Page 12 of Wedge

I keep drifting into something warm and vague, Stephen’s voice in it somewhere. Those large hands, his ass against my cock, me rutting into him, and I wake up sometime around four with my heart pounding and my sheets a mess. I lay there in the dark for a long time, mortified, the red numbers on the clock changing one by one, staring at the ceiling like it has answers.

Get it together, I told myself. And did not get it together. Just showered it off, literally, stripped my bed, and pretended the whole thing hadn’t happened.

By the time I make it to the range, the light is still pale. The mist swirls on the practice green. Stephen’s already there, sleeves pushed up, coffee steaming on the ground by his shoe, pulling clubs out of my bag like it’s the most natural thing in the world. I feel my face heat just looking at him and have to force myself to think about literally anything else. Yardages. Grip pressure. Goose shit, for fuck’s sake, anything else.

“Morning,” he says, unflappable as ever, no idea what’s going on in my head. Thank fuck for that, at least. “Sleep okay?”

“Fine,” I say, too fast. I can’t look at his face.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him raise an eyebrow, but he doesn’t push it. Of course he doesn’t. He never pushes. He hands me a wedge instead. “Let’s get you loose. Short stuff first.”

I take it, grateful for something to do with my hands. The first few swings are ugly, too tight, too much tension in my shoulders and zero hip rotation that has nothing to do with golf and everything to do with the fact that I had a sex dream about my caddie six hours ago.

“You’re gripping that like it insulted your mother,” Stephen says.

“Sorry.” I shake my hands out, roll my neck, try to find whatever version of calm I usually fake so well. “Rough night.”

“Yeah?” He’s watching me now, actually watching, and I look away fast.

“Just, didn’t sleep good. It’s okay.”

He lets it go, moves me up to the eight-iron, calls out a target on the range. I hit it, and it’s decent, not great. My mind is still half-tangled in things I have no business thinking about: a guy who is thirty-eight, and my caddie, and probably just sees me as some kid he’s being nice to.

By the time we work up through the irons to the driver, I’ve mostly gotten my head on straight. Mostly. The ball’s coming off the club-face the way it’s supposed to again, at least.

“There he is,” Stephen says, watching one sail long and true. “Knew you were in there somewhere.”

I don’t answer that. Just tee up another ball and try very hard not to think about why my whole body went warm when he said it.

By the time we walk over to the first tee, the haze has burned off, and the Meadow is wide open. None of the tight, tree-choked chutes we fought through yesterday on the Ridge. Just rolling grass and wildflowers in the rough, and mountains in the distance.

“Friendlier out here,” Stephen says, handing me my driver. “Way less trouble than yesterday. You can actually miss a fairway and live to tell about it.”

“Feels like cheating.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts. Back nine’s got some teeth.” He nods toward the flag, a soft green rising a few hundred yards out, a lone bunker guarding the left side. “Three fifty, dead straight. Not much can go wrong here. Just give us one of those beautiful long bombs.”

The rest of our foursome join us, and here the Fun Day shows. One player’s sparkly pink shorts look straight out of Caleb’s closet. Another, a small guy in full drag, has drawn eyebrows arched high onto his forehead and a long Cher wig that he repeatedly shifts over his shoulders to make his drive. Stephen just shakes his head and smiles, fucking unflappable.

Finally, my turn. I settle over the ball, and for a moment, my brain tries to drag me back to four in the morning, to sheets I’m never going to look at the same way again. My cock twitches. I shove those thoughts down hard. Not here. Not on the tee box with him standing three feet away, holding my bag and three other golfers and caddies watching.

Two practice swings. Always two.

Contact is clean, better than clean, and the ball rides out over the meadow low and long, racing down the fairway.

“Okay. That’s more like it,” Stephen says, shading his eyes to track it. “Told you that you were fine.”

I’m not. Not really. I still cannot look at him.

7

STEPHEN

Adrian hasn’t looked at me once since the range. Since before that. Since yesterday afternoon.

I noticed it on the range as he warmed up and told myself I was reading into nothing, but here we are on five, into a headwind stiff enough to knock a hat off, and he still hasn’t met my eyes. Not once. Not when I read the yardage for him, not when I handed him the four iron, not even when he asked me a question and I answered it, looking right at him.

The Meadow has been a puppy all morning, soft fairways and wildflowers and mountains posing for postcards. Then you reach five.