Page 75 of Nash

He scoffs, “Women can dream, but they can’t drive.”

“Wanna bet?” I sound like Nash, standing behind me.

“Yeah,” Turner jibes, “let’s bet. One thousand says you can’t shoot from the men’s tee and outdrive him or me on this hole.”

I twirl my braid. “Ten thousand says I can outdrive you on every last hole.”

He laughs, and it’s evil. Turner looks like every other preppy prick on this course, but it’s in his eyes—he’s sick and twisted. He hides his perversion behind power and privilege. It’s not enough that he has so much; he wants to take what is never his to have. Evil entitlement is wired into his violent DNA.

God, I know his type so well.

Suddenly, a memory I fight to forget fires across my mind.My ripped prom dress. My tears. My screams swallowed by Chad’s forced kiss. Taken by Chad’s brutal assault.

The mind is a beautiful thing that way.

If you’re a survivor, you can smell the next predator a mile away … or look him dead in the eye and know it.

I’d warn Daisy about her bad boy Olan, but thankfully, he won’t live that long, and I can’t find guilt anywhere in my body about it.

“You’re on.” He takes the bait before leering at my cleavage for the umpteenth time.

Whatever.

I set up for my drive off the men’s tee, adjusting my grip, checking my stance.

“Watch your hips,” Turner taunts.

“Watch your mouth,” Nash warns.

“Olan,” Daisy chides, “you’re not supposed to make a sound while someone swings.”

“Yeah, Olan,” I say, eyeing the ball. “Did you forget?”

He can’t faze me. My dad trained me. He’d try to distract me all the time. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.

Like now.

I drive the ball, watching it sail high and long as I smile. It lands dead center on the fairway, and Nash admires, “Huh. Almost three hundred yards. The men haven’t hit that far all day.”

I turn to see Turner’s jaw on the ground.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you.” I adjust my cleavage for him. “I don’t have a bad case of the shanks; I have a big case of about-to-beat-your-ass.”

“That’s impossible,” he seethes.

“Not when you’re playing a Rolex Junior Player of the Year,” I answer. “You know, like Tiger was, too?” I furrow my brow. “Did I forget to mention that?”

He clenches his teeth, his thin lips spitting, “You sharked me.”

I shrug. “All’s fair in golf and bridges.”

I make a covert reference to our car chase, and Turner narrows his eyes, threatening about more than this golf game, “You’re going to look pathetic when you lose.”

I smile. “Then, finally, we’ll have something in common.”

I win the next five holes, outdriving him from the men’s tee on each. Then I put cherries on top of his eat-shit-sandwich and eagle every hole. That’s two under par for those who are bored by golf.

In other words, I’m damn good.

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