Darcy was grateful that Bing had given him a room in his house specifically to use as an office. In theory, that meant Darcy had the ability to close the doors and focus on work, no matter the day or time. The wall to his right boasted a giant bay window with a seat—Gina’s favorite place to perch when she visited. Darcy liked the view, which was over the side garden. It was Bing’s particular project. He had carefully chosen a variety of flowers so that something new was budding every week.

The rest of the room was simple. Bing had cleared everything out before even inviting Darcy to stay about two years ago, he’d been so certain his friend would agree.

Darcy hadn’t seen the point in changing much. He’d set up a projector on the wall behind him, and installed a remote controlled screen that dropped down from the ceiling. Useful for video calls and running through presentations.

The only thing Bing had requested was the couches in front of Darcy’s desk. The Lee siblings often abandoned any number of available rooms to have their conversations while sitting or lying on the couches in front of Darcy. Not for the first time, he wondered if he should talk to the housekeeper about moving the furniture elsewhere.

But just like the hundred other times the thought had passed through his mind, he dismissed it. It was particularly useful at three in the morning when neither Bing nor Darcy could sleep. They'd pour themselves glasses of whiskey, and Darcy would return to work while Bing talked at him.

Darcy didn't mind Bing's ramblings. His friend generally only needed a sympathetic ear. But when the siblings got talking, it was as if they forgot the entire purpose of this room: to work.

"Jane is such a sweet thing," Carter said for the third time that hour, as if he couldn't come up with anything more original to say about Bing's romantic interest. He wasn't wrong. Jane presented herself as the quintessential omega. Quiet. Soft. Easy going. But there was something missing in her interactions with Bing... a fire, a passion. Things Darcy considered essential in a relationship.

Not that Darcy planned on pursuing any relationships any time soon.

Bing tapped at his phone. "Okay, we're on for putt putt. Five pm."

"Putt putt?" Carter laughed. "How... quaint. Darcy, you'll come with us, won't you?"

Darcy didn't bother to look up from his laptop. "I have business to attend to." Perhaps with the others gone, he could actually accomplish something this afternoon.

"That leaves us with an odd count, Darcy." Bing tossed a pillow in the air and caught it. "Come on. You haven't left the house since we went boating Saturday."

Darcy spared him a glance. "An entire three days. I'm certain the world is falling apart without my presence."

Bing tossed the pillow at him like a frisbee and Darcy caught it with one hand. "You never know. It could be."

"It's unlikely."

"Who's coming?" Carter asked.

"Jane, of course, and her brothers Eliot and Liam. Liam is finishing up his last year in college right now. Jane says Liam's studying communications with a focus on new media, Darcy. Maybe it would be good for him to talk to you."

"If he wants an internship, he can apply on the company website." Darcy's mind was lingering on the information that Eliot would be attending the afternoon's activities, however.

Bing sat up. "Don't be such a snob, Darcy."

Darcy met his eyes. "I will go on one condition: that you leave me be until it's time to go. I have work to do, and it won't happen with you two chattering about me all morning."

Having achieved his goal, Bing grabbed Carter and dragged him out of the room.

Darcy prided himself on personal honesty—he never lied to himself. He did, however, ignore some trains of thoughts. Like the way Eliot had looked so peaceful when Darcy had stumbled upon his rest in the woods.

Of course Darcy had recognized the wedding door sentinel the moment he’d stepped onto the boat. It was impossible to forget those deep brown eyes.

He sighed. While he might ignore the occasional thought, he found his thoughts turning to Eliot more than occasionally. Truthfully? The man intrigued him, and so few people did. If Darcy had been the kind of person to share these feelings aloud, he wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint exactly why, but the image of the smile on his face, his hair flowing in the wind, the quiet, still peace on his face the moment before Darcy disturbed him in the forest… He wasn’t easy to read. So many people were like open books, their expressions dancing across their face like a play. And Eliot wasn’t always opaque, but in the moments where he was...

Darcy shook the thoughts away. He'd bought himself a few quiet hours, and he intended to use them. Before his mind was distracted by Eliot once again.

