The night before the opening round of the Masters, Wells sat at the bar in the players’ lounge, staring down into a glass of whiskey. He’d ordered it over twenty minutes ago, but hadn’t yet taken a sip. The energy in the dimly lit bar was high and familiar, everyone buzzing about the tournament of the year. The Masters brought out all the legends, and they mingled with the young guns now, reminiscing about their glory days, holding court in their green jackets. Who would have the honor of winning one this year?
Josephine would have loved this.
That’s what made his guts feel like they were in a miserable pile on the floor.
He no longer had insides, really. They had just kind of fallen out when she left.
Correction, when he told her to leave.
Before that thought could sprout teeth, Wells snatched up the whiskey and drained it, imploring the burn to work higher than his throat. To somehow singe away the memories of his fight with Josephine. Oh God, she’d been so hurt. He’d known she would be, but he’d underestimated. She’d gone white as a fucking ghost and he could not stop seeing that. It was like a horror film playing in his brain 24-7. On their first night in San Antonio, she’d told him having her help rejected hurt her feelings. It was her trigger—along with going to her parents for help—and he’d pulled them both.
But he’d seen no other way.
Did he do the right thing?
Did he?
He’d sat there all night trying to come up with solutions and he’d found only one no-fail way to combat Josephine’s fierce loyalty. But, holy shit, was he suffering now. Not having Josephine around was like being dropped off alone on the moon, seven billion light-years from his beating heart. She hadn’t stopped sharing her blood sugar data with him—that was the only thing that gave him hope that they would come out on the other side of this fight intact.
He could still see the rising and falling dots. He could still see she was okay. And thank God for that, because if she’d taken away that trust, he’d have crumbled.
As it was, Wells wasn’t sure how he’d manage to wake up tomorrow and play a round of golf. He could barely feel his fucking hands. His whole life was mired in fog.
A ripple of murmurs moved through the crowd and Wells watched Buck Lee enter the room with his collection of pros, including Calhoun. He waited for regret and envy to drive up beneath his skin like twin spikes, as usual, but oddly . . . they never did. All he felt was a small sense of nostalgia, but it was layered under a giant heap of indifference.
“You want another one?” asked the bartender, gesturing to Wells’s empty glass.
Did he? That would be his second double. The night before the Masters kicked off. He’d thrown a stick of dynamite into the middle of his relationship with Josephine so he could come here and prove to both of them that she wasn’t some glorified crutch. That he could take what she’d so gracefully taught him and maintain his upward trajectory while she realized her own dream. One she wanted and deserved. And he’d meant what he said . . . at the time. A couple of days without her, though, and he didn’t know if he could pull off anything resembling success.
Not when he was wounded and bleeding.
“Sure, I’ll have one more.”
A moment later the bartender set it down. He stared into the depths of gold, wishing he could see her green eyes. Just for a moment. Maybe then he could breathe.
A hand clapped down on Wells’s shoulder. Without turning his head to look, he knew it was Buck Lee. On some level, he might even have been expecting the legend to approach him, though he couldn’t put a finger on why. “There you are, son. I’ve been looking all over the place for you.”
Wordlessly, Wells saluted Buck with his glass of whiskey. Set it back down.
Buck made a show of scanning the packed bar, Calhoun standing right behind him with a smirk. “I don’t see your caddie around.”
“Maybe she requested a separate lounge,” Calhoun tacked on.
Violence fired down through Wells’s fingertips. Hot breaths crackled in his lungs. It would have felt so good to punch that punk in his golden-boy face. Maybe he should. Tomorrow, he would pay for the mistake, but right now, it would be an outlet for his agony.
He’s not worth it, Josephine whispered in his ear. Don’t give him what he wants.
A wealth of threats and comebacks clogged Wells’s throat. He couldn’t find the energy to issue them, though. He’d been stripped of his bravado and rage. In its place, Josephine had left honesty. Genuineness. He wouldn’t forget those things so soon. That would dishonor them.
“We both know you’ve already heard I have a new caddie. Why are you pretending otherwise?” Wells looked them both in the eye. “The fact that she’s gone might be funny to you, but I promise, it’s not funny to me.”
To his surprise, both of them slowly lost their smug expressions.
Several beats passed.
“What happened, man?” This, finally, from Calhoun. “I hope it wasn’t something health related—”
“No, nothing like that,” Wells said quickly, rubbing at his forehead. “She runs her family’s pro shop down in Palm Beach—”
“The Golden Tee!” Calhoun supplied.
Wells eyeballed him. “Yeah . . .”
“They’ve been talking about her so much on the Golf Channel, I feel like I know damn near everything about her.”
“You don’t,” Wells growled.
Calhoun held up his palms. “Fair enough.”
“Let me get this straight,” Buck said, shifting in his loafers. “She left the tour, where she was making hundreds of thousands of dollars, to go back to work at a pro shop?”
Wells sighed. “That’s mostly right.”
Buck tilted his head. “What did I miss?”
“The part where I fired her.”
Calhoun spit out the sip he’d just taken of his martini. “You fired her?”
Everyone in the lounge was staring at Wells now. Silence descended over the room like a shroud. He could feel the horror the other golfers emitted in his direction and frankly, it made him proud of Josephine. She’d earned their respect. Of course, she had.
