Page 43 of Wedge

“Also want to get you in with the sports psych, at least twice before the Second Stage. Whatever you did with your head this week, keep doing it, but I want it locked in, not lightning in a bottle.” Ben’s eyes flick to me, then back to Adrian, something calculating behind them. “And figure out logistics. Travel, lodging, who’s on the bag.”

“I want Stephen on my bag,” he blurts out.

Ben raises an eyebrow, glances between us again, but doesn’t push it, not yet. “Fine by me. He knows your game better than anyone at this point.”

Then he looks at Adrian. “But you two should talk. What happens when you get mad at him? What does that do to your game? Can you fire him without it costing you?” He motions with that finger again.

Adrian glances at me, and I know we have a discussion in our near future, because Ben is right. A player has to be able to fire his caddie. Even this one.

He closes the folder, taps it once against the table like a period at the end of a sentence. “Second Stage in six weeks. We’ll get the site in a few weeks. Eat something, both of you look like you’ve been baked alive.”

A waiter brings out plates of prime rib, asparagus with almonds sprinkled on top, salad, and baked potatoes with baskets of dinner rolls for each of us. We fall on it like starving hyenas. I steal one of his rolls. He mock-glares at me and steals one of mine.

Dinner winds down slow, the kind of full and satisfied that makes conversation easy, no more Q-School talk, just Ben ribbing us about the polos one more time before we finally stand to go. He hugs me at the door, quick and hard, double-pat, the kind he’s given me since I was twenty-three and too proud to admit to wanting it. Then he pulls Adrian in too, a beat longer than I expect, and says something low I don’t catch, and Adrian just nods against his shoulder like it landed exactly right.

“Get him home,” Ben tells me over Adrian’s shoulder. “And make sure he gets some sleep.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t you sir me, mister. Go.”

The drive downtown is quiet in the good way, the mountains falling away behind us into the dark, the city spreading out ahead in a wide, glittering bowl, streetlights sliding past. His hand just rests on my knee like it’s always belonged there.

My building’s on the edge of Denver’s Golden Triangle, close enough to walk to a dozen excellent restaurants, close enough to see the gold dome of the capitol lit up at night if you catch the right angle from the balcony. I pull into the parking garage, and Adrian looks up through the windshield at the tower rising over us, floor after floor of lit windows.

“This is you?”

“This is me.”

“Fancy.”

“Eh. The elevators are slow, and the guy in 1405 plays trumpet most Tuesdays. Badly. The club down the block thumps until midnight, loud.”

He laughs, and we ride up together, the floor numbers ticking past, his shoulder against mine the whole way, and when the door opens onto my floor, I realize I’m nervous in a way I haven’t been in years, like this is a bigger step than anything that happened in a hot tub three hours ago. Different kind of exposed.

I unlock the door, flip on the lights, and Adrian walks straight past me to the sliding door at the far wall, drawn to the skyline.

“Go on,” I say. “View’s better from the deck.”

He slides the door open, and the cold hits us both at once, late September air sharp, carrying the faint thump of bass from a club a few blocks away. He steps out onto the balcony anyway, wrapping his arms around himself, looking out at downtown Denver spread out below us, lit up gold and red and blue and white against the dark.

“Stephen,” he says quietly. “This is incredible.”

I come up behind him, wrap my arms around his middle, chin hooked over his shoulder, and look out at the view I’ve had for the past six years and somehow see it new again, just because he’s looking at it with me.

“Yeah,” I say. “It is.” I kiss his temple, feeling his pulse under my lips. “Be right back. Need a jacket?”

He shakes his head, and I duck into my bathroom and use the new items I bought a few weeks ago, then go back onto the deck and wrap around him again, kissing his cold ears and onto his neck, suckling softly. Not enough to leave a mark, not yet.

He turns in my arms and snakes his hands into my hair, pulling me down to him. “Take me to bed,” he says against my mouth, climbing me like a tree and wrapping his legs around my waist. I tuck my hands under his ass and carry him to my bedroom, sitting down onto the mattress and leaning back, taking him with me so he’s laying on top of me. He leans up and starts tugging at my polo, so I wiggle it off over my head and lay back again to let him explore.

He isn’t hesitant at all now, running his hands over my torso, tracing my Marine tats. I twitch when he brushes a hand over a nipple, and he looks up in surprise.

I grin at him. “Nipples go straight to my cock.”

He returns to it, playing with it, and tugging on the taut tip until I squirm.

“Oh, damn,” I groan. “Feels so good. Making me leak.”