Page 124 of Fangirl Down

No. He couldn’t let this happen.

He wouldn’t let the woman he loved give up her dream out of loyalty to him.

Otherwise, he was never worthy of that loyalty in the first place.

“I’ll make sure she’s home,” Wells said, raggedly, ending the call.

And then he spent the night planning the hardest conversation of his life.

***

Wells wasn’t in bed when Josephine woke up.

She frowned into the pillow, rolled over to stretch her sore muscles. If they continued having sex at this rate, she was canceling her gym membership.

“You don’t have a gym membership,” she yawned to herself, sitting up. Wanting to sneak one more look at the pictures her father had sent of the Golden Tee under construction, Josephine picked her phone up off the nightstand and scrolled through her camera roll, her stomach a combination of dread and excitement. More than anything, she wanted to show these pictures to Wells. He would be happy for her. He’d be interested and he’d probably have great suggestions, too, but... she was avoiding the conversation.

Not only with Wells.

She was avoiding it with herself.

She’d written an email to the owner of Rolling Greens asking for an extension on opening the doors of the new and improved Golden Tee, but although the owner had been following her journey with Wells on television, he’d apologetically declined. In fact, he’d seemed evenmoreeager for Josephine to return to Palm Beach, now that she had some notoriety behind her, hoping it would earn him some clout with club members.

What was she going to do?

She didn’t know. Every day, she woke up thinking the answer would have made itself clear, but she quickly became absorbed by Wells, by the magic they made.

By love.

Their relationship wasn’t some temporary flight of fancy. It was built on rock. And she became more and more positive of that every minute they spent together. They’d seen each other at their worst and best, and they supported each other unconditionally. This man was the one great love of her life and she wanted to stay with him a little longer. She just needed to make sure Wells was solid and wouldn’t self-destruct at the first sign of adversity.

Then she would go.

Yeah right.

She looked at the completed construction pictures on her phone one last time, no choice but to acknowledge the wistfulness in her chest, before setting it back on the side table, facedown. Quickly, she finger-combed her hair and pulled on Wells’s discarded T-shirt, detouring to the en suite bathroom to brush her teeth before venturing out to the living room.

She stopped short when she found Wells sitting on the couch. Shirtless in sweatpants.

The television wasn’t on. He wasn’t reading or looking at his phone.

He was just... sitting there.

A finger of alarm traced down her spine, but she shook it off.

Maybe he was visualizing the course at Augusta. That wouldn’t be unusual.

“Morning.” She circled the couch and sat down beside him. “I’m usually the one who wakes up first. Everything okay?”

He didn’t answer right away. “I don’t know.”

Nerves crept into her throat, but she laughed through them. “Why does it feel like I just walked into a breakup?”

Wells flinched. Just the slightest gathering of his shoulder muscles—

And the air evaporated from Josephine’s lungs.

“Oh my God,” she managed, pushing off the couch onto legs that were suddenly nothing more than cooked spaghetti noodles. “A-are you breaking up with me?”

---