Page 23 of Wedge

“Nowhere. Here. I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.” He doesn’t say it mean. He actually puts both hands on my shoulders and squats down enough that he’s even with my eyes. Those kind, solid brown eyes staring into mine. Grounding me. “You are playing like you’ve already lost. Here’s the situation. Nothing is on the line today. Not a damned thing. You don’t lose the scholarship. You don’t lose Ben. You don’t lose my annoying ass on your bag.” I huff a sort of laugh. “Play like you’ve got nothing to lose instead. Because you don’t. Same thing, different feeling.”

I don’t know how to just decide to feel different. I wish it worked that way.

I don’t turn it around. Not really. I claw back one shot on the back nine, finish the round at plus five, my worst this year, and when they post the cut line that evening, written on a whiteboard propped against the pro shop wall, I’m two shots on the wrong side of it.

I stand there staring at my name, printed in brutal red marker, sitting below a line that might as well be a wall. The late sun is still hot on the back of my neck, and the whole parking lot smells like baked asphalt.

“Well,” I say, because if I don’t say something stupid, I’m going to cry in a parking lot in Steamboat, Colorado, in front of forty strangers. “That’s a thing.”

Stephen doesn’t try to fix it. He just lets it exist. He puts a hand flat on my back, calm and warm, right between my shoulder blades, and leaves it there while I stare at the board a while longer. I want to fold his arms around me and cry into his chest. I don’t. I wish I had that. But I don’t.

“First one’s always the worst,” he says finally, his hand moving up and down. “It’s done. You’ll play a hundred more of these before this is over. You won’t miss a hundred more cuts.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, actually,” he says. “Eleven years on Gavin’s bag. I know what a real player looks like. And I know what I saw the first three holes today, before your head got in the way.”

I don’t say anything back. Just let him steer me toward the truck, his hand still on my back the whole way, grounding. I try to believe him. That missing by two shots isn’t the same thing as finding out everyone was wrong about all of it.

11

STEPHEN

He doesn’t say anything on the drive back to the motel. Doesn’t have to. I’ve caddied for enough men to know the difference between a guy who wants to talk about a bad round and a guy who just needs someone to sit near while he says nothing.

So I don’t talk. I just drive, radio low, the last of the light going violet on the ridge-lines, and let him stare out the window at nothing. The road hums beneath the tires. Every so often his breath fogs the glass, and he wipes it clear with his sleeve.

The room smells like old carpet and older air freshener. He flops onto his bed like his whole body’s given up on him, face down, arm hanging off the side. The window unit rattles in the corner, and the neon VACANCY sign buzzes, throwing a faint pink stripe across the ceiling. I toe off my shoes and grab two electrolyte waters from the mini-fridge, which is colder than it has any right to be for a room this cheap. I grab the white ones. I sit down on the edge of my bed across from his.

“Hey.” I nudge his shoulder with the water bottle until he turns his head enough to look at me with one eye. “Drink this. You sweated through two rounds today.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“Hydrate or die. Wasn’t a request.”

He groans, but he sits up, takes the bottle, drinks half of it in one go, like his body knew it needed it even if his mouth was arguing.

“I really thought I had it,” he says, staring at the carpet. Ugly, brown, and thin, probably older than he is. “Like, this morning I actually thought I was gonna make the cut.”

“Two shots. You were two shots off. Almost.”

“Almost don’t mean shit.”

“It does.” I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “It means you belong out here. Belonging and winning aren’t the same thing. They will be.”

He looks up at that, skeptical and hopeful fighting each other on his face. “You really believe that, or are you just saying it because it’s your job to say it?”

That hits harder than he probably meant it to. I take a few breaths before I answer, because I’m a little mad and he doesn’t deserve the mad.

“I do not say things to you because it’s my job,” I tell him evenly, keeping my voice level. “Ever. This isn’t a job. I’m here because I want to be. And yes, I believe it. I’ve watched you play for three weeks, and you’re the real deal. One missed cut doesn’t change that. Every player I’ve ever carried for has missed a cut. Every single one of them. I stayed on their bag, anyway.” I think about adding that I’m not even being paid. I don’t, though. I told Ben it’d be my contribution to the scholarship, so I’m doing this for free. I don’t need the money. He doesn’t need to grapple with that right now.

He goes quiet, working his jaw the way he does when something’s caught in his throat and he’s deciding whether to let it out.

“Okay.” He takes a breath and looks at me. “Thanks,” he finally says, small. “For being here. For all of it.”

“Right where I want to be.”