9. Maren

Not so breaking news: Locke Hughes won the first tournament of the year and one point six two million dollars.

When I looked at the newspaper that was left in front of my hotel door this morning, my heart swelled with pride. One of the few pictures I took of him on hole eighteen sinking the winning shot ended up on the front page of the sports section with my tiny name beneath it: Photo by Maren Murray.

I'd pathetically imagined my mother opening the Florida newspaper and doing the same thing—smiling and running her finger over my name. But I don't think she follows golf at all. Instead, she's probably drinking her coffee on her front porch and online shopping for her grandson.

My dad did text me, though, with an iPhone picture of my picture, along with a "Nice!" and that brightened my day like he tends to do in his little ways. It's not both parents I've had to seek attention from my whole life.

They'd mentioned Russell's name about mid-way through the article. After his and Locke's weirdly cordial conversation, Russ had been flustered the rest of the tournament and fell behind to twelfth place.

His angry eyes and scowl followed me for days, hole after hole, but now, you'd think he was in love with me. Eyes sparkling, too much teeth when he smiles, shifting his good side toward the camera, always glancing to make sure I'm getting a good shot.

His voice doesn't even sound like him, not since the minute he walked into the children's hospital. It's all a PR opportunity for him.

The little boy in the hospital bed with stars in his eyes is looking at Russ, smile wide, cheeks flushed, with a neon yellow cast covered in names on his leg, and Russ is looking at me.

"Did you get some good ones?" he asks.

Instinctively, I look at the little screen on the back of my camera before I balk and lie, "Looks great."

Craig stands in the other corner, catching every second of our terse exchanges with his blinking red light, though I notice it's not focused on me nearly as much as it used to be.

I want to ask him if he erased the footage of Russ and Lydia on a wave of sympathy, if he ‘lost' it, if the producer is going for extra shock value with the future season finale, or if they think we're going to somehow reconcile.

But mostly I want out of here. This room has become too small for anyone to fit inside with Russ' ego. I want the comfort of Locke's presence, which I never thought I'd say. Because I do feel safe with him, where I know the camera can't reach me, where I'm confident he goes out of his way just a tiny bit to make sure I know he has my back in our fake friendship.

Even if Locke has ignored me for the last few days, content that I'm standing an appropriate enough distance away from him, and likely mad at me for whatever happened between us four days ago at the bar, he doesn't make me feel like this.

Russ watches me go, stuck in place, as he plays Sorry! with the little boy who's idolizing him.

Back in the hallway, I press my back against the closed door and feel like not enough.

Not enough for anyone. All the time .

A blonde nurse shuffles by in her blue scrubs and eyes me like she isn't sure if she should call security or not—maybe I'm a crazed fan with my stalker camera slung around my neck.

I attempt my best smile, which I realize may look a little crazed. My heart feels like lead, and my head is about to float off from the anxiety.

I slip in and out of the next two rooms fairly unnoticed.

Landon, the young new golfer on the PGA tour with an infectious laugh and a boyish charm greets me enthusiastically before he poses for me with the smile of someone who has so much in life to look forward to, then goes back to the story he was engrossed in.

He's the golfer who's friends with everyone, who can say whatever he wants and get away with it. The one who goes out the night before tournaments and still manages to get up bright and early and play eighteen holes of golf despite being slightly hungover. His episodes on the reality show are always the most fun.

Bryan, the quietest pro-golfer I've met since I started this job, gives me a head nod and lets me take a few candid shots because he's doing a puzzle.

He's the golfer whose family travels with him, who goes out of his way to say thank you, and will typically keep to himself then disappear as soon as the day is done so he doesn't miss a minute with his children. His episodes always bring the sweet family aspect.

You pick up on things when you observe the same people for years—but you also become too complacent and miss other obvious things.

When I open the next door, Locke looks up from the end of the hospital bed, eyes dark. He's coloring with a little girl on the table they've wheeled in between them.

His eyes dart down to the camera I'm holding and back to me. One of his eyebrows twitches, so I let it fall against my stomach and dangle from the strap around my neck. I suppose I won't get into any trouble if Locke is missing from the line-up .

"Hi," the little girl says, startling me back into reality. She has on pink pajamas and is nestled under a white blanket. She and Locke have spread out two Disney princess coloring books across the table, and the crayons are stuffed in a cup at the edge. "Do you want to color?"

"Oh," I say, "hi."

I've forgotten how to talk to children, and I should probably work on that since I'm going to become an aunt soon.

"This is my friend Maren," Locke says. He pats the spot on the bed next to him. "Maren, this is Sarah."

I give him a look like are we friends? as I cross the room and plop down next to him. He just stares.

"It's nice to meet you," I smile. "What are we coloring?"

