23. Miles Day
The last time I was this excited for a round of golf was my first-ever major tournament. Anticipation has my whole body tingling like I drank one too many americanos. I can’t believe Ellie is tagging along to watch me golf today. I thought she’d start to enjoy it while we were at the U.S. Open, and then maybe I could ease her into loving it over a few months. But here I am, on my way to pick her up so she can watch me play for a few hours. Hopefully, this expedites the process. Because while her quips are funny, it would be nice to have an assistant who understood and at least tolerated the game.
As I pull into her drive, I recognize the truth of why I’m looking forward to this so much. I want Ellie to like golf because I like her. This sport is a huge part of my life, and if I do give this whole relationship thing a shot one day, the person I’m with is going to have to be okay with that. Preferably more than okay with it. I’m still not sure how I feel about pursuing anything serious, but the only woman I’d even consider it for is Ellie, so it would be nice if she didn’t hate my career.
Ellie steps through her front door as I’m getting out of my Bronco. She’s walking, but I can tell she’s keeping her weight off of her right foot as best as she can. I rush to help her down her porch stairs.
“Sutton said I can walk on it if I feel up to it,” Ellie says, her tone on the defensive side.
“I didn’t say anything.” I come up beside her and wrap an arm around her waist. She leans into me as we take the steps one at a time.
“You have that look on your face though. The one you had when you were lecturing me about my unlocked door.”
“Am I not allowed to worry about you?” I ask her when we reach the bottom of the stairs.
She looks up at me, her brown eyes like warm pools of caramel in the morning light. If I dipped my head ever so slightly, our noses would brush. And then our lips. Heat ripples through me. My grip tightens around her waist and she sucks in a breath.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” she murmurs. “I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can, but you don’t have to all the time.”
The wind picks up around us, rustling her windchimes and startling us apart.
I clear my throat. “We should get to the course. Don’t want to be late for tee time.”
“No, we wouldn’t want that,” she says as I help her into the Bronco.
“Do you even know what a tee time is?” I ask her and she presses her lips together. “You’ve been scheduling them for a few weeks now, how do you not know?”
“I don’t have to know what they are to book them on the website,” she says and I shake my head.
“I can’t believe this.” I shut her door then walk around to get in on the driver’s side.
“I told you I hated it. I didn’t want to know anything about it if I could help it,” she says once I’m in the car. Her comment would sting if she wasn’t showing interest today.
“But now you do.”
“Now I do.”
She toys with the bracelets on her wrist. She’s wearing white athletic shorts today, paired with a lavender polo shirt. She’d fit in just fine at the club if it wasn’t for the stacks of bracelets on her arms and the anklet I spot when she curls her left leg under her. The only jewelry the women at the club wear are diamonds and pearls. I’m taken back to the one night I saw Ellie without all of her bracelets. She wore pearls then, with that little black dress and the heels that made her legs look even longer. I tear my eyes away from her and start to back out of the driveway.
“A tee time is a start time. You book them in advance so that everyone isn’t playing on top of each other,” I explain.
“Oh, that makes sense. I thought it was a start time but I didn’t know why they had so many and why they’re so exact. Isn’t our tee time today something like 7:42?”
“It’s just set at an interval to make sure they can fit the most golfers in a day as possible.”
“What happens if you’re late?” She looks at the clock on the dash.
“You lose your spot. But we’re not going to be late.”
“The only way we wouldn’t be late is if we skipped coffee and breakfast.”
I chuckle. “Or if the coffee was in the cupholder and breakfast in the backseat.”
“How did I not notice that?” She grabs her iced coffee and takes a drink, humming in delight. “Molly makes the best drinks.”
“How do you know Molly made it? Another person was working in there today.”
Molly was in fact the one who filled our order this morning, but I’m curious as to how Ellie can tell.
“I worked there for two years, and whenever I could I’d have Molly make my drink. I hated making my own drinks. Might as well drink coffee at home.” She shudders like that would be the worst thing in the world.
