Kiss My Putt

by Tara Sivec

  “I haven’t had these in years,” Birdie says, still licking her lips and driving me crazy as she stares down into the open bag in her arms.

  Well, this is a brand new development!

  “Oooh, Backpack Brad must be falling down on the job. Tough break. Good thing I’m here.” I smirk, knowing how much she hated it when I called him that.

  It’s not my fault the fucking tool didn’t know how to take a selfie without wearing one of those ridiculous hiking backpacks with the fucking water tube coming out of it and up to his mouth. Like, how hard is it to grab a bottle of water and bring it up to your dumbfuck mouth, Brad!

  I only met the guy once the last time I was home and a bunch of us went to the mainland for dinner and drinks. Lucky me, I got to be there when the two of them met. I spent the next six months discouraging her from dating the loser until I realized I was being selfish.

  Just as I expected, her eyes narrow and she finally grabs a donut from the bag and shovels half of the giant thing into her mouth, crumbs and little crispy bits of bacon falling down onto the front of her shirt and into the open bag she’s still hugging as she chews.

  “Mo for muh muffing muffing meem!” Birdie orders through a mouthful of donut, pointing the half-eaten one in her hand out toward the practice putting green, which leads me to believe she just said go to the fucking putting green.

  Good thing I’m still fluent in Birdie donut speak.

  Jogging back to the cart, I grab my golf bag from the back and throw the strap over my shoulder. Saluting her as I hustle by where she’s still standing on the sidewalk already finished with the first donut and halfway through her second, I go to the putting green while I still have sugar and bacon on my side and she’s not running away from me.

  CHAPTER 9

  Birdie

  “This is my cup of tee.”

  “You gonna say anything other than give me orders, or just keep hoovering donuts into your mouth and let me do all the talking?” Palmer asks with humor in his voice, shooting a ten-foot putt and explaining the mechanics of what he’s doing just like he would during a lesson with a customer, like I’ve made him do repeatedly for the last hour.

  I’ve made him take a hundred shots back and forth between the practice putting green and the first hole, having him pretend to teach me and making him repeat the same lessons over and over just to annoy him. Except, it’s not annoying him; it’s just annoying me. The longer I spend with him with both of us ignoring the giant elephant in the room, the more I want to scream and tear my hair out. Which is exactly why I’ve been avoiding him for three days.

  “I’m trying to be professional at work and not bash your head in with a club,” I remind him as he walks over to the cup and retrieves his ball, bringing it back to where he stood a few feet from me and dropping it on the green by his feet.

  I blindly reach into the cooler I slung over my shoulder and grab another donut, putting it in my mouth and holding it there when Palmer switches his club from one hand to the other to push the sleeves of his long-sleeved, fitted golf shirt up to his elbows until his muscular forearms are on display, the dough stuffed in my mouth thankfully muffling my whimper.

  All that “talking” Palmer was referring to isn’t just about the fake-lessons I’ve been making him give me to “prove” he can be a decent golf pro, but about all the stupid Bradley questions he’s been asking in between each shot that I’ve been ignoring.

  Not only have I inhaled a donut every time I’ve gotten distracted by inappropriate thoughts of Palmer, starting with looking up from the cooler in his arms when he made that comment about liking things dirty and I realized how close our faces were and I got preoccupied staring at his mouth. But I’ve been ignoring his Bradley questions by shoveling doughy maple and bacon sent straight from the heavens into my mouth as well.

  Every time he asks me about Bradley, he calls him Backpack Brad, and he assumes I’m ignoring him and have so far inhaled five donuts because I always hated that nickname, and not because I don’t want to have to tell him the truth and look like a total loser. The fact that he hasn’t heard the Summersweet gossip by now is a freaking miracle. When you’re secretly in love with your best friend for half your life and he drops you and walks away, then suddenly shows up out of the blue after two years, it doesn’t matter if you aren’t in love with him anymore and you refuse to ever have those feelings about him again. You still want to show him that you have fucking thrived since he walked away. Screw you, buddy! Look how awesome my life is without you, even though I don’t want you now and you never wanted me. How you like me now? Mic drop!

