Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 111959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
“That is a pretty good point.” She turned and leaned back against the bathroom sink, hesitating. “There is probably already a crowd outside. They’ll be watching us, wondering why we’re going for a random jog before tee off.”
Wells didn’t give a flying fuck what anyone thought, but . . . Josephine did. When it came to some things. Like her capabilities. Her strength. Needing a run for the sake of her health fell under both of those headings. She was strong because of her struggle, not in spite of it, but that was his belief. It didn’t necessarily match how she felt in a vulnerable moment. “Let’s run in the hallway. You don’t even have to change.”
She huffed a laugh. “Run in the hallway in a robe?”
“If it makes you feel better, I’ll go shirtless.”
A shoulder shrug from Josephine. “It wouldn’t hurt,” she mumbled.
“Stop trying to seduce me with flattery,” he said dryly, tossing his hat on the bathroom sink and stripping off his polo. “Come on.”
“My lungs are bleeding from excitement.”
Despite her irritable state, he didn’t miss the way she cataloged his chest and stomach. He might have even flexed a little, in the name of making her feel better. Whatever it took to get her out of the room and toward a fix—and he was not taking it for granted that she was allowing him to be part of the solution.
They positioned the brass hook to hold her door open, then stood side by side in the carpeted hallway, Josephine barefoot, Wells in the leather sneakers he usually wore until it came time to put on his spikes. “You ready?”
“No,” she said, starting to jog.
Hiding his smile, he caught up and kept pace with her. Down to the end of the hallway, where they touched the wall, turned and started back in the direction they’d come.
“Depeche Mode.”
“No,” she answered without missing a beat.
“Bad Bunny.”
“You’re casting a very wide net.”
“Give me the decade, at least,” he complained.
“Only because you’re shirtless.” She glanced over, lips pursed. “The sixties.”
He growled. “That would have been helpful in the beginning.”
She hip checked him, briefly interrupting his stride. “I help you more than enough.”
Truthfully? He kind of loved Josephine in a bad mood. “That’s true. You do.”
They tapped the hallway wall, turned, and continued, jogging in companionable silence for a few minutes. Until, “It’s the Beatles, isn’t it?”
“Nope.”
Wells groaned.
“You’re getting closer.”
“There’s that.”
“There’s also this.” She knocked on a random hotel room door and then sprinted ahead at three times the speed they’d been jogging. Leaving him in her dust. Making it look like he was the one who’d knocked. Wells boomed a laugh, but it cut off abruptly when the door Josephine had knocked on opened a few yards behind him.
“Uh . . . yes?” called an older man into the hallway.
Without turning around, Wells picked up speed.
Josephine had disappeared back into her room.
No. She wouldn’t. She would not close the door on him, leaving him out in the hallway shirtless, caught red-handed as a doorbell ditcher.
Spoiler: yes, she would.
Wells skidded to a halt outside her door and grabbed the handle, rattling it violently. Locked. “Oh. You are so wrong for this, belle.”
Her gasping laugh reached him through the door.
“Open it.”
“Son, did you knock on my door?” called the man on the other end of the hall.
“Sorry about that.” Wells gave a stilted wave. “Wrong room.”
Dude wouldn’t leave it at that. “Aren’t you that Whitaker fellow?”
Josephine was all but dying on the other side of the goddamn door. “You’ve had your fun,” he ground out, though he was also . . . smiling? “Let me in.”
The door clicked open and Wells stormed inside, letting it shut behind him while he watched Josephine huddle against the far wall of the room, face buried in her hands, shoulders shaking with mirth.
“Looks like you’re feeling better,” he remarked, wishing he could taste that laugh, feel it against his mouth.
“Much.” She scooped her phone off the bed, tapped the screen, and held it out, so Wells could see the dots sloping downward, her number beginning to come down: 267. Still high, but going in the right direction. “It’ll keep going down now that I’ve given it a kickstart.”
“I’m glad, baby.”
All right. That just . . . slipped right out.
They stared at each other for a few heavy moments, before heading for the bathroom at the same time, pausing in the doorway to search each other for objections, then going in together. Slowly. Wells pulled his shirt back on and replaced his hat while Josephine began another attempt at a ponytail.
“You know, it looks the exact same every time you do it.”
She hummed. “To the untrained male eye, maybe.”
“Give me a go.”
She paused in the act of gathering her hair, revealing that very edible neck. “You want to do my ponytail?”