Darcy was beginning to regret agreeing to putt putt. Of all things, why putt putt? Why couldn't they golf like normal adults?

"Bing should definitely take the yellow for his sunny disposition," Eliot teased.

"Well, by that standard, Darcy should have black." Bing elbowed his friend, earning him a steady look. "But since bright seems to be the theme here, how about orange?"

"Orange?" Eliot wrinkled his nose, drawing Darcy's attention to the sprinkling of faint freckles on it. He hadn't noticed them before. Perhaps they had been brightened by time in the sun the past few weeks? "Orange for Darcy seems... wrong."

"Well, what would you pick?" Bing asked.

"Blue," Carter interrupted, taking the small, neon blue club and ball and sliding next to Darcy. "For his eyes."

Darcy looked to Eliot to see what his response would be, but the man's back was to him. Eliot held the orange club and balls when he turned around with a smile and said, "I think the orange works for me."

As the others picked their colors, Darcy wondered what color Eliot would have considered "right" for him.

The Bennett siblings were no strangers to putt putt, it seemed. Eliot and Jane pushed Liam to tee off first as the youngest. They teased each other back and forth, but cheered for Liam when he made it through the hole under the windmill in one shot.

"Who's up next, me or Carter?" Eliot asked.

"We always go by age," Jane explained.

"This is just a sneaky trick to get me to admit my age." Carter's voice was light and teasing, but the corners of his eyes were pinched. Was he really hung up on sharing his age? It was no secret to Darcy and Bing.

"Without getting into too much trouble with my brother, I think I can safely say that Carter will go after Eliot and before Jane."

Exactly how old was Eliot? He couldn't be terribly young, having his own business. Not that Darcy had much room to speak. He'd inherited his father's company at twenty-six, five years ago, and his youth had been a concern for many of their customers. But only at first.

Darcy made a few quick mental calculations while Eliot lined up his shot. Carter was twenty seven, and Liam was in his senior year of college, according to Bing. That put Eliot somewhere between twenty-one and twenty-six. Surely on the higher side of that.

Not that it mattered.

Eliot also made the shot under the windmill in one go, pumping his fist in the air with more exuberance than any of Darcy's golf partners on making a rare hole in one on a real golf course.

Darcy caught Eliot's eyes as Eliot circled around to finish his shots on the other end of the hole. Glints of gold in his eyes startled Darcy, stealing his breath away.

Carter was the first to require more than one shot to get under the windmill, but he got it in two. Jane and Bing were next, making it in two and three shots respectively. Bing was too distracted by flirting with Jane to really put his mind to it. He wasn't that great of a golfer anyway.

Darcy stepped up to the tee off zone. The small club felt awkward in his hands. The others had made their holes, and had returned to watch as he prepared to make his first swing.

"Darcy is an excellent golfer," Carter said. "He's made three hole in ones in the past five years at the club."

"I make hole in ones all the time on Gopher Golf," Liam said. "Sadly, putt putt is a different skill altogether."

"I meant in real golf." Carter's tone was laced with disapproval. "Last year we all went to the Masters and it was absolutely riveting, wasn't it, Darcy?"

Darcy swung his arms in a few practice strikes. "Riveting isn't exactly the word I would use for golf. It's a slow sport. Interesting. Exciting. But rarely riveting." He adjusted his feet, then swung back and hit the ball.

It lifted in the air, hit one of the windmill's blades, cracking it, and careened to the left, plopping into hole four's pond with a plonk.

"There is some danger in approaching putt putt as one would real golf," Eliot said with a raised brow.

"Go on to the next hole," Darcy said, pushing his embarrassment deep inside him. "I'll catch up."

He didn't catch up.

First, the vendor refused to give him another ball, insisting he retrieve the one he'd lost. Darcy soaked his entire arm chasing after it in the pond. Then he had to wait for another group to finish up at the first hole, and trailed after them. His best hole was twelve shots, and his worst...

He wasn't even going to think about his worst.

"Darcy, just skip a few!" Bing urged him. But that was not Darcy's nature. He would conquer putt putt.

