Page 59 of Wedge

“I’m not hiding you,” I say, mostly to him, forgetting Ben and Geoff are even at the table. He’s using the list again. “I just got you. I don’t want to hide us.”

“Okay.” Stephen’s voice is quiet, but something in it cracks open a little. Relief, maybe, or something bigger than relief, that almost-smile curving his lips. “Then we’re not hiding.”

His hand squeezes my knee once, hard, under the table.

Ben watches this happen with an expression I can’t quite read, something between pride and worry, the two things apparently able to sit in the same face at the same time. Geoff, less subtle about it, is grinning outright and reaches over to squeeze Ben’s shoulder like he’s proud of him, too, for asking the right way. Geoff’s sparkly wedding band flashes in the light.

“Alright,” Ben says finally. “Then that’s how we play it. I’ll start having different conversations.”

“Different how?” I ask.

“Open-minded sponsors who’ll actually want the story, not just the golf.” He picks his fork back up, then sets it back down.

“Something else you should know.” He looks at Stephen. “David Whitfield is a sponsor rep for Titan Polo now.”

Stephen’s face reveals nothing. “Good to know.” He turns to me. “Guy married my ex. Nothing to worry about.”

Ben nods like the hard part’s over, and now it’s just dinner again.

Jasmine hurls a fistful of potato directly at Ben’s chest, hits dead center, and cackles with the pure, unfiltered joy of a toddler who has just discovered ballistics.

“Jasmine Marie.”

“Good release,” Stephen says, delighted. “Follow-through needs work.”

“She’s got no impulse control.” Ben wipes potato off his shirt with the weary competence of a man who’s done this before, but he’s fighting a smile the whole time. He cleans the potato from her tray and hands her a chunk of short rib.

Geoff’s phone rings, and he glances at the screen, then up at Ben.

“It’s Melissa, I should take it,” he says, his voice changed, more charged.

Ben gestures with his head. “Go ahead. I’ll take over monster duty.”

“Hey, Mel, how’s bedrest?” Geoff says as he leaves the room.

Stephen raises an eyebrow at Ben.

“Surrogate,” he replies.

I feel my eyebrows raise. “Jasmine gets a sibling?” I say with a grin.

“Two, actually,” he says wryly.

“Twins?” I gape. “Wow, that’s…”

“A thing,” he replies as Jasmine makes happy gnawing sounds on her short rib.

25

STEPHEN

The flight into Jacksonville feels different from every drive we’ve made all summer, less duffel bag and motel coffee, more airport, boarding passes, Adrian’s clubs checked as oversized luggage instead of thrown in the bed of my truck. Eleven years of terminals blurring together, and I swore I’d never miss a single one of them. Turns out it depends on who’s sitting in the window seat.

Adrian watches the ground fall away with wide eyes, one hand clamped in mine, a grin splitting his face. Denver tilts under the wing, the whole grid of it, then the plains, flat and brown and endless.

“First time?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he answers. “Glad it’s with you.”