Page 21 of Playmaker

Cooper was greeted by almost everyone in the shop. He was polite and charming and didn’t flinch when people mentioned that the team lost their championship. But I watched him, the way I watched people to try to fit in. And something—a crease around his eyes, a slight rigidity with his smile—made me think he wasn’t as unbothered as he seemed to be.

I was paying more attention to the people around Cooper and how he responded than what he was actually doing, so I didn’t realize until he left the building, me trailing along behind him, that we weren’t headed to the greens. We took a path to a fenced-in field. Well, the netting on the fences rose about two stories high. The grass was gorgeous, like the rest of the property, but there were markers, and some golf balls scattered around.

“Okay, I don’t know golf, but this doesn’t look like what I’ve seen on TV or in movies.”

He dropped the bags of clubs. “This is the driving range.”

I squinted my eyes at him. Since we were both wearing sunglasses, I wasn’t sure he could see. “You said we had a tee time.”

He shrugged. “Saying we had a practice time didn’t have the same flair.”

“I thought we were preparing for the tournament in September.”

He pulled out a club, swung it in his hands and let it rest on the grass. “You’ve never golfed before, correct?”

“Correct.” I crossed my arms.

“Do you have any idea how to swing a club?”

I stared at the club he was holding. The theory seemed pretty simple. Hold it, swing back, and whack the ball. Then again, the theory of hockey seemed simple—get on skates and hit a puck with a stick. I couldn’t do that. Some professional golfers made a scandalous amount of money, so obviously not everyone could do this either.

“But if we were swinging it out there”—I waved a hand toward where the other people were moving around—“I’d be learning that part as well as how to swing a golf club.”

“And you’d be distracted, watching everyone like you were back in the pro room, while also trying to figure out how to handle your club. As well, you’d take a long time and hold people up, which you really don’t want to do if you can help it.”

I considered. “How long am I going to look stupid?”

He shook his head. “Not stupid, but you’re going to look like you don’t know what you’re doing.”

I’d hoped to do the real golfing thing in case this was the only time I got to Briarwood. But what he said sounded logical. And if I was going to do something embarrassing, better here where it was just the two of us. “Okay, if this is how learning golf goes.”

He looked down at the grass, and back to me. “I haven’t actually taught anyone how to play, but I googled some shit. I thought you could learn how to stand and swing while we work on the long game.”

“Long game. That’s shooting the ball far.”

He grinned. “There’s that sharp legal mind.” I was tempted to flip him off, but that would probably be a no-no. “When you tee off, you want to move the ball a long way, so we’ll work on that first.”

I shrugged. Made sense.

He pulled a tee from his pocket and pushed it into the grass. Then he passed me the club he’d been playing with. “I guessed on some clubs for you based on your height. This is a driver, so we’re starting with it. It’s meant for distance.”

I took it gingerly. “So I use this and hit the ball as hard as I can?” I eyed the fenced field. At least there wasn’t any risk to other people if I didn’t hit it straight.

He didn’t grin, but it was close. “Let’s see how that goes.”

Next thing he’d pulled a golf ball out of somewhere and bent to place it on the tee, pants stretching over his muscled thighs. He stepped back. I stared at him, golf club dangling from my hand.

“Go ahead.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me how I’m supposed to do this? How to hold the club and stand and whatever?”

“I thought I’d see what your natural swing looks like.”

I didn’t have a natural swing. I didn’t have an unnatural one. The only swing I had was with a broom.

I shuffled up to the tee, the ball resting on it. I held the club in my hands, checking that the big head would hit the ball. I looked over the grass where I hoped it would go. It seemed pretty straightforward.

How did those golfers on TV do it? I’d only seen them while I was channel surfing, so I didn’t have much idea, but I lifted the club behind me and brought it down hard. It smacked the earth behind the tee, the ball untouched.

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