Sarah flips her pages back and forth. "Rapunzel or Belle?"

"I'm in a Rapunzel mood today."

Sarah furrows her eyebrows. "But your hair is brown."

"And it's not seventy feet long," I joke, "but I think we share a heart."

She rips the page out slowly and hands it over while she inspects my entire physique, sizing me up to see if I'm deserving of a precious Tangled sheet. "You're pretty though."

"Thank you," I beam, even though eight-year-olds call everyone pretty. "So are you. I wish I had red hair."

"I'm like Ariel." She holds up her coloring book to show me her Under the Sea picture.

Locke's coloring his prince's hair yellow. "John Smith? Fitting."

"Don't worry. I'll color his eyes black," he says without looking up.

I sit cross-legged on the bed, which causes Locke to break his concentration briefly to inspect my legs, and possibly more. There are shorts underneath my golf dress, but it seems to bother him anyway.

I pluck a golden crayon out of the cup and ignore my stomach curling into itself .

As mortified as I am for drunkenly telling Locke his eyes scare me, I'm equally as mortified that I'm turned on by them—and he knows it.

His voice, or maybe his choice of words, does something to me, and for a split second the other night at the bar, I thought from the way he was looking at me that he was going to kiss me. Or at least do something . And to top it off, I felt disappointed that we were interrupted by Graham telling us our dessert was at the table.

Especially now that he's back to wanting nothing to do with me.

I guess Russ isn't around to mess with his head and challenge him into vengeance.

Sarah's voice reminds me to stop looking at Locke's forearm tensing as he drags the crayon back and forth. "Do you color with your niece?"

I open my mouth before I realize she's talking to Locke.

"You have a niece?" I ask, raising my face to his.

"I thought he was your friend?" Sarah questions me like she's somehow caught me in a lie.

" I didn't say he was my friend," I tease.

Locke shrugs, head in his book, when Sarah shoots him an exasperated sigh. "We're co-worker friends. And no, she's only four months old. I mainly watch her while she sleeps so her parents can go on dates."

"I can start babysitting when I'm twelve," she says proudly. "And go on dates when I'm thirteen."

Locke laughs. "Don't rush it. Just stay a kid for as long as you can."

"That's no fun," Sarah insists, hard at work outlining her mermaid tail a dark teal.

A knock at the door has us all looking up to see a nurse in blue scrubs enter and smile at Sarah. "Let's get you unhooked," she says.

I try not to watch as the nurse dismantles everything and takes the tubes out of Sarah's arm.

"I need to pee," Sarah announces when she's free from the machine, and they both leave me and Locke alone. In this room. Together.

It's become unusually quiet. The kind that you listen to .

I try to focus on my drawing until Locke shifts, his thigh pressing against mine. "You want the brown crayon?" he asks, lightly running it down my thigh.

"Thanks," I say. My voice sounds too breathy, too affected.

When I take it out of his hand, he runs his palm up my thigh and ends with his thumb circling around my kneecap. He lifts his hand away from me only to come back again like he can't help himself.

His fingers lightly tease their way down my calf until I widen my legs just a millimeter. He travels back up, one finger this time, tracing a path on my inner thigh.

"Why the fuck is your skin so soft?" he whispers.

I don't have a chance to answer because Sarah bounds out the bathroom door, but how do you even answer a question like that?

Well, I exfoliate . Which I don't.

Neither Locke nor I move. My mind is partly focused on the tingling sensation that still lingers where Locke touched me, partly focused on my coloring, and partly still trying to make out a picture in my head of Locke feeding a baby a bottle, taking her for walks in a stroller, when I ask out of nowhere, "You babysit?"

Sarah curls back up on the bed, and Locke looks up to make sure I'm speaking to him. "Yeah."

My head goes back in my coloring page but only to hide the smile playing on my lips. Here's Locke, sitting in Sarah's room coloring a Disney prince, not wanting his photo taken to show off his good deeds to the world, and spending his weekends, when he's not playing golf, babysitting his niece—all while he seems to like the feel of my skin under his fingers.

Locke's still watching me. "What?"

"Nothing," I say, shaking my head with a laugh. "You were right. I don't think I know you."

"On purpose," he grumbles.

"I know him," Sarah says, rolling her eyes like I'm a ridiculous adult. "Locke visits me every time he's in San Diego when I have dialysis." She drops her voice to a whisper. "He tells me secrets like he's scared of snakes and gets nervous waiting in line for a roller coaster."

"Sarah," Locke says sternly. "They aren't secrets if you tell people."

She scoffs. "You said she was your friend, silly. Friends tell each other secrets. My friend Mallory hides one of her brother's Legos that he needs under her bed and then laughs while he looks for it."

