Page 75 of Take Me Home

He handed her the club.

“I don’t know how.”

Before he could offer to show her—for real, not like their flirtatious charade with the darts—she stiff-armed him. “Can I just say—”

“After you swing.”

She opened her hand for the club, and he passed it to her. Then she eyed the whiskey, and he gave her that, too, tamped down a smile when she made a face at the taste. “Don’t tell me how old this is. Or who else’s mouth has been on it.”

She teed a ball, swung, and hit a huge chunk of earth through the barbed wires. “Don’t laugh.” She shoved the club back at him.

“Try again.”

“I don’t want to golf.” She bent to replace the ball on the tee anyway. “I’m trying to tell you I’m sorry.”

Ash saw his mistake now, stalling and giving her the chance to speak first. She was going to tell him she was sorry they’d started this, sorry she wanted to call it off already. He could feel it. Even so, her palpable irritation was some kind of kryptonite for his dumb heart. Despite everything, one corner of his mouth twitched up. What did it say that he felt most at ease when Hazel was annoyed with him, even now?

She huffed and shouldered the club. She took a slow practice swing, eyes fixed to the ball at her feet.

Ash sipped the whiskey to keep from saying anything else. He didn’t have a plan here, only broad strokes. Take her somewhere she couldn’t easily run off. Do something to keep his hands busy—another club would have been nice. And alcohol. Because if he was going to tell her about his dad, he was going to need some help.

But now that they were out here, where he’d talked and drank and whacked the shit out of these balls with Travis so many times in the last several years, the flaws occurred to him. One: they’d eventually need to drive home, probably sooner rather than later, so he couldn’t get drunk. And two: he’d taken her to the middle of nowhere like some kind of axe murderer.

Hazel chipped the ball a good several yards. He said, “Nice,” right before she said, “June told me about your dad.”

That was not at all what he’d expected her to say. Forgetting that he’d just decided not to get drunk, he took a long pull from the bottle. It seared his throat.

“The hospital this morning. His MS. I’m sorry. I feel like such a jerk for earlier. I thought you’d…”

“What?”

“I don’t know. You were acting weird. I thought you’d changed your mind.”

They switched places. She capped the Jack and set it in the dirt. He fumbled with a ball before successfully teeing it. He was afraid to ask but had to ask, “Changed my mind about what?” as he took his swing.

She watched his ball cut through the sky. “Me, I guess.”

“I thought I was pretty clear last night that I want—”

“But then you showed up late today and didn’t say why, and something was obviously wrong, but you wouldn’t say what. Now I know, but you kept brushing me off. I thought you were trying to figure out how to break it to me gently.”

He was holding out the club, but when she reached for it, her meaning crystalized, and he pulled it back. “Wait, is that why you brought up stopping this? You were beating me to it?”

She reached again for the club, eyes boring into his until he released it. “You said we needed to talk later.”

“Yeah, I was going to explain about my dad.”

“Oh.” She tucked her hair behind her ear then busied herself with several practice swings before finally, finally hitting the damn ball. “Why didn’t you just say you’d been at the hospital? I thought you didn’t want me around.”

He wanted to shake her. “Why would I suddenly not want you around? Haven’t I come every time you’ve asked me to? Haven’t I told you repeatedly that Iwantto be around you?”

“Youdidn’tcome, though. And then you were squirrelly and quiet. If you were going to break up with me—I mean, notbreak upbreak up. I know we’re not—” She blew out a frazzled breath. “I was taking the hint.”

“It wasn’t a hint.”

“Well, it felt like one.”

“Are you really that—”Insecure, he wanted to say, but didn’t.