  “I can’t believe Backpack Brad has never brought you Dolphin Donuts. Especially with his hands being free at all times,” Palmer says, lining up to take another putt.

  Goodbye, donut number six.

  Palmer sinks another ten-foot putt, turning around to face me and lean on his putter while I chew aggressively.

  “You know, since he never has to pick up a drink, the lucky bastard.”

  “He took like two pictures with that backpack when he went hiking in Utah. Will you give it a rest?” I mutter around a mouthful of donut, finishing it off in record time, because what in the hell am I even doing defending that douchebag just because I don’t want Palmer to think I’m a loser? Pretty sure that is the exact definition of loser, for fuck’s sake. Also, Bradley took like seventeen pictures with that ridiculous backpack and tube in his mouth.

  I’m walking around, pretending like I’m not about ready to come out of my skin every time Palmer looks at me, pretending like I don’t want to scream every second we spend not talking about what we should be talking about. And it’s my own fault, because I kept running away from him, and now I’m stuck with him at work, where I absolutely cannot lose my shit like I want to. And he’s walking around doing the same damn thing, thinking a bag of donuts is going to magically make everything better and make me more agreeable.

  “Ahhh, finally some words other than ordering me around through a mouthful of dough,” Palmer muses, his dimples on full display.

  That last delicious bite I took suddenly gets lodged in my throat, and it takes me a few tries to swallow it down when Palmer steps closer until we’re just a foot apart. I’ve managed to keep my distance from him over the last hour. This is way too close, but my feet suddenly feel like they’re frozen in the grass, and I can’t move away.

  “Look, just because you bring me a bag of pillowy goodness that are made from unicorn wings and angel kisses doesn’t mean I want to stand around and chitchat with you.”

  Palmer chuckles, and the old familiar sound floats over me like a warm breeze, pissing me off instead of heating me up like usual. Pulling the strap of the cooler off my arm, I chuck the bag a few feet away before I’m tempted to just stick my head inside the thing and finish the rest of them off.

  “This isn’t funny!” I shout, the smile immediately dropping from his face when I quickly look around and notice a few golfers standing not that far away stretching before they get started, and I lower my voice. “All of a sudden, you’re just… here, and I’m supposed to act like it’s okay and do my job and talk about bullshit just because you brought donuts? This is hard for me, okay?”

  Don’t you dare cry, Birdie Bennett! Suck it up!

  “You don’t think this is hard on me too?” he fires back quietly, tossing his putter to the side and still standing so close… so close I could just wrap my arms around him and feel his heat and smell his skin. Oh God.

  I take a step back, but he just follows, not letting me put any distance between us, and it’s killing me, but so is walking around this damn course, working side by side with him and trying to keep it together and be professional, when I just want to scream at the top of my lungs and ask him why.

  “It wasn’t so hard for you to walk away and stay away now was it?” I whisper angrily, feeling like I’m going to choke to death swallowing back the tears.

  “It wasn’t easy
, Birdie. It was far from fucking easy,” he growls, a muscle ticking in his smooth, muscular jaw, his face suddenly closer to mine until I can smell his minty fresh breath from the gum he obsessively chews when he golfs, and all I can think about is his tongue in my mouth.

  Now is not the time to get turned on. You’re mad and hurt, remember?

  His frustration disappears just as quickly as it came, his features softening and his tense shoulders dropping.

  “I know it looks like I’m being all flippant and like I don’t care, but I’m trying to hold it together here too, okay? I already humiliated myself in front of the entire world; I don’t really want to do it here, in my safe place, with my safe person.”

  Oh, that’s even dirtier than the damn donuts.

  Jerking his hat off his head, he runs a hand through the thick chocolate locks he keeps long enough to brush to the side, keeping his hat off so his face isn’t partially shaded and I can see his eyes. They look so serious and sad, and he looks like he has a million things to say to me. I just want to smack my hands against his chest and tell him to say them already. But I can hear people talking and golf carts puttering around, and I know the course is filling up fast all around us. I’m an idiot for thinking I could stop avoiding him, come to work today, push everything to the side, and just do my job until I was ready to have a serious discussion with him.

