Tiffany’s next golf student wasn’t scheduled for another hour. One of her high school students, Latoya Miller, needed a beginning of the season tune-up. Latoya was on the varsity golf team at the local public high school, Newcastle Free Academy, and had a decent chance of winning a college scholarship. Tiffany coached ten promising NFA golf team members for free.
But in the meantime, Tiffany had an hour to herself, which meant she could work on her own game.
Her bag and clubs were right where she’d left them on the driving range. She pulled out her nine-iron, a short-range club, and started smacking balls at the red flag waving in the breeze to calibrate it.
Gentle grip, solid feet. Swing easy, hit hard.
She twisted in her backswing and released the club, throwing the clubhead through the air like an Olympic athlete whipping the hammer in the hammer throw.
Ping.
Her ball soared through the air, landed in the white-lined circle she’d painted that morning, rolling within a few inches of the flag.
When she finished her swing, her left knee ached again, even with the support of the long brace from her thigh to her calf.
She repressed a grimace and herded the next golf ball into position with the head of her golf club.
Tiffany had picked a tee area near the middle of the line of tees on the driving range. Other golfers were swinging in their designated spots with their boxes of golf balls. Because Newcastle Golf Club was a private club, in that golfers or families bought unlimited memberships for the entire season, nobody had to hike over to the pro shop to buy buckets of balls to hit on the range. Range balls were included.
However, that meant the range attendants needed to keep the boxes full of balls that had been retrieved from the driving range, and like most of the low-level positions, they slacked off sometimes. Half of Tiffany’s job was making sure other people did their jobs.
Because management.
She smacked balls down the range, minding her own business and playing her own game. Sometimes she helped the club members with minor adjustments, but for the most part, they were just working on their games, too. She wasn’t obligated to constantly be giving free golf lessons.
So she had her eyes on her ball and was paying attention to her results, which must have been why she didn’t see the tall, athletic form of Jericho Parr step into the driving range stall right in front of her until she heard the hard crack of him slamming a ball with his driver.
Speaking of attendants in low-level positions slacking off when they should be working, Tiffany asked him, “Hey, Venture Capital, aren’t you supposed to be helping our senior members get their clubs out of the bag room?”
Jericho was standing with his long legs spread, bent slightly from the waist in preparation to swing the golf club. Thus, Tiffany had a front-row view of his spectacular ass, lean and muscular under his clinging golf pants. His hips were narrow, and his waist was tight under his red staff shirt.
When he heard her speak, he turned his head to the side without changing his stance, bringing his square jaw and strong cheekbones into view. “My shift is over.”
Tiffany glanced at her watch, which read two-fifteen. “It’s the middle of the afternoon shift. Were you scheduled for eight to twelve or noon to four? Anyway, attendants aren’t allowed on the practice facilities until the twilight hours, which start at five o’clock. Didn’t anybody give you an orientation?”
Jericho’s head swiveled, and he must have seen Mr. Kowalski striding down the line of tee boxes at the same time Tiffany had. Jericho called out to the head pro, “It’s okay if I hit a few balls here, right?”
Tiffany looked down to hide her smile because Head Pro Kowalski was even more of a stickler for the rules than she was, and she had grown up a military brat.
Mr. Kowalski clapped Jericho on the shoulder as he went by. “Absolutely! Hit as many as you want. How do you like our driving range?”
Tiffany’s jaw dropped, but she recovered and closed it so quickly that her teeth clapped together.
Jericho told Mr. Kowalski, “I like your practice facilities. It’s nice to be able to use my driver on the range. So many ranges are only a few hundred yards.”
To punctuate his statement, Jericho Parr hauled back and slammed another ball down the range, landing it at somewhere close to three hundred yards, an excellent drive for an amateur golfer.
Okay, Tiffany did not know what was going on here, but she did not like attendants thinking they had the run of the practice facilities. The members would not appreciate being crowded out of the driving range and putting greens by a bunch of slacking bag boys and range guys. “Are you sure about that, Mr. Kowalski?”
“Of course,” Kowalski boomed with his eyes squinched shut and surrounded by weathered wrinkles. “We’re honored to have Mr. Parr with us.”
None of this made any sense. “Whatever you say, Coach.”
Kowalski had coached the NFA varsity golf team when Tiffany had been on the varsity roster. Sometimes she trotted out the title because it always made him smile, and it worked again that sunny afternoon, too. A gold tooth glinted at the very corner of one side of his grin as he leaned his head to talk to Jericho even though he was looking at her. “I see you’ve met my assistant pro, Ms. Tiffany Jones.”
Jericho smacked another ball far down the fairway, but the ping the clubhead made at connection was a little tinny. The ball curved left, its flight somewhere between a fade and a hook. “I have, indeed.”
“We’re lucky to have her. Tiffany won a full-ride golf scholarship to Tennessee State right out of high school and got her business administration degree with a 4.0 grade-point average.”
Tiffany picked her driver out of her bag and bent over to tee up a range ball. Heck yes, she had.
Jericho half-turned to glance at her out of the corner of his eye and grinned. From that angle, his jaw cut an even sharper square. “Oh, really? Why didn’t you go on for your MBA?”
She coiled her backswing and whipped the club, connecting hard with the golf ball and launching it down the fairway. The brace bit into her skin, and her knee ached. Her ball didn’t go quite as far as Jericho’s, but it landed about two-seventy dead-center, and then it bounced and tapped the flagstick she’d aimed at. “I made different decisions.”
“How come?” he asked, peering at her.
Tiffany did not need this second-career bag boy critiquing her life choices. “Coach?”
Kowalski clapped Jericho Parr on the shoulder. “I’ll see you around, Jericho. Have a good afternoon.”
He walked away.
Jericho raised one hand, pink palm out. “Sorry about the interrogation. It’s none of my business. To answer your question, no, I didn’t get a proper orientation. I just found myself in the bag room, and then a pretty girl ordered me to carry bags for people.”
Pretty girl?
Tiffany paused, allowing the fluster from this tall, hot man’s compliment to drain away. “I’m your boss, not a pretty girl.”
Jericho bit his lip as he surveyed her, and then he said, “Right. Sorry about that, boss.”
She didn’t detect sarcasm in Jericho’s tone, but it must have been there. Tiffany was just getting ready to launch a retort that would have blistered his white butt when he asked, “So, since I didn’t get a proper orientation, why don’t you show me around the club and tell me what’s really going on around here?”