Wells turned in his seat to face the room at large.
It was right there on the tip of his tongue to shout at them to fuck off and mind their own business, like he normally would. He also had a threat or two lined up, just in case any of them got an ill-advised notion to try to hire her themselves. Or date her. Because he would rain unspeakable violence down on them. But the words got stuck in his throat when he saw genuine concern for the woman he loved on each and every face.
Even the waiter. And a busboy.
“She loves the pro shop more than she loves the tour, but she wouldn’t go. She’s too loyal.” His explanation was growing weaker as it went on. “I had to make her go.”
“Sweet baby Jesus, you fired your girlfriend,” Calhoun drawled, almost fascinated. “How do you still have your balls?”
“Maybe I don’t have them anymore. I haven’t checked.”
Calhoun . . . laughed?
Buck, too, the legend patting him on the back. A couple of the golfers in the room sent him drinks, which the bartender represented by lining up overturned shot glasses in front of his still full whiskey. It was more of a goodwill gesture, since he couldn’t consume that much liquor responsibly on the night before a tournament or . . . ever, really.
Since when was he so responsible? And since when did the other pros give him anything but side-eye and trash talk?
It was the Josephine effect.
She wasn’t even here and she was making things better. Brighter.
She’d changed him for the better in more ways than one. Not only on the golf course, but in the way he considered other people, not just himself. She’d changed the way he interacted with those around him. Calhoun and Buck had ordered seltzer water and were flanking him at the bar in some kind of . . . solidarity?
Holy shit, had he been the asshole all along?
Had he made an enemy, lost a mentor, and alienated a legion of pros . . . with the chip on his shoulder? One honest, vulnerable exchange and he had people at his back. Consoling him, even if they didn’t agree with what he’d done to Josephine. Even if he didn’t deserve it.
Fuck, that was humbling.
He wished so badly that Josephine were there so he could tell her about it.
He’d say, Have I been the asshole all along? And she would say something witty and Zen, like, Wells, you’ve spent enough time giving people someone to hate, now give them someone to love. Or maybe . . . he was saying that to himself. Right now. Josephine’s voice would live rent-free in his head forever, guiding him, reassuring him, giving him shit, but the fact that he could conjure her wisdom on his own now? That meant something.
That meant he’d paid attention. Not taken her for granted.
That meant . . . maybe he could win on his own?
No, he would. He would.
There was a very real chance she’d never come back—and that would gut him. The view from his monastery in the mountains would be a bunch of grayscale trees and a pitch-black sky. But there was no way Wells would let the time he’d spent with Josephine mean nothing. If he had a sliver of a chance at getting her back, he’d have to prove he could stand on his own, without her constant support, because their relationship couldn’t work like that.
Please let me still be in a fucking relationship.
Wells pushed the glass of whiskey away with his index finger.
“You’re either going to play like dog excrement tomorrow,” Calhoun mused, “or you’re going to go out there and win the whole damn thing.”
“Yup.”
Calhoun paused. “You know, I have to at least make her an offer to join my team.”
Wells had seen that coming, but the admission still drove into his eye socket like an ice pick. “Everyone in this room will probably make her an offer. The smart ones, anyway. She won’t take it. She might hate me right now, but she’s my . . . belle. Through and through.”
If he listened carefully, he could hear his heart playing a tiny violin.
“You going to cry, son?” Buck asked, warily.
“Later, maybe.” Wells exhaled. “In the bathtub with a nice pinot grigio.”
They laughed. Wells didn’t feel anywhere near better. But he wasn’t alone.
And that was something.
“I’m going to head to my room,” Wells said, standing up and laying some cash on the bar. “If you think giving me a little sympathy means I’m not going to gun for you tomorrow, Calhoun, you’ve wasted your time.”
Calhoun held his hand out for a shake and, though he narrowed his eyes skeptically, Wells gripped the man’s hand and shook. “I’ll hate your guts through every hole,” the blond man said. “But if I said it hasn’t been inspiring watching you rise from the grave, I’d be lying.” He shook his hand one final time. “Good luck tomorrow.”
“Same to you. You’ll need it.”
Calhoun chuckled. “Enjoy your bath.”
Wells decided to let Calhoun have the parting shot. His spirits were rapidly dimming and he couldn’t think of a good rejoinder, anyway. The simple act of standing up and operating his wallet was as complicated as performing open heart surgery on roller skates—and they were each missing a wheel. He just wanted to go somewhere dark, lie down, and think of Josephine like the heartsick bastard that he was.
Before he left the bar area completely, Wells nodded at his former mentor. “See you, Buck.”
“Night, Wells.” He started past the older man, drawing up short when the man caught his elbow. “Let’s have lunch sometime. All right?”
Some part of Wells wanted to break out the bitterness. Now that I’m winning, you want lunch, huh? Nah, I’ll pass. But his eyes were a little more open tonight. Maybe clarity was a side effect of ripping out his own heart and throwing it into the ocean. It was possible—more than possible, really—that Wells was the one who’d been doing the wronging in the relationship with his mentor. Not the other way around. And if that was the case, he needed to own it.
“Yeah, Buck. I’d like that.”
