“Apparently, I’m watching you really suck at golf, Campbell.”
I don’t like her use of my last name, but I deserve it, and I also deserve the tiny snort from the official still standing a foot away from me.
“Also, free hot dogs.”
Birdie shrugs, and I just shake my head at her with a smile as she brings a hot dog up to her mouth with just ketchup on it in a paper wrapper, taking a bite out of it.
My palms are sweating, and my heart is thundering in my chest, and I know I need to decide what the hell I’m going to do with my shot, but all I can do is stand here staring at Birdie casually eating a hot dog. She wipes her mouth off with a napkin in her other hand as Bodhi comes up next to me and hands me my 7-iron.
“You’re still 230 yards away from the pin and buried under a cypress. Play the 7-iron off your back foot and get the ball at least 50 yards closer to the green with the 10mph tailwind. Hey, Birdie, it’s about time you got here.”
I should have known this was Bodhi’s doing, and now him spending all morning on his phone makes sense.
“My flight was delayed twice,” Birdie answers him before pointing her hot dog in my direction. “Chop-chop. I didn’t fly almost three thousand miles overnight sitting next to a man who smelled like onions and ate a tuna fish sandwich at four in the morning to watch you play like shit for the first time at one of these things. You’re an asshole for never asking me to come with you. I just want you to know that.”
“I know,” I quickly tell her, gripping my 9-iron tightly in my fist, wishing I could go to her and wrap my arms around her, but there are still people and cameras watching from a distance. And even though she’s here, I don’t know how she’d feel about a bunch of PDA on national television. “I’m an idiot. I’m sorry.”
Birdie sighs, cocking her head to the side.
“I’ve been in love with you since the day I met you. Soul-sucking, mind-numbing, can’t breathe or think straight in love with you for fifteen years. Not two years, not two months, not two weeks. Fifteen years.”
The blood is rushing through my ears so loudly I’m surprised I can hear the words coming out of her mouth, but I do. I hear them, and I soak them up, and I almost want to laugh and call her a liar, but I can see it written all over her face, and I don’t know how in the hell I never saw it before.
“Birdie…” I choke out, the only thing I can manage to say when she smiles at me with that full, beautiful, megawatt Birdie smile with the dimple.
“I think that deserves a little better than last place,” she finishes. “Now, I’m sure this lovely gentleman would like you to get your ass moving before he gets fired for you taking so long.”
Birdie smiles at the official standing next to me, and he just smiles at both of us.
“No worries, ma’am. This is the most exciting thing to happen to me at work ever. It can get very boring out here.”
“Word, man,” Bodhi agrees from the other side of me, giving the official a nod.
“Go kick some ass, Palmer,” Birdie tells me with another big smile, my heart finally thumping in my chest happily instead of in a panic before she jerks her chin back behind me and takes another bite out of her hot dog as she starts stepping back to move over by the other spectators, basically telling me to get back to work.
So I do. Because the woman I love and who loves me right back is going to be standing behind the spectator rope, inhaling free hot dogs and cheering me on. I step up to my ball and line up my club, picturing Birdie’s face when she told me she loved me.
Birdie…
Birdie…
Birdie…All I have to do is make this ten-foot putt. I can do this damn thing in my sleep.
My palms sweat around the grip of my putter, and I take a second to shake each one out, wrapping my hands back around the rubber and taking a few deep breaths. With a quick glance out the corner of my eye under the shady brim of my hat, I see Birdie standing about twenty feet away and off to the side behind where Bodhi stands next to my bag. Her stomach is pressed right up against the rope, and both of her hands are covering her mouth and nose in the prayer position. Her body doesn’t move an inch, and I know she’s holding her breath, just like she’s done with every shot I’ve made when I’ve snuck a peek at her, reassuring myself it wasn’t a dream and she’s still here loving me and supporting me.