Seven Days

Chapter 2: Thursday-3

The resort boasted three restaurants: a luxury steakhouse, a fast-food joint, and a sushi bar. Since they had arrived in Virginia Beach, they had only had fast-food dinners, because the steak house was too expensive and they didn’t like raw fish.

Thursday night wasn’t different. Carlos ordered a bacon hamburger and Reggie had a salad.

“s**t man, you should really vent with some s*x and stop this healthy diet,” the caddie reproached him, noting the contents of his plate.

“Thanks Carl, I love you, too,” Reggie grumbled, opening his can of root beer.

Not that Reggie was a complete health fanatic. He appreciated a good rare steak or a juicy hamburger sometimes. But he was careful with his pennies. His family wasn’t rich and they had all made a lot of sacrifices so he could golf at a professional level. The flights, the hotel stays, the lessons with his coach, and Carlos’s salary always sucked a good part of what he earned from each tournament, but he didn’t want Carlos to worry. So he would rather Carlos believe that some of his choices were dictated by will and not by financial imperatives. Otherwise, knowing how much Carlos cared about him, he would have worried too much.

Soon they finished eating and, when they walked out of the restaurant, the temperature outside was still high. The sun had only just set and Reggie was already a wreck, mentally more than physically. He didn’t think he’d be able to make it to Sunday without going crazy.

“I’m not too tired,” Reggie announced, hands in his trouser pockets. “I’d like to go to the park before heading to bed.”

“I’m going straight back,” Carlos said. “Tomorrow we have an early start.”

They said goodbye in front of one of the side entrances of the resort, the caddie wishing Reggie goodnight with a caring pat on the shoulder, like he often did. Then Reggie wandering off alone.

The resort property was immense, with a park, swimming pools, shopping area, and other amenities. Reggie made his way past the cabanas, which looked out onto the smallest swimming pool and, from there, to the entrance of the fitness area, as day faded into night around him.

He couldn’t say how he had arrived there, exactly. His mind, focused on the events of the last two days, wouldn’t have been able to guide him down the same path a second time. He ended up at the gym, thinking he could probably return to his hotel room from there.

The term “fitness area” wasn’t appropriate. They should have called it “super-luxury personal gym.” It was a big, rectangular room; the two long sides were massive windows in front of which elegant leather armchairs lounged, and the floor was completely covered with parquet. The gym equipment—all latest stuff—was at the far end of the room, while at the front there was a bar consisting of a circular counter and a modern steel fridge with a digital display that required a code to open it.

“Mmm, here is where they keep the Moët and Chandon provisions.” He chuckled.

On this night, the big room was empty. Reggie wandered around, studying each piece of equipment and smiling to himself: this peace and tranquility were exactly what he needed.

He approached one of the windows, to look at the park outside. And there he got a surprise.

Walking hand in hand with a man was Danielle, Russell’s companion. The man wasn’t Russell, but a young black-haired man Reggie didn’t know. And then she even kissed him passionately.

Reggie leapt away from the window, flattening himself against the wall. He felt like an invader on others’ intimacy.

“s**t…” he exclaimed, ruffling his hair.

In a flash, a sense of guilt and confusion wrapped around him like a second skin. He felt an inexplicable solidarity with Russell, which mitigated the sting of their awful meeting the day before.

But then he reasoned that, ultimately, he didn’t know anything about Russell’s private life: they could be an “open” couple, or maybe they had been betraying each other for years. Why worry about a person who didn’t like him?

He shook his shoulders and crossed the room to the bar counter. There he bent down and took a glass from the lower shelf. He put it under the dispenser, then he turned to the fridge and frowned.

Who the hell knows what the combination is?

He started pressing numbers by chance, but none seemed to work. He ended up getting mad with the evil machinery in front of him and angrily pressed the buttons.

“Jesus!” he swore, giving a last little blow to the appliance to underline his anger. “Do you mean there really are Moët and Chandons in here?”

“One, two, three, four,” a voice at his back echoed.

Reggie jumped and turned, a little embarrassed at being caught red-handed. On the other side of the counter, his orange T-shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows and his right hand posed on his hip, stood Russell Lee, looking at Reggie with an inscrutable expression on his face.

“Wha…what?” Mentally Reggie thanked God for the semi-darkness of the room, that hid the redness exploding on his cheeks.

“The fridge combination. It’s one, two, three, four. Banal, I know, but that’s it,” the man explained, licking his lips. “And…no, there isn’t Moët and Chandon, only some bottles of common wine.”

My God, that tongue…

Reggie’s heart started hammering.

What a f*****g idiotic impression I’m making.

“Let me do it,” the man continued. A moment later Russell was in front of the appliance, pushing Reggie aside with his hip.

Reggie trembled. Surviving this wouldn’t be simple.

