Page 56 of Pros Don't

“Just that everything is always nice and perfect for you. It makes sense you’d be the type of person who never gets sick.”

“Are you seriously going to hold my immune system against me?” Holland arches an eyebrow and pins me with an appraising look. “It’s not like I can control it.”

I sigh and run my hands over my hair. I’m being petty, and I know it. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m grumpy.”

He smiles. “You’re forgiven.” His smile falters. “For the record, everything isn’t always nice and perfect for me.”

I take my seat back on the barstool. “What do you mean? Seems like life has treated you pretty well.”

Holland sets a bowl of soup down in front of himself and fiddles with his spoon for a second before meeting my eye. “That’s what everyone thinks. That’s what I’ve led everyone to believe.”

He pauses, and I prod, “But?”

“But I have my fair share of crap to deal with, like everyone else.” He shoves a spoonful of soup into his mouth and breaks eye contact.

I want to ask him what he’s talking about, but I check myself. It’s better if I don’t know. It’s better if I can keep him in the little box I have set aside for him. The one that’s marked on the outside with the words: professional golfer – cocky – golden boy.

I stand and wander around his living room, merely to give myself something to do.Notbecause I’m relishing the opportunity to get a peek behind Holland’s curtains. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

His second-story apartment is homey and more modest than I would have expected. I pictured ultra-modern and sleek. I would have bet money that he would have been in new construction and that he would have required at least two thousand square feet.

I was wrong, and I don’t want to admit that I’m finding a soft, pleasant sort of peace slip over me here in Holland’s simple, cozy space. His living room is cramped with an oversized sofa, one lounge chair, and a coffee table. There are built in bookshelves on either side of a TV that hangs in the center of the wall. He’s got books lined up on some of the shelves, a smattering of golf trophies wedged here and there, and a couple framed photos. I spy the same image of Holland with his parents at the Grand Masters that Darla and Drew had in their hallway. There I am, off to the side, looking on. Regret and acceptance jockey for position in my stomach, and I try to ignore them both—or at least not overanalyze what they’re doing there—by squinting at another photo. It features two young boys hanging out the windows of a giant tree house. “Is this you? And Mack?”

Holland joins me in the living room, soup bowl in hand. “Yep. We were preteens there.”

“Nice tree fort.”

Holland stares at the picture. “It was the best.” A faint smile tips the corners of his mouth up. “Mack pranked me so hard one night.I had been teasing him about this girl he liked, being a classic little brother, right? He’d brought her up to the tree house, and I totally crashed their little make-out session. He was ticked.”

“Rightly so! Sounds like you were a little punk.”

He shrugs. “That’s what brothers are for. And anyway, he got me back good.”

I arch my eyebrows. “Sounds like a story I’d like to hear.”

Holland shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “The next week, I was out there alone, and Mack snuck up on me and released four birds into the tree fort. He barricaded the door, and—“

“Wait a minute,” I interrupt him. “Clarifying question. Where did Mack get the birds?”

“He lured them into a cage in our backyard and trapped them. All part of his master plan.”

I twist my lips together as the picture of these two brothers forms in my mind.

“Laugh all you want”—Holland points at me—“but those birds freaked me out. I panicked. They were flying around, tweeting and trying to escape. They started divebombing me with those unfocused eyes. When the door wouldn’t budge against Mack’s barricade, I did the only thing I could think of.”

“Which was?”

“I started prying boards off the roof and punched through the shingles.”

“To let the birds out?”

“Heck no.” Holland huffs. “To let myself out! I hopped down from the roof so fast my pants got caught on one of the tree limbs and ripped clear down the back. I ran straight home, down our street, in just my underwear.”

I have my hand clamped over my mouth, and my eyes sting from trying to hold in my laughter.

“It’s actually hilarious now,” Holland admits, taking in my shaking shoulders and letting loose a wry grin. “But I was so madat him.”

“Your parents must’ve had their hands full with you two.”

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