I'm not feeling anything I'd describe as friendly wafting off Locke, so I nervously look at my phone like I'm willing Camille to call me with a fake emergency until I come up with my own excuse. "I need to finish taking pictures of all the other golfers."

Locke stares again, and I'm so flustered I practically fall off the bed and trip over my feet as I make my way to the door. I gush over how nice it was to meet Sarah and how I will definitely come back the next time I'm in San Diego before I'm able to close the door behind me.

I hurry down to the end of the hallway and push open the door marked with a black stairwell sign. It's a few degrees colder than the already freezing hospital, but I stop and lean against the cement wall.

If you'd asked me months ago who the biggest asshole was, I'd have said Locke without a doubt.

Now…?

He regularly visits an eight-year-old girl and tells her his secrets. He answers her questions, and stays out of the spotlight, and he's an uncle. If I had to guess, I'd say he's probably a good one too.

I bang my head lightly against the wall trying to erase the feel of his inky eyes on me, his thigh pressing against mine, the fresh air smell that wafts off him when I get too close.

The door flies open minutes later, scaring me enough that I jump and gasp audibly when it hits the wall beside me.

Locke looks just as startled to see me, but he recovers quicker. His eyes flicker down my legs and back up.

I'm not sure how much time has passed because I'm solely focused on how close he's standing and how much he looks like he wants to eat me .

"Did I scare you?" he says intensely.

"Yes," I confess.

I didn't think it was possible but his eyes get darker, more intense than a second ago. He seems to watch my chest and my throat until he looks up. "Am I still scaring you?"

"Yes." Maybe minutes stretch until I hear myself add barely above a whisper, "But in a good way."

The way he settles his eyes on me is so laser focused I feel like he's welding me to the wall. Locke takes one step in, and I instinctually press my body against the icy cinder block.

He smirks. Then Locke slips my camera off of my neck, raises it to his eye, and snaps a picture of me.

I'm speechless, waiting for him to do something , anything, because I can almost feel how much he wants me.

Locke studies the picture he just took. "You are so gorgeous." He raises his head. "Do you know that? How pretty you are?"

I blink. I exhale. I shake my head an inch.

The only thing I want is to hear him call me pretty again.

"No one ever tells you?" he asks curiously.

He glances down at my lips, which I now can't help but lick.

Another shake of my head.

Locke lets my camera dangle from the strap in his hand before he gently places it next to his feet. "I can hardly control myself with you."

Heat blooms from below my belly button and winds down between my legs. My skin flushes, aching for him to put a hand on me anywhere, but even when he steps closer, it's like he steps as close as possible without touching me.

My hands work by themselves to grip his waist and pull him against me. His body is a furnace; tense back muscles, rigid lines between abs, and hard. Everything is hard.

He smiles, so fucking close to my mouth, when he places his hands on either side of my head then moves his face to the side so we're cheek to cheek.

"You have no idea how good I could make you feel without even touching you. By just saying the words you want to hear," he whispers. "I would take such good care of you."

"I believe you," I hear myself say. He knows whatever is going on in my mind, even though I don't know myself, because he sounds purposeful, like he knows exactly what he's doing.

"I don't think I'll be able to keep myself from not putting my hands on you though." One of his hands falls to my neck before his fingers skim the delicate skin below my ear. "I'm already addicted to how soft your skin is."

"Please keep touching me." My mind has dissolved and evaporated. I sound like I'm desperate, begging him for anything he'll give me.

His lips graze over the other side of my neck, and I damn near pass out. He groans, presses his hips into me, and practically holds me up with his thigh so I don't fall to the floor. He kisses me below my ear harder, using his tongue this time to taste me.

"Fuck," he whispers, sinking his teeth into my neck. His hands find mine, which are clawing into his lower back, before he raises them up together and pins them above my head. He pulls his shoulders back. "Look at you."

Obviously, I can't look at myself, but Jesus, if I'm not trying to somehow look even better for him.

I can't move with his weight pressed against me. His nose nudges mine.

Kiss me , is all I can think over and over and over.

"You want to be a good girl for me, don't you?" he asks huskily instead.

I nod, eyes locked to his. My heart is hammering against my sternum in pure confusion and lust.

"You've never explored how this makes you feel?"

I shake my head no. "No one's ever called me that before. "

He smiles as I close my eyes. Immerse myself. All I want is more of his voice washing over me. "Fuck, Maren, I'll degrade you, and I'll praise you, and I'll worship you. Like you deserve."

My skin prickles as a wave overtakes my body from head to toe. I'll do anything to make this man happy as long as he admires me while I do it.

A whimper escapes my lips. "Locke, please."

Finally.

Finally.

His lips meet mine.