Fangirl Down (Big Shots, #1)(33)

“The day is young.” Tallulah sighed lustily. “It sounds like you’re in a bar. I remember those. Vaguely. Are you on a date, Miss Doyle?”

“A friendly one, maybe. I’m in San Antonio at the Texas Open.”

“And no one was shocked.”

“Tallulah, you’re not going to believe this.” She hopped in a tiny circle. “I’m caddying for Wells Whitaker.”

“Yeeeessss, Josephine.” Her best friend drew the word out, clearly not believing her. “And I’ve joined the penguin colony. I’m their illustrious new leader.”

Josephine gasped. “That’s amazing. Do you get benefits?”

“Only the best. Dental and everything.” Tallulah made a halting sound. “I miss you so much. I love what I’m doing, but they put me on assignment with three scientists who don’t grasp the concept of sarcasm. When I leave the research center and tell them I’m going for a swim, they take me seriously. I mean, if I dipped in a toe, I would probably die.”

“Have you tested that theory just to be sure?”

“I love you. Come to Antarctica. We have porpoises.”

“I would, but I have to wash my hair?”

“And caddie for Wells Whitaker, of course,” she said, in a very wink-wink-nudge-nudge tone. “What is he like one-on-one? And by he, I mean his derriere, obviously.”

“Juicy as ever. You can’t spell khaki without the ‘a’ and the ‘h.’ As in ahhhhh, there’s that tight bubble butt.”

“Oh yes.” Her friend’s muffled laughter made a smile bloom on Josephine’s face. “That old slogan.”

“It’s a classic.” She stepped aside to let someone pass on their way to the bathroom, her back bumping into something hard. “Sorry,” she said, half turning, but failing to look at who was behind her. “Unfortunately, the butt doesn’t make up for his temper. Or his lack of manners and inability to take helpful suggestions. Or his—”

The phone was plucked out of her hand.

Josephine whirled around, her gaze connecting with an unshaven jaw, before traveling upward to meet an unreadable pair of brown eyes.

Wells.

Was standing in front of her.

How much of her phone call had he overheard?

“I don’t know what my caddie was going to say next, but I’m guessing it was something like, ‘Or his tentative backswing.’ She loves to give me shit about that.”

Josephine could only gape.

“I might disagree with a few of her points, but everything she said about my ass is true. It’s world-class.” He ended the call and handed the phone back to Josephine. “Up to bed. I don’t want you hungover in the morning.”

Shock washed over her like an icy waterfall, followed by anger spouting like a geyser in her middle and shooting acid up into her throat. “My best friend was calling me from Antarctica, you donkey. I haven’t talked to her in three weeks.” If that was an instant flash of regret that moved in his face, she didn’t care to acknowledge it. “And it doesn’t matter if I’m hungover or chipper as a bluebird, I might as well be talking to a brick wall out there!”

His smile was tight. “At the very least, you enjoyed the ass show.”

“Hang on to it with both hands, because right now, it’s all you’ve got.”

A lump moved almost discreetly in his throat. “Quitting already?”

Josephine’s irritation graduated to the next level. “Is that what you were trying to do? Test me to see if I’d quit?”

He crossed his arms. “Are you?”

Something about his belligerence and the challenge in his eyes made her recall their conversation early that morning. Maybe I take chances and set them on fire. Buck isn’t the first one to get sick of my shit and bail. Well, if he expected the same of her, he hadn’t been paying attention. Nor would she give him the satisfaction of being like everyone else. “Nope! I’m staying. If for no other reason than to piss you off.” She looked down at her phone helplessly, knowing she could try to call back the number, but it probably wouldn’t connect. She’d tried several times in the past after getting disconnected. Reception was horrible where Tallulah was working and she was allotted only so much time on the landline.

Dammit.

A very dramatic bubble expanded in her chest and she needed to get upstairs before it burst. “For better or worse, I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”

She shouldered past a stone-faced Wells on her way to the bar. After a brief apology to Ricky that he seemed to understand—since the entirety of the bar was now silent in the wake of her argument with Wells—she left some money for her drink and beelined for the lobby elevators. One of them opened right away, thankfully, and she stepped into the empty car.

Before the doors could close, a big hand slammed down between them, trundling them back open. Wells had followed her? Brave man.

After observing Josephine for the barest moment, he moved into the elevator beside her, both of them staring at the numbers overhead as they ticked upward, the air between them vibrating like the tail of a rattlesnake.

“I shouldn’t have hung up the phone.”

“We’ll pile it onto your mountain of transgressions.”