A vision of long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, full pink lips, and a killer body with a killer attitude to go with it flashes through my mind.
My best friend before Bodhi.
I haven’t seen her in person in almost three years.
I haven’t spoken to her in two, and I’m pretty sure she hates my guts.
“You’re not just getting sprinkles for winners tonight; you’re getting a whole fucking sundae, bro!” Bodhi cheers as I zoom past the empty 8th hole. “I thought finally watching you tell off your dad was the highlight of my life, but I was wrong. Just the anticipation of what Birdie Bennett will do to you when you step foot off the ferry onto Summersweet Island brings me enough joy to last me into eternity.”
CHAPTER 2
Birdie
“I like big putts and I cannot lie.”
“…and then you type in their name, confirm their scheduled tee time with them again, and click on Okay to lock it in.”
Handing the iPad back to Chris, a junior at the local high school who just started working at Summersweet Island Golf Course today—or SIG as the locals call it—he fiddles around in the scheduling app we use for a few seconds before looking at me.
“Thanks a lot for your help training me, Ms. Bennett, I know you’re really busy. And thanks again for putting in a good word to get me this job. I’ve still got a ton of money I need to save for college, and tutoring doesn’t pay enough.”
Nodding and waving to a golfer as the bell chimes above the door when he exits the pro shop, I quickly finish loading the cash drawer with a stack of one-dollar bills before slamming it closed.
“I’ve told you a million times, call me Birdie. Ms. Bennett makes me feel old,” I remind the blond, lanky teenager who’s almost a foot taller than me. They seem to be growing teenagers at an alarming rate these days. “I started working here when I was in high school too, and I’m glad I could help. My sister told me you’ve done a great job tutoring Owen in math the last few months, so I owed you one anyway on her behalf.”
I return Chris’s smile, even though that particular facial expression hurts my face these days.
“I just know you’re really busy, what with this being your first day back to work from your two-week vacation and all. I bet it was awesome. I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii.”
You and me both, kid.
I smother a groan of misery with a cough when I am literally saved by the bell. The chime above the door dings again, and one of our regulars walks in, grabbing a ten-pack of tees from the box on the counter and holding them up in the air.
“Hey, Birdie, you’re back! Just need a bag of these and two waters. How was vacation? You’re not very tan,” Mark, the owner of Summersweet Grocery, chuckles while I hide my grimace by turning away from him to walk over to the cooler and grab his waters.
It’s the middle of summer on an island, and I’m the clubhouse manager at a golf course. Even though I spend a lot of time inside, I sometimes spend more of it outside. Of course, I’m wearing a white, short-sleeved fitted tee with a black and white SIG logo on it, and a short black golf skirt with a signature white checkmark on the hip. I should have worn a snowsuit. I basically took out a billboard that proclaims I did not spend the last fourteen days lying on a sandy beach, drinking out of coconuts, and getting a golden tan. I look like I spent the last two weeks under the stairs with Harry Potter.
Summersweet Island, just off the coast of Virginia, is not large by any means. If you don’t know them personally or haven’t at least heard of everyone on this island, you haven’t been here long enough. And by long enough, I’m saying five days. Seven, tops, before everyone is in your business and knows everything about you. I love it for that, and I hate it for that equally, but I could never imagine living anywhere else.
By some miracle, Mark’s cell phone rings before I can come up with something to say about my… vacation. Maybe it’s not a miracle. Maybe it’s the karma gods smiling down on me after the complete and utter bullshit I’ve been through recently. Whatever it is, Mark continues with his phone call as I set the waters down on the counter in front of him. Chris cashes him out like a pro after my training session with him, and Mark grabs everything and leaves with a smile and a nod, his phone tucked between his cheek and shoulder, and not another word about my lack of a tan. Thank God.
I got here at five in the morning before the course opened, hoping I could get caught up on work before my coworkers and the golfers started arriving. I wanted time to get my head in order, since clearly I did nothing but turn my brain into mush the last two weeks of hiding out, instead of planning what I was going to tell everyone when I got back to work. On the verge of getting a huge promotion I’ve been working toward for months, I don’t have time for a mushy brain.
The revolving door of a golf course pro shop at nine in the morning on a Saturday makes me want to stab something sharp and rusty into the chime when, as soon as Mark is gone, the door opens right back up and someone else walks in.
Oh no.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Birdie Bennett, home from her two-week long vacation from… where was it you went again?”
The white mustache on the seventy-year-old, partially balding man standing on the other side of the counter twitches in amusement, even though I don’t think he’s ever fully smiled a day in his life.
“Hawaii,” I mutter, answering his ridiculous question through clenched teeth, since he knows damn well where my vacation was supposed to be and also that I did not go.
He is the only person on this island who knows this information, and he was sworn to secrecy. There was a handshake and money exchanged. I also had to agree to cook him five dinners and seven breakfasts for his silence, the traitor.
“Looking a little pale for fourteen days in a place like that, aren’t ya?”
That damn bushy white mustache twitches again, and when I see Chris open his mouth out the corner of my eye, probably to ask about my pasty skin as well, I put an end to the old man’s fun so I can introduce Chris. His family just moved to Summersweet a few months ago so he hasn’t had the pleasure of Murphy’s company until now.
“Chris, this is Murphy Swallow. Everyone calls him Murphy or Murph. He’s been working here since the dinosaurs roamed the earth, so he knows everything. It makes him very, very old, and he frightens easily, but he’s quite smart, especially about SIG,” I tell Chris as I casually rest my arms on the counter and smile at Murphy.
It doesn’t cause me physical pain, since I got that phone call two weeks ago, so that’s a step in the right direction. Teasing Murphy is always a balm to the soul.
“Feel free to ask him anything at all. Anything you need, Murph is your man. I’ll even give you his cell phone number for emergencies.”
The growl from Murphy under his breath as he glares at me almost makes me, dare I say, happy. Murphy doesn’t like teenagers. Or kids. Or babies. Or really any human beings who talk, breathe, blink, or otherwise annoy him. A widower who moved to Summersweet Island and into the house next door to us when I was in elementary school, Murphy was the neighborhood curmudgeon who wouldn’t toss your balls back over the fence when you accidentally hit them into his yard. He would hoard them like a troll amassing gold coins under a bridge, cackling at us over the fence while holding up his laundry basket filled with our baseballs, kick balls, footballs, and golf balls, as we tossed around a rock because he had all our damn toys.