My elbow rests on the polished bartop, head slumped in my hand, as the other swirls my drink with a tiny red straw. I stare dully at the hundred-inch screen above me, showing the weather. It will be sunny and warm all week, every week this summer.
I sigh, sitting back as a man drops into the seat beside me. Smoke and sun-warmed leather. The scent wraps around me, and I have to stop myself from leaning closer.
I shift my drink, eyeing him covertly. Older. Maybe twenty-three, twenty-four. The long-sleeve blue button-down fits him well. Too well. My languid pulse picks up speed. I sit up straight. It’s an old Sigma habit: shoulders back, chin up, always camera-ready.
“You okay if I sit here?” he points to his stool.
It’s open seating today at the Kansas City Country Club. Except for Mrs. Mercer, the senator’s wife. She’s lounging five seats down and flirting shamelessly with the bartender.
I shrug and offer the stranger my hand. “Maddie.”
His grip is warm, and I feel it everywhere.
“Wade.” He smiles. “You’ve been working on that drink a while.”
I lift the glass and drain it, holding his gaze.
His smile widens. “Can I buy you another—?”
“Shirley Temple—and no.” I set the glass down with a small thud. “I’m a month away from my twenty-first, and still it’s all they’ll serve me.”
I glare at the bartender, who polishes the same glass for the third time, trying to avoid Mrs. Mercer’s roaming eye.
“I know a place that’ll serve you.”
I’m painfully aware of how close our legs are, almost touching. He’s here, which means he has money and a family pre-approved by the Kansas City Country Club…and, by default, Sigma Kappa.
Thank God.
“Yeah, I might be up for that.” I lean in close. “Where is this bar, anyway?”
His eyebrows shoot up, then his mouth curves slowly.
Before he can answer, a man in a pristine pink polo storms into the lounge, his face already flushed. He spots us and marches over. “Wade.” His voice booms across the marble floor. Wade turns immediately, sitting up straight.
“There’s dirt on my clubs.”
Wade rises. “Yes, sir. Just let me—” He glances my way.
“I didn’t invite you here to socialize.”
“Five minutes, Mr. Erickson.”
Mr. Erickson’s face darkens to burgundy. “I’m getting a towel. If you’re not out there when I get back, you can kiss your tip goodbye.”
I raise my eyebrows, turning away. “You don’t…belong to the club.”
I close my eyes for a moment and bite my lip. Something drops inside me. Of course.
“Mr. Erickson likes to dig at the turf after a bad shot. It pays the bills. I’m in the fine arts program at KU.”
My heart sinks lower. Art school. Poor now, poor always. I’m already doing the math. Impossible.
“Hey, it’s alright,” He says.
I glance toward him, and his cuffs are riding up. I catch black ink at his wrists, disappearing beneath his sleeves. Before I can stop myself, I’m imagining what they look like underneath. Where they go. What they’d feel like under my fingers.
“No, yeah, you should go.” I drop my eyes.
He leans in. “Not your type?”
“It’s not like that.” But my voice wavers.
He smirks.
“Ok, fine. Maybe it is like that.” I slap my hand down on my clutch and slide it toward me as I stand. “But I’m a Sigma Kappa. Do you have any idea what that means?”
He holds back a smile. “That you get to wear tiaras?”
I scoff. “It means I have standards to uphold. We don’t wear black, we don’t frown in photos—And we definitely don’t date tatted-up art students.” Heat floods my cheeks. “You have no idea what my sisters would do if they saw me with you.”
He lifts his hands in surrender. His smirk, a little too pleased with himself.
I walk past him.
“Who said anyone has to know?” he says.
I turn, gaping at him.
He steps closer, and I have to tip my chin up to meet his eyes. My eyes dart to Mrs. Mercer, then back.
“Fifteen minutes. Parking lot. My bike.” His eyes are on my lips. “Your choice, Maddie.” There’s maybe an inch between his hand and my waist. Funny how one inch can erase years of careful calculations.
Then he walks away, taking all that certainty with him.
He’s at the door leading out to the golf range when I find my voice. “I can’t,” I call out.
He lifts a hand without turning back.
I slump back onto my stool, heart racing.
Then I catch Mrs. Mercer watching me in the bar mirror. She shakes her head.
She looks so sad. So lonely. A woman who spent her whole life doing the right thing, and now she’s flirting with a disinterested bartender. My stomach clenches, and I suddenly wonder if I’m getting a glimpse of Maddie—the latter years.
I stare at my empty glass. At the screen showing the weather for a summer that will never change. Mrs. Mercer, studying the bartender’s behind.
I twist the gold chain around my neck, clutching the sigma pendant between my fingers, then let it drop against my collar. I stand.
“Bathroom,” I mutter towards Mrs. Mercer, who gives me a knowing smile as I scurry down a hallway and through a side door leading out to the parking lot.
Ten minutes later, Wade exits the club, head down, counting bills.
Ten feet away, he looks up and sees me, one hip resting against his bike. He stops, lets out a quiet breath. Then his mouth lifts into a smile as he continues his easy gait toward me.
“How’d it go?” I ask, tracing the edge of his helmet.
He stops in front of me. “He gave me two hundred. Should have been five. Said I kept him waiting.” He eyes me.
I shift, looking down at my heels. “Wade—” I raise a hand. “Give me five minutes. He’ll pay you.”
“Maddie—”
“Trust me. Men like Mr. Erickson are easy to handle.”
I take a step toward the country club, but he grabs my arm, gently, holding me back.
He shakes his head, squinting, “I don’t care about the money.”
My gaze snaps to his. Nobody has ever lost money and looked at me like that. Not my father, purple-faced and cussing over a scratch I made on his Porsche. Not my mom, tallying how much missing work for my recitals cost her.
Before I know what I’m doing, I kiss him.
His hand slides to the back of my neck, fingers in my hair. He pulls me closer, deeper, and for once, I’m not doing the math.
He lets me go too soon, then swings his leg over the bike and settles in, looking back at me. “Hold on tight.”
Thunder rolls somewhere beyond the trees.
“They were wrong.”
“What’s that?” he asks.
The corner of my mouth curves up. “Nothing.”
I climb on and lock my arms around his waist.
The engine roars to life, and we’re gone.