Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 105679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105679 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
This is the opposite of the warm feeling I had in my chest at home. This is something I never expected. Something I’m not even sure how to deal with.
Except…maybe I do know how to deal with it.
Head-on.
I steal a glance at my college friend, the team captain, the guy I’ve come to know in all the ways. We head on over to the golf carts, where the valet sent our clubs. I glance around, making sure the coast is clear. We’re alone on the path. “Stef,” I begin.
“Yeah?”
But what am I saying? What am I asking? How the hell do I do this?
We stop on a grassy hill several feet from the carts. “She doesn’t feel like just mine,” I blurt out, because fuck it, sometimes you just have to rip off the Band-Aid.
He smiles, slow and easy. “That so?”
“She really doesn’t,” I say, dragging a hand through my already messy hair.
This is so hard, opening myself up. I don’t want to be like my dad. Don’t want to wear my heart on my sleeve. Don’t want to fall and get hurt.
But something shifted when Ivy fell on the ice.
I shifted.
I power through, no matter how uncomfortable I feel voicing my emotions. No matter how much easier it is to be cold, I try to be the opposite. “It’s hard to think about this ending tomorrow night. There’s no wedding to go to anymore,” I point out. That was one of the reasons Ivy and I were staying married. The plan was to peter out after these public appearances, including this one today, then quietly get divorced.
“She doesn’t need a wedding date,” Stefan says, open-ended, waiting for me to supply the next link in the logic chain.
The first day I met Ivy, I volunteered to be her date. Now, that she doesn’t need my plus-one-ing, I feel at loose ends. I feel like I’m wearing the wrong size shoes, but I have to keep walking in them.
“So,” I fill in Stefan’s blank, “it’s this and the game night tomorrow.” I want to stop time so I don’t have to ask the next question. “What happens then?”
Stefan doesn’t answer in his usual rapid-fire style. He pauses, pinning me with a thoughtful gaze, then says, “I think you should ask yourself that question.”
Goddammit. He’s right. But he’s also a good friend, so he adds, “What do you want to happen?”
I’m starting to figure that out. Ideas form in my head, but are they ready to make landfall?
“What about you? What do you want? You’re so…chill with everything.”
With a laugh, he claps my shoulder. “We’re in different places. I’ve known all along what I want.” Hearing it feels like a punch to the jaw. “I just…want it more now.”
I wince, rubbing my hand along my beard. Who do I blame for that blow—Stefan, or the realization I have yet to face?
I swallow before I can speak past all the foreign feelings. “I think I do too,” I admit.
Damn, that was hard.
But necessary.
Stefan grins, big and broad. “Welcome to the club. Now let’s go kick some fucking ass on the course.”
He doesn’t ask what’s next, or where do we go from here. Sometimes you have to take these realizations in bite-size chunks.
It’s time to hit the links.
We’re teammates on the course, which seems fitting. What I like best is when we come out ahead at the end and Jessie strides up to playfully chide us. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to let the team owner win?”
Stefan chuckles. “Somehow I don’t think you’d want that ever.”
“You’re right. I don’t,” she says, then nods to the restaurant. “Let’s head inside.”
As we walk there, she says to Stefan, “I hear you’re up for Sportsman of the Year for The Sports Network.”
“I am,” he says.
“I’ll be there to see you accept it. It’ll be an honor for one of my players to win.”
“You do like winning,” Stefan says. It’s fascinating to watch him hold his own with her. I admire that about Stefan—his ease in any situation. His calmness. His confidence. He’s a man who knows what he wants.
“I like winning fairly, so I’ll have to challenge you two to another round,” she tells him. Then to me, she adds, “Now, let’s find your wife.”
Your.
That word, like the kiss at the clubhouse, feels off. Once Jessie and I find Ivy and head inside, Stefan’s not at our table, and that seems wrong as well.
It feels wrong the whole time I’m there with Ivy, chatting with Jessie and taking pictures.
It feels wrong as Ivy chats with Jessie’s friends and colleagues, then with Trina, Ryker, and Chase.
And it feels wrong when the luncheon winds down and photos are snapped, and Parvati asks if she can post them on social on Monday.
That feels like the worst part of all.
“Actually, I’d like a pic with Stefan in it too,” I say.