Page 38 of Wedge

I don’t push. He’ll tell me more when he wants to.

“Mine died in prison,” I say. “I barely remember her.”

“Don’t remember mine either. They took me when I was four. All I know is what’s in the file.” He says it flat, the way you say something you’ve said before. He lifts a chip with ceviche to his mouth. The next sound he makes is pure pleasure, then an outright moan.

Damn, that’s a hot sound. Want to hear that with me being the reason. No hard-ons, Stephen, behave.

“Holy shit, that’s good,” he says, dipping a second chip.

“Somebody likes ceviche.”

“Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to protect.”

“You just moaned over fish in a room full of strangers. I don’t think the reputation’s intact.”

He laughs, head tipping back, and I watch his Adam’s apple move and remind myself, sternly, that we are in public, that he just shot a great round, that this is not the time. Not yet.

He holds out a chip loaded with ceviche. “Try this.”

I lean forward and take the chip in my mouth all the way to his fingers, holding his hand still with mine. He lets me. His smirk falters halfway, eyes dropping to my mouth and staying there, and by the time I’ve swallowed, his cheeks have gone pink. I taste shrimp and lime and cilantro and something warmer underneath that’s just him.

“Okay,” I admit. “That’s unfair. That’s fantastic.”

“Told you,” he says, his voice a little rough.

“Two more rounds,” I say, raising my beer.

“Two more rounds.” He clinks his water against it. Under the table, his knee nudges mine, and neither of us moves.

18

ADRIAN

By the second hole on Sunday, I already know today’s different. Not bad, just heavier, my legs carrying three rounds of accumulated tension I didn’t let myself feel until now. The afternoon sun sits high and hard over the course, the desert heat pressing down. The crowds have thinned since Thursday, just a few parents and coaches trailing the groups, and the whole place has the hush of a final day.

My brain is not really engaged. Muscle memory is doing all the work. Stephen doesn’t say much on the front nine. Doesn’t need to. We’ve done this enough times now that his silence means the same thing his talking used to. My arms feel like someone replaced my muscles with wet rope somewhere around the seventh tee, but the ball keeps going where I aim it, so I don’t argue with whatever’s keeping this together.

“How’s the tank?” Stephen asks at the turn, handing me an energy drink on top of the usual banana, like he can see it. The man sees everything.

“Tired.”

“Quarter tank or running on fumes?”

“Ask me on eighteen.”

He gives me one of those small, almost-smiles and lets it go.

The back nine blurs a little. I’m definitely on fumes. Thank fuck for the energy drink. Fifteen, I wedge up from a bad lie and somehow make the putt, birdie, two under for the day, and I don’t even feel the usual jolt of it. Just relief that my hands did the thing they were supposed to.

Seventeen, the hardest hole, my legs finally betray me. The light has gone orange, the red rock glowing, and my tee shot leaks right. I can’t find enough club from the rough to save it. I sign for two under on the day, thirteen under total.

Stephen checks the leaderboard on his phone and exhales through his nose.

“Twelfth,” he says. His voice is steady. His hand on my shoulder isn’t. “Doesn’t matter what the rest of the field does now. Top twenty and ties go to Second Stage.” He looks up from the phone. “You’re through, Adrian.”

I don’t have the energy to celebrate properly. Just nod and lean into him longer than I probably should in public. His shirt is stiff with salt against my cheek, and I let his arms wrap around me and hold me up.

The motel room is quiet after the day, the AC humming. Stephen turns on a football game neither of us is watching, blue light flickering across the ceiling, pink neon leaking around the curtains.