“Hey, Detective Maverick,” I call out to Zane as he awaits to take another swing.
He stumbles as the golf club comes down, and I giggle as he tries to right himself. He quickly tries to gather his bearings and makes a short attempt at acting suave and gracious. I give him a small grin and continue my approach.
“Well, I never thought you’d actually make it,” he comments wryly and goes back to his game.
“Why’s that?” I ask as I close the distance to us.
He abandons his next hit and turns to face me. “I thought Daddy Abbiati would have you on lock and key from the big bad wolf.”
“Ahh, what Daddy doesn’t know, doesn’t hurt him,” I teasingly remark and go over to his golf bag to try to find my favorite club. “We’ve hit a rough patch, so I’m all for rebellion.”
“Want to talk about it?” he asks as he comes over. I shake my head, but don’t look up at him. “You’ll want this one.” He passes over the club he’s been using, and I’m shocked that he now uses it. It was also the club he abandoned and dubbed his fail stick. It’s why I personally took it upon myself to use it. “It became my favorite after I left.” He shrugs and pulls another club from his bag and goes back to the tee with a ball sitting ready. He readies himself, getting his body positioned correctly, and he takes a swing. “I never was good with that club anyway.”
“Yet you still use it?” I ask out of sheer curiosity.
“I’m a masochist at times,” Zane comments dryly and offers a small smirk. “What can I say, Amelia, some reminders are just worth keeping.” He places a new ball down and takes a swing and I watch the ball fly away with great speed and see it hit the far end. “Yup, should never have given up my old faithful.” He throws the club away from his palm, spinning it in the air as he does so before catching it gracefully.
Apparently, he never lost his ability to show off.
As I stand on the sidelines, I look around and notice we’re all alone – the last stragglers are leaving. I know it was late when Zane sent me a text, but I never expected it to have gotten to closing before I made it out here.
“I know the owner,” Zane comments, and I look back. “He leaves it open for me when I’ve worked long shifts. I just leave the key with security, and we’re good. It’s been a long day.” He uses all the stress he’d been under today to apply the right force behind his swing to push the ball through the air. When it hits the far netted wall, he fist pumps the air with a high sense of achievement. “Fuck yes!”
I watch as he parades his success at hitting a second ball long distance. Everything in my life falls away but my every lasting thought of him as I keep my eyes trained on him. He is everything to me and I don’t need to test the waters or think long and hard. I just know. I’m consumed with the look on his face and wonder how I allowed myself to be so consumed so quickly. We’re still the same people we were before – he, the perfect detective, who could lock me away at any time, and I was always loving this man and killing others before. But why is this different? Why do I have such a conscience now?
And I have to guess that it’s only because I’m older and more aware of what I once had. I don’t know a lot about it, but I know my love for Zane was real. After all, he’s my better half. That idealistic soul mate that we all sit waiting for.
Zane Maverick – my harsh, foul mouthed, handsome love of my life.
If I pushed, he’d pull. If I shouted, he’d shout back. It was how we worked, how we loved, how we hit the self-destruct button. We both were fighting for the same thing, but in separate ways. He wanted my freedom from my family; I wanted it, too, but without breaking away from them. Apparently, that was my fatal error.
I may have lost him once, but he will always be the one. The one who sneaks into my mind when I’m at my lowest, the one who ponders on the back of my mind and forces me to wonder the what ifs of what life could have been. Zane will always be the one I won’t ever let my father completely know about. He’ll never know how close to fleeing I was or how much Zane knows about the running of the family.
As I take another look at him, one thing I struggle to remember is my destiny – don’t feel, don’t deviate, kill Zane Maverick. It fades to the background until its howl is nothing more than golden silence. It’s all completely forgotten when Zane’s beaming expression looks up at me.
“You going to have a go, Princess?” he teases with a nickname and nods to the plot next to him.
“Prepare to lose,” I threaten and with a bit of sass, I put the club upon my shoulder and march to my own area. I slot the card into the reader to enable my horde of golf balls to become available. As I ready for the first, I block Zane’s watchfulness from my mind and take a haphazard swing – and miss.