Page 40 of Meet Me Back Here

Once I see more movement indicative of him really getting up—another whine of metal on metal from that damn bed—I quietly close myself in the bedroom. After such a great evening, I woke up in a fantastic mood today.

Forrest taps on the door a few moments later.

“You can come out now. I’m decent,” he says.

I bound out of the room, fixing my polo’s collar and brandishing a large bottle of sunscreen.

“You’re not going to fight me about this again today, right?” I ask, eyeing the lines on his skin that have finally faded to a comfortable tan.

“Hey now, I learned my lesson. I behaved when we went to Taliesin West,” he says, holding out his hand for the canister. “Hand it over.”

We take turns on the balcony spraying ourselves down with SPF, and then we’re off, headed to the golf course attached to our hotel to rent some clubs. Since Forrest has never touched a golf club before, a college-aged man working in the pro shop helps him figure out the right equipment and gives him the fastest crash course in how to execute a golf swing while I get us two baskets of balls from the dispenser. A set of clubs to rent and a glove are already waiting for me at the rental counter.

When I rejoin Forrest, he’s putting on a resort-branded visor, bright salmon just like his sweatshirt.

“Nice hat,” I say, flicking the brim.

“Don’t worry. You’ve got one too,” he answers, plopping a matching visor on my head. “Apparently the suite we’re in comes with a golf package, so we get the visors and a round of golf included. Do you want to go for it?”

I blink in surprise at Forrest and his seemingly newfound desire to try things like line dancing and golf.

“Are you sure? It took me hours at the range to even be able to hit the ball with a full swing. I want to make sure today is fun,” I say, wary that a round of golf might be too much for a first-timer, but also a little excited about the surprise perk of our upgrade.

“Calvin said we can jump ship if things go really badly,” Forrest says, nodding toward the employee who was helping him out. The young man gives an enthusiastic thumbs up from Forrest’s side.

“You want to?” I ask again, not wanting to push Forrest too far too fast with something new, but he gives me a why not shrug. I then turn to Calvin. “We don’t have a tee time booked. Is there availability?”

“We always keep a couple of spots for the suite guests, just in case. And you’re here early, so we can get you in, even if you want to hit the range first.” He turns to his computer and starts typing.

Forrest is looking at me expectantly, seeming more excited for this than I’d have expected, so…

“Why not,” I agree.

With Forrest in his pale blue polo and khaki-colored shorts, and me in my pink polo and white skort, we might look like golfers, but I expect that’s the extent of how well we’ll fit in out there. Hopefully it’s at least amusing.

Fifteen minutes into hitting balls, and I’m feeling my own frustration rising. Apparently playing golf is not like riding a bike, because I’m back to barely being able to hit the ball. When I do make contact, I’m not terrible, but if I miss, I get worse.

I should have been more worried about my own skill level than Forrest’s.

Because Forrest is at the next bay over, looking like Rory McIlroy as yet another of his perfectly hit balls goes sailing in a pristine arc. I’m no expert, but he doesn’t look like an amateur at all, easily twisting at the waist in a way that felt entirely unnatural to me for months when I learned to golf.

It feels like I’m standing beside the golf equivalent of a pool shark. If I didn’t know Forrest as well as I do, I’d bet a limb he was lying to me about his experience with the sport.

What the actual fuck.

I wouldn’t describe myself as a competitive person. I like doing well, but I’ve never felt a need to be the best, especially at sports, and I love when my friends succeed. But something about this coming so easily to Forrest when I continue to look like somebody who’s never used her elbows before is making me a little grumpy. Not because he’s good, but because I’m so embarrassingly bad.

I take a breath to clear my head. I’ve never been amazing, and there’s no reason I need to start caring about that today. Mind over matter.

When we start actually playing the course, things don’t get any better for me, and a couple holes in, Forrest does his best to distract me.

“I really like your friends—Melina, Cristian, Ava. I wasn’t so sure about line dancing, but they made it fun. You all did,” he says as he drives us to where my ball is off to the side of the fairway, the golf cart bouncing us along. His ball is about a hundred yards further ahead, right where it should be.

“They like you too. I can tell. Also, Melina told me outright,” I answer before whacking my ball down the way again. Not a bad shot, actually.

“If you didn’t like it, you didn’t have to dance,” I add. I don’t want Forrest to do things he doesn’t want to do.

“I had a good time,” Forrest assures me. “I didn’t want to be the boring guy who sat out, and it turns out I was wrong about my expectations anyway.”