Page 4 of Iron

Caleb knows my history, knows I don’t bottom, so I know he is just giving me a hard time.

He nudges my elbow with his. “Maybe ease off of the energy drink, hunny? You are jittery enough. I have a gummy, want a nibble, take that edge off?”

He may be right about the drink, so I shove it away and grab an electrolyte drink instead. “No, thanks on the gummy. That DJ made them, right? Deja? Never know what you’re getting.”

Caleb laughs, then shrugs. “She’s getting better, but yeah, some of them are wowzer.” He sighs. “So good.”

“None of that for me on the Tour, either,” I remind him. “I might have to do drug testing at any time.”

“Fucking old school,” Caleb grumbles. “Bunch of boomers making up the rules. You can get drunk, but god forbid you pop an edible.”

Gavin rises from his table, wrapping up the break, and I gather our trash and dump it in the can, capping my electrolyte drink and stuffing it into the cooler of my bag.

We step up to the tenth hole, a short par three. The tee box sits on a rock outcropping above the green with a small walking path to get up here. There’s a deep bunker on the right of the green and a stand of aspens crowding the left. A dry creek bed cuts across the front. Trying to go for the green from the tee messes with most golfer’s heads, and they end up using too much club, going right over the green into the backside. The wind is ruffling Caleb’s floppy hair, gusting around us.

Gavin’s caddie steps up next to him, and they confer quietly, but not so much that I can’t hear, as there just isn’t that much space up here.

Stephen says, “One-eighty-seven to the pin, flag’s at the back of the green today. Wind is… ten. Maybe twelve. It’s not steady though. It dropped on the group ahead of us, totally messed them up.”

Gavin nods. “Normally I’d call that an eight, but up here at this altitude…”

Stephen ponders. “Downhill tee, add the wind at your back, an eight could put you off the back if you catch it clean.”

“Choke down the seven, then?” Gavin replies.

“Cleaner,” Stephen agrees. “You don’t need to force it. Middle of the green, putt it out, move on.”

“Boring,” Gavin mutters, taking the seven from Stephen.

“Boring wins tournaments,” Stephen says, deadpan as he steps back as much as he can to give Gavin room.

Gavin settles into his routine: stretching, then a practice swing, then stepping forward into his stance. The wind gusts over us, then dies, and he swings. He nails it, and the ball rolls onto the green, exactly as Stephen said.

I say nothing as I call for my seven, shaking out my shoulders. Before handing me the club, Caleb steps behind me and hisses, “Breathe, boo, your shoulders are under your ears,” then digs his wiry little fingers into my traps. He’s right, I’m wound up too fucking tight, so I let him work the knots for a moment.

“You learn that in nursing school?” I ask, forcing myself not to moan as he presses on my neck.

“Nah, one of the queens at Babylon is a massage therapist. She used to do my shoulders when the trays got to me.”

I huff a laugh, then take a deep breath and step forward. He hands me the club and moves back, and I take stock of the view from the line. Choke it down, don’t force it, wait for the wind to die. And I fucking nail it. Two yards from Gavin’s ball.

“Woot!” Caleb whoops. “That’s my boy!”

I laugh and hug his scrawny shoulders. “Thanks, bro.”

Stepping away to let the other two golfers take their turns, I catch Gavin’s eye. He’s looking at me like he suddenly sees a golfer and not a kid. Well, fuck you, too, Mr. Grumpy Pants.

4

GAVIN

Thirteen is the kind of hole I actively dislike. Split Rock, the members call it. Two enormous boulders towering twenty-five feet on each side, squeezing the fairway down to six feet wide at the two-fifty mark, it dares golfers to try to bomb through with a driver. I laid up with a three-iron, putting my ball short of the rocks, but I’m now staring at a blind second shot at a flag I can just barely see over the rise.

Once again, TJ did the same, copying my club pick and the approach. His ball is three yards ahead of mine. He’s finally playing like he isn’t just a pretty face with a trust fund.

The squeezing boulders force us to walk the same line up the fairway because there is nowhere else to walk. This is the six feet of grass we get. Caleb and Stephen are trailing behind us a few steps back, Caleb blessedly quiet for a few minutes. I’m eyeing the stretch between my ball and that green, thinking.

“Going for it?” TJ asks.