Page 77 of Wedge

The putt rolls true, dead center, and drops.

I don’t even process it right away, just stand there, and then the grandstand erupts. Jeremy’s whooping beside me, and Stephen’s crossing the green faster than I’ve ever seen him move, and I’m laughing and crying when he crashes into me and lifts me clean off my feet.

“Thirteen under,” he says, voice cracking, cheek pressed to mine. “Adrian, that’s thirteen under.”

The board takes an hour to settle, the whole field finishing around us, tension stretching thin enough to feel in my teeth. When it finally does, my name sits there in black and white, tied for fifth with four other guys. Jeremy’s one shot back - one single shot, tied for tenth. He’s solidly inside Miles Ferry Tour status, a real, meaningful result, just not the same result.

“Card,” Stephen says, staring at the screen like he doesn’t trust it. “Adrian. You’ve got your card. You’re on The Tour.”

I don’t have words for it, not yet, so I just hold on to him instead, right there on the eighteenth green, everything we worked for finally, impossibly real.

Jeremy finds us a minute later, grinning despite the miss, pulling me into a hard hug of his own. “Tour card. Actual IPGA Tour card.” He shakes his head, something genuinely happy in it, no bitterness at all. “Miles Ferry’s not nothing, though. I’ll take it. See you out there next year, maybe, if I climb fast enough.”

“You will.”

“Optimist,” he says again, but he’s smiling for real this time, and when he pulls back, he claps me once on the shoulder before heading off toward his own celebration, his own people waiting.

They don’t rush us off the green. Officials in polos with clipboards work through the group, confirming scores, and somewhere in the chaos someone presses a cold beer into my hand that I won’t drink.

“You’re a professional golfer,” Stephen says, still not quite believing it himself, watching me hold the bottle like I’ve forgotten how bottles work. “An actual, real, IPGA Tour professional golfer.”

“Say it again.”

“IPGA Tour professional golfer.” He grins, wide and unguarded, nothing held back anymore. “My boyfriend, the IPGA Tour professional golfer.”

We’re herded eventually toward the back lawn of the clubhouse, palms throwing long shadows across the grass in the late gold light, where the rest of the graduates are gathering, all nine of us and our people, cameras already set up for the photo that’ll run somewhere official tomorrow. I shake hands with the other eight card winners, guys I’ve only nodded at all week, suddenly bonded by the specific, narrow thing we’ve all just survived together.

“Carter,” one of them says, an older guy, maybe mid-thirties, grip firm. “Helluva back nine.”

“You, too.”

“Feels unreal, right? Every time.” He says it like a man who’s done this dance before, lost the card, fought his way back, knows exactly what it costs. “Enjoy it. First one’s the best one.”

They line us up for the photo, Tour cards held out like diplomas, and I catch Stephen just off to the side, phone up, recording instead of watching directly, like he wants proof this actually happened as much as I do.

Ben calls the moment the photo is done, on video with Geoff crowding into the frame beside him, Jasmine on his hip waving at the camera with no idea what she’s celebrating.

“Fifth place,” Ben says, and even through the phone I can hear his voice catching. “Adrian. You did it.”

“We did it.”

“You did it.” He wipes at his eyes, unashamed, and Geoff squeezes his shoulder, grinning ear to ear. “Sponsors are already blowing up my phone. We’ll deal with that tomorrow. I can fly in tomorrow morning. Tonight, just enjoy this. You earned every moment.”

“Say hi to Uncle Adrian, Jazzy,” Geoff prompts, and she waves a fistful of something sticky at the screen, shouting something that might be my name or might just be noise.

The club hosts a dinner that evening for the graduates and their people, low-key compared to the chaos of the afternoon, real food, real wine, a quiet room instead of a stage. Jeremy finds us at the bar before we sit down, Miles Ferry paperwork still tucked under his arm like he can’t quite put it down yet.

“Buy you a drink?” he asks Stephen, grinning. “Since I can’t buy Adrian one without making things weird.” I lift my club soda and smile.

“I’ll allow it,” Stephen says, laughing.

“To Miles Ferry,” Jeremy says, raising his glass once the bartender’s poured. “And to whatever’s coming next for both of us.”

“To next year,” I add. “When you’re out there with me.”

“Optimist,” he says, but he’s beaming when he says it, and we clink glasses, the three of us standing at a hotel bar in Florida, the whole shape of the next year suddenly, terrifyingly, wonderfully real.

Dinner blurs a little, good food I barely taste, toasts from officials, a few words from the club’s head pro about the tradition of the week, the history of the cards handed out here. Stephen’s hand stays on my knee under the table the entire time, grounding, present, the same as it’s been since a motel room in some forgettable Colorado town months ago.