“Did you slip him an edible?” Mackenzie whispers to Brooks. “He’s as funny as you on magic brownies.”

Cooper hands Tillie Jean a glowing ball and mutters something to her.

She shoves him away. “Ha. You just don’t want to get beat by your baby sister.”

“You’re my baby sister.” I try to lift a finger but it’s full of golf club, which means I lift the club and almost take out a shrubbery. Shrubbery. Heh. That’s a good word. “Annoying. And younger. And annoying. And younger. And hot. Because I’m hot. So my sister’s hot.”

Cooper claps me on the back. “Pick your hole, man. You’re gonna kick TJ’s ass. I can feel it.”

“I’m hot.”

“You usually are,” Tillie Jean mutters.

Fuck.

Fuuuuuuck. I’m really hot. This shirt is hot. Pants too.

“Here we go,” Brooks says.

“Hey, Max, bud, we have some decency laws here in Shipwreck.” The other woman—oh, it’s Georgia, Grady’s baker—holds my shirt out to me.

I look down, and I grin. No wonder I feel better. Shirt’s all gone. “Ooh, daddy looks good.” I pump one pec, then the other, making my chest dance.

Robinson cracks up. Brooks is howling. So I reach for the button on my jeans.

Tillie Jean grabs my hand. “C’mon, Max. I have a hole you’ll love.”

“I don’t like your holes, Tillie Jean. You’re my sister.”

“Right? I don’t like your holes either.”

She’s still holding my hand—gripping it, really—and her hand is warm and soft and strong and everything a good hand should be. I stumble over the flat ground, and that’s bad, Max.

Bad Max.

Can’t wipe out Tillie Jean.

But she’s like a tree.

Deep roots.

Steadies me. Peers up at me. Her hands on my skin. “You’re only pretty because I’m hot,” I tell her. “Good genes runses in the familieses.”

She smiles. “You’re a mess.”

“You’re a mess,” I mimic.

Her face twists comically.

I grin. “Heh. Made you tongue-tied. Three hamburgers and a garden gnome say I can get a hole in one on this hole.”

I point, and I have no idea if I’m actually pointing at a hole.

Probably not, considering she doubles over laughing.

No, that’s a hole.

“You think you can get a hole-in-one on the hurricane hole?” she asks.

“I’m a winner, baby. Sister. Baby sister.”

“You are seriously in some kind of mood tonight, aren’t you?”

I poke her shirt. It’s a good shirt. I like it.

It has Fearlessly Me scrawled across her boobage under her jacket that’s hanging open.

I like her boobage. Good boobage clearly runs in my family.

“I,” I tell her, “am also meerlessly fee.”

“Is someone recording this?” Georgia whispers behind me.

“Hurricane me to the point,” I order.

Tillie Jean grips me by the shoulders, turns, and gives me a gentle shove, and whoa.

Look at that.

I was already at the hurricane hole.

“How much did he have to drink?” she whispers to Cooper.

“Two beers,” he whispers back.

“And a tot of shequila,” Robinson adds.

“Shequila!” I crow.

God, that’s funny. Robby’s a funny kid. I’m a funny kid. I kick ass at minigolf. Tillie Jean has an awesome ass.

“Okay, Growly Bear,” TJ says. “Take your shot.”

“You got it, Trouble Jean. I’mma gonna kick your booty to there and back.” I swing my club, hit my ball, and I miss.

Wait.

What? “Why do I have two balls?”

“Because only real men have three,” Brooks replies.

I snicker.

Cooper and Robinson snicker.

Tillie Jean grabs me by the hand and guides me to aim at the other ball, and huh.

That one connects.

But it doesn’t go very far.

“Are you sure you want to play me?” she asks.

“Oh, yeah, baby. Baby shister. I’m gonna play you so good.”

She lines up and takes aim with her glow-in-the-dark pink ball—heh, just like her favorite glitter, and her bedroom. I like her pink bedroom.

I whack off while I’m thinking about her pink bedroom.

Shh.

Don’t tell sober Max I admitted that.

Ping.

Her fuzzy pink ball sails into the shipwrecked ship, shoots out the other side, bounces off the wall, dips into the swirly whirly of death, shoots out onto the lower level, bounces around the corner, and then plops right into the hole.

“What the fuck?” Cooper yelps while Georgia and Mackenzie explode in cheers. “Tillie Jean. Are you sharking us? You out here all summer practicing? Not. Fair.”

“Not fair,” she mimics back to him with a grin.

“Foul,” I call.

“Holes in one are not fouls, big brother. But nice try.”

“Yep. And now you have to do her laundry for a week for trying to cheat,” Georgia adds, like Shipwreck has rules about punishments for cheating.

“He is not touching her laundry,” Cooper growls.

“Oh, please.” Georgia gives him a playful shove. “Get over yourself, Rock.”

“No one touches my sister’s underwear.”

Tillie Jean laughs. “You are such an ass when you’re drunk.”

My whole body goes stiff.

Not loose. Not happy. Not anything other than drunk ass. She’s right. Cooper’s drunk.

But more—I’m drunk.

I’m drunk. And acting like a fool.

Like an ass.

I drop my club. Need to get home.

Now.

And throw up.

Alone.

“Max?” Tillie Jean calls.

She was right there, but now I’m moving, and she’s not there, and what the fuck is this pirate ship doing in my way?

“This way, dude.” Cooper grabs my arm, and I don’t want it to be a lifeline, but it is.

It fucking is.

Because he’s Cooper. And he knows. He knows everything. And he’s still here.

He was here when I went full-on, can’t-breathe, catatonic with a panic attack the night I pitched my first no-hitter not long after I got to Copper Valley—Jesus, the questions—you here to turn the Fireballs around, Max? Max, you carrying the team out of this pit of loserdom all by yourself? How’s it feel to get the biggest win Copper Valley’s ever seen, Mr. Cole?—and he was here when I passed out and he was here when I woke up in the trainer’s room, and he was the guy who drove me to my first therapy appointment with nothing more than a dude, if it was your ankle, you’d go to a doctor. No shame in doing the same for your brain.

I don’t hate Cooper Rock.

I want to be Cooper Rock.

But I never will.

12

Tillie Jean

An ode to coffee on a bright Saturday morning:

Coffee mocha latte

Espresso yum yum yum

Give me hazelnut and French vanilla

To get me through this run