Page 122 of Fangirl Down

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 herthanks. 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 thedark, 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 itbuiltevery 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.

Three times now he’d asked if something was wrong and she’d visibly declined to be honest with him—and that wasn’t like Josephine at all. She was the most honest person he’d ever met in his life. It was one of a billion reasons he’d fallen in love with her.

Maybe she wasn’t in love with him... back.

Totally possible. Totally understandable.

Wells couldn’t even fault her for that. He’d probably join an order of monks, take a vow of silence, and go live on a remote goddamn mountaintop if that was the case, but he’dget it.

Or maybe he was just distracting himself with that horrible possibility.

Because deep down, he knew what her 10 percent withdrawal was really about and he needed to stop avoiding it. Or where confronting it would lead.

Wells hung his head and let the dread wash into his stomach.

Then he retrieved his phone from where it was charging in the living room. He stepped out onto his balcony into the balmy Miami breeze, hesitating only a second before calling Jim. It was late, just after eleven, so Josephine’s father sounded concerned when he answered the phone. “Wells? Is everything okay?”

“Yes. Everything is fine. Josephine is fine. She’s sleeping.”

An exhale came down the line. “Good. Okay. What’s up?”

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