I turn on the road that leads to the course. We should get to the tee box right on time. I would usually arrive earlier, but I wanted to let Ellie sleep in.
“How can you tell that Molly made it though?” I ask.
“She puts an extra half-pump of syrup in.” She pauses, amusement entering her voice. “And she wrote a note on the cup for me in Sharpie.”
I laugh, glancing over when I brake at a stop sign to see her holding up the cup. Molly wrote Have fun at the course! Try not to hit anyone! with a smiley face and a heart at the end.
“Does she think you’re playing today?” I ask through my laughter.
Ellie laughs too. “Either that or I’m driving the cart I guess. I’m surprised she didn’t encourage me to hit someone. She can be rather violent at times.”
“Considering she wanted to feed me to a pack of sharks, I’m surprised too.”
I pull into the club’s parking lot and head to my reserved space. A perk of winning a few majors is getting a nice parking spot right up front. My rival, Zane Hastings, has the one next to mine, but it’s thankfully empty today. The last thing I need is his smug face ruining my day with Ellie.
“How much money did you have to pay to get your own parking spot?” Ellie asks as I shut off the car.
“None, they gave it to me when I won three majors in my first year playing pro.”
She blinks at me. “I don’t know what that means.”
I sigh and open my door. “You have a lot to learn.”
“How many majors are there?” she asks when I open her door to help her out. I’m pleasantly surprised that she waited for me. Maybe my words from earlier about accepting help got through to her.
“There are four every year. The Masters, the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open, and the British Open.”
She slides her legs toward me. I grab her waist and pick her up, then set her down gently beside the car. When I meet her eyes, she looks disoriented.
“You okay?”
She nods. “I’m fine.” Her voice is breathy and sends a tingle down my spine. I look down at her for a moment longer, enjoying the dazed look she’s wearing and the feel of her waist under my hands. Then I force myself to let her go to get her breakfast out of the backseat. After that, I get my golf bag out of the trunk and sling it over my shoulder.
“So your first year you won three,” she says as we slowly make our way to the front door.
I want to wrap my arm around her to help again, but I don’t know if she wants that or if it would be the best idea while we’re here. I know plenty of the members here wouldn’t hesitate to snap a photo and then suddenly there’s a fun TMZ headline for Brock to handle. I’m sure dating my assistant would make for a successful–albeit cliché–article.
“Yes,” I confirm.
“What about this year?”
I clench my jaw, thinking of my latest loss. “One so far. I came in second at the PGA Championship.”
“Second isn’t bad though,” she says as I open the door to the lobby.
“Second place is first place loser.”
She scrunches up her nose. “That’s a crummy way to look at it.”
“I don’t play for second, Red. I play to win.”
Our conversation pauses when we get to the reception desk. Sasha, the receptionist, smiles at me. “Miles, it’s good to see you today. You have a tee time for 7:42 right?”
I nod. “I do.”
“Okay, here’s the keys to your cart, it’s number 12.”
I nod and take them. I normally prefer to walk the course as practice for the tournament, but with Ellie here I make an exception.
“Would you like anything to drink?”
“Two bottles of water would be great, thanks, Sasha.”
She beams at me before grabbing two bottles from the fridge beside her desk. “No problem! Now, if you need anything else, you know there are plenty of beverage carts rolling around.”
I take the bottles from her and put them in the bag with Ellie’s breakfast. “Perfect, thanks again.”
“Have a great day!”
We get a few steps away from the desk before Ellie says anything.
“She’s much nicer to you than she is to me.”
“She was mean to you?” My brows furrow in confusion. “Sasha is the nicest receptionist here.”
“To you maybe, Mr. Rich Golfer Man.” I laugh at her bringing back her ‘insult’ from the other night. “But she looks at me like I’m gum on the bottom of her OnClouds.”
“Do you want me to say something?”
She shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. Then she’d only be nice to me because you said so. I’d rather she just be mean.”
