Chapter Eight
Alliyah almost turned around twice before she got out of the car.
Topgolf was louder than she expected. Music carried through the parking lot, people laughed near the entrance, and every few seconds someone cheered from one of the upper bays like they had just won a championship instead of hitting a golf ball into a field.
She sat behind the steering wheel with both hands resting in her lap, trying to remind herself that this was not a date. It was a group thing. A casual thing. A safe thing.
Then Samantha tapped on the passenger window, grinning like she had been sent by heaven and gossip.
“Girl, get out of this car before I start praying against fear in the parking lot.”
Alliyah laughed despite herself and opened the door. “You are so dramatic.”
“And you are stalling.”
Samantha had been her friend long enough to know the difference between Alliyah being late and Alliyah being scared. She was bubbly, upbeat, and full of the kind of energy Alliyah loved being around because it meant she did not always have to do the talking.
Tonight, Samantha had on jeans, hoops, and a smile bright enough to make strangers feel included.
“You look cute,” Samantha said, giving her a quick once-over.
“I look normal.”
“You look like a woman pretending she didn’t change clothes three times.”
Alliyah shut the car door. “I changed twice.”
“Lying is a sin.”
Before Alliyah could respond, Samantha looked over her shoulder and smiled too widely.
“Well, well, well.”
Alliyah’s stomach dipped.
Hamilton was walking toward them.
White shirt. Clean sneakers. Easy smile. Tall enough to make the parking lot feel suddenly smaller.
He had a flower in his hand.
Not a bouquet. Not something dramatic.
One simple flower.
That somehow made it worse.
He approached her driver’s side, his eyes on hers like there was nobody else in the lot.
“Hi, Hamilton,” Alliyah said.
He paused.
Just for a second.
Long enough for her to notice that hearing his name in her voice did something to him.
Then he smiled, slow and warm. “Hi, Alliyah.”
Samantha looked between them and made a small sound that Alliyah chose to ignore.
Hamilton handed her the flower. “For you.”
Her heart went soft in a place she had not given permission.
“That’s sweet,” she said.
She brought it to her nose, inhaled lightly, and kissed the petals before she thought better of it. Then she opened the passenger door and laid it carefully on the seat.
Hamilton leaned slightly, looking inside. “Is that where I sit?”
Alliyah glanced at him. “Excuse me?”
“The passenger seat,” he said. “Or are you the leader type? You drive?”
She tried to hold a straight face and failed. “That’s where Mike sits.”
Hamilton’s expression changed. “Who is Mike?”
“My purse.”
For one breath, he just stared at her.
Then he burst out laughing.
The sound was so full and surprised that Alliyah laughed too, and just like that, some of her nervousness loosened.
From halfway across the parking lot, one of Hamilton’s friends yelled, “Yo! We’re in bay nineteen! Hurry up before y’all start writing vows out here!”
Hamilton looked over his shoulder. “That’s Luke.”
“The loud one?”
“One of them.”
Another man beside Luke waved lazily. “Come on, man!”
“That’s Jeremain,” Hamilton said. “He acts laid back until he starts talking.”
Samantha lifted her hand. “We’re going ahead. Y’all clearly need a moment.”
“No, we don’t,” Alliyah said too quickly.
Samantha gave her a look that said yes, you do, and walked off toward the entrance with Luke and Jeremain.
Alliyah turned to follow, but Hamilton was still watching her with that soft, amused expression.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That does not look like nothing.”
“It’s just nice seeing you outside the restaurant.”
She looked away first. “It’s just Topgolf.”
“No,” he said. “It’s not.”
The words brushed against her, gentle but too honest.
She needed movement. Immediately.
“Come on,” she said, reaching for his shirt without thinking.
Her fingers curled into the fabric near his side, and for one careless second, her knuckles brushed the warm skin beneath the hem.
Both of them went still.
It was barely a touch. An accident. A flicker.
But the air changed anyway.
Alliyah dropped her hand like the shirt had burned her. “Sorry.”
Hamilton did not move. His eyes stayed on her face, but his smile had faded into something quieter.
“Don’t be,” he said.
Her breath caught.
From the entrance, Luke yelled, “If this turns into a slow-motion movie scene, I’m narrating it!”
Alliyah laughed, grateful for the interruption and annoyed that she needed it.
Hamilton shook his head. “He really might.”
They walked inside together.
Bay nineteen was already alive by the time they got there.
Luke was talking before they even sat down.
He was one of those people who could weave a movie reference into any situation.
By the time the first round of drinks came, he had compared their group outing to a romantic comedy, a sports underdog story, and a heist film with “low stakes but high emotional consequences.”
Jeremain was more relaxed, sitting back like nothing in the world could pressure him unless he allowed it.
He had met Hamilton at church, but he did not carry himself with that polished, high-and-mighty church attitude that made Alliyah uncomfortable.
He was real. Funny. A little rough around the edges, and completely unbothered by pretending to be anything else.