  “I know we have a lot to talk about, and we can’t do that here, and we don’t have the time before my first lesson is scheduled,” Palmer finally speaks again, taking a quick look around. “I can at least quickly clear up one thing so we can finish this day of work without me losing an appendage. So, you know that whole stalker thing? Funny story…”

  He trails off, and for the first time in my life, I really want to know what it feels like to break someone’s nose.

  “Okay, not so funny after all, it turns out,” he continues quickly when he sees the rage in my eyes and probably how I started reaching for the putter he tossed to the ground. “Long story short, my dad hired a publicist who was a little skanky and a lot jealous, even though I wanted nothing to do with her. You got caught up in that, because she thought you were just a regular fan, and she sent about fifty of those exact same messages to other female fans. My dad sent explanations and apologies to all of them, but since he’s an asshole and didn’t like how distracted he thought I was when I came here, he never sent you one. I had absolutely no idea until this morning. I swear to God; you can even ask Bodhi.”

  Some of my anger deflates, and as ridiculous as it sounds, I believe what he’s telling me. Not just because I can see the honesty in his eyes, but because clearly I’m going to ask Bodhi about this the first chance I get, and Palmer knows it. I’m no dummy.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about that, Birdie. I can’t even imagine how pissed and hurt you must have been,” he tells me softly, and there I go, right back to being mad again.

  “Good to know you’re only sorry about that,” I reply sarcastically like a total bitch and not even caring.

  “Birdie, please,” he begs, his voice wavering, his cockiness disappearing in an instant, taking some of my hurt with it, along with the breath from my lungs.

  Suddenly, I’m thrown back in time, and he’s that sweet, adorable teenager standing in front of me with a lock of dark hair falling down into his eyes, begging me to be serious even through his laughter while I try to distract him during training. He’s that heartbreakingly quiet and shy boy who eagerly sucked up all the love and attention my family showered on him that he never had before. He’s the twenty-something guy who awoke every sexual fantasy inside me just by grabbing my hand to tug me somewhere or wrapping his arms around me from behind to show me how to properly make a putt whenever we played together. He’s the guy I’d call at two in the morning when I got home from Wren’s house after she had a particularly trying night as a single mother and needed a shoulder to cry on, and he’d give me his shoulder from thousands of miles away.

  He’s my best friend, and he’s my everything, and he broke me in half and then walked away. But he’s here. He’s standing in front of me, begging me, and what the hell am I supposed to do? I’ve never been able to deny him anything.

  “I know you don’t owe me a damn thing, but please, just give me some time,” he continues, running his hand through his hair nervously again. “I promise I will tell you everything. I will explain everything, but please, Birdie, just… give me a little more time.”

  Closing my eyes, I take a few deep breaths before opening them again, wondering if I’m making a mistake. There’s not a serious, shy teenage boy standing in front of me, or a twenty-something man who never swore out loud and would only let his guard down a little if I begged him. But he still makes me just as weak, and I still want to take care of him just as much as I did fifteen years ago, no matter what’s happened since then.

  “Fine. But the clock’s ticking, and you’re gonna have to pony up on a shit-ton more donuts if you want me to remain agreeable. One dozen, that’s it?” I scoff, ignoring how my heart flutters when his lips twitch and he starts to smile down at me. I step away to retrieve the bag I tossed to the side. “Oh, sorry. I forgot you were poor now since no one wants you to play professional golf. Do you need to borrow money?”

  Palmer laughs and shakes his head at me instead of getting annoyed like I hoped, the jerk.

  “Do you need to make sure Backpack Brad doesn’t mind your devastatingly good-looking best friend is back?”

  My hand itches with the need to grab another donut, but I resist. Two pounds in an hour is probably enough for one day. Instead, I laugh uncomfortably, since I have nothing to shove in my mouth.

