“I look stupid.”
“You look beautiful.”
Her eyes met his in the mirror. “My hair is a train wreck, I missed a strip of hair on my leg, and I broke the strap on my sandal.” She was speaking with tears in her eyes like a sullen child, and he smiled gently. At least this he could help with. He grabbed her razor and shaving cream and led her to the side of the bathtub. She pointed out the narrow strip of prickly skin on the back of her calf, and he had the completely unnoticeable patch of skin smooth as a baby’s butt in two seconds flat. He pulled out a pair of silver flat sandals from the floor of his closet, chucking the broken tan sandals in the garbage. He stood her back up in front of the mirror and kissed her neck.
“Your hair looks beautiful, but if you complain about it again, I’m going to get your curling iron out and do it for you. I’ve never in my life used one, and I can pretty much guarantee you’ll regret it if I do.” She gave him a small smile, laughing even through her tears at that. She nodded. He nodded.
The rest of the day was very similar to their morning. She was stoic, and he watched. He watched and watched and watched. The funeral was small, and as far as funerals went, perfect. She cried, sobbing silently as they lowered her mother’s casket into the ground, and he brushed his own tears away at nothing more than the pain of seeing her hurting so much. He stood beside her, letting Michelle support her with an arm around her waist as he waited for her to need him. Michelle walked away to greet someone she knew, and Bailey turned toward him, gripping the side of his waist harshly and desperately. She didn’t touch him other than that, and it seemed all she was capable of doing to let him know it was okay to touch her.
He pulled her into his arms, and she let him hold her. Her hand found his lower back under his suit jacket, and he stroked the back of her neck. His parents were there, and his mother smiled through her tears at them. His father squeezed her hand, and after they both hugged her and patted him on the shoulder they were gone.
Walking away from the gravesite was the hardest part for her. She kept looking back. She couldn’t seem to stop looking, and it took them nearly ten minutes to reach his car. She was crying quietly by the time he got her into the car, and she was sitting in a silent stupor by the time they pulled up in front of his home. She sat on the deck for hours that afternoon, and it was dark when she finally came inside. He was trying to give her space, but it wasn’t what he wanted. She sat on the couch next to him, and she laid her head in his lap.
“You’re going to get through this.” He stroked gently over her forehead as she looked up to him. She nodded slightly, but she remained quiet. He’d not heard her voice for hours, and it left the silence in the house unbearable.
She fell asleep eventually, and he carried her upstairs to bed. There was nothing to do but fall asleep when she was like this.
The next five days were the same. She woke. She slept. She ate. He’d try to talk to her, but he didn’t get much response—one or two words at most and then silence. She snuggled up close to him every night, and it was about as much emotion as he saw. He worked when he was scheduled, and Michelle came over every day to see her, bring her lunch when he wasn’t there, and stay for hours sometimes. She’d sit on the back deck with Bailey and just wait for her to show some sign of life. He’d arrive home from work and join them.
The first night she showed any improvement came on day six after her mother’s funeral. Michelle was over, and they were grilling salmon on the back deck that night. As they sat at the patio table having dinner, they were reminiscing about growing up together in Savoy. Jess came up, and Michelle started talking about the time Jess punched one of the football players for telling Bailey he wanted to “hit that.” He was referring to Bailey’s ass, and he was referring to fucking it. But apparently the phrase “hit that” wasn’t one Jess knew, and she assumed the player was being an asshole. The player was being an asshole, just not the kind of asshole Jess thought he was being. It earned her a one-week suspension at school, and the suspension earned her a one-month grounding at home.
Darren was in college at that point, and he could still remember talking to her on the phone as she railed on and on about the unfairness of life. He’d tried not to laugh at her, but it was hard. He’d instantly called Bailey after he’d hung up with Jess, and he’d ended up staying on the phone with her nearly all night. He used to get hard just talking to her, and there was no limit to what he was willing to do to his body if he happened to be alone while he was talking to her. Some of his best masturbatory orgasms were while he was on the phone with her. She simply didn’t realize it.
Bailey looked up and smiled, laughed quietly as they remembered Jess and just what a spitfire she could be. Both he and Michelle gaped at her sudden smile and laughter, and then they stowed their shock quickly, not wanting to scare her sudden bout of contentment away. Michelle left shortly after that, but her step was lighter, her smile easier as she hugged Bailey good night.
Over the course of the next five days, she made steady improvements. At first it was just a random smile about something, but soon her voice came back, and she started talking again—really talking. He was relieved. Michelle was too, and after dinner one night, after Michelle had left for the evening, he pulled Bailey down to sit between his legs on one of the loungers.
“Kind of nice to see you smile.”
She hummed as she contemplated that. “Why haven’t you touched me?”
Her question took him a bit by surprise. He swallowed, his body already responding. “I didn’t know you wanted me to. You’ve been a bit difficult to read.” He kissed the back of her neck.
“Will you touch me?” Her voice was hesitant and quiet.
“What does it mean to you if I do?” He didn’t need to be told he sounded like a chick when he said that, but he needed to know where things stood with them, and he didn’t like that this was so up in the air.
“Does it have to mean anything? If memory serves, you were the king of meaningless sex.” She didn’t intend to hurt his feelings, but those words cut to the bone.
He stood, walking away as her eyes followed him. He went to bed early, still fully clothed, and fell asleep to bad dreams. She hadn’t followed him, and he was avoiding her because he didn’t want to argue with her.
“Please touch me.” Her voice whispered against his ear, and her hands were in his pants, already touching and stroking him. He was still dressed, but she was naked, and he could feel the warmth of her pussy against his cloth-covered thigh. Her hips moved, and she was pushing herself so greedily against him.
If he hadn’t been hard when she started, he was by the time he woke to her breathy and frustrated voice in his ear. “Bailey.” He mumbled her name as he woke up, and then her lips met his. Her tongue pushed past his lips, and he groaned. He’d needed her touch from the moment he saw her again in the hospital—hell, since the moment she left Savoy—but he wasn’t at all sure this was a good idea under the circumstances. She’d been virtually catatonic for days, and now she was trying to ravish him in the middle of the night after offending him with the truth earlier in the evening.
“Please. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
Her hand was stroking his rigid arousal, and she was being rough, desperate. “Stop for a second.” He waited for her to slow the stroke of her hand, and when she was panting beside him, he pulled her hand from him and slid it down between her legs. She parted her thighs, and he guided her fingers between the lips of her sex, letting the moisture coat them both, and when he pushed her own finger in with his, she cried out. His hand was on top of hers, and his finger was buried deep inside her next to her own. He stroked the top of her middle finger with his as he plunged through her silky wet cum.