Page 59

The crack follows immediately.

The lights go out.

The laptop screen flashes, then freezes.

For a second, I hear nothing but the rain and my own breath. I sit in the dark, hand inches from my crotch, heart beating hard enough to frighten me.

The stillness in the air is stifling.

I exhale.

It almost feels like relief.

Chapter eight

Good Tokens

Clint

Zane throws a disc like he’s trying to teach it a lesson. It leaves his hand fast and angry, cuts between two trees, and drops into the grass ten feet short of the basket. He stares after it like it might walk the rest of the way.

“Wind caught it.”

There is no wind.

“Brutal.”

He points at me without looking. “Don’t start.”

“Can’t stop. It’s a condition.”

Zane is from somewhere deep in Kentucky, and his accent thickens when he’s irritated, drunk, horny, or throwing bad.

Today, he sounds like he was born playing a banjo.

Iroquois Park is green and humid. It’s a summer afternoon that makes the trees look heavy. The disc golf course winds through the shade, past old stone walls, patches of worn grass, and couples who chose hiking and now look like they regret it.

We met at the gym, shared the bench for a time, then started drinking beers after workouts. Now we talk shit while throwing plastic through trees once a week like men who should have better things to do but can’t think of any.

Zane’s also the reason I started camming. He’s been at it a few months longer than me, taken it a few steps further. So there’s that.

I step up to the marker and line up my shot.

“Don’t overpower it,” he says.

“I know.”

The disc glides clean through the gap, catches a tiny left fade, and lands within putting distance.

Zane stares at it.

I spread my hands. “Wind caught it.”

“Fuck you.”

It almost works. The familiar rhythm of throwing, walking, talking trash. Games with rules and plastic baskets instead of lawyers and dead fathers.

Then my phone buzzes in my pocket.