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I’d finally attended a longer meeting with my business partners, who had started to complain about my brief appearances at their fortnightly meetings.
Alex took a smooth, calculated swing, and when his ball missed the fairway, landing instead in the sand trap, he just grinned.
“The ball’s cursed, I’m telling you,” he said while I groaned.
It was easier for Alex to blame the ball than to admit he was off his game today. We all had those days.
“The early morning getting to you?” I asked him while Jonah attempted a shot.
“Not a chance,” Alex said.
Jonah’s neatly trimmed, precision-cut blond hair barely moved in the breeze as he swung his club.
We watched as his ball veered off course a bit.
I shook my head. “Maybe the green is cursed.”
Desmond shot the golf ball just to his right, sending it into the middle of the fairway. He’d set himself up for a good second shot, and he looked just a bit proud.
“Sean’s jinxed our game,” Jonah insisted, throwing his hands up in the air while Desmond laughed his heart out at the idea.
Jonah’s phone rang, and he stepped aside to answer it. Putting it away, he began walking back to us, a frown on his face.
“Giving your team a hard time again?” I asked in a wry voice.
Jonah shook his head. “Don’t know what you’re on about,” he said, pocketing his phone. “I only needed the job done right. How hard can it be to do a bug fix that solveseverythingwithout breaking five other things?”
I looked through my golf clubs and picked out a seven iron for my next swing. “Well, it depends on how much time you gave them. A week to get it done?”
The three of us stared at Jonah, who took a swing at the ball. The ball sailed gracefully through the air, and it landed on thegreen and bounced a few times before stopping next to the hole. Jonah always pushed boundaries, and this time, he’d reached the green sooner than expected.
Jonah turned to me. “Fifty minutes,” he said finally. “It can’t be that hard, really.”
Desmond snorted while the rest of us walked over to our golf carts. “If you don’t treat them better, you’ll lose half your staff soon, Jonah. Good employees are very hard to come by.”
Speaking of …
“I will need to push off soon, guys,” I said while the others looked up in surprise.
“An early push-off? Tell me, Sean, who’s the new woman?” Desmond asked, a knowing smile on his face.
I groaned. Now that Desmond had found Ava again and was happier than I’d ever seen him, he thought he knew everything about why I wanted to end a game early. It was infuriating.
“A woman?” Jonah demanded, spinning around to face me. “Is she why you skipped last week’s meeting?”
I raised my eyebrows as I got into my cart. “I was at last week’s meeting,” I pointed out. “All ten minutes.”
“Perhaps you were physically present, but it sure seemed like you were elsewhere.” Jonah walked up to me with a wicked grin.
I grabbed Jonah’s head in a mock tussle, and Alex laughed.
“Just for that joke, next time, you’re buying lunch,” I announced as I let go.
50
SEAN
Acouple of happy weeks passed, and I was a frequent visitor at Chloe’s apartment. I’d spent two Sundays with Henry while Chloe began her PMP certification course.