Fangirl Down (Big Shots, #1)

Frustration raked down his insides like a pair of fingernails. He just wanted to throw in the towel and she was the only one preventing him from doing it.

Wells steeled himself against the urge to set down his bag and select a club one more time, for this person who unwisely continued to believe in him. He reached for her sign instead, calling himself ten times a bastard as he tore it straight down the middle. He threw the two sides onto the grass, forcing himself to look her in the eye, because he couldn’t be a bastard and a coward. “For the last time, I don’t want you here.”

Then it finally happened.

She stopped looking at him as if he were a hero.

And it was a million times worse than hitting into the trees.

“Sorry about lunch,” he said thickly, wheeling around her. “Sorry about everything.”

“What about your green jacket?”

Wells stopped in his tracks, but didn’t turn to face her. He couldn’t let anyone see what those two words—green jacket—did to him. Especially her. The tournament held in Georgia every year was widely regarded as a kingmaker. You win the Masters Tournament? You are an automatic icon. The winner was traditionally awarded a very distinct green jacket and lorded over anyone who didn’t have one. Aka the dream. “What?”

“You said once that your career wouldn’t be complete without winning a green jacket at Augusta. You haven’t done it yet.”

A shard of ice dug into his gut. “Yes, I’m aware of that, Josephine. Thank you.”

“Goals don’t just stop being goals,” she said adamantly. “You can’t just stop wanting something after working so hard for it.”

“I can. I have.”

“I’m calling bullshit, Wells Whitaker.”

“Call bullshit all you like. I won’t be here to listen.”

With that, he left the course for the final time—and he was right, no one noticed.

No one except for Josephine. The last person on planet Earth pulling for him. He would very likely never see her again. Never overhear her defend him in the crowd or see her signs pop up reassuringly among the baseball caps, her unusually colored hair a perfect complement to the green surrounding her.

Acknowledging that was a lot harder than he expected, but he kept walking. Halfway to the parking lot, he dropped his golf bag and let the clubs spill out, not giving a shit what happened to them. The lack of weight should have made him feel lighter.

The sense of freedom would come eventually. Right?

Any second now.

But when he looked back at the course and saw Josephine still standing in the same spot, facing away from him, the heaviness intensified so swiftly that his gait faltered. Still, he commanded himself to get into the driver’s side of his Ferrari, giving the ivy-covered establishment the finger as he peeled out of the lot.

Wells Whitaker was done with golf and everything that came with it.

Including green-eyed optimists who made him wish he could win again.





Chapter Three




Three weeks after quitting the tour, Wells cracked open one stinging eye and had no idea what day it was. It might have been June or December. For all he knew, he’d gone backward in time. He’d disconnected from reality as soon as he left that golf course in Palm Beach Gardens and returned to his condo in Miami. Drinking. Lord Jesus, there had been so much drinking, his lungs and guts felt like they were caked in fresh tar.

Despite the wicked stepmother of headaches currently crushing his skull beneath the toe of her boot . . . his limbs were kind of jumpy. An indistinct memory poked the back of his neck like a bony finger. He needed to get out of bed and do something. But what? There was no tee time, no practice round, no press conference. Nothing to do but get lit again.

Hurricane Jake.

“Fuck.”

His arm shot straight out to grab the remote control, his body twisting around in the sheets to sit up. There was a hurricane last night. Apart from some strong winds and lashing rain, he hadn’t really felt the effects in his high-rise condo. Last thing he remembered, it was going through Palm Beach and goddammit, he’d thought of her. Josephine. She lived there, right? My family owns a little pro shop nearby. He recalled her saying that. So if she didn’t live in Palm Beach, then close. Close enough to get hit.

And he must have been a stupid level of drunk, because he’d had the irrational worry that she might still be standing on that golf course watching him leave when the hurricane landed. A ridiculous notion that he wasn’t any less stressed about in the light of day.

He had no obligation to that woman.

It wasn’t as though he’d formally invited her to be his number one fan.

His only fan.

At this point, she’d probably started cheering for someone else.

Good.

Stomach gurgling with acid, Wells turned on the seventy-inch flat-screen opposite his bed and flipped to the news, his heart sinking like an anchor when the destruction appeared. The coast had been clotheslined by hundred-and-fifty-mile-an-hour winds, torrents of rain. Blackouts and flooding. Cars overturned. The sides of buildings had been ripped clean off.

Was she affected?

Wells muted the television and fell back against the headboard, his finger tapping anxiously on the remote. This wasn’t his problem. There were emergency services who helped people after weather disasters. Not to mention, he wasn’t in any shape to help anyone.

He needed the help.

Cautiously, he turned his swimming head and glanced around the room. Discarded clothing, bottles, glasses, and plates holding half-eaten food. He’d gone full rogue, abandoning his protein diet and exercise routine. Also, shaving and showering and productivity. A few nights ago, he’d forced himself to venture outside, but that decision had led to yet another bar fight with some clown who’d lost fantasy sports money thanks to Wells’s bad performance. So his right eye was purple and swollen. It provided little comfort that the other guy looked worse.

Getting sucker punched hurt like hell, but the brawl itself was a relief. He’d grown up fighting. In school, he’d spent more time in the principal’s office than the principal herself. An angry kid—that’s what he’d been. Resentful over being abandoned by his parents. Turbulent and hot-tempered.

Then Buck Lee had gotten ahold of him.

The summer Wells turned sixteen, he’d scored a job shagging balls at the local golf course and mainly, he’d been excited for an opportunity to silently mock the rich kids while he earned a few bucks. Where would he be now if he’d never picked up that driver and smashed a ball three hundred yards while Buck watched from the clubhouse?

Probably not sitting in a five-million-dollar condo.

Stressing about a girl he barely knew.

Wells’s Belle.

A pressing sense of responsibility had him growling and reaching for his phone. His manager had quit weeks ago and they’d had zero communication, but he’d bite the bullet for some information. Otherwise, he’d always wonder if something bad had happened to her on his watch—

On his watch?

“Stop acting like she’s your girlfriend. She’s a fan.”

Big, optimistic green eyes shining up at him.

I’ll stay right here until everyone comes back.

“Dammit.” Was his head pounding with the force of his hangover or was it something else? Wells didn’t know, nor did he care to explore the reason he felt a responsibility to a certain redhead. So he just dialed.

His ex-manager, Nate, answered on the third ring, sounding groggy. “You better not be calling me to bail you out.”

“I’m not.” On the screen of his television, the news was showing a shelter full of people displaced by the storm and he furiously scanned the faces for one full of hope and humor. “Listen, remember that contest? People entered to have lunch and a putting lesson with me.”

“The contest only eighty-one people entered?”

Wells winced. “I’m not sure it was necessary to give me that number.”