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“No,” he says, “it didn’t. I’ll get it.”
“I can do—”
He hands me his club and steps into the pit, doing it more gracefully than I did. He scoops up the sandal and turns it upside down, getting the sand out.
“This is like Cinderella,” I say. The words just come out. Maybe it’s the sun, maybe it’s the scent of his sunscreen still lingering from our close contact.
He looks up at me for a long moment, and then he chuckles. “Yes, strikingly similar. Do you want me to put it on you, too? See if it fits?”
Something tightens in my stomach, and all I can do is shake my head.
He climbs to the edge of the sand pit. I reach out my hand, and he looks at it with obvious suspicion.
“I can do it. I’m strong,” I say.
“Right,” he says. “Here, take your shoe.”
I grab it and toss it aside on the grass before extending my hand to him again. “Come on. Trust me, I’ve been working out. I lift a ton of weights.”
“You’re less convincing the more you talk.”
“Then, I’ll shut up,” I say and wiggle my fingers. “I dare you.”
Phillip mutters something likeyou dare me?and shakes his head, but he accepts my hand.
And then, it all goes awry. My single sandal slips against the cut grass, as I get pulled by Phillip’s weight, and my bare heel digs into the ground. The edge of the pit falters and breaks, and I tumble down. Phillip first, and then me, falling into the depths of the bunker.
I end up half-on-top of him, sprawled on the sand.
It takes me a second to catch my breath. “Oh my God,” I say. “It reallyisquicksand.”
Under me, Phillip is silent. He’s lying on his back, and I watch him blink rapidly up at the clear, blue sky. “It’s what?” he asks.
“Nothing.” I lift myself off him but keep a hand on his chest. “Are you okay? Did you break anything?”
“Not as far as I’m aware,” he says and turns his head slightly to look at me. “I might be in shock.”
The sand is warm and soft beneath me, and probably all kinds of dirty. I prop my head up on an arm. “You don’t take tumbles regularly?”
“No, can’t say that I do.”
“This is my… third in a week. You get used to it.”
He lets out a surprised chuckle. It grows, until he’s half laughing, half groaning. “Jesus. You really couldn’t pull me out.”
“I could!”
“Eden,” he says.
“My sandal slipped against the grass. I didn’t have the proper traction. That’s why.”
“Traction,” he repeats, and there’s bone-deep skepticism there. But there’s also humor laced through his voice. He stretches out his arms and turns his head back toward the heavens, like he’s relaxing on a sandy beach. “Shit, I don’t even like golf.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “What? You don’t.”
“No, not really.”
“But you’re so good at it.”
