49. Sean
49
SEAN
I took a swing and watched the golf ball fly in the air and bounce on the ground and roll toward the hole.
“Nice shot!” Desmond shouted.
“Ouch,” he groaned when the ball stopped a mere inch away.
A gentle breeze wafted past me, and I held on to my golf club as I walked over to where Desmond, Jonah, and Alex—my partners from the Lead Capital Group—were standing.
The four of us were assembled on the lush green lawn of a private club in the Hamptons.
We had a beautiful view of the ocean in the distance and smooth, rolling hills around us.
All I found myself thinking about was what Chloe was doing right now.
The past week with Chloe had involved lots and lots of sex, us wearing each other out with how often we were going at it.
Besides the kitchen and the bathroom, we even had a few adventurous moments in the balcony.
The only downside was that she still wasn’t willing to spend the entire night at my place.
She always ran back home, no matter how late the hour.
Someday, I’d get her to stay over with me, but for now, I was willing to wait.
I’d finally attended a longer meeting with my business partners, who had started to complain about my brief appearances at their fortnightly meetings.
Alex took a smooth, calculated swing, and when his ball missed the fairway, landing instead in the sand trap, he just grinned.
“The ball’s cursed, I’m telling you,” he said while I groaned.
It was easier for Alex to blame the ball than to admit he was off his game today.
We all had those days.
“The early morning getting to you?” I asked him while Jonah attempted a shot.
“Not a chance,” Alex said.
Jonah’s neatly trimmed, precision-cut blond hair barely moved in the breeze as he swung his club.
We watched as his ball veered off course a bit.
I shook my head. “Maybe the green is cursed.”
Desmond shot the golf ball just to his right, sending it into the middle of the fairway.
He’d set himself up for a good second shot, and he looked just a bit proud.
“Sean’s jinxed our game,” Jonah insisted, throwing his hands up in the air while Desmond laughed his heart out at the idea.
Jonah’s phone rang, and he stepped aside to answer it.
Putting it away, he began walking back to us, a frown on his face.
“Giving your team a hard time again?” I asked in a wry voice.
Jonah shook his head.
“Don’t know what you’re on about,” he said, pocketing his phone.
“I only needed the job done right. How hard can it be to do a bug fix that solves everything without breaking five other things?”
I looked through my golf clubs and picked out a seven iron for my next swing.
“Well, it depends on how much time you gave them. A week to get it done?”
The three of us stared at Jonah, who took a swing at the ball.
The ball sailed gracefully through the air, and it landed on the green and bounced a few times before stopping next to the hole.
Jonah always pushed boundaries, and this time, he’d reached the green sooner than expected.
Jonah turned to me. “Fifty minutes,” he said finally.
“It can’t be that hard, really.”
Desmond snorted while the rest of us walked over to our golf carts.
“If you don’t treat them better, you’ll lose half your staff soon, Jonah. Good employees are very hard to come by.”
Speaking of …
“I will need to push off soon, guys,” I said while the others looked up in surprise.
“An early push-off? Tell me, Sean, who’s the new woman?” Desmond asked, a knowing smile on his face.
I groaned. Now that Desmond had found Ava again and was happier than I’d ever seen him, he thought he knew everything about why I wanted to end a game early.
It was infuriating.
“A woman?” Jonah demanded, spinning around to face me.
“Is she why you skipped last week’s meeting?”
I raised my eyebrows as I got into my cart.
“I was at last week’s meeting,” I pointed out.
“All ten minutes.”
“Perhaps you were physically present, but it sure seemed like you were elsewhere.” Jonah walked up to me with a wicked grin.
I grabbed Jonah’s head in a mock tussle, and Alex laughed.
“Just for that joke, next time, you’re buying lunch,” I announced as I let go.