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“No luck. You’ll just have to settle for someone else.”
“Alas,” Ryan said. He winked at me. “Well, come on. I tee off in a couple of hours, and we should head to the clubhouse before I have to warm up.”
We followed Ryan out of the hotel and met his caddy, Gerald, waiting in the front seat. I slid into the backseat with Landon.
“Who is your caddy?”
“Jake Gibson,” Landon told me. “We’ve been together from the start, but I had to let him go when I got injured.”
“Jake is your main man, Wright,” Ryan said from the front seat. “He will be back when you are.”
Landon didn’t comment. I knew that he was thinking that he might never be back. Though he seemed fine when he was sitting behind a desk and pushing papers, I knew that he was not ready to swing a club…not even to walk a full course.
The clubhouse was Southern and gorgeous. I couldn’t get over the number of trees and hills and the overall humid nature of the late September tournament. Atlanta was about as different from Lubbock as anything could be. I wasn’t sure that I liked that my hands were sweating just from walking outside, but it was undeniably stunning.
People were everywhere. Thousands of people were already lined up on the course, being held back by a flimsy rope and held to silence for the players. Camera crews hovered around like early spring bees. As far as the eye could see, everyone was dressed in golf clothes.
Ryan ushered us into the clubhouse, and we were brought to a huge room with a balcony overlooking one of the greens. Landon gently put his hand on the small of my back to get me to follow Ryan to the bar.
“There are so many people here,” I told him in surprise.
He laughed. “Yes, golf is a spectator sport. Most people in here are professionals waiting for their tee time or those who didn’t make it to this round.”
“There are a lot of women in here.”
“Yeah, well, wives show up to this tournament a lot. It technically closes out the season until January. And, really, anyone can get in here as long as they know someone.”
We were stopped four times on the way to the bar—all golfers who were excited to see Landon at the tournament and asking about when he’d be back. He chatted merrily with all of them. Clearly, a lot of the golfers were close even though Landon had told me it was a pretty solitary life. The amount of time they got to see other golfers was pretty limited, and unless you were already out of the tournament, most guys liked to stay in the right frame of mind to play.
I suspected that Landon had been that kind of player. He had that sort of intensity about him. Plus, he had taken a job so that he could keep his mind active. He took this seriously. I could see it in the respect everyone gave him.
Being here, in this world, with him was a new and crazy experience.
To me, Landon was still a Lubbock-area Wright brother with the Texas charm and easygoing personality. But here…he was so much more.
“You’re a celebrity,” I whispered in his ear when we caught up with Ryan again.
Landon’s eyes glittered with humor. “I’m a professional golfer, love.”
“I know. I just…you’re a celebrity, Landon. I still remember you from high school when you were…wait, you were the star quarterback. I suppose you were a celebrity then, too.”
“Different scale.”
“Did you say you’ve known him since high school?” Ryan asked with a big smile on his face. “Oh God, is this your high school sweetheart who you told me about that one time?”
“No,” Landon said at once, his voice clipped.
I frowned at that. He had told other people about Emery? I wasn’t jealous about that or anything, just surprised. I’d figured he never talked about what had happened at all. That was what Emery and I had always assumed with the way he’d moved on.
“We never dated in high school. I’ve just known him for a long time.”
“Interesting.” Ryan passed Landon and me beers even though it was only eight o’clock in the morning and got a coffee for himself. “Need the caffeine to get through this day now that I’ve fucking kicked smoking.”
We moved over to the balcony and took a table from someone who had gotten up and left the clubhouse to go play. Our view was pretty stellar, and the guys talked shop in a way that was undecipherable to me. I knew as much about golf as Landon did about engineering.
By the time Ryan had to go warm up, I was pleasantly buzzed from the beer and in need of a water. I was about to get up when a camera crew buzzed over to us.
“Landon Wright, so good to see you back at a tournament today. Mind if we do a short interview about your injury and recovery?” the man asked.
