Page 85 of Iron

I look at Gavin. “Next season starts mid-January? Before that, then? December? Two months from now?”

He nods. “New season starts mid-January, yes. In Hawaii.”

I swallow. “Are we both entering?” I ask in a voice that is too small for the question.

He smiles at me, taking my left hand and kissing the ring he put there.

“I’m your caddie, baby. You’re entering. Gonna need a new bib, though.”

My stupid eyes are cloudy and I don’t quite understand what he’s saying.

“Harrington-McClain.”

I gape at him.

“You want me to change my name?” Why do I adore this?

“Both of us, baby. Both of us. Your name first.”

Dear fucking god, I love this man.

“Guess you won’t be The Fourth, anymore,” Bill giggles.

I need to talk to my father.

46

GAVIN - EPILOGUE

Married. I still test the word out in my head sometimes, like it might not fit right, except it fits perfectly, better than anything else has fit in my whole life.

The wedding itself was three weeks ago, after several schedule adjustments so everyone could be there and still do their family holiday bits. I still can’t stop replaying pieces of it. Both of us in white tuxes, my idea, matching but not identical, green sashes the exact shade of the emeralds in TJ’s ring, because apparently I really did commit to the whole color story from the very beginning and never quite told him how far it went. Those brilliant green eyes that are not tinted contacts.

We wrote our own vows, refused to let anyone talk us out of it, even though half the wedding blogs TJ read swore they’d make us cry too hard to finish. TJ went first, hands shaking around a folded piece of paper he barely needed, because I don’t think he forgot a single word of it.

“I used to think winning was the thing that was going to make me feel like I’d arrived somewhere,” he said, looking right at me instead of the paper. “Turns out it was you. You were the thing. I just didn’t know it yet.”

I don’t remember most of what I said back, honestly, some blur about patience and second chances and crates of baggage, but I remember the exact way he looked at me while I said it, like he already knew, like he’d known since some fairway months ago that I hadn’t caught up to yet.

Jasmine was our adorable flower girl, wobbling down the aisle at Ben’s clubhouse in a green dress covered in more tulle than she was tall, tossing petals in every direction except actually in front of her feet. She doubled up on entertainment value at the reception, smearing an entire handful of wedding cake straight into Geoff’s face the moment he wasn’t watching her closely enough, delighted with herself in the specific way only a two-year-old can be about property destruction.

Our first dance was nothing fancy, just the two of us swaying slow to a song TJ picked without telling me what it meant until we were already out there.

“This was playing in the pro shop,” he murmured against my ear, “the day you sponsored me into Cedarfield. I’ve had it stuck in my head ever since.”

“You never told me that.”

“Didn’t want you to know how far back this actually started for me.”

Caleb wore a pink tuxedo he insisted on, loud enough that Ben tried twice to talk him into something more subdued and lost both times. He gave a toast that made half the room cry and the other half laugh so hard they couldn’t stand up, something about mattress shopping and a sex toy that I still haven’t fully recovered from. Ben followed him, quieter, steadier, raising his glass toward both of us with Geoff’s hand laced through his the whole time.

“I know a good one when I see it,” Ben said. “Took me long enough to find mine. Glad you two didn’t waste as much time as I did.”

TJ’s dad wore black tie, proper and quiet, and cried through the entire ceremony in a way TJ swore he’d never seen him do, not at any tournament, any graduation, anything. He shook my hand afterward and told me, low enough that only the two of us heard it, that he was glad someone finally knew how to keep up with his son. When TJ explained the name change, that we were building something new instead of just picking one over the other, Todd went quiet for a second, working something out behind his eyes.

“Harrington-McClain,” he said, testing it. Then he nodded, decided. “Good. A name should carry both halves forward. Your mother would’ve liked that logic.”

TJ’s friends were dancing with embarrassing abandon near the DJ booth, and somehow they’d roped Todd into the middle of it, trying to teach him to twerk. His face had gone through several shades of red already, though he hadn’t actually walked away, which told me he was enjoying himself more than his expression let on.