Bacon Cheeseburger
Sliders

Nine-forty on a Friday night. String lights overhead, swaying a little in a warm October breeze. Our second date. I had suggested putting because I wanted to seem fun. She was, it turned out, terrifyingly good.

She read greens like other people read tarot cards.

On the 4th at PopStroke The Colony she studied an uphill putt with a hard break at the end, pointed at a spot two feet outside the cup, and rolled it right over that spot and in. Birdie. She didn't even watch it drop. After the 4th we slipped over to the patio bar, and I ordered the bacon cheeseburger sliders to recover my dignity.

A hand-pattied burger slider on a toasted brioche bun, compact and confident, the size of a promise you can actually keep. House-made burger sauce, tangy and a little mysterious, the way a good second date should be. American cheese, melted down into every corner. Smoky bacon, crisp at the edges, laid across the top like a velvet rope at a club you never thought you'd get into.

She took one without asking. I liked that.

We stood at the patio rail and watched the next group lag their putts into the dark, the balls slowing, curling, dying a few inches short. She told me about her grandfather, who taught her to putt on a carpet in Toledo.

I three-putted the 5th. She married me two years later anyway.