“The woman serving here during the day gave me the combination. You know, she really likes me,” Russell said, taking fruit from the fridge.

Reggie was so stressed, he didn’t recognize it. Carrots? Mangos? What are they?

“I don’t doubt it,” he spouted, his voice so shrill, it was embarrassing.

What the hell did I say?

Reggie bit his cheek and berated himself.

But Russell misinterpreted his comment, seeing it as only sarcastic.

“I’m not always an asshole like I was yesterday,” Russell commented with another tense smile. He took out a second glass.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Reggie hurried to clarify, agitated.

He saw Russell’s lips twist into a new smile, this time pleased. Okay, maybe he shouldn’t blab out that he thought everybody must surely be attracted to him, but neither would Reggie consider him an asshole anymore.

Yes, Reggie had considered him precisely like that after their meeting at the bar, but if he was now apologizing and gently—no, sensually—making something to drink, Reggie could turn the page and forget about it. He almost felt guilty. Ironic.

Then Russell turned, giving him a drink.

“Let’s settle in there,” he said, indicating the little leather sofa in front of the window from which Reggie had made his thorny discovery.

“Um, okay,” Reggie stuttered. “Thank you.”

He took the glass from the big, strong hands of the English player, and something in his body kicked. He felt a shock—intense and unmistakable—when Russell’s fingers brushed against the back of his hand, a crystal-clear wave of consciousness clarifying the confusion filling his head.

Those fingers were perfect there, exactly there, on his body. There wasn’t another place for them, except for holding a golf iron or driver. His member seemed to agree with that thought, beginning to awaken in his trousers. Reggie did his best to make it go down by thinking unpleasant thoughts.

Russell didn’t seem to feel the same: he’d already turned his back to Reggie as he went to sit on the sofa. Clearly, he wasn’t as agitated as Reggie. Understandable.

With difficulty, Reggie could take some steps—his legs seemed to be caught in cement up to the knees—and reach Russell. But, before sitting down, he gave a quick look over at the windows, just to be sure there weren’t other imminent betrayals outside.

“Something interesting over there?”

Russell’s voice reached him, startling him.

Just your woman smooching another man…

“Uh…no, no, I thought I had seen…seen a…”

He was feeling stupid and embarrassed.

“What? A cat, maybe?” The Englishman chuckled, crossing his long legs.

Correction: he was feeling very stupid, very embarrassed, and he started to feel really, really hot. He decided to stop that unpleasant sensation by avoiding an answer and suddenly sitting down. His gaze looked everywhere restlessly, uncertain where to stop. The window wasn’t a safe place, nor was Russell’s free hand, quietly laying on the sofa cushion a couple of inches from Reggie’s thigh.

For a few minutes his embarrassment remained, keeping them company.

“You did a good job today, young man. You have a good swing.”

Russell’s words were so unexpected that they forced Reggie to turn to him with two big, surprised eyes.

“Did you see me play, Mr. Lee?” he asked as innocently as a child.

“Let’s clarify something here: Mr. Lee was my father,” Russell replied, laughing. “How old do you think I am?”

Oh, Reggie knew how old he was. To tell the truth, he knew Russell Lee’s professional bio so well, he could have participated in a quiz show. He knew everything about him.

But in that moment his mind was completely, utterly empty.

“Sure, I know how old you are,” he replied. “I mean, back home I have your poster above my bed.”

Holy s**t.

Russell chuckled, letting his head fall back as he massaged his chin.

Reggie found him good-looking, he couldn’t help it. He had to be honest with himself. Maybe Russell wasn’t a traditional beauty or a cover model, but that shining look, the proud features, and the affable smile made him simply beautiful in Reggie’s eyes.

“Wow, I should feel flattered,” the man commented in a low and warm voice, characterized by his strong British accent. “And since I’m only thirty-one, call me Russell, okay?”

His idol authorizing him to call him by name. It had to be Christmas.

“Okay, that’s fine Mr.…erm, Russell.”

Russell, Russell, Russell…

Now that he was saying it out loud, addressing Russell directly, the name gained an almost magical sound when it rolled off his tongue.

“Anyway,” he started again, “I saw the highlights on Golf Channel. You’re good. Maybe you just need to be a little more secure in your abilities and believe in yourself more.”

Reggie nodded happily, unable to stop smiling. The memory of the bad meeting at the bar had been completely forgotten now. Then Russell finished his drink and looked out the window towards the Ponderosa pines, which lightly bent in the soft wind now skimming Virginia’s coast.

“You’re here alone…” He clicked his fingers. “Reggie, right?”

The man titled his head a little to look at Reggie from the corner of his eye to see if he had guessed the right name.

“Yes, Reggie. Reggie Weston…” He hesitated. He wasn’t sure how to behave: should he extend his hand, or wait for Russell to make a move? Nervously he turned his glass in his hands. His brain suggested it would be best to avoid any more physical contact for the moment.