Samantha loved him immediately.
“You are hilarious,” she told him after he made a joke about church parking lot prophets.
Jeremain shrugged. “I’m just telling the truth with seasoning.”
Luke pointed at him. “That’s the title of your documentary.”
The whole table laughed.
Alliyah felt herself relax more than she expected.
The food came out hot and surprisingly good. She did not know if she was truly hungry or hungry for something else entirely, but she ate, laughed, and let herself exist without checking the exits in her mind.
Hamilton was different with his friends. Lighter. Talkative. Playful. He teased Luke, encouraged Jeremain, made Samantha laugh, and still somehow kept finding quiet moments to look at Alliyah like the noise around them had nothing to do with the conversation happening between their eyes.
When it was her turn to swing, she tried to refuse.
“No, no,” Samantha said. “You are not sitting here looking cute and safe. Get up.”
“I don’t golf.”
“Perfect,” Luke said. “That’s how every sports movie begins.”
Hamilton stood and offered her a club. “I’ll help you.”
Alliyah gave him a look. “That sounds suspicious.”
“It’s instructional.”
“Mm-hmm.”
She took the club and stepped onto the mat. The open field stretched out in front of her, bright circles glowing under the night sky.
She suddenly felt ridiculous.
Hamilton came behind her, not touching at first.
“Relax your shoulders,” he said.
“They are relaxed.”
“They are near your ears.”
She narrowed her eyes, and he smiled.
“May I?”
That question did more to her than it should have.
Not because he asked to touch her.
Because he asked.
She nodded.
Hamilton stepped closer, placing one hand lightly at her elbow and the other near her shoulder to adjust her stance. His touch was careful. Warm. Respectful enough to make her aware of every inch he was not touching.
“Like this,” he said near her ear.
Her body forgot the golf club entirely.
Behind them, Samantha made a noise.
Alliyah did not turn around. “Samantha.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You breathed dramatically.”
“Because I have lungs.”
Hamilton laughed softly, and Alliyah could feel it more than hear it.
“Keep your eyes on the ball,” he said.
“I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
She absolutely was not.
She swung anyway.
The ball rolled pathetically off the mat and dropped a few feet away.
Luke stood up. “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call emotional interference.”
Everyone laughed, including Alliyah.
Especially Alliyah.
And for one bright, surprising moment, she was not the divorced woman. Not the guarded woman. Not the mother trying to rebuild. Not the line cook trying to prove she deserved more.
She was simply a woman laughing under lights with a man whose hand had just taught her body how much it still wanted to be gently guided.
The rest of the night moved too fast.
They played badly, laughed loudly, argued over whose turn it was, and shared food across the small table. Hamilton sat beside her on the couch built into the bay, close enough that their shoulders almost touched.
Almost.
They talked about small things at first. Music. Food. Church jokes. Movies because Luke refused to let the night exist without them. Samantha told stories that made Alliyah shake her head and beg her to stop. Jeremain kept everyone laughing with one-liners that were too honest to be polite.
But every now and then, Hamilton’s knee brushed hers.
Every now and then, his hand rested near hers.
Every now and then, she felt him watching.
And every time, she told herself to move away.
Every time, she stayed.
When their time slot ended, everyone dragged their feet, not quite ready for the night to close. Outside, the air was cooler, the parking lot dimmer, the laughter softer.
Hamilton walked Alliyah to her car while the others walked ahead, making terrible kissing noises and pretending to mind their business.
“Y’all are grown,” Alliyah called after them.
“Exactly,” Luke yelled back. “Which is why we know what chemistry looks like!”
Samantha cackled. “Bay nineteen will never be the same!”
Alliyah covered her face, mortified and smiling.
Hamilton only laughed, walking beside her with his hands in his pockets.
At her car, she turned to him. The flower still rested on the passenger seat, delicate and patient, like it had been waiting for this moment too.
“I had fun,” she said.
“I know.”
Her brow lifted. “You know?”
“You laughed with your whole face tonight.”
That silenced her.
It was such a simple observation, but somehow it touched the tenderest part of her.
She looked down at her keys. “I don’t always do that.”
“I noticed.”
Of course he did.
Hamilton leaned against the car beside her, not crowding, just close enough to make leaving feel like a decision.
“What are you doing Sunday?” he asked.
She gave him a sideways look. “Minding my own business.”
He laughed. “That sounds productive.”
“Very.”
“I was going to ask if you wanted to see me again.”
“I figured.”
“And?”
She looked toward the entrance where their friends were still pretending not to watch.
A smart woman would have said she was busy.
A cautious woman would have taken time to think.
A woman who had spent years trying to rebuild her heart should have known better than to stand under parking lot lights with a twenty-six-year-old man who looked at her like she was not a risk, but a revelation.
Instead, she heard herself say, “I know a quiet park.”
Hamilton’s smile softened.
“Yeah?”
“I can meet you after church,” she said. “I’ll text you the address.”
Then their eyes met.