Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“What are we doing here?” Wells asked, shooting Sig a raised brow. “I have a beautiful fiancée back in Florida who gets turned on by wedding planning. I should really be there.”
Sig crossed his arms, regarding Burgess in the hospital bed without a single trace of sympathy. More like disgust. And even in his rock-solid state of self-pity and misery, Burgess felt a spark of appreciation for that. “You remember why we’re here, golf man. Tell him.”
“Ah. That’s right.” Wells swept off his hat and slapped it to the center of his chest. “Welcome to your intervention.”
“Intervention, my ass.” The roar burned his throat. “Get the hell out.”
“Sorry, but no,” Sig replied calmly. “Normally, I would heed that warning from the legendary Sir Savage, but this is my one chance to tell you you’re acting like a piece of fossilized shit without getting my nose broken.”
Burgess’s pulse started rapping in his temples. He didn’t like this. He just wanted to go back to staring into the darkness. “You realize I’ll be healed one day, right?”
“We realize that,” Wells drawled. “Do you?”
A twitch started behind his eye. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Wells and Sig traded a look. “It means, you’ve been out of surgery for a week and you’re refusing to be transferred to the rehab facility. You’re sitting here rotting away like yesterday’s trash.” The golfer waved a hand in front of his nose. “And there’s fish in it.”
“We’re here to tell you to pull your head out of your ass.”
A whole week had passed?
Burgess had assumed it’d only been a couple of days since the surgery . . . but a week?
Apparently shunning sunrises and sunsets had taken a toll on him.
No. Losing her. That’s why time no longer mattered.
“I’ll go eventually. Just not today.”
“Sorry, man, it’s going to be today. They’re getting the paperwork ready.”
“I won’t sign it.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t give a fuck if I heal or not!” Burgess shouted at their annoyingly placid faces. “That’s why. All right? Should I go through rehab to buy myself one more year in the league? Two, at best? I’ve already slowed down, but how useful am I going to be out there, postsurgery? And what the hell does any of it matter now, anyway? She’s . . .”
A few seconds ticked by. “She’s what?” Wells prompted.
Saying the words out loud was like having his esophagus raked with a claw hammer. “She left me. I . . . hurt her feelings. Badly. I forced her out of my life. So I don’t care if I ever leave this room again. I don’t want to go back to a world where she’s walking around hurt because of me. Just let me lie here and die.”
That statement landed in the center of the room like a ten-ton boulder, the crash followed by a charged silence.
“Burgess—” Sig started.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand more than you think,” Sig snapped, briefly taking off his ball cap to rake five fingers through his hair and slapping it back down. “You were in a bad place. Tallulah is an understanding, compassionate person—”
“Stop talking about her. Please. It hurts worse than the injury.” Burgess let his head fall back against the pillow while he pulled himself together, as much as possible. “Is she okay? Is she staying with Chloe?”
Sig’s voice was gruff when he responded. “Yeah. She’s with Chlo, although . . .”
“Although what?”
His teammate looked hesitant to tell him something and it was causing craters to form on his arteries. “She’s been out. A lot,” he said. “Last I heard, she’d gone kayaking on the Charles. Chloe also mentioned Tallulah taking a bus to New Hampshire for a hot air balloon ride tomorrow, but I don’t have all the details. Bottom line, she hasn’t been home much.”
That news hit him like an uppercut.
Too many emotions to process inundated him at once.
Fear of her doing those activities alone, possibly scared. Definitely nervous.
Without him to protect her. That panic momentarily robbed him of breath.
Mostly, though, there was pride. In Tallulah. And it tripled and quadrupled. She’d grown strong and confident enough to take her adventures alone. The message was clear. She didn’t need him at her side anymore. As much as that gutted him, he was proud. So fucking proud.
Wells stepped forward. “As you know, Burgess, I literally fired my girlfriend as my caddie. Fired her. Believe me, I wanted to drink myself to death afterward, because . . .” He shot a glare toward Sig. “You didn’t tell me this intervention was going to require me to relive my own emotional trauma.”
“Why didn’t you?” Burgess said hoarsely, still thinking of Tallulah soaring in a hot-air balloon.
Wells squinted an eye. “Why didn’t I what?”
Focus. “Why not drink yourself to death instead of coming here and annoying me?”
“Love you too, man. I didn’t drink myself to death because there was a sliver of a chance Josephine would come back. And it was worth living for. Now we’re planning a wedding in Costa Rica.” He cleared his throat hard. “That’s it for me on sharing. I’m out.”