Page 21 of Iron

I nod. “Yep. No more sponsorships, ok, let me slog it out like everyone else.”

He nods in agreement. “Got it.” Takes another sip of wine. “You know what really got me, though? That business with the caddie.”

I freeze slightly over my water glass. “What business?”

“McClain. Giving up his own guy for you on the biggest event of your life.” Dad shakes his head, marveling. “That’s not a small thing, TJ. Veterans don’t just hand over their caddie, not on Tour, not for a rookie they’ve got no obligation to. I wouldn’t have. That man went out of his way for you.”

“Stephen’s really good,” I say, too fast, focusing hard on buttering a dinner roll I don’t actually want. “It made sense logistically.”

“Sure, sure.” Dad’s still nodding, still turning it over. “Still. I know guys on Tour who wouldn’t do that for their own brother, let alone some rookie they only met a week or two before at a golf tournament.”

Caleb, fuck him and God bless him, chooses this exact moment to develop a sudden, intense interest in his wine glass, swirling it like he’s auditioning for a sommelier position, very deliberately not looking at me. No help at all.

“Guess he’s just a good guy,” I say, which is true and also the least helpful sentence I’ve ever uttered.

Dad studies me for a moment, intense, then something shifts behind his gaze, the same sharp look he used to level at a tricky lie when I was a kid. Knowing. I brace myself.

“You two friendly?” he asks, carefully, casual. It’s not casual.

“We’re… friendly enough. He gave me some pointers during the Pride Tournament.” My face is doing something I can’t control. I can feel it.

“Uh huh.” Dad is watching me closely and I see it click into place, slow and unmistakable. “Uh huh,” he says again, softer this time, almost to himself.

Caleb makes a small, strangled noise into his wine. I want to kick him.

“So,” Dad says, leaning back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach like he’s settling in for a much longer conversation than I'm prepared to have. “Gavin McClain.”

“Dad.”

“I’m just saying his name.”

Fuck. Me. “You're saying it like it means something.”

“Does it?” He raises an eyebrow, not unkind, not teasing exactly, just watching me with the same patient attention he’s given me my whole life, waiting to see if I’ll actually answer or keep dodging.

I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.

“Not yet,” I finally manage.

Caleb mercifully chooses that exact moment to loudly flag down the waiter for another round of drinks, and the conversation dissolves into ordering, into Dad asking Caleb about his own week, into safer ground.

But I catch Dad looking at me before the entrées arrive, thoughtful, warm, and a little worried both at once, and I know this isn’t over. Not even close.

20

GAVIN

Royal Links in July is exactly what I need: cold wind, unpredictable rain, a golf course that punishes anyone whose head isn’t fully in the game. I fly out to England early, four days before the first round instead of my usual two, and tell myself it’s about acclimating to the time change, the wind, the greens.

It isn’t. I know that before I’m standing on the range at six in the morning, jet-lagged and freezing, my bad knee telling me it is not impressed with my choices, hitting ball after ball after ball into a gray sky just to have something to do with my hands that isn’t checking my phone.

Stephen watches me work through an entire bucket faster than I usually would, with no real purpose to it, and doesn’t say anything for a while. That’s new since Illinois. He usually has an opinion.

“You planning on doing this every morning?” he finally asks once I’ve slowed down.

“Might.”

“Might overdo it, is what you might do.” He rolls me another ball anyway. “This isn’t the Classic. Fifty-six holes of practice rounds isn’t going to fix whatever’s actually going on in your head. Might blow out that knee you are gimping on.”