Page 113 of Unexpected Shot
“How did I marry a woman so chronically offline?” he asks, but I’m pretty sure that’s a plea to whatever God he believes in to help him in this situation. “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen.”
“What’s going to happen is you’re going to delete that video from the internet.”
“Doesn’t work like that,” he says. “Sorry, Shelby, the internet is forever.”
“Ugh, I hate you,” I grumble. “Can you at least wrap this up? I’m trying to practice. You know, because I’m a golfer.”
“And I’m not?”
“You’re…” I’m so frustrated I can’t speak correctly. “I don’t know what you are besides a pain in my ass."
Beau takes what I believe to be a “trying to calm down” breath. He even adds dramatic zen hand motions with it. “I’m not going to stop the live stream. If I don’t get it by one-fifty, I’ll wrap it up. But I do this every Monday. Or at least I try to. Some sort of live, interactive stream. It helps with my engagement, and the money that comes in is stupid considering I’m just sitting out here and putting.”
I study his face, and I don’t even know why. It’s not like he’s lying to me about this. Or if he is, it seems like a stupid thing to lie about.
“How long do you think that will be?”
“Another hour. Max.”
I take a breath. The damage is done, and I guess the only choice I have at this moment is to wait it out. “Fine. One hour. Tops.”
His smile is reminiscent of a child who was just told he could have the sleepover. “You’re the best.”
He leans in to kiss my cheek, but I quickly push away from him. “One hour, Devereaux. I’m timing you.”
I start to walk away when I hear Beau’s voice, apparently talking to his audience again. “Alright, guys. Sorry about that. I’m back. Shelby wanted to stay, but she didn’t want to show me up anymore. She’s the best wife ever.”
I don’t turn back, instead I just put up a middle finger as I walk back to the house.
“Aw, guys! And she just told me she loves me. God, I’m a lucky man.”
The second finger goes up for good measure, and I hear him laughing in the distance as I enter the house, pondering how this is my life…and also slightly curious about what the hell a fan page is.
“I can't believe it took you one hundred forty-eight tries to make that putt.”
“Thank God you showed me the line,” he says with a hint of amusement in his voice.
“Yes, what would you have done if I didn’t crash the video?” There’s no way, or reason, to hide my sarcasm as we stand next to each other in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for the stir fry we agreed to eat for dinner tonight. “Okay, truth: you could’ve made that putt in fewer shots, right? Like, you were being bad on purpose?”
Beau doesn't have a lot of tells. Actually, I take that back. He has so many facial expressions it's hard to decipher when he's being serious and when he's being his annoyingly-charming self. And even then it’s a fifty-fifty shot.
“What do you think?” He puts down his knife and turns to me, resting his hip against the counter in a position that shouldn’t be sexy, but is.
Because of course it is. It’s a man in a kitchen. That’s sexy as hell.
“I think you’re an attention whore, and if a live stream is making you money, you're going to make it go as long as possible. I also know you’ve likely memorized every inch of that green. There’s no way you kept hitting it in exactly the wrong spot that many times.”
I watch as the corner of his mouth tilts up. “I married someone with beauty, talent, and brains—really the whole package.”
I shake my head, because I refuse to let him sweet-talk me with compliments when I’m trying to do my best every day to remind myself this isn’t real. “Cut it out with that wife shit.”
“I don’t know, cooking a meal together is a pretty real thing,” he says as he turns back to the counter and grabs a zucchini. “Do you like to cook?”
His question takes me by surprise. It's such a get to know you question, which feels weird coming from a man who's knownme my entire life. Yet, he doesn't know this part of me. The domestic side. The non-golfer side. What he knows about me in that realm is likely only something Gabi’s talked to him about, and I doubt my cooking habits are on the top of that list.
“Occasionally. It’s hard to find a recipe meant for one person, and I’m not the biggest fan of leftovers. But I know I can't live off of takeout every night, so I do it when I have to.”
“Completely agree,” he says as he moves on to a green pepper. “Gabi told me I needed to get a crock pot and meal prep. That just felt like a lot of work.”
