Welcome to Happy Holes -- the world's first freeuse golf course comedy.
This is where it begins. Jules Ferris is one bad month away from financial collapse, armed only with a sun visor she refuses to wear, a club she doesn't know how to save, and a tolerance for heat that's quickly deserting her.
Thank you for being here at the beginning. Let's swing.
JULES
No Bra. No Plan. No God.
Jules Ferris had exactly four things going for her: a decent ass, a grandfather's will, a sun visor she refused to wear, and a total inability to quit things that weren't working.
The rest was heatstroke and credit card debt.
It was 9:42 a.m., and already hot enough in her office to start hallucinating minor gods. A fan the size of a dinner plate spun in the corner with the energy of a dying cow. It moved the air just enough to remind her she was sweating. Again.
Her white polo clung low and damp, stretched tight across her chest like it was trying to hang on for dear life. She hadn't worn a bra in three months -- not out of protest, just because she kept forgetting. Or maybe it was protest. Hard to tell the difference lately.
She tugged the hem away from her stomach, then winced at the peeling, suctioned squelch that followed.
Her khaki shorts were committing slow, humid treason. They rode up when she stood, bunched when she sat, and currently clung to the underside of her thighs like barnacles. Her legs -- tan from habit, not effort -- were propped on the desk, toes flexing in ancient sneakers as she stared at her monitor and tried to will her bank balance into taking a more positive attitude.
She looked like a woman who used to care what people thought of her body and had finally run out of time.
On the desk: an iced coffee she kept forgetting to drink. A highlighter without a lid. A stack of mail that could be used to build a shame fort. One envelope had the audacity to be pink.
She flipped it over and wrote "DO NOT OPEN -- FUTURE ME PROBLEM" in Sharpie.
This wasn't what she'd pictured when Granddad left her the club.
Sure, he'd always said she'd get it. But she thought he meant emotionally -- like "you're the only one who gives a shit" -- not "here's a 38-acre logistical nightmare with a mysterious hole in the water budget and a staff who think weed whackers are weapons."
The club had bones. You could say that much. The hills rolled. The fairways mostly grew. The trees made that leafy hush when the wind came in from the east. But everything was just a little... off. The signage was faded. The putting green had alopecia. The budget was mostly prayer and printer toner theft.
Jules leaned back in her chair.
Then she saw movement through the window.
Jules watched as Pip leaned over something. She was moving rhythmically. Maybe she was fixing the mower? Just beside the fairway?
Pip had been here since before Jules even knew what a greenskeeper did. Hired by Granddad as some kind of teenage tax write-off, Pip had started with trash runs and hose duty and never really stopped. Now kept the grass short, the bunkers sandy and the greens as green as she could. She was chaos in a tank top. A tanned, freckled, stoner-savant who could fix a mower blindfolded and still find time to flirt with the mailman.
She was the only one on payroll who still seemed to believe in the place. Or maybe just didn't care enough to doubt it. Either way, she showed up.
And in a weird, fucked-up way, that mattered.
What the hell was she doing? No... she's not--
The man behind her shifted. Stepped in. Thrust.
Jules blinked.
Wait.
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
Pip arched.
Greg -- cargo shorts, polo halfway untucked, the fertilizer salesman with the stamina of a garden hose -- gave a little buck of the hips.
Pip slapped him on the ass.
Jules blinked again, slow. She looked down at her desk, then back out the window like maybe she'd hallucinated the whole thing.
Nope.
Jules squinted. Pip was definitely still being railed.
And now -- goddammit -- she was talking. Something animated. Flirty. With hand gestures.
The man behind her gave one last shudder. Stepped back. Adjusted his belt.
Pip licked her thumb. Smoothed it down her jawline. Turned. Smiled.
Jules shook her head.
"Goddammit, Pip."
KASEY