But I may not have thought it through today.
We’d played here every time the Whiskey Rebels were in Detroit. Every year I’d been with the team. It was a tradition, even when the weather was awful. One I looked forward to whenever we were in town.
And like everything in my goddamned world, it reminded me of someone who wasn’t here anymore.
On the way out to the course with Baddy, Eminem, and Ziggy, I forced those feelings as far beneath the surface as they would go. Through the first three holes, I refused to acknowledge the long past conversations that insisted on echoing through my head as I followed this familiar path.
At the fourth hole, though, Baddy turned to me, a grin on his face, and he started to speak, but then clearly caught himself.
“Hey do—” He froze, going full-on deer-in-the-headlights. Recovering quickly, he cleared his throat. “Do you remember the time we were out here and it started storming?”
I forced the most genuine laugh I could muster. Yeah. I remembered. But I had a feeling his mind really had gone to the same place mine had.
“For fuck’s sake.”Leif had thrown up his hands and scoffed.“What is it with you and this course?”
I’d flashed him a huge grin.“What? It’s not my fault you always go a million over par on this?—”
“Bite me,”he’d muttered.“I think we should take awayyour handicap when we play here, because you always beat the shit out of all of us on this course.”
“He’s not wrong,”Baddy had said.“Did you come out here last night and make some kind of sacrifice? You never play this good!”
“Oh, kiss my ass.”I’d rolled my eyes.“I play just fine!”
Leif had huffed sharply.“You never playthisgood, Calds. Never. I think Baddy’s on to some?—”
“Calds?”
Baddy’s voice. In the present. The here and now.
I shook myself and turned to him. “Hmm?”
All three of my teammates were watching me, the chirping and competitiveness gone from their expressions.
“You okay?” Eminem asked. “You kind of…” He waved a hand in front of his face.
“I’m good.” I laughed and poked him with my club. “Just doing the math to figure out how far over par you are.”
He huffed and rolled his eyes. “Eat a dick.”
“Math?” Baddy tsked. “Bro, you have a smartphone.” He held his up and jiggled it. “Use the calculator when the numbers are that big.”
That earned him a smack across the shin from Eminem’s five iron, and he yelped and hopped.
“You deserved that,” Eminem muttered.
That seemed to make them all forget I’d spaced out, and I did nothing to remind them of it. As we continued down the green, he and Baddy kept bitching at each other like they always did when we golfed while Ziggy egged them on. I threw in my two cents now and then, too, just to keep them off the scent that my mind was elsewhere.
My mindwaselsewhere, though. Everything about this day had Leif written all over it, and it hurt. We’d played in this city. We’d golfed on this course. Ziggy wouldn’t even behere, soundly beating all three of us, if things had been different.
If things were still the same.
How much longer until I get used to this?
That didn’t even seem possible. Leif was too indelibly imprinted on too many parts of my life to just be… gone. There was no getting used to that
Ever since the night he’d died, I’d had a few sharp, shameful moments of wishing I’d never met him.
Of course I didn’t wish that at all. I was a better man for having known him, and my life was a million times better for having him in it. But goddamn, when his loss was this close to the surface—when it was this unavoidable—never knowing him at all sounded like fuckingblissbecause it would mean I’d never had him to lose.
