Page 44 of Man Hands
My throat is getting weirdly hot all of a sudden. I must be dehydrated. “Let’s go,” I rasp. “I’m not in the mood to buyaring.”
“Oh, honey,” Maynard says. “Tissue?” He offers meabox.
“Nope. I’m good. Thanks foryourhelp.”
I get the hell out ofthere.
* * *
“What’s your plan?”Braht asks as he puts his ball on the tee. Then he does some weird stretches which are supposed to improve your swing. He dangles the driver behind his body until it hits him intheass.
It’s taking fuckingforever.
So I nudge him out of the way, step up to his tee, swing, and drive the ball about a million yards straight toward the flag. It flies through the bright blue sky for about a year before dropping onto the fairway and then bouncing onto thegreen.
Braht’s jaw is dangling. “You hitmyball!”
“I needed to hit something. Seemed like the bestoption.”
“But…it wasn’tyourturn.”
We just glare at each other for a moment. I’m hanging onto my sanity by athreadhere.
And maybe Braht gets that because he shrugs, grabs another ball out of his golf bag and tees it up. “Do you want me to just buy a ring for you?” he asks as he lines up his shot.Finally.
I wait until he swings, because that’s polite. “No,” I say as his ball sails toward…the water hazard. Shit. We’ll be here all day. “I got itcovered.”
“Withwhat?”
“A ring, Braht. Ihaveone.”
“Chandra’s?”
“Nope.”
“You can’t use a fake, Tom. The media will sniff it out.” He picks up his golf bag, and I dothesame.
“It’s my GreatAunt’sring.”
“Jesus. Do you really want to gothere?”
“Yeah.” But I’ll admit it’s a strange choice. The ring is the only thing I have that belonged to a family member, since I don’t have a family. Aunt Maddie and my grandmother were my only living relatives, and they both died when I waseighteen.
“Why do you want Brynn to wear it?” Braht asks. “Kinda precious,right?”
“Sure. But I’ll get it back after we break up. And if I’m going to be fake-engaged to someone for a couple months, I might as well get some use out of it.” I say this all glibly even though my throat is suddenly tight. Must beallergies.
Braht shrugs. “Saves you the restocking fee you were going to pay to return another rock at thejewelryshop.”
“Right.” I’d forgotten about that.Whatever.
“You can buy drinks tonight, then,” Braht says, andIsigh.
“Let’s just do some more damage to the littlewhiteball.”
“That’s not exactly the point of golf,” Braht warns, polishing his driver with a cloth he draws out of hispocket.
“It istoday.”
