Elinor stepped between them and shooed them out of the way. “I’m taking my turn now. If you’re going to keep yelling at each other like that, get a room.” Elinor gave her ball a light tap, and it stopped right up against one of the horseshoe blockades. Playing it safe. Also not a surprise.
Marianne and Brandon, clearly both embarrassed, couldn’t look at anyone in the eye, so Edward put his ball down to go next. Had Elinor meant get a room like somewhere no one else would have to hear their yelling or get a room like…? Either way, Elinor was a genius. It was an instantaneous way to shut down their argument, although Edward would have preferred watching them make a scene. Tonight, more than ever, he needed a distraction from the only reason he was here.
Edward squared up his shot and made it through one of the horseshoes. He’d played enough golf to have a pretty good short game, especially on turf. Brandon got through it as well.
“People shouldn’t be told how they should feel,” Marianne murmured to Brandon after attempting her second stroke, which bounced off again, but managed to stay on the turf. She truly was an awful golfer.
“That’s a good point. I apologize.” He put his arm around her, and not only did she let him, she actually seemed to take comfort from it.
Edward turned away before he got caught with his mouth hanging open, only to see Elinor’s shock matching his. They both casually moved behind the couple so they could openly freak out together.
Marianne put her head on Brandon’s shoulder. “It’s just, I miss Will so much.”
Ouch. Edward winced. Elinor threw her hands up in a dramatic silent protest. It was like they were watching some weird live version of the Bachelorette, and Brandon, the guy they’d been rooting for, was about to be sent home.
“Where’s Will?” Brandon asked.
“At home for the weekend. We’re going to talk tonight though. He promised he’d call after he finishes painting the house with his mom today.”
“House painting is the worst.” Brandon had wisely chosen to continue in the supportive role, which allowed him to keep his arm around Marianne. Not that Edward could judge him for it. At this point, Edward would stand on his head in a pit of snakes to go back in time and have a few more minutes in his car with Elinor before the cop showed up.
***
Elinor stepped up to take her next turn, keeping her eyes on her club and ball, and not on Marianne and Brandon, who were still talking like old friends. Her hyper-concentration paid off, as her ball slowly approached the hole, curved around and dropped in.
“Amazing shot.” Edward’s hand rubbed across her back just for a moment, setting off a flood of goosebumps.
“Thanks.” She stepped away and wrapped her arms around herself, once again reeling in her feelings like a tightly coiled rope. Lucy needed to come home, stake her claim, and get this over with. Elinor was impatient for it, but also dreaded it. What if everything Lucy said was right, and Edward really was hurting, did love Lucy, and was meant to be with her? If that happened, could Elinor stay and watch? Everything good in her new life here had him in it. Her job, her friends, her neighborhood. That had been a mistake, one she hadn’t fought hard enough to avoid.
“Hey,” Marianne tapped Elinor’s leg with her golf club. “We’re moving on to the next hole. It’s even worse. They have a bunch of spurs in a ridiculous spiral and you can either send your ball around and around or try and chip it up and over.”
“Sounds good.” Elinor followed the group, happy that Marianne had gotten out of her funk, and determined not to take the vacancy for herself. Everything would work out the way it was meant to. That was all she had to cling to at this point, but it would have to be enough.
She moved next to Edward again and watched Brandon tease Marianne as she attempted to chip her ball up high enough to get over the spurs. With Marianne’s amazingly bad golf skills, she somehow managed to almost take out Brandon’s knee on ricochet and send her ball into the rocks again. Brandon bent down to retrieve it, and Elinor’s mouth dropped open when she saw Marianne blatantly checking out Brandon’s backside.
“Did you see that!” she whispered.
“Yeah. Your sister is the worst golfer ever.”
“Not that. The… uh…” Elinor pointed at her eyes and then her backside, before thinking better of it.
Edward laughed. “Is that code for something? Like a way of dissing someone?”
“Never mind.”
“No way. I have to know what this means.” He imitated the gesture, and it was all Elinor could do to keep from reaching out and pinning his arms to his sides.
Instead, she ignored him and went to take her turn, deciding to learn from Marianne’s mistake and follow the curving spiral around instead of hoping she had the skills to chip over it. Unfortunately, her wimpy swing only got the ball a tenth of the way through the spiral. Edward, going next, somehow managed to bypass her ball on the way in and continue to curve around, just stopping short of the hole.
She glared at him when he came back to stand next to her. “I should really be a better sport about this, but I’d also just like to be better at this sport.”
“Nice. Now tell me about the butt thing.”
“What butt thing?” Marianne whipped around and looked at him before attempting to check her pants. “Did I sit on something? These pants are lint magnets.”
Brandon, finished with his turn, leaned over and checked for her. “You’re fine. Nothing’s there.”
The stupid irony of Brandon checking out Marianne’s behind because Elinor had caught Marianne checking out his washed over her and Elinor covered her mouth to keep from snorting. “What have I done?” She waited until Marianne and Brandon were well out of hearing range before whispering to Edward, “I saw Marianne checking out Brandon. From the back.”
