Page 10 of Tee the Season
“How long do these storms usually last?” My voice has an edge I can’t quite hide.
There’s a long pause before she responds carefully. “A day or two maybe more. Depends on how fast it moves through.”
A day or two. Maybe more? Snowed in together, in her small apartment above her bookstore, in this small town where the walls feel as if they’re closing in?
Not because of the storm. I’ve been through worse weather. The hurricane in Miami during the Honda Classic. The tornado that tore through Dallas right before the Byron Nelson.
It’s the domesticity of it all. The intimacy. The way her finger is absently tracing patterns on my chest, and the fact I don’t want her to stop.
This was supposed to be simple. Round two to get each other out of our systems. Physical release, mutual satisfaction, then back to our separate lives.
But lying here in her bed, with her handmade quilt and her books and her life surrounding me, nothing feels simple anymore. Especially not when I have to stay.
Because I don’t stay. I don’t do complicated. I don’t get tangled up in someone else’s life. That’s the deal. That’s always been my deal.
I tighten my arm around her, pulling her closer, despite the warning bells going off in my head. Her body molds to mine, soft and warm and perfect, and I tell myself it’s just for tonight. Just until the storm passes.
Just until I can get my head straight and remember why I don’t do this.
Chapter five
Rory
Iwake early with no alarm. Fifteen years of dawn tee times have programmed my internal clock, no matter the time zone. My body knows the routine: up before sunrise, on the course before the dew burns off, ready to hit the driving range before spending the day reading greens and advising Hays.
Except there’s no course today. No tee time. Just Tabitha’s apartment and the odd, heavy silence pressing against the windows.
Tabitha’s curled against my side, her dark hair spilling over the pillow. In sleep, she looks younger somehow, all the confident energy softened into something that makes me want to simply watch her breathe.
I should be itching to leave. Should be calculating the earliest polite exit, the way I always do. Instead, I’m lying here studying the curve of her shoulder, fighting the urge to wake her with my mouth on her neck.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I’ve never wanted seconds before coffee. Never wanted to linger in someone else’s bed, breathing in their scent andwatching them sleep like some lovesick teenager. But here I am, rock-hard again just from the press of her against my torso, her hip bumped up against my side. I’m tempted to slide my hand down her spine until she wakes up wanting me.
The smart play is to get up. Make coffee and head out early for my meeting with Hays at the country club—if I can. I won’t let the fact rounds two and three last night were even better than the first time in August change my plans.
Careful not to wake her, I slip out from under her arm and grab my phone from the nightstand. Weather check, another occupational habit. Tournament days live and die by wind speed and precipitation. I’ve checked forecasts in thirty-seven countries and can read radar patterns in my sleep.
But before I can open the weather app, I spy two missed calls and three texts from Hays, along with a weather alert declaring a state of emergency. All roads closed. No travel advised.
I open the texts from Hays.
Roads are shit.
Virtual at 9 am work for you instead?
I let out a heavy sigh. I flew all the way here so we could meet in person. Tabitha shifts in bed and sighs softly. I glance over, my frustration evaporating. This trip wasn’t a complete bust.
I text back:9 am works. Send a link, and I’ll see you then.
I’m about to set down the phone and grab my jeans, but instead, I stare at the screen, thumbs hovering over the keyboard. The country club position floats through my mind. Head golf pro. Here in Starlight Bay.
I could ask about it. Get more details. But bringing it up opens a door I’m not ready to walk through. It means admitting I’m thinking about the role.
I set aside the phone, tug on my jeans, then pad to the window. The view stops me cold. Now, I understand why the world is so silent. It’s a wall of white. Snow is coming down so thick I canbarely make out the building across the street. Cars below are buried under who knows how many feet of powder, and the wind whips the flakes into horizontal sheets.
Well, shit.
