Page 19 of Iron

That’s where I find him.

Gavin is at the far end of the bar, a beer in front of him, still in his tournament polo, watching the last of the broadcast replay on the screen overhead. He hasn’t seen me yet. I let myself look for a moment, the way I haven’t been able to all week, taking in the line of his broad shoulders, the tired, unguarded way he’s sitting like he’s not performing for anyone right now.

Then, like he feels my eyes on him the way I always feel his, he turns. Our eyes meet, closer this time, no thirty yards of open ground between us.

“Hey,” I say, because apparently that’s the best my brain can do right now.

“Hey yourself.” He sets his beer down. His face is doing something complicated, careful, like he’s deciding how much to let show. God, show me. “Congratulations. Thirteenth place. That’s not nothing.”

“Yeah.” I step closer, close enough that this feels like an actual conversation instead of two people performing politeness at each other. Close enough that I can smell the remains of his spicy cologne. “Thanks to you, actually. And Stephen.” I shrug. “Mostly Stephen.”

“Stephen’s a good caddie.”

God, he is tiptoeing.

“You gave him to me. On the biggest event of my career, you just… gave him to me.” I search his face, trying to read whatever is underneath that fucking careful, controlled thing he’s doing with his face. “Why?”

Gavin's quiet for a moment, turning his glass slowly on the bar top without breaking his gaze. “Because you needed him. More than I did.”

“There has to be more than just that.”

“It’s the only thing I’ve got right now, TJ. You needed him and I could give that to you.”

We stand there, close, the noise of the clubhouse buzzing around us. My father’s voice booms somewhere across the room, still telling anyone who’ll listen about his son. Gavin’s eyes drop briefly to my mouth, and my whole chest goes tight. Hopeful and terrified all at once. Heat flashes up my face.

“Gavin.” I don't know what I’m asking for, exactly, here in this clubhouse. Just some acknowledgment that today meant something more than a scorecard. That we have something between us.

“TJ.” He says it low, carefully, like it hurts. Then, quieter still, after a swallow, “You played incredible golf this week. All of it. Not because of me. Some of it in spite of me.” He chuckles painfully, shaking his head.

“Some of it because of you.”

He doesn't argue. He just holds my gaze for one more long, charged moment. He doesn’t look away from me. For a breath, I think, I actually think, something’s about to happen. Something that isn’t just a smile and a nod across thirty yards of open ground.

Then someone claps him on the back, some other veteran congratulating him on his finish, and the moment fractures. Gavin’s attention is pulled away, polite and practiced. And I remind myself that we are standing in the middle of a crowded clubhouse. This really isn’t the place.

I make myself turn and walk back out to find my father before I do something that I’ll regret.

Thirteenth place. My name on the biggest scoreboard of my life.

And somewhere in that clubhouse, Gavin McClain, still not saying the thing either of us actually wants to say.

Yet.

Caleb’s already sprawled across my hotel bed when I get back from the clubhouse, shoes off, a room service menu open on his chest like he’s been waiting for me to get back so he can order without guilt.

“There he is!” he yells, sitting up fast enough that the menu slides to the floor. “Lucky thirteen! TJ Harrington, ladies and gentlemen, applause, applause, a-fucking-plause!”

“Shut up, you.” I drop onto the end of the bed, still buzzing, still raw from the last hour. My dad’s voice and the interview and Gavin’s face are all tangled together in my chest.

Caleb studies me for exactly one point five seconds before his whole expression sharpens. “Okay, why do you look like that?”

“Look like what?”

“You have an entire soap opera going on in your face right now, babe.” He gasps, sitting fully upright now, delighted. “Oh my god! Gavin! You saw Gavin!”

“I didn't say anything about Gavin.”

“You didn't have to, boo, your face is doing a whole,” he circles his face with one hand, “one-act play right now.” He scoots closer, cross-legged, all in. “Tell me everything. I want details.” He kind of singsongs the last word.