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“You’re a conspiracy theorist, aren’t you?” he asked as he tucked the license back in. “I bet you believe the earth is flat.”
“It is.”
He gave a louder sigh.
Sumner had parked beside one of the many ponds the golf course had, and I looked out at the rippling water. It reminded of Nancy and the pond in her yard. This was what I wished hers looked like—serene, calm, clean. If I could’ve swapped the water out and gave the country club the algae filled depths, I would’ve.
“I shouldn’t have…” I began, and trailed off. I wanted nothing more than to stop, to sweep everything under the rug. Sumner seemed like he was able to easily move on; I wanted to, too. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you Saturday.”
“You’ve still been thinking about that?”
“I don’t often worry about hurting people’s feelings,” Iwent on, pinching my shorts tighter. “It doesn’t matter, really, because it’s not like I have anyone I want to keep close to me, anyway.”
Sumner leaned forward to catch my eye, smugness filling his expression. “But…? You want to keep me in your life, is that it? Are you finally acknowledging our friendship, Margot Massey?”
His voice was full of amusement, and it lightened the weight on my shoulders a bit. “I don’t have many friends, and it would’ve sucked to lose one.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t know enough about you yet to walk away.”
“Meaning once you learn more about me, you’ll stop being my friend?”
“The jury’s still out.”
I sat in the lightheartedness for a moment, allowing the barest tug of my lips. “I want a turn,” I said, standing up as best I could underneath the cramped golf cart top. Sumner looked up at me where my neck was craned against the roof as if stunned by my sudden movement. I waved my hand at him. “Slide over.”
There wasn’t enough space for him to slide across the seat without touching me, and his knees brushed the bare backs of mine in the process. My skin felt far too hot given how quickly the night was cooling off, that fire already simmering underneath my skin.
I fell behind the wheel with a little huff, flexing my hands across the smooth leather. “I should tell you,” I said, reaching for the parking brake. “I’m not technically allowed to be driving one of these.”
From the corner of my eye, I caught him looking at me. “What? Why not?”
“I’ve crashed… three? Four?”
His hand shot to the handle on the side of the cart. “What?”
“We got lucky with the person at the rental earlier—I don’t think they realized I was on the ‘do not rent’ list. Either that, or they were too afraid to tell me no.”
Alarm filled his voice. “Wait?—”
But I didn’t let him finish before slamming my foot on the gas pedal, causing the tires to tear up the green as we launched forward. I had to twist the wheel to avoid going into the pond, the tires slipping as they got a bit too close to the edge. Not close enough to dump us in, of course, but enough to feel the cart think about it.
Sumner braced his other hand on the dash, peering over the side as if considering jumping. “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”
The wind tearing through my hair, the sunset surrounding us, the speedometer on the golf cart tipping higher and higher, Sumner’s palpable anxiety—I couldn’t help but laugh at it all. It arose like a wave in my chest, undammable. Ridiculous, of course, to be laughing at the meager speed of a golf cart tearing through a course, but the little things always did bring me joy.
Sumner gaped, probably thinking I’d lost my mind. Probably worrying that I’d lost my mind and was sitting behind the wheel.
When I tried to look over, he yelled out, “Eyes on the road!”
“The road?” I snorted. “You meanthe green?”
“Whatever—just—eyes—” He gestured frantically in front of us. “—forward.”
I took a hard left around a sand dune on hole twelve, the cart bouncing with the acceleration. Instead of continuing bracing himself on the dash, he reached his arm around and lined it against the seats, his hand gripping the back of my headrest. “See,thisis how fast you’re supposed to go,” I said, looking down at the speedometer with a proud smirk.
“I completely disagree.”
The holes from thirteen on were larger, giving us a lot of ground to cover. I took another sharp turn around the deep grass, and Sumner slid in the seat, his shoulder colliding into mine. Even after I straightened out, he didn’t move away. In the pocket of my pants, my phone began vibrating with a call. I fished it out and glanced at the screen.Destelle.