Page 82 of Unexpected Shot
“What do you say?”
Her eyes narrow as I hold the shirt out of her reach. “Give me my fucking shirt.”
I shake my head and sneak in for a quick kiss. “The correct answer was ‘please.’”
She shoves me away, which just makes me laugh as I walk the few steps across the room, sliding the bathroom door closed and taking a seat on the bathtub ledge. I forgot to grab a shirt, but hopefully me taking a shirtless, early morning call from my agent will be the last thing on his mind, as I’m sure we’re about to get our asses reamed.
“Beau. Shelby. Glad you could find the time to take my call today.”
Ethan’s words cut both of us as we visibly shrink back on the screen.
“Hi, Ethan,” I say, trying to set the apologetic tone. “I’m sorry I missed your call. I?—”
“Why are you in the bathroom?”
“I…” Why does he care about my location when we obviously have bigger things to deal with? “I just got out of the shower.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Your hair is dry.”
“Oh…yeah.”Shit. Horrible excuse. “I didn’t get my hair wet. Too much maintenance.”
I hear Shelby snicker, but I can’t tell if it’s through the bathroom door or just over the phone. “Well, if you’d like to put a shirt on, don’t let me stop you.”
More snickers. Oh, she’s going to pay for this. “Nope. I’m good. We can talk.”
“Whatever you say,” Ethan says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Do you remember what this tournament was supposed to be for both of you?”
Though we both know the answer, neither of us offer it up.
“In case you both forgot, let me remind you. A goodwill PR tournament. A golfer coming back from injury better than ever. Another golfer ready to show the world he’s not just hot takes on a microphone. Two players who grew up together, fell in love with the game together, and are now coming together to win the big prize. Did you two do any of those things yesterday?”
Well…we did come together, but he doesn’t need to know that.
“No,” we both say in defeat before I add on, “But, there’s still a lot of tournament to play.”
Judging by Ethan’s exasperated look, my humor is clearly unwanted. “How the hell you two didn’t get kicked out yesterday, I’ll never know. But, I must say, you both did a good job of early damage control.”
“We know we screwed up,” I say. “And I’m sorry. Truly. I let my temper and outside factors affect my play and it clearly boiled over. I promise, it won’t happen again.”
“Same,” Shelby says. My eyes shift to her little corner of my phone screen. “I acted unprofessionally. That’s not who I am. I’ll do better.”
It’s not the apology I wanted last night, but for Shelby, that’s pretty damn close.
“We’re going to have to do more cleanup when you two getback to Nashville, but for the next three days, I need you to be on your best behavior. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
We say it at the same time, which makes Ethan’s eyebrows raise. “Why does one of you sound like you have an echo?”
I look over to see that the bathroom door isn’t quite as closed as I thought it was.
“Sorry. Bad acoustics.” I say, shutting it behind me. “Now, what were you saying?”
I can tell Ethan doesn’t believe anything coming out of my mouth, but he can only fight on one hill today. “Just behave. Play good golf. And if anyone asks about yesterday, what’s the company line going to be?”
“That we’re sorry for our actions,” Shelby says. “That we’ve cleared the air with all parties involved, and we apologize for the distraction we caused at the tournament.”
“And that we’re also sorry for the example we set,” I add. “That those actions aren’t who we are, but we thank the tournament for giving us a second chance.”
