Page 61 of What We Break
"Like I said. Best. Date. Ever."
Yeah. It kind of was.
13
REID
"So I should probably warn you," I tell Laine as we pull into the Riverside Golf Course parking lot, "the guys get a little weird and competitive about golf."
"Weird how?" She's messing with her ponytail in the passenger mirror, and I'm trying not to stare at the way her neck curves when she tilts her head. The polo shirt she thrifted fits her perfectly—maybe too perfectly. I'm going to be distracted all day.
"Just... they take it way too seriously. Tony's been playing for fifteen years and still can't break a hundred, but he acts like he's Tiger Woods. Brennan uses a different colored tee for every hole. Walsh has this whole ritual before every shot that takes so fucking long."
"Reid, these are first responders who save lives for a living. How competitive can they possibly get about hitting a little white ball?"
That's when we hear the shouting.
"MOTHERFUCKER! NO NO NO—FORE!"
A golf ball ricochets off the pro shop window and bounces across the parking lot. Then there's this loud honking sound. Is that a…goose?
"Jesus Christ," I mutter, watching the ball roll under a minivan.That's got my friends written all over it. Why did I think this was a good idea?
Things between us are so good. We've been spending all our spare moments together for the last couple of weeks—dinners, lazy mornings, that incredible night on her couch where we made out like teenagers until my lips were numb. And now I'm going to introduce her to these fuckups?
Okay. Not fuckups. Not usually. But golf doesn't exactly bring out the best in them. I asked them to be on their best behavior. So fucking stupid. They're going to be even worse now, either because they want to wind me up, or because they psych themselves out over making a good impression.
Either way, I have a feeling today's going to be a shit show of epic proportions.
"Did someone just break something?" Laine's staring toward the first tee where I can see Tony jumping up and down, waving his arms.
"Probably." I grab the clubs from my truck bed. "Welcome to golf with the crew."
We walk toward the disaster, and I can already hear Brennan's voice carrying across the course.
"—told you not to use the driver on the first hole! It's a positioning shot, you moron!"
"It was positioned perfectly until that fucking squirrel ran in front of the ball!"
"Squirrels don't make golf balls hook left, Tony!"
Laine's trying not to laugh. "There was a squirrel?"
"There's always a squirrel with Tony. Or a bird, or the wind, or someone coughed." We reach the tee box where Tony's digging through his bag like a different club is going to magically fix his slice. Spoiler, buddy. It won't.
"Reid! And you must be Laine!" Walsh waves us over. He's already got his scorecard out, pencil behind his ear. "Hope you're ready for some serious golf."
Serious golf. Right. Kowalski's practice-swinging next to the tee markers, making these exaggerated whooshing sounds with every pass. Brennan's examining his blue tee like it holds the secrets of theuniverse. I don't know where the hell he picked up that superstition, but he still thinks it's going to shave strokes off his game. Maybe he needs to add a little dance. A chant. Really get the juju flowing.
"Hey guys," I say. "Laine, meet the crew. Try not to judge us too harshly."
"Nice to meet you all," Laine says, and her smile is — okay, it's genuine. Not the hostage smile people plaster on when they've been dragged somewhere against their will. She actually looks like she wants to be here.
She shifts closer to me, her shoulder brushing my arm, and my hand twitches at my side. The small of her back is right there. Right there. But we haven't — I mean, we haven't put a label on whatever this is, and I don't know where her line is with people she met forty-five seconds ago, so I just grip the clubs tighter instead.
But god, I want to touch her.
"You play much golf, Laine?" Kowalski asks, still hacking at air like he's auditioning for something nobody asked him to audition for.