“So, nice to meet you, Reggie Weston.” Russell nodded in his direction. He didn’t offer his hand and Reggie felt grateful for that.

“My pleasure, Russell Lee.”

They both laughed and Reggie felt the tension draining away.

“I was saying, are you here alone? At the tournament, I mean.”

“I’m with Carlos Marquez, my caddie.”

“Nobody else? No apprehensive mother who doesn’t want to let her little one go out alone…”

“I’m not that little. Who’s wrong about age, now?” Reggie asked, chuckling.

“…a boyfriend?”

Boyfriend? Oh my.

Reggie pretended not to hear the question about his personal life and chugged his smoothie. Maybe a good beer wouldn’t have been bad in this moment…

“How old are you?”

He felt Russell’s gaze at his eyes, his cheeks, his hands…everywhere. And it was burning.

“I’m sorry for asking,” Russel joked, “but I don’t know your biography by heart, and I don’t even have your picture in my bedroom.”

That made Reggie start laughing. He didn’t take it offense, nor did the comment knock down his admiration for the English player. He took it as a joke between friends. It felt good.

“I’m twenty-two,” he said, looking into Russell’s bright blue eyes. Since Russell was smiling at him, he smiled back.

“You seem a couple of years younger. You should grow your beard, like me. You’d seem older.”

“I don’t know if it’d be thick enough…”

“Let’s do it this way. Don’t shave until Sunday, and I’ll tell you honestly if you’re good-looking then or not,” the Englishman proposed.

I’ll tell you if you’re good-looking or not. s**t.

Reggie swallowed. Once back in his room, he’ll have to take a cold shower. And also something else, speaking of which…

He started to nervously tap his foot on the parquet. “Regarding a boyfriend…I don’t have one.”

Why the hell had he returned to that subject? He should have stayed away from it.

Russell crossed his arms over his chest with a puzzled expression. “Why not?”

Reggie shrugged. “Maybe because I’m too focused on my profession. I dedicate myself to golf. And guys my age don’t really like that.”

The Englishman wrinkled his nose and nodded. “Yeah…well, remember, it’s not about the quantity of time you give but the quality.”

Reggie thought about that.

“Or maybe you should look for a more mature man,” Russell teased.

Reggie’s heart made a couple of flips in his chest. A muddle of emotions exploded like fire on his face. His arousal woke up, dangerously, and he decided it was better to think about something sad to soften it. Thank God Russell was looking into his eyes and not lower.

Oh my God, what an embarrassment…

He chose not to reply, to avoid saying something he would regret.

“And now, forgive me, but I have to go,” Russell continued, quickly looking at his watch. “My wife awaits me. Well, we’re not really married, but I consider her my wife.”

Reggie’s heart broke at the memory of Danielle’s betrayal. He wished he could do something, offer Russell some kind of comfort, but he limited himself to a nod.

The man stood and put his hands in the pockets of his trousers. He looked down, as if thinking about something.

“When I was a kid at school, I had a best friend…his name was Daniel,” he finally said.

Russell’s eyes had a faraway look, saddened by memory. Reggie sat up on the couch: he didn’t want to lose anything the man was going to say, not a word or a blink.

“We used to spend entire days together. I spent more time at his house than with my family. Then one day he came out and told everybody he was gay…”

Reggie had the clear impression there was something else, and he waited, holding his breath.

“I loved him so much that, for a long time, I believed that I…that we…”

He interrupted the sentence halfway through, his face hardening.

“And then? What happened?” Reggie pressed. The tension of the moment ran in his veins like a motorbike on a track.

But the Englishman shrugged.

“I don’t know. We simply took different paths.”

Yes, there was something else there but after all, they had only met the day before. Reggie wasn’t close enough to Russell to pretend he was entitled to know more and, probably, they never would be.

“I have to go. Goodbye. See you on the field, maybe.” Now Russell seemed to be the same man as before: happy, carefree. Too perfect to be real. “Try to keep it under sixty-seven strokes tomorrow.”

Reggie smiled, thankful.

“And remember: if they put a long pin at seventeen, use the eight-iron. You should be able to overcome the water without any problem,” he added with a wink.

Oh, amazing. Reggie had lost a stroke at seventeen by hitting the ball into the water. He flushed again, this time from shame.

“I’ll take the advice of a champion to heart, thanks.”

Russell laughed, bending his head back again in that gesture Reggie liked so much.

“I’m not a champion. I am a normal man who’s played golf for many years. Well, goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Reggie echoed.

When the Englishman closed the door behind him, Reggie suddenly felt lonely and sad. He’d been wrong about Russell Lee. He was a good man, exactly how Reggie had always imagined him to be. He felt good about Russell now.

As he stood up, he adjusted his trousers. Carlos was right: he had a terrific crush on his idol.