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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MALAKAI
Present
The head of my golf club hit the ball with a loud smack and I watched as it soared through the air. It sailed straight down the fairway and a frown pulled on my lips. Golf was absolutely maddening in the most frustrating way. Unless you played, you didn’t realize how much of a mental game it truly was.
“I’m confused,” Nico said with his eyebrows scrunched together as I climbed onto the golf cart with him. “I thought you were struggling to play. Your ball landed at least seventy-five yards past mine and is dead center in the fairway.”
“Putt,” I corrected him. “Nothing else is wrong with my game except putting.”
He had been after me, wanting to play a round of golf since he found out I was back in town. I put it off for long enough and I knew I couldn’t keep stalling. It was the first time I was playing a real round since I completely fucked up the last tournament.
“Have you been working on it at all?”
I stared at the side of his face as he drove down the cart path, closer to where his golf ball had landed. “No.”
“If that’s the part you’re struggling with, though, shouldn’t that be your sole focus right now?”
My jaw ticked. I didn’t owe him an explanation, but I did owe him some pleasantries. He meant no harm and wasn’t saying any of it to be an asshole. Nico was simply trying to help and it was the last thing I had wanted from anyone.
“Probably,” I admitted with a shrug. “I don’t know if I even want to play anymore.”
Nico parked the golf cart and whipped his head to look at me like I had lost my mind. “Why the hell not?”
“It’s not important right now.”
He climbed out of the golf cart and grabbed one of his clubs before he turned back to face me. “The reason or golf in itself?”
“I’d rather not talk about it right now.”
Nico stared at me for a moment as if he were assessing me with growing concern. He frowned slightly but offered a curt nod before he walked to his ball to hit his next shot. I was a professional golfer. How the hell was I supposed to explain to people that I didn’t want to do it anymore because it no longer brought me joy?
How pompous of me to tell them that I hated the traveling it required. That I just wanted to relax and not worry about the enormous amount of pressure that was constantly placed upon me. That I couldn’t putt to save my life because every time I did, I thought about Winter and the way she was smiling at that asshole at the bar when I saw her six months ago.
The only one who knew was my therapist, and even that was far-fetched. He only knew the extent of what I shared with him—and it was the bare minimum. He didn’t know the reason I saw Winter was because I showed up to Wyncote without her knowing I was coming. She never saw me that night, but I saw her. And I hadn’t played the same since I saw her with someone else.
She lied to me that night when she told me there was no one else and she had no idea I knew it was a lie. That solidified how damaged things were between us.
Nico strolled back over to the cart and climbed on. “My sister said she ran into you at the beach by Saltwater Tavern.” He paused for a moment with his lips pursed. “She said you were as friendly as a grizzly bear.”
Guilt hit me. “I wasn’t in the best mood.”
“When are you ever?” Nico rolled his eyes with a huff as he drove me to my ball. “She said you told her Winter would need a friend. What’s going on between you and her?”
I stared at him for a moment as I contemplated an explanation. Nico watched me carefully as I grabbed my club and walked through the grass. Pushing the thoughts from my head, I lined up my shot and focused on what I needed to do. My club hit the ball and sent it directly onto the green.
I stood unmoving and glared up at the flag that shifted from the warm summer breeze. This was the part I hated. I could already feel the anxiety coursing through my veins. It was riddled in my bone marrow and I didn’t know how to work through this.
When was life ever going to feel easy?
Nico was waiting for me with an expectant look on his face. “Well?”
My chest expanded as I sucked in a deep breath. I slid my club back into my bag and climbed back onto the golf cart. “I honestly don’t even know. It’s all a mess.”
“A mess that you could have avoided if you had been honest with her before.”
I leaned my head to the side. “Would that really have changed anything? You know Winter well enough to know that if I had been honest with her, she would have thrown everything away to follow me wherever I went.” I paused for a moment as I ran a frustrated hand through my hair. “I had to let her have a chance at her own life that wasn’t plagued by my existence.”
