Kiss My Putt (Summersweet Island 1)

It’s absolute heaven to me.

As soon as we got off the ferry while the sun started to go down, Bodhi headed to the public beach so he could hit on women packing up their beach equipment for the day by offering to help them carry it. I’ve seen it happen so many times over the years, and seen it work so many times over the years, that I have absolutely no desire to witness it again. Instead, I slowly make my way up toward Summersweet Island Golf Course, taking in the old familiar sights I hadn’t realized just how much I missed until now.

Shaped like a bean someone plopped down into the Atlantic a few miles off the coast of Virginia, Summersweet Island is around four square miles, has about 700 year-round residents, and has two main roads: Ocean Drive that I’m currently on, which takes you vertically up the middle of the shortest length of the island east to west, and Summersweet Lane, crossing perpendicularly in the middle of Ocean Drive, taking you across the longest length of the island from north to south.

Ocean Drive will take you from the ferry dock—golf cart and bike rentals and public beach down on the lower west bank—to the golf course and the one “fancy” hotel on the other side of the island up on the east bank. Summersweet Lane’s north and south banks are for the permanent residents and where the homes, long-term cottage rentals, school, vet clinic, hospital, and other residential necessities are located. The small stretch of Summersweet Lane right smack in the middle of the island is what everyone considers downtown. That’s where you’ll find three bars, one diner, one pizza place, one Italian restaurant, the best ice cream stand in the entire world, the grocery store, three small motels, short-term cottage rentals, and a handful of other tourist spots and places for the locals to hangout, unwind, or grab provisions until they can get to the mainland or get a delivery.

Not wanting to chance being recognized as soon as I got off the ferry, whether by a local or a tourist who’s a fan, Bodhi and I have been staying over on the mainland, hunkered down in a hotel room for the last week since we got here, so I could make arrangements with Greg before I did anything else. Just as Bodhi predicted, Greg was more than thrilled to hear I was coming home for a while. As soon as he called it that in regards to me, I knew I was making the right decision.

He was shocked I wanted a job at the course, and I explained to him about my endorsements drying up and how it would give me something to do that paid while I figured out how to get my public image back in tip-top shape. Since Greg had seen what happened live from the comfort of his living room where he wondered if his wife had roofied the whiskey he’d been sipping, he understood my predicament, gave me a temporary job, and told me he might even have a way to fix my public image problem that we could talk about when I got here.

It feels weird as hell walking up Ocean Drive, crossing over Summersweet Lane, and seeing people I know but having to keep my dark sunglasses on my face and a fitted golf hat on my head with the brim pulled down low over my brow so they don’t recognize me. I made Greg swear he would keep things quiet until I got here, and I want to make damn sure it stays quiet and word doesn’t get back to the person I’m heading to see before I can tell her myself first, in person.

Owning absolutely nothing but golf attire, all of it I’ve modeled at some point for the athletic chain I endorsed, I decided to borrow a T-shirt from Bodhi to beef up my pathetic attempt at a disguise instead of wearing one of my signature fitted collarless polo shirts. I threw his white shirt on with a pair of my dark gray golf shorts, since I refused to borrow a pair of his cargo shorts on principle alone. And because I’m six-foot-two compared to his five-foot-nine, have twenty-five more pounds of muscle than he does, and those abominations to the male wardrobe would never fit me. I don’t really feel like a traitor to golf, since Bodhi’s shirt says Golf: The classy way to avoid responsibilities. Only Bodhi wears this shirt ironically, because he honestly thinks people play pro golf to avoid getting a real job. I’ll just look like a regular, average Joe golfer, heading to the course.

I finally look up from the sidewalk when I get to the entrance of SIG and I have to pause and take a moment for it to sink in that I’m really here. I never lived on Summersweet Island aside from the few summer months when I was out of school and my dad rented a cottage. I wasn’t a local; I was a soon-to-be high school freshman with a very promising golf career ahead of him, whose father moved him to Virginia at the start of that summer to attend one of the best private schools on the mainland and train at one of the best golf courses in the country on the island off the coast. SIG and everyone here adopted me, looked out for me, and never once made me feel like I didn’t belong.