Fangirl Down (Big Shots, #1)(98)

Josephine’s life was no longer familiar and she couldn’t discount the sense that reality, the one she’d built, was slipping through her fingers.

Another picture text buzzed its arrival on her phone.

The outdoor putting green was almost completed, too. Fencing had been installed.

Even the water feature was up and running.

At this rate, she could probably have the Golden Tee open for business in a week. Maybe even less, if she declined to let Wells whisk her to Miami.

Once she went back to Palm Beach, however, and got sucked into the reopening of the Golden Tee, she wasn’t going to leave again. Josephine knew that fact like she knew the layout of Rolling Greens. Her heart was being torn in two directions, because as much as it beat for her family’s business, it was beating for Wells Whitaker now, too.

And he needed her.

How many times today had she been called a good luck charm by the press? Not to mention all the idioms they’d assigned to her during television broadcasts. The one who turned it all around for Whitaker! The secret ingredient! Nate pretended to bow down to her every time they’d crossed paths during the tournament and at first, she’d laughed. Now she wondered if she had the strength to abandon this team.

Or if Wells would—or could—continue at this trajectory to the top without her.

Her thumb swiped slowly across the screen of her phone, a lump rising in her throat over the pride in her father’s expression as he gestured to the new Golden Tee sign. Her roots were in Palm Beach. Were the ones she’d put down with Wells too new to be tested?

“Our ride to the airport should be here soon,” Wells said, entering her room through the adjoining door—and Josephine quickly closed her texts and darkened the screen of her phone, the pit opening in her stomach. “What was that?”

“Nothing, just looking at pictures from Tallulah’s visit,” she lied, hating the acidic taste that sharpened on her tongue. “Trying to decide which one to frame.”

Wells hummed knowingly and kissed her shoulder. “Not too long until she’s settled in Boston. You’ll see her again soon.”

Lying to Wells was bad enough. Using her best friend to escape an uncomfortable conversation was even worse, and the guilt propelled Josephine into motion. She slipped free of Wells’s potential embrace, desperately searching for any remaining item to stuff into her suitcase. “I’ll, um . . . be ready in a sec.”

After a couple beats of silence, she glanced up to find Wells watching her with his brows drawn, as if trying to read her thoughts. “Everything okay, Josephine?”

“Yeah, why?”

He regarded her closely, before shaking his head. “No reason.”

Her phone buzzed audibly in her pocket and she had no choice but to ignore it, leading to a pregnant pause. “Ready when you are,” she said, hurrying to zip her suitcase.

Wells took both pieces of their luggage and wheeled them out through her door. His clubs had already been shipped back to Miami and weirdly, she kind of missed the weight of them on her shoulder. Especially when they reached the valet—and were showered with applause waiting for their driver to pull around. At that point, she actually wished she was holding Wells’s sticks as a prop. Just for something to do with her hands, because now she was alternating between awkward waving and tucking stray hair into her ponytail.

Had people actually been camped out, waiting for them to leave?

A security guard approached her with a bottle of champagne on behalf of someone in the crowd and Josephine smiled her thanks. Wells posed for pictures with a family in a rare moment of wholesomeness.

In the midst of the commotion, Josephine traded a glance with Wells and . . . he just looked so happy. Even his frown lines were less prominent than before. Compared to the golfer who’d quit mid-tournament over a month ago, he was a different man. Content. He laughed all the time. As a golfer, he was almost back to where he’d been at his peak, only now he had that relaxed aura of experience and maturity thrown in. He’d grown. With her.

They’d grown together.

She’d let someone else in to share in the ups and downs of her condition and she’d never, ever expected to do that. But Wells made it right.

They were a formidable team.

And she couldn’t leave without knowing how far they could go.

*

Wells sat up in bed and looked down at Josephine, tracing the line of her bare shoulder with his gaze before standing reluctantly and heading for the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water, set it down, then braced both hands on the counter without drinking a sip.

Something was off with his Josephine—around 10 percent of the time.

The other 90 percent of the days they’d spent together in Miami, she was her usual incredible self. Smiling, challenging him, melting him with her touch, stunning him with incredible insights as they watched old Masters footage in the dark, cuddled up on one recliner and wrapped in a fleece blanket. Quite frankly, Wells would have been more than happy to sit in that home theater listening to Josephine murmur observations in the dark, her hair still half-damp from a bath, for the rest of his time on this earth.

He was so fucking happy, he almost couldn’t withstand the pressure in his chest. It built and it built and it built every time he looked at Josephine.

That 10 percent, though. It ate at him. Big-time.

Every so often, when she didn’t realize Wells was watching, he caught her staring into space. Or lying awake in the dark, tense, when she should have been sleeping. Then there was the fact that she wouldn’t swipe open her phone in his presence. He caught only the tail end of her phone calls to Jim, but she’d hang up before Wells could get the gist of the conversation.