Page 32 of Wedge

“Told you.” He smiles, easy, warm, knees still pressed tightly around mine under a table too small to give either of us anywhere else to put them.

“Don’t be so smug.”

He laughs. “Eat. You earned every bite. Breakfast is on me too, and I don’t want to hear one word about it.” He points his fork at me, eyebrow raising. “Understood?”

“Fine,” I huff.

15

STEPHEN

June and July blur together in a way I wouldn’t have believed possible a few months ago. Highway miles, gas station coffee, the truck’s AC fighting a losing battle against the Colorado sun.

Glenwood Springs next, the Colorado River running fast and green under the canyon walls, the faint sulfur smell of the hot springs drifting over the range every morning. Then a mini-tour stop outside Durango, pines and thunderheads and a narrow-gauge train whistle drifting up from town every morning like a clock. Then a Monday qualifier in Colorado Springs, Pikes Peak looming over the range. Adrian nearly fumbles it before pulling out a back-nine thirty-one to grab the last spot in the field. Motels blend into each other. Same ugly bedspreads, same Chinese delivery dinners, same two queen beds we somehow keep finding reasons to sit closer together on.

He makes three of four cuts. Misses one by a single shot in Durango and doesn’t fall apart the way he did after Steamboat, just shakes it off, says “Next one,” the same words I’ve been feeding him all summer, finally coming back out of his mouth like they actually took root somewhere. I put a hand on the back of his neck that day, doing it before I thought better of it, brief, grounding, his skin hot from the sun, and he leaned back into it instead of away, before catching himself.

I watch him get steadier every week. Not just his swing, though that’s tightened up plenty, the hitch showing up less and less, smaller and dealt with faster each time it does. It’s something underneath the golf. The way he doesn’t flinch when I hand him a club. If our fingers brush over the grip, neither of us is in any hurry about it. The way he’s started leaving his cap off in restaurants, mohawk fierce and spiky on full display, tattoos bare in short sleeves, the tips of those angel wings peeking over his collar, like he’s stopped needing quite so much armor around people who aren’t trying to hurt him. He smiles easier, too, gentle teasing rather than biting, and lets his shoulder knock into mine when we’re walking to the range some mornings like it’s nothing at all, like it’s just what we do now.

I notice all of it. I notice every single little thing about him, if I’m honest. The weight of his hand when he grips my forearm celebrating a good putt. The way he lets me fix his collar or brush a stray bit of grass off his shoulder after a shot. Small ordinary touches that have quietly become part of our whole daily rhythm without either of us deciding to allow it. I notice more than any caddie has business noticing about the guy whose bag he’s carrying.

Ben calls twice a week, sometimes just to check scores, sometimes to talk logistics for what’s coming up. First stage Q-school registration opens the third week of August, and the reality of it looms bigger with every mini-tour stop, entry fees for three stages if he advances that far, travel to wherever the sites end up being assigned, a financial commitment that dwarfs everything we’ve spent so far this summer combined.

“He’s gonna fight you on this,” I tell Ben, one night in a motel parking lot, phone pressed to my ear while Adrian showers inside. The asphalt is still giving off the day’s heat, moths spiraling around the one working light, and the ice machine grumbles behind me. “The scholarship program’s one thing. Q-school’s a different number entirely. Everything turns into a debt with him.”

“He’ll take it,” Ben says, easy, certain in that way he always is. “Or you’ll talk him into it. That’s kind of your whole job at this point, isn’t it? Not just the bag.”

I don’t answer that, because he’s not wrong.

“How’s other stuff going?” Ben asks, careful, like he already suspects the answer. “The stuff that isn’t golf.” I’ve never told him, but he just knows. Maybe it’s a gay thing. Maybe it’s just a Ben thing.

“Slow,” I say. “Careful.” I think about earlier tonight, Adrian’s hand landing on my knee at dinner while he walked me through his back nine, easy and unthinking. Like I hadn’t noticed every single second of it, my cock threatening to break my zipper.

“Good,” Ben says, and I can hear him smiling through the phone. “Slow is smart with that one. A lot of baggage. But he’s worth it.”

“Yeah,” I say, watching the bathroom light through the crack under the motel door, listening to the water shut off, listening to him hum something tuneless and off-key the way he does when he thinks nobody’s around to hear. “He is.”

By August, the days are hot and dry, the mountains starting to think about turning gold at the edges. Adrian’s shot four rounds in the sixties, missed exactly one cut, and stopped arguing with me about paying for dinner. Mostly. He still flinches at big numbers. He still does the math in his head every time Ben’s name comes up. But something loosened in him this summer that I don’t think is going back to how it was. It shows in the easy way he leans into my space, falls asleep against my shoulder some nights during bad TV instead of retreating to his own mattress right away, lets our hands overlap reaching for the same thing without either of us pulling back first anymore.

Q-school registration opens on a Tuesday. I’ve had the date circled in my head for three weeks like a ship-out date, dreading it and wanting it in equal measure, because it means everything Adrian’s worked for all summer finally gets real. It also means the easy rhythm we’ve built is about to get a lot more complicated. All these small touches are piling up into something neither of us has named yet.

And I need help.

Caleb waltzes into the little bar like he owns it. Hugs the bouncer, waves to the bartender, then he slides into the booth across from me with a big grin.

“Stevie! You are so tanned again! Being out on the fairways agrees with you, yummy, yummy!”

Shaking my head, I can only laugh.

His scrubs today have little rainbow-striped zebras vaulting over rainbow-striped hippos. Amazing.

“Caleb!” the waiter coos, leaning in for a double-cheek kiss. “What can I get you, sweeties?”

I gesture with my beer bottle that I’m good, and Caleb orders the same. When the waiter prances away, he turns to me with a sparkling look, drops his chin onto his fists and says, “Spill, Stevie. What’s going on?”

Jesus. No easing in with this guy.

“I,” my voice catches, and I take a swallow of beer. “I need… advice.”