Page 49 of Wood

“Jeezus fuck, Ben,” I whisper.

He chuckles an almost evil laugh as he floats back away from me, licking his lips.

29

BEN

The place Geoff found in Tokyo doesn't have an English menu and doesn’t have a sign I can read. The entry is just a short cloth curtain, and there are eight seats at a counter that wraps around a grill. We duck under the curtain together, and the chef nods at us like he's been expecting us, but Geoff said this was a drop-in place. The tiny curtain is enough to put us in a small bubble with just us and this chef. No need for my guard dog tonight.

The chef’s dark eyes watch under the white cotton headband, his short black jacket pressed neatly over his white undershirt. His apron is slightly gray from age. His forearms are streaked with burn scars and corded from decades of doing exactly this.

Geoff orders in the careful, over-enunciated way of someone who practiced four phrases of Japanese on the plane and is determined to get his money’s worth out of them. The chef doesn’t laugh, exactly, but he starts setting things down in front of us without waiting. Skewers, followed by a bowl of something I don’t recognize until I taste the char on it and place it as chicken… small dishes appearing and disappearing.

This is so apart from all the clubhouses and hotel restaurants of The Tour. The grill hisses when something hits the coals, smoke curling up, and the chef’s hands are moving fast and sure. No wasted motion, he’s done this ten thousand times.

Geoff’s got his sleeves rolled up giving me great forearm porn and holding chopsticks wrong in a way the chef definitely notices and decides not to correct but his eyes crinkle at the corners

“I think that one's the good stuff,” Geoff says, nodding at a skewer. “He gave us extra.”

“How do you know?”

“I don't. I’m just saying it with confidence,” he says with a smirk.

I choke on my laugh.

Just past the curtain, Tokyo’s doing its thing: neon and noise and millions of people who have no idea who I am. After eighteen years on tour, this is a special kind of luxury. In here, it’s just heat off the coals and Geoff’s knee against mine under the counter, not moving away. My hand is on his thigh, and we have some tiny cup of something the chef poured without being asked. It’s warm going down. Geoff catches my eye over his cup in a way that makes the whole trip, the whole year, feel like it was leading here.

I could do a lot worse than exactly this. That thought spins around in my head. I want this for a long time.

30

GEOFF

The heat hits first, smacking us in the face. Thick, wet, pressing in the moment we walk towards the first tee. I hand a cool, damp towel to Ben before he asks. Fuji’s out today, which the local guys tell me doesn’t happen often this time of year. It’s a pale blue shape hanging over the back nine like the IPGA ordered it up just for the broadcast.

Ben told me about this weird silence. It still didn’t prepare me for it. He stands over his second shot on the eighteenth hole with maybe eight thousand people lined up either side of the fairway, and not one of them makes a sound. No coughing or phones buzzing, definitely no whoops, just the wind moving through cherry trees, thick and green in the August heat.

He swings. The ball tracks out over the ridge and drops toward the green, and the moment it lands, the entire hillside erupts at once. My ears are ringing with the silence, then BAM, the crowd is cheering. I jumped the first time it happened.

I get the towel out again before Ben even asks, sweat cutting down the middle of his back, shirt gone through completely by the ninth hole. We don’t say much out here. This course doesn’t invite chatter, not with how close everybody’s standing. The silence seems to matter to the people who built this thing. But I catch his eye between shots, small, just checking, and that’s enough. Keeping him grounded. He knows I’m here for him.

There’s no hospitality village here, no ropes running a mile back from the green. Just heat and green and silence and then noise. Over and over all day. By the back nine, Ben is fully zoned in, not thinking about anything except the next shot, which I think is the whole point of a place like this. It just doesn’t let you think about anything else.

Somewhere around the fifteenth, I catch myself hoping it never gets recognized as an actual major. I want it to stay exactly this weird, mine and Ben’s. And sixty other guys who understand what this week costs.

31

BEN

Ialways feel watched by history at St. Andrews. Geoff and I pose for a photo on the ancient Swilcan Bridge. The eighteenth green is ringed by townhouses and pubs, and people watch the final strokes from their windows. There is zero privacy. We are recognized everywhere we go. We have been out together for almost two months, and while the online furor has decreased, being here at the Great Scottish Open, the fans amp it back up each time we are caught holding hands on the street. That damned #theDaddyAndTheCaddie.

I’ve rented a stone townhouse along The Scores. A short walk to the course but private enough that our neighbors can’t hear my man cum. But fans are everywhere, and the moment we step out the front door, our photos hit social media. Dinners are stressful - Geoff has tried to find restaurants with some privacy, but he has ended up playing guard dog for me more than once, looking even more menacing with his shaved Peaky Blinders scalp. He has told me more than once that he enjoys being #GuardDogCaddie, gets a kick out of blocking entitled fans, but I’d rather he be able to eat with me. During the weekend, we will order something and stay in.

On the tee box, however, we are locked in. Our practice rounds are focused, ignoring the other players and planning our strategy.

The seventeen is the hardest one on the course and we’ve studied it from several tactics. The tee shot has to carry over a mock-up of the old railway sheds, now painted onto the hotel’s extension.

The wind’s up off the water, steady and straight. Geoff’s already got a finger up, pointing at the hotel.