The others waited for him at the eighth hole, letting the group between them pass by.

"Do you want us to mark your scores, Darcy?" Jane asked.

"I'd rather not," Darcy said stiffly.

"It can't be that terrible," Eliot said, his eyes challenging Darcy.

Darcy clenched his teeth before answering. "One hundred and two."

Eliot pressed his lips together, looking away, suppressing his laughter. Bing was not so kind. "That's... that's..." He couldn't even speak clearly, he was laughing so hard.

Jane elbowed him gently. "Be kind, Bing!"

"To be fair, I'm not doing much better," Bing said. "And the only reason I'm not worse is your help." He smiled at Jane, and she looked away, her hair falling to hide her face.

Once again, Darcy was struck with how difficult it was to read her. Was she pleased, or just coy?

"Darcy, why don't you go first?" Carter suggested. "Then we can help you."

Darcy crossed his arms. As if exposing himself to their critical eyes sounded in anyway appealing. He couldn’t bring himself to skip holes, but he knew how to cut his losses once he’d caught up. "I would rather not detain you. I’ll continue at my own pace."

Carter cast his eyes about for assistance, but Bing and Jane were too focused on each other to be drawn into the conversation, and Liam waited impatiently at the end of the hole, having already completed it with another hole-in-one.

"Eliot, tell Darcy he should go first. We'll help him, won't we?" Carter leaned against an outcropping of fake rock.

Instead of agreeing, Eliot placed his ball in the tee area. "I'm afraid if we do that, we'll ruin his true intention of just following along."

"And what is that?" Darcy asked.

"To admire our backsides," Eliot said with a wicked grin before bending over to hit his golf ball over the bump toward the hole. Carter gasped in over-exaggerated shock, and Darcy couldn't help but let his eyes drift to Eliot's rear. Though it had practically been an invitation, he jerked his eyes up as soon as he realized what he was doing.

Liam crowed his triumph when Eliot's ball drifted to the left, and Eliot sauntered away to sink the ball with one more shot.

Carter sidled up to Darcy. "I do love Jane, but her siblings are a little... rough, aren't they? I haven't ever been around someone so... crude."

Darcy felt the hairs of his arms raise in annoyance. "I would hardly call Eliot crude."

Carter raised an eyebrow. "No? What would you call that little shake of his ass?"

Unfolding his arms, Darcy stepped away from Carter. "Regardless of any shaking, Eliot is one of the most interesting men of my acquaintance."

Guilt stung Darcy as he walked toward the Bennetts. He'd mostly said it to annoy Carter, but there was some truth in his words. Too much truth. Why did Eliot intrigue him so much?

His subconscious answered for him: he's not intimidated by you or your wealth, and he isn't chasing you, either.

It had been a long time since anyone other than Bing had treated him like just another human being. He'd nearly forgotten what it felt like.

Darcy spent the last few holes simply observing, though Carter tried again and again to pull him back in. Bing was used to his silences, though, and called his brother off several times. By the end, only Liam and Elliot seemed to care about the score, and they had tied, neither able to claim a win.

"I'm starving," Bing announced as they went to turn their balls and clubs in. "Where are we going to eat?"

"Oh, I can't," Eliot protested. "I have to get up early tomorrow—"

"Don't be such a spoilsport, Eliot." Liam rolled his eyes. He turned to Bing, exuding energy. "How do you feel about sushi?"

Bing dramatically placed a hand on his heart. "You're speaking my language."

"I know just the place. And it's not far. Come on, fam! You're going to love this."

Carter slid a hand through Eliot's arm, patting it consolingly. "Don't worry if you have to head home. We've got plenty of room for Jane and Liam."

Darcy winced at Carter’s ham-handed attempt to slide Eliot out.

There was a flash of something akin to the competitive look Eliot had sported when they first arrived, when he was egging his brother and sister on about who would win. Then Eliot's arm tightened on Carter's grasp. "Oh, I suppose I can handle a little dinner."

Darcy coughed into his hand to cover his smile. It seemed that Carter had met his match.