was it a hat I had paid attention to throughout my teenage years and early adulthood, but it was a hat that now had its own fan-run social media accounts. A hat I once wrote an embarrassingly atrocious poem about where I rhymed “black hat” with “flat on my back.” The tight fabric wrapped around my head. It was the only thing I could feel. “Um, what?”

“Do you want the cheesecake balls?” the server asked, unaware that my brain had left my body.

Rory’s brown eyes were on me, studying me over the menu.

“Oh, yes, please. And can I get . . . I don’t know, a Stella or something?”

“You got it.” She turned to Rory. “Mr. Campbell?”

“Please, I’m Rory. This is Ellie. What’s your name?”

“I’m Tessa.” Her voice trilled like a nightingale.

“Nice to meet you, Tessa. Thanks for helping us out.” Rory turned back to me. “You want some buffalo chicken dip to go with those balls?”

I laughed. “A perfect pairing.”

He handed the menus to Tessa. “We’ll go with that, please, and I’ll take an old-fashioned. And if you golf at all, you should come back and hit a couple balls after your shift, if you want.”

Tessa was so flustered by Rory’s offer that I was secondhand embarrassed for her. Once she was gone, my eyes shot to Rory, and my mouth hit the table.

“What?” He smiled.

“Excellent moves, my friend. I just watched her fall in love with you.”

“Those weren’t moves. The goal is to get us some free drinks.” He laughed.

“Oh man, you’re lethal!” I pointed out the women who surrounded us. “I just watched about thirty pairs of legs part for you like the Red Sea,” I said.

Rory’s surprised laugh had him tipping forward.