Except the not-so-distant future when she’d have to put Wells’s interests aside and focus on her own.
She trusted this man. More than she trusted anyone besides her parents and Tallulah. But she wasn’t sure she trusted him to let her go so easily.
For now, though, she would let go, just a little more, and see where the wind blew her.
What choice did she have when Wells was looking at her like his next breath hinged on her answer? “Quality time sounds amazing.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mimosas were not Wells’s drink of choice.
The flute felt breakable in his grip. Champagne was for women.
But hell if he didn’t knock back three of those suckers without noticing.
He was too wrapped up in the stories Evelyn and Jim were telling about Josephine to pay attention to anything else. The best part was Josephine blushing and begging them to stop. Goddamn, he wanted to hear it all again, but with her sitting in his lap next time so he could tickle her, kiss those pinkening cheeks and neck.
He really needed to get a grip on his hunger for his girlfriend. At least around her parents.
Girlfriend.
Had he bullied her into it? He’d been worried about that initially—and then he remembered that his Josephine didn’t get bullied into anything. If she’d agreed to be in a relationship with Wells, that’s because she wanted to be in one with him. End of story.
Although . . . maybe later, he’d just double-and triple-check.
God willing, it wouldn’t be on the DL forever. He didn’t know how long he could manage keeping the whole thing to himself. Even before they started dating, he’d been pretty obvious about his growing feelings. Warning Calhoun away from her like a possessive beast. Escorting her all over a family-friendly resort as if she might fall victim to an ambush.
And she didn’t even know about her birthday present yet.
Would he be able to keep things professional in public? At all times?
Professionalism wasn’t exactly his strong suit. Throw in the fact that he was officially dating a woman who made him feel purposeful and alive—not to mention hornier than he’d ever been in his twenty-nine years—and the ball of yarn could unravel fast. Even now, at brunch with her jovial but watchful parents, he was having a hard time stopping himself from yanking Josephine’s chair closer so he could hold her hand.
They weren’t keeping their relationship a secret from Jim and Evelyn, but Josephine wanted to let things settle after they’d walked in on him trying to drag her back to the bedroom for round two of sex.
That’s fine. That’s her right.
He didn’t have to like it, though.
“Why are you frowning at me?” Josephine whispered to him out of the corner of her mouth.
“I’m just concentrating on the story,” he rumbled back.
That wasn’t a complete lie. Resolving to hold the shit out of her hand later, when they were alone, he crossed his arms, leaned back in his chair, and listened to Evelyn and Jim’s story, amused by the way they traded sentences.
“Every single one of Joey’s teeth has been lost in some traumatic way,” Jim said, waving his hands around. “The first one came out the second day of kindergarten.”
“The children left school that day traumatized.”
“Like they’d just returned from war. Blood on their little shirts—”
“Older and wiser. They’d seen a thing or two.”
“And the second one came out during a soccer game. A ball hit her right in the mouth. We asked if she could be brave and walk off the field and she dramatically asked for a stretcher.”
Wells laughed. A real, loud laugh that made Josephine look at him funny. “She’s gotten a lot braver since then, I guess. Run her over with a golf cart now and she doesn’t even flinch.”
“Oh, come on, I more than flinched. I howled.”
“Not long enough to stop yelling at me,” Wells pointed out.
Josephine smiled. “Yelling at you always takes priority.”
Christ. I want to kiss her and never come up for air.
“We just about died, seeing that happen on live television,” Evelyn said, fanning herself with a limp cloth napkin, which couldn’t possibly be producing enough wind to be worthwhile.
“That’s when your whole turnaround started,” Jim said, tilting his head curiously. “You birdied damn near every hole after the accident. Why is that?”
“It’s a boring story,” Josephine said quickly.
“No, it’s not,” Wells disagreed, unable to keep his expression from turning cocky. “She had my name painted on her toenails. I caught her blue-toed.”