Snatching the phone out of his hand, much like I did with his water bottle earlier, I cut off the video and toss his phone into the cubby under the dashboard with my own.
Bodhi sighs and turns his head to look at me. “I know you’re well aware of how much I enjoyed what happened here today, since I’ve been telling you for years if you kept bottling things up, you were going to explode one day. But seriously, man. What the fuck happened? You’ve never come in dead-last. And you haven’t placed anywhere below third except for that one time two years ago when—”
“Don’t,” I cut him off, shooting a glare in his direction.
“Right. We don’t talk about that qualifier you lost two years ago, or why you lost it, or who made you lose it, because it was a blip on the radar, and that tournament didn’t count for anything. This, my friend, was not a blip on the radar.”
I sigh in annoyance, because I already know how significantly I messed everything up today.
“Can we talk about what happened at the turn to the back nine now?” Bodhi asks after a few quiet minutes of us both just silently staring out at the setting sun and listening to the crashing waves in the distance.
I was having one of the best days of golfing in weeks. Six under par going into the back nine, and all I had to do was keep up the momentum, keep my head in the game, and I would’ve had this win in the palm of my hand. And then my dad decided to get in my ear when I switched out my driver for my wedge. My shot had landed right at the edge of the fairway by the spectator rope and entirely too close to where my dad was standing. It made it pretty easy for him to whisper his bullshit at me while my back was to him and I was trying to decide what to do with my shot. My game went downhill fast after that. Hearing his constant nagging and annoying comments every time I needed to go near the spectator rope, which was often since all my fucking shots went into the rough after that, just made things worse. When one of my shots splashed right into the center of the water hazard on the last hole—something I haven’t done since high school—my dad wouldn’t shut up about how epically I screwed up today. I completely lost my composure for the first time in my career.
“Dale Campbell decided the 10th hole was the best time to tell me, ‘Don’t mess anything up today. Be on your best behavior, and for God’s sake, smile more. The reality show will be using footage from today for the pilot episode.’”
Bodhi’s mouth drops open in shock just as widely as it did when I broke my club in half.
“That dick,” he mutters. “I was busy talking to one of the other caddies a few feet away; otherwise, I would have punched him in the mouth for you. You told him no about the reality show. Many times. Over several months and very loudly with a lot of swearing.”
“I know. It’s bad enough I haven’t been able to go out in public without cameras following me around in years. I don’t need one inside watching me eat, sleep, train, watch Netflix in my underwear, shit with the door open, or have sex.”
Bodhi snorts.
“Fuck off. I have sex,” I mutter, crossing my arms in front of me.
“Okay, sure.” He laughs again.
“Shut up. It happens.”
“Yep, gotcha.”
“Sometimes. Every once in a while….” I trail off, trying to remember the last time I had a day off or even enough hours to myself where I had the energy to do anything other than sleep or make mental lists of all the reasons why I hated my life.
The only sex I’ve been having lately involves my hand and fantasies of the blip I’ve banned us from ever discussing.
“I can’t believe he did that to you in the middle of one of the biggest tournaments of the summer. No wonder you told him to eat your shit. No one else’s shit would do in a situation like this.”
Bodhi shakes his head, and the serious look on his face makes me laugh. Some of the panic starts to slip away when he speaks again.
“What do you want to do?”
For the first time since I woke up this morning, my mind goes completely blank. No one’s ever asked me that question before. Not about anything serious. And I know Bodhi is dead serious, and he’s not just talking about what I want to do for dinner when we get off the green. He’s asking me what I want to do with my life.
I’ve never been given any other option besides golf. I was born with a natural talent that I’ve been told over and over again I should be grateful for. It’s allowed me to travel the world, it’s provided me with more opportunities than I could have imagined, and I’ve made more money than I ever dreamed. And I’m miserable. I’ve been miserable since the first time a camera was aimed in my direction and I couldn’t just play golf and enjoy the game. It became a job, a chore, something I had to do instead of something I loved doing. I became a “yes man” to everything my dad demanded of me, because I was all he had in the world, and I felt like it was my job to fill all the voids in his life and do whatever I could to make him happy.
He never asked me what I wanted. He never cared about the voids in my life or what made me happy. He just ordered, and decided, and I kept my mouth shut and my head down, and I played the fucking game.
“I can’t lose my endorsements. I know that,” I finally speak quietly. “I don’t know how to do anything else. I’m not qualified for anything else. Golf is all I know. Unless I want to go broke while I figure shit out, I have to fix that at least.”
“Then we’ll fix that.” Bodhi nods like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
“I fired my dad as my manager. And I fired my agent and my publicist, because he hired them and they do whatever he demands without even consulting me. What the hell do I even do now? Where do I go?”
It’s all fun and games when you finally have all the time and freedom in the world, until you suddenly realize you have absolutely nowhere to go and you just embarrassed and fired the only family member you have in front of the entire world. Sure, I have a few rental properties in different locations where I spend the most time, but I’ve never been in one place long enough to make them into homes. There’s only one place that comes to mind every time I think of the word home.
“You know damn well where you need to go to lick your wounds,” Bodhi states, reading my mind. “Everyone on that island loves you, is protective of you, and will be happy to have the prodigal son return while you figure things out.”
Now it’s my turn to snort as I turn the key to start up the golf cart, figuring the clubhouse has probably cleared out by now, and I can sneak out of here without anyone seeing me or pushing a camera in my face, asking me how I feel about what happened today.
“Not everyone on that island loves me,” I remind him, making a U-turn and heading toward the cart path.
“I thought we weren’t allowed to talk about the person who has to do with the blip. You’ve been barking at me and growling at me for two years if I even dare think about the person who has to do with the blip. Now we’re just gonna bring her up all willy-nilly?” Bodhi shouts out a curse, and his hands fly up to grab onto the roll bars when he almost flies out of the side of the golf cart when I accidentally take a turn on the path a little too sharp and fast.
“Well, considering we just now decided where I should go, and the blip lives on that island, it looks like we’re gonna have to talk about her at some point.”