This fierce girl, who’d gone from holding back tears to looking like she wanted to grind a golf cleat into his guts, couldn’t be any different than anyone else. She’d dropped him, too.
Something inside Wells refused to let him put her into the same category as the ones who’d come and gone, though. Josephine was in a class by herself and goddammit, she wouldn’t seem to budge from it. Not an inch.
I’m not your fan anymore.
“Yes, you are. You’re just having a bad day.”
She started to blink very rapidly. He shuddered to think what she might have said to him if a series of beeps hadn’t filled the room in that moment. She sighed, reached into her pocket, and pulled out a small plastic tube, emptying two quarter-size tablets into her mouth.
“What’s beeping? What are those?”
Absently, she lifted her arm until her elbow was pointing up at the ceiling. For the first time since he’d “known” Josephine, he noticed a small, gray, oval-shaped button on the back of her arm. “The beeps are letting me know my blood sugar is low.” She dropped her arm. “I’m a diabetic. Type one.”
“Oh.” He should have known that. Why didn’t he know that? Wells searched his mind for any knowledge whatsoever that might be lurking about diabetes and came up empty. They weren’t supposed to eat anything with sugar, right? “Are those things . . . all you need right now?” he asked, tipping his head toward the tube as she stowed it back into her pocket.
“Yes. Right now.” Under her breath, she added, “Better to have low blood sugar than high.”
“Why is that?”
She pushed a hand through her hair, turning away from him slightly to survey a damaged display rack. “High blood sugar requires me to give myself insulin to come down and I need to spread my supply out.” A slight flush appeared on her cheeks. “My health insurance isn’t up to date at the moment.”
“Oh.”
The knowledge that this person was so much more than his most loyal fan came crashing down on Wells’s head like a ton of bricks. Josephine had problems to contend with. Serious ones. Her family’s shop was underwater and she had to worry about blood sugar going up and down. And he’d ripped her fucking sign in half? What kind of a monster am I?
Wells cleared his throat hard. “Health insurance seems like it might be pretty vital when you’re a diabetic.”
“Trust me, it is. But . . .” Her throat worked. She paused, coughed, and kept her voice even. Brave? Or was she just trying to avoid getting emotional in front of him because he’d demanded it? Both? “Everything just snowballed so fast, you know. Ironic in Florida.” Why did that joke make him want to splash through the water and . . . hug her? Jesus, he was not a hugger. He wasn’t even a shoulder patter. “I fell behind on rent payments for the shop. At first, it came down to paying for rent or the commercial insurance . . . like, flood insurance? I paid the rent.”
A weight sank in his stomach. The shop wasn’t covered.
“Shit, Josephine.”
“Mega shit.” She closed her eyes, shook her head a little. “Last year, I put my health insurance on pause so the payments wouldn’t be a burden on the shop. Started taking on more golf lessons, so I could just buy my medical supplies out of pocket. But like I said, everything just seemed to snowball and . . .” She trailed off. Took a breath, lifted her chin, and pasted on a determined smile. “I’m going to figure it out, though. I always figure it out.”
He hadn’t deserved to have this girl in his corner for the last five years.
That fact was growing more obvious by the moment.
Someone should have been cheering for her, instead.
“I can give you the money,” Wells said, easing the worst of the pressure in his chest. Okay. Yes. He had the solution. She wouldn’t have to spread out her insulin or be forced to take any other measures to remain healthy. He might not be the number one golfer in the world anymore, but he had tens of millions banked from those earlier, successful days. Might as well give the cash to someone who needed it, before he spent it all on scotch. “I’ll write you a check. Enough to repair the shop and cover your health insurance for a year. Just until you’re back on your feet.”
She stared at him like he’d suggested they take a vacation on Mars. “Are you serious?”
“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
Silence passed. “Neither do I. So believe me when I say, there isn’t a single chance I’m taking your money. I’m not a charity case. I can take care of myself. And my family.”