On the second hole I try, once again, to get a decent conversation going, though it feels more like an interrogation—with me asking the questions, and Brian giving monosyllabic answers that reveal almost nothing about himself because he’s so focused on getting another hole in one that he can’t be bothered to actually interact with me. By the time we reach the third hole (which is quite a while, considering how bad I am and how many strokes it takes me to finally get my ball in the hole) I realize the reason that Brian doesn’t say much is because he doesn’t have much to say in the first place. By the fourth hole I’ve resigned myself to toying with his own oblivious ego for my own amusement.
“So, like, how good are you at real golf?” I ask, as he gets into focus-mode for his shot.
“Real good,” he says, delivering it like a line in an action movie.
“Don’t look at the camera, Brian,” Tom says, stifling a snicker at my continuing feigned interest in Brian’s skill level.
I nod at Brian, my eyes wide. “Like, are we talking pro-level good? Could you compete?”
“I could compete professionally—sure. If I wanted to. If I put in the time and training.” Brian lines up for his swing, then stops to shake his head and do a series of stretching exercises. I watch his dead-serious expression, battling a grin that threatens to break out across my face, and then shrug at Tom when Brian returns to his starting position, wiggling his hips a bit as he lines up his club and squints down toward the hole.
“But you’re not, like, good enough to go pro-level now?” I prod. “How come?”
Tom clears his throat. “You’re still glancing at the camera, Brian.”
Brian shoots me a dirty look. “I mean, you need to train. Those guys practice day and night.”
“Right.” I nod my understanding. “So like, how badly would you lose if you played Tiger Woods?”
“I mean—come on—Tiger Woods is Tiger Woods.”
“So he’d beat you badly, then?”
“Still doing it, Brian,” Tom says.
Suddenly the air is broken by what sounds like an exotic bird of paradise’s strange mating call. All four of us turn in the direction of the sound to see Owen, Kate, and their film crew at the first hole. Kate the lingerie model is laughing like crazy at something Owen said, the kind of laugh where you fall forward, real close, and real intimate to the person who made the joke. The kind of laugh you do when you’re obviously into a guy.
“Margo?”
“Huh?” I answer, spinning around quickly to see Tom already following Brian as he moves to the next hole. “Oh, yeah, I’m coming.”
We play the next hole, and now Brian’s only interaction with me is the occasional wink as he checks to make sure that I’m watching, although he’s spending more time flirting with the camera than with me. I check behind us every once in a while, Owen and Kate still laughing and falling all over each other. Owen’s pulled up his shirt sleeves now, exposing those taut muscles as he knocks the ball around, Kate clapping and cooing after every shot he makes, giggling every time he gets near.
Something sinks in me each time I see it, until I want the ground to swallow me up like one of the golf balls. I tell myself this is good, that Owen not having any hang-ups over what happened on Saturday is exactly what I wanted. That seeing him back to his old ways shows it meant nothing, and we can just move on from it, and yet…every time I see him smiling at Kate, as if there’s some deeper connection through their long gazes at each other, I feel like I’ve lost something, like I’m losing.
Brian takes a shot, nails it, then immediately faces Tom again while I set my ball down, mentally preparing to struggle once again against my own incompetence at the sport.
“Mind if I watch myself back on that thing?” Brian says, holding his hand out as if expecting Tom to just give him the camera.
“Brian, just focus on the date. Maybe you can take a look afterwards, ok?”
“It’s just that, I know how different lenses and stuff can make you look. I saw this thing once where they filmed a guy with different…I don’t know, apertures? And in some of them the guy’s head looked twice as big. And his nose—”
“You look great, Brian. Trust me. Try talking to Margo instead of me a little bit, eh?”
As they go back and forth, I take my shot. If anything I’m getting worse. At the start of the course I was nervous enough to at least try—at this point, I’m just trying to get this over and done with. The fact that Brian doesn’t seem to care what I do before he moves onto the next hole is fine by me.
Except this time I’m so bad that not only do I miss the ball entirely, but when I bring the club back I accidentally lose my grip on it, so it goes flying backward, out of the course, popping up against the path’s edge to land in the grass beside Owen and Kate with a metallic thunk.
“Sorry!” I call back, and Kate laughs loudly.
Owen grabs the club off the ground and jogs up to me to return it.
“Thanks,” I say as he hands it to me, his hand brushing against mine the most stimulating contact I’ve had all day.
“Are you really that bad at this? Or is your date just going too well for you to want it to end?” Owen asks with a wry smile.
“What do you think?” I say, nodding toward Brian and Tom, who are now deeply engaged in a completely one-sided conversation.
“…even thought of starting a YouTube channel once I was so good at it. Do you know what a GoPro is?”
Tom sighs. “I do, Brian, but anyway we really need to get back on track here—”
“I was in on their stock from like five years ago—but they’ve been going sideways for a while now. You want me to tell you why that is?”
“No, Brian, I want you to—”
“It’s those wide-angle lenses—doesn’t look good. Never has, never will…”
Owen looks back at me and smiles.
“How is yours going?” I ask, looking over his shoulder at Kate, who’s playing with her phone with a big smile.
Owen looks at her too.
“She’s a Victoria’s Secret model,” is all he says, like it’s all anyone would need to know.
“Yeah, so I heard,” I say, trying to sound as happy as he does. “She looks…interesting. No chance of calling it a day, then?”
Owen laughs gently. “No chance. Sorry. At least it’ll make for great comedy in the editing room, right? But listen, if you really want to move this along any faster you’re gonna have to stop playing like you’ve got double-vision.”
“It’s not intentional.” I sigh and look up. “I’m doing my best, believe me.”
“I’ve been watching you,” Owen says, and I try to figure out how, when his eyes seem like they’ve been permanently glued to Kate’s incredible body this whole time. “And you’ve got to get over the ball a bit, less backswing, more follow-through. You’re not playing baseball.”
I grin. “I used to love baseball, actually.”
“I can tell,” Owen says, as he plucks the ball back from my hands, drops it between us, and moves behind me. “Here, I’ll show you.”
Before I know it, Owen is pressing himself against my back, hands on mine as he shows me how to hold the golf club. I smell his cologne and immediately feel like I’m naked, the size of his body engulfing mine, so that all I want to do is push back against him, fall into his body. His head over my shoulder, so close I can hear his breathing, a light touch of his stubble against my cheek making my pulse race…