Page 57 of Wedge

I can still feel the flat of my hand on his back in that Steamboat parking lot, the red marker on the whiteboard. I do not want to be doing that again.

I catch his eye first. He gives me the smallest nod, and I put my hand on his shoulder, two pats, steady.

“Breathe,” I tell him, walking to three. “You’ve got a cushion. Play smart, not scared.”

Cushion. Three shots. I say it like a rock I can hand him.

He steadies some. Pars on three, four, five. Then a mistake off the tee on six leads to a scrambling bogey, and my stomach goes into a knot that has nothing to do with the swing I’m not making. Ten under. The projected line is still nine, and my cushion has just gotten a lot thinner.

I tell myself this isn’t about me. I have never wanted anything for another person the way I want this, and there is not one damn thing I can do about a putt. This is the worst part of the job, standing there with a yardage book and a banana while the person you would carry through fire has to do it alone. If he misses, it won’t be Ben’s money that breaks him. It will be that voice in his head, the one Dr. Okafor has spent six weeks trying to turn down. And I am the one who told him he belonged out here.

“Where do we stand?” he asks quietly at the turn, not really wanting to know and needing to, anyway.

I hand him a protein bar he doesn’t need and the banana I still cannot watch him eat. He eats it anyway, eyes on my face, waiting.

“There’s still cushion. Play your card.”

It isn’t a lie, exactly. It is one shot, and I’ve never held a number back from him before. I hold this one, because if I tell him, he’ll play it, and I want him playing golf.

He birdies eleven, a wedge to five feet, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Twelve, thirteen, and fourteen are three long, ugly pars, one saved by a putt from fifteen feet that I don’t dare read out loud. I watch him fight for every one of them like they’re the only thing keeping him upright. Fifteen, a wedge in tight sets up another birdie, and something in his shoulders finally drops half an inch. Twelve under again, three shots of air and the whole sky above it. Sixteen is a par, boring and ugly and exactly what we needed.

“Two more,” I tell him. “Just two more holes of boring golf.”

He gives me a look that is almost a laugh. “Boring golf. Stephen’s favorite phrase.”

“It works. Boring wins.”

Seventeen is a par. On eighteen, he leaves himself a four-footer for par, the same putt that got him on two. His hands are calm this time, but my own aren’t, so I shove them in my pockets where he can’t see. I read it low, then out loud, because we’ve come a long way.

“Inside left edge. Let it die in.”

He stands over it for a long time, just breathing. Then he pulls the putter back, and the ball drops dead center, like it never had a choice, and I finally breathe.

He signs for seventy-two on a day that could have gone a lot worse, finishing at twelve under for the tournament. When the final board settles an hour later, the cut line lands at nine under, comfortable, not even razor thin, and Adrian’s name sits solidly inside it in a tie for sixth.

“Final Stage,” he says, staring at his phone like the words might rearrange themselves if he looks away.

“Final Goddamn Stage,” I confirm, and pull him into a hug right there on the practice green. He holds on hard, face in my neck, and I can feel the last of the tension leave him one muscle at a time. His phone buzzes twice against our hips.

When we finally look, there are five from Ben and one from Caleb.

Ben

SIXTH?! FINAL STAGE!

I am standing in my office yelling at a spreadsheet, and Jake has asked me to leave.

Proud of you both.

Eat something green.

Call me tomorrow.

CALEB

HOLY SHIT, A! YOU DID IT!

He laughs, wet and helpless, wiping at his face with the back of his hand. Behind us, the sun drops behind the mountains, and the whole desert goes rose and violet.