“Interesting perspective, but okay. Let me know if you change your mind.” I pause near the door that leads outside. “Here, you can take the keys and head to the left where the carts are. I need to change into my shoes.”
She looks down at my feet. I’m currently wearing tennis shoes. “What’s wrong with the shoes you have on?”
I smile down at her. “They aren’t golf shoes.” I hand her the keys. “I’ll be quick.”
I walk toward the locker room as fast as I can with my bag on my back. If the people around here haven’t been nice to Ellie, I don’t want to leave her alone for long. I wanted to spend time alone with her today, or else I would have had Fitz with me and he could have sat with her.
I get my shoes and glove on, then head back out to the carts where Ellie is. I set my bag in the back and her food on the seat between us.
“Ready for your first day of golf?” I ask her.
“As I’ll ever be.” Her enthusiasm is hesitant at best, but hopefully, that will change.
I start the cart and head toward the first tee box. She stays quiet, and when I glance over at her I can tell she’s taking everything in with her beautiful brown eyes.
“I do love how pretty it is out here,” Ellie comments when I stop the cart.
I get out and grab my driver from the bag, sliding off the protective cover. I need to make it in four strokes to hit par, and the hole is 445 yards from here. There’s some wind coming against me, so I need to hit it harder to account for that. I take a ball and tee out of the side of my golf bag.
“It’s a beautiful course, but my favorite is probably Augusta.”
I set my ball on a tee and step to the side to do a couple of practice swings.
“Where’s that at? It’s hard to believe there’s a course nicer than this one.”
I smile at her Coastal Cove loyalty. She hates golf but is defending the course because it’s here. “It’s in Georgia. That’s where they hold the Masters. Though some people say Pebble Beach in California is even prettier. You might like that one since it’s right on the ocean.”
I position myself in front of the tee, then glance over my shoulder at Ellie. “First rule of golf, you don’t talk while someone is getting ready to swing. There has to be silence. That’s how it will be at the tournament, so it’s important for you to remember.”
“Got it.” She nods. “You know, this is only confirming my idea that golf is boring. The best part of sports–aside from the food–is the yelling.”
I look back down at the ball, trying to keep my focus. It’s already difficult enough because she’s here looking unbelievably gorgeous. Her commentary is throwing me for a loop.
“You can yell after the golfer hits, but not a second before.”
I take in a breath, pull back my club, then swing. The ball arches through the air. I grin. Yes. That was a perfect first shot. I hit it about three hundred yards out. All I’ll need to do is chip it up onto the green with my 9-iron, then I can putt it and maybe manage a birdie on my first hole of the day.
“Where did it go?” Ellie asks.
Confusion is all over her face when I turn around. Her hand is lifted above her brow as she searches the sky.
“You’ll see,” I say with a laugh as I slide my driver back in the bag and hop in the cart.
The wind is cool against my skin as I drive down to where my ball landed. I take a deep breath of ocean air and smile big. It’s going to be a good day of golf, I can feel it. Ellie might not be such a distraction after all.
We come up on some other golfers driving, so I slow down.
“There’s no way you hit it this far,” Ellie says, awe in her voice.
I chuckle. “No, I hit it further.”
Her head whips over to me. Those brown eyes of hers are wide. “You’re lying.”
“How could I lie? The ball will either be there when we pull up or not.”
I stop the cart when I see my ball a few feet away.
“How far is this from where we were?”
I get out of the cart and walk around to my bag. She turns in her seat, watching me. “About three hundred yards.”
Her mouth drops. I can’t help the satisfaction that rolls through me at her shock.
“Impressed, Red?” I ask with a smirk.
She sits back and crosses her arms. “Not yet, but this is a step in the right direction.”
It doesn’t surprise me even a little that it’s going to take more than a good hit to impress Ellie. But knowing that I’m on the right track has me feeling like I’m floating rather than walking. I’ll get her to like golf. Because like I said earlier, I play to win. And I plan on winning her over.