Page 33 of Iron

“Ugh.” He burrows closer instead of moving. “Don’t care.”

“You will when you’re signing scorecards for a bad round because we couldn’t get out of bed.”

That gets him moving, grumbling the whole way to the shower, and by the time we’re both dressed and heading to our separate warmups, separate tee times, separate parts of the golf course, I grin like an idiot in the elevator mirror.

I haven’t smiled like this in… over six years.

Warmup is a blur, Stephen watching me hit balls with an expression that says he already knows exactly why I’m in this good a mood and has decided not to comment on it. My tee time comes and goes clean, focused, the kind of round where the ball just goes where I tell it to go, no second-guessing, no distraction dragging my attention off the fairway.

Except I’m not fooling myself. I know exactly why I’m playing this well. Something in my chest has finally stopped fighting itself, and my golf swing, apparently, notices.

I catch sight of him twice on the front nine, both times at a distance, his group crossing a fairway two holes over. Both times I have to consciously stop myself from staring too long, from grinning too obviously in front of a gallery that doesn’t need to know why. The first time, he doesn’t see me. The second time, the smile that breaks across his face is so unguarded, so instantly recognizable as last night that I have to look away first, laughing under my breath, before anyone catches the two of us doing whatever this is out here in broad daylight.

“You’re in a mood today,” Stephen says, handing me my putter on the sixth green, dry as ever.

“Good round. Can’t a man enjoy a good round?”

“Sure. A man can.” He doesn’t elaborate, just watches me line up my putt with the faintest hint of a smile of his own, the kind that means he’s not buying a word of it and doesn’t need to.

By the turn I’m five under, cleaner golf than I’ve played all season. I let myself check the leaderboard for the first time all day, scrolling until I find TJ’s name sitting comfortably in red numbers of his own. Four under through the eleventh. Steady. Confident. Playing like a man who slept well, for once.

I don’t examine why that makes my chest go tight and warm at the same time. I already know why.

The back nine passes in something like a dream, every shot landing where I want it, every putt finding the center of the cup. Twice more I glimpse him across a fairway or through a gap in the trees. Both times the same thing happens: his eyes find mine, something private and warm passing between us that has nothing to do with golf. Then we’re both turning back to our own rounds, grinning at nothing, playing better for it.

I finish the day at seven under, my best round in over a year. Stephen claps me on the back, walking off eighteen, genuinely delighted, no dry commentary this time, just pride.

“Whatever’s got into you,” he says, “keep doing exactly that.”

“Yeah,” I say, already scanning the leaderboard for a name that isn’t mine, finding it sitting one shot behind me, close, competitive, both of us near the top of a real Tour field for entirely different reasons than we started this week with. “I intend to.”

I don’t see TJ again before the clubhouse, both of us swallowed up by media obligations and scorecard signings and the ordinary business of a good tournament day. But my phone buzzes as I’m walking to the parking lot, a single text lighting up the screen.

TJ: Six under. Best round of my life. Might have something to do with someone keeping me up late last night. Worth it.

I laugh out loud, alone in a parking lot in a city I’ll probably forget the name of in a year, and type back before I can overthink it.

ME: Dinner tonight. My room. Bring an appetite.

TJ: For food or for you? comes back almost instantly.

Me: Yes.

I pocket my phone, still grinning like a fool, and head for my car feeling lighter than I have in longer than I want to admit.

29

TJ

Caleb and I stop in the clubhouse before he heads off for the evening.

“So,” he says. “That look says you are getting some.” He smirks, then turns serious. “You good? You and Gavin. Things are actually good?”

“They’re good, Caleb.”

“I know he makes you cum. That’s not what I’m asking.” His voice stays gentle, patient in a way that doesn’t match his usual chaos. “I’m asking about you. Whether any of the old stuff, Matt, is still sitting in your head somewhere, even now.”

I go still for a second, not expecting him to ask so directly.