  “Bradley? Oh, they aren’t together anymore!”

  As soon as I hear the cultured, southern voice from Palmer’s first lesson I scheduled, two pounds of donuts make their reappearance in my throat as I watch his head whip away from me.

  “Well, Palmer Campbell, you look even better than you do on television, and even better than I remembered from the last time you were home.” Miss Abigail smiles as she stands next to us, looking him up and down like he’s an expensive jar of caviar in one of her signature, colorful, breezy caftan dresses paired with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry. “Kelly at Just Teasin’ Salon told Mable at The Book Attic who told me that Bradley cheated on her with his secretary and took that home wrecker on Birdie’s dream vacation to Hawaii.”

  “It was his intern!” Jeff, a custodian at the high school, shouts to her as he straps his golf bag onto his cart a few feet away.

  “What was an intern?” Miss Abigail yells back to him, while I watch Palmer’s head bounce back and forth like he’s at a tennis match, and his smile gets bigger and bigger while the donut vomit in my throat gets thicker and thicker.

  “Bradley cheated on Birdie with his intern, not his secretary!” Some guy I don’t even know who’s sitting in Jeff’s cart kindly shouts back.

  “Well, excuse me for making an honest mistake! Mable was quite clear when she said secretary, and—”

  “Okay, well, this has been fun, but it’s time for your lesson, Miss Abigail. I’m sure you’ll be in great hands with Mr. Campbell,” I interrupt, my face feeling so hot I’m pretty sure it’s the same color as Tess’s vibrant red hair.

  When I hear Palmer groan softly from somewhere next to me, because I absolutely refuse to look at his face and see how much fun he’s having at my expense, a tiny bit of my mortification goes away.

  Miss Abigail is somewhere in her seventies—no one actually knows—her husband owns a fleet of luxury yachts, and she’s been taking golf lessons here at SIG every day since the day it opened yet has learned absolutely nothing but the size and shape of every golf pro’s ass.

  Palmer suddenly lets out a yelp, and I have no choice but to glance over and see Miss Abigail has already tested out the merchandise and deemed it acceptable, judging by her red-lipstick-covered smile and Palmer rubbing his ass ch
eeks soothingly with his hands.

  “Oh, Palmer and I are going to have such a wonderful time!” Miss Abigail purrs, the bracelets on her wrists jingling as she slides a hand through the crook of Palmer’s elbow and bats her eyelashes up at him.

  His face resembles the grimace emoji as he looks down at her, and since my work here is done and I need to go lock myself in a closet, shove a towel in my mouth, and scream at the top of my lungs, I quickly turn and hoof it toward the clubhouse.

  I’m smiling and waving at a few regulars and locals as I make my way up onto the sidewalk, my heart slowing down the farther I get away from Palmer, when all of a sudden, a hand wraps around my upper arm and I’m tugged to a stop.

  Palmer is suddenly right in my personal space again, standing toe-to-toe with me, the warm, gentle grip he still has on my arm making it feel like he’s touching every part of me and I can’t breathe.

  “Sorry about Backpack Brad,” he says softly, his warm, minty breath floating over me, so close all I’d have to do is push up on my toes and my mouth would be on his.

  Since I’m busy staring at Palmer’s mouth, I see one corner of it tip up and realize what he just said, finally remembering how to breathe and speak.

  “No, you’re not,” I reply, the words coming out raspy and weak, because God this man makes me feel so weak, even when I want to strangle him and even when I don’t know what the hell is going on.

  “You’re right.” He full-on smirks as he looks down at me, his green eyes sparkling. “I’m really not. I might send him a fruit basket.”

  I sigh heavily, and I want to cross my arms in front of me, but he’s too damn close. If I try to cross my arms, they’ll brush against his stomach, and I cannot touch any part of this man or I’ll want to touch all of him. It’s bad enough his hand is still burning through the flesh of my bicep.

  Friends, friends, friends, remember? That’s all you’re going to let this be if you can forgive him for whatever the hell excuse he’s going to give you… “in time.”