Page 30 of Wedge

“You ever think about him?” I ask, carefully. “Your foster dad.”

“Sometimes.” He’s quiet for a moment, jaw working. “Mostly I think about the promise I made myself. Never make anybody feel the way he made me feel. Small. Like what they wanted didn’t count.”

I think about a hand halfway to my shoulder that keeps pulling back, about him asking permission with his eyes instead of just reaching, about every single choice he’s made this summer to let me set the pace of things.

“You don’t,” I say quietly. “Make me feel that way. In case you were wondering.”

He looks over at me, something raw and grateful passing over his face before he tucks it away again. “Good. Wasn’t sure it showed.”

“I notice everything you do,” I say, and immediately feel my face heat, because that came out a lot more honest than I meant it to.

He doesn’t say anything to that. Just holds my gaze a beat too long. Then he swallows hard and looks back at the TV.

“Makes sense you picked golf,” he says, his voice a little rough. “Nobody else’s team. Nobody to let you down. Just you.”

“Guess that’s true for both of us,” I say, and let the moment settle instead of chasing it further. I’m not ready for more than that tonight. I feel a bit raw from the day.

The food shows up eventually, and the whole room fills with the smell of ginger and soy. We eat cross-legged on our respective beds like a couple of teenagers at a sleepover, passing containers back and forth, him stealing my orange chicken, me stealing his wontons, neither of us commenting on it.

“Thanks,” I say, eventually, quiet, not really about the food.

“For?”

“Being easy to be around. Not making it weird. Even with all your baggage.” I say it as a joke, but I mean it completely.

““Right back at you.” He knocks his foot against mine, brief, warm, gone as fast as it came. “Everybody’s got baggage. Gavin says his needs a shipping container.” He breaks open a fortune cookie, reads it, and rolls his eyes. “Stupid cookie.”

I hold out my hand and he passes it over, his fingers warm and strong against my palm.

Good things come for those who wait.

“Stupid cookie.”

I fall asleep in the fourth quarter of a game I’ve completely stopped following, the TV light sliding slowly across the ceiling. Listening to Stephen sip Scotch and the quiet clatter as he puts his glass down, I feel… safe.

Friday, the second day of the tournament. The cut line goes up on a little whiteboard outside the pro shop, same as every stop, black marker instead of Steamboat’s red, and I make myself walk over slowly instead of sprinting like some overeager teenager. It’s late afternoon, the sun slanting gold through the pines, the whole parking lot smelling of pine sap and hot gravel. My shirt is stuck to my back, and my neck is sunburned.

I shot even par today, seventy-two, nothing flashy, just boring and stable, the kind of round Stephen’s spent all month telling me actually wins tournaments. Combined with yesterday’s sixty-nine, I’m not sure where that puts me. My hands are sweating worse than they did over any actual shot today.

I find my name. Read the number next to it twice to make sure I’m not imagining it.

I made it.

Four places inside the line, clean, no drama, no back-nine collapse like Steamboat.

Something cracks open, huge and sudden, and before I can think about it, before I can catalog whether it’s appropriate or too much, I turn and grab Stephen and fling both arms around his neck, my face pressed into his shoulder, holding on like he’s the only solid thing in a world. My body doesn’t lock up. It doesn’t even hesitate.

He goes still, surprised, and then his arms come around me, both of them, solid and warm, one hand spread flat between my shoulder blades like he’s trying to hold every piece of me together at once. His shirt smells of sunscreen, sweat, and pine.

“Hey. I’ve got you,” he says, low, right by my ear. Rumbly. “Look at you.”

“I made it,” I say, voice cracking embarrassingly against his shoulder. “Stephen, I actually made it.” God, he’s so solid against me. I shouldn’t wipe my face on his shirt, should I.

“I know. I was there.” I can hear the smile in his voice, feel it against the side of my head. “Told you. You weren’t going to miss a hundred of these.”

I don’t let go right away. Neither does he. We just stand there in the middle of the pro shop parking lot, arms around each other, and I don’t think about how it looks, who’s watching, how I’ve never wanted this much contact with another human being. God, he feels good.

It’s Stephen who finally pulls back first, just slightly, hands sliding to my shoulders instead, putting a careful distance between us.