This wasn’tjusta game.
“Okay,” I said slowly as I grabbed a putter, trying not to look at him. “Is this a date now?”
Archie handed me a pink golf ball like it was a peace offering. “Yeah. It’s a date.”
I looked up sharply.
“But—” he held up a hand, “there’s no pressure. You don’t owe me anything. You don’t even have to win. Youwill, because you always cheat on the gator hole, but still.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That’s slander.”
“That’s fact.”
I took the ball and stepped onto the first green. “You don’t evenlikemini golf.”
He hesitated. “Yeah, I know.”
I’d meant it as a joke, but his response made me turn. “Wait, seriously?”
“Ihateit,” he said, dragging a hand through his hair, sheepish. “Always have. It’s sticky and loud, and the clubs are too short and the balls don’t roll straight. I swear the turf on hole five is cursed.”
“So why—” I started, then stopped, blinking.
Archie shrugged. “Becauseyoulove it. You light up every time we come here. You get competitive and trash talk the windmill and yell at the rubber duck mascot. It’s worth it.”
I just stared at him, golf club limp in my hand.
He smiled again—but this time, it was soft. Gentle. “You get this look when you play. Like nothing else matters. Not school, not your mom, not… any of the guys. Just you and this ridiculous pink ball and victory.”
My throat felt too small. “Archie…”
“You don’t have to say anything,” he added quickly. “I told you, no pressure. But let me have this. Let me make you laugh today. Let me watch you beat the hell out of that gator again. That’s all I want.”
God help me, I felt the laugh bubble up. Because this? This wassoArchie.
All bravado and bad plans and casually dropping confessions like grenades.
So I tapped the ball into place and looked him dead in the eye.
“I’m going to destroy you.”
His grin was full of teeth. “There she is.”
When I took the first swing—way too hard, sending the ball ricocheting off the side wall and into a plastic flamingo—Ididlaugh. Loud and unfiltered. The kind that came from somewhere I hadn’t touched in weeks.
And Archie? He laughed, too.
Even if hedidgroan when I sank a hole-in-one on number three and did a smug little dance in celebration.
And maybe—just maybe—this date wasn’t about golf.
Maybe it was about givingmesomething I hadn’t known I needed. Somethingheneeded.
Something real.
We played three full rounds, after I won the first game and he won the second. Third was the tie-breaker. I kicked his ass.
The sun was down by the time Archie pulled into the school parking lot, his headlights cutting across the empty rows like searchlights. The place looked strange in the dark—quiet, abandoned, like a memory already fading.
