He barks out a laugh and shakes his head. “Never mind.”
Bailey is back.
And my guard is up higher than motherfuckin’ ever.
TWO
Two months later
Bailey
HE said what?” Tia gasps, then giggles.
I take a small sip of my coffee and hesitantly repeat, “He said that one of my boobs was the size of his head.”
She laughs harder, clutching her chest, her blond hair framing her oval face like a curtain. “Men these days. How hilarious are they? And by hilarious I mean stupid.”
I giggle at that. “Right? I think I’ve had enough dating to last me a lifetime.”
“You went on two dates after the whole Trevor fiasco,” Tia points out with a smirk. “And one ended between the sheets.”
I groan and put my coffee down on the table. “Please, don’t remind me.” I pause. “At least none of them had a foot fetish.”
“I don’t think he meant the boob thing as an insult,” she continues, blue eyes wide on me. “It would have been a compliment. He was merely making an observation. You do have huge boobs.”
I look down at the boobs in question. “Yeah, but he should enjoy them, not compare the size to his head! Maybe his head is just really small.”
Tia’s shoulders shake, and she wipes her eyes, which are starting to water. She always cries when she laughs. “The sex couldn’t have been that bad!”
I cover my face with my hands, not wanting to relive it. “It was horrible. He kept calling my . . . my . . .”
“Your what?” Tia asks, leaning closer to me. I point downward to my crotch. “Your pussy?” she supplies casually.
I nod.
“What was he calling it?” she asks, sounding both curious and on the verge of laughter.
I groan, yeah I’m not going to say that word out loud. “The c-word.”
Tia grins, slamming her hand down on my dining table. “A cu—”
“Yes,” I say, cutting her off. “That.”
“A little dirty talk never hurt anyone,” she huffs, lifting her mug to her lips, hiding her smirk.
“There is something seriously wrong with you,” I tell my neighbor. I moved next door to Tia over a year ago. We became fast friends, and so did our children. My daughter, Cara, and her son, Rhett, are almost the same age and spend a fair bit of time together; we take turns having each other over for meals and company. We became family in such a short time, and I love them both to death.
“I’m all for the dirty talk,” I agree. “But that word? Yeah, no. Why can’t he just say pussy like a normal dirty-talking man?” Even the word pussy sounds foreign on my tongue. Before I became friends with Tia, I never really spoke about my sex life.
When he told me he loved fucking my c-word, I kind of wished I was anywhere except under him.
“Did he make you come, at least?” she asks, not shy at all.
“When did the two of us lose our boundaries?” I ask myself, staring at the ceiling for a second.
“Probably when you walked in on me having sex with—”
“Oh god, don’t make me relive it!” I shriek, cutting off the rest of her sentence. I’d once come over to her house to find the door unlocked. Panicked, thinking someone had broken in, or something was wrong, I ran into the house while dialing the police, only to find her riding some guy. It was awkward. She didn’t think so, but I did and still do.
“Bailey,” she says in a serious tone. “You’re a catch. A great woman. The best. And a fucking babe. If you can’t find a good man, what chance do the rest of us have?”
I smile sadly. “Maybe not all of us are meant to be with someone. I have a house. A job. A beautiful, healthy daughter. If that’s all I get in life, I’ll be happy with it.”
“Bullshit,” Tia says, narrowing her blue eyes. “You’ll find someone, when the time is right. Someone who isn’t a creep like Trevor.”
Yeah, I sure know how to pick them. Tia knows a few things about Adam, but not the whole story. No one knows the whole story except me.
I push my dark hair back behind my ear and mutter, “I won’t hold my breath.”
Cara and Rhett run into the kitchen, saving me from Tia’s attempt at a motivational speech.
“You two finished playing games?” I ask my daughter, hugging her as she runs into my arms, her brown hair flailing around.
“Yeah,” she says, her big brown eyes glancing up at me. “Can we go play outside now?”
I nod. “Yeah, okay. How about a snack first?”
“Yes, please!” Rhett calls out, always hungry. His blond hair falls over his forehead, his blue eyes identical to Tia’s peer up at me in excitement.
“Okay,” I tell him. “Wash your hands while I fix you both something.”
They wash their hands and wait patiently at the table while I make them some fruit salad, and pull out some Jell-O from the fridge to go with it.
“Thanks, Mom!” Cara says, picking up her fork and stabbing a piece of watermelon.
“Thanks, Aunt Bailey,” Rhett says, doing the same. I always get a little emotional when he calls me Aunt, even though we aren’t blood related. Tia says I’m more family to them than their own family, and that I’ve done more for Rhett than his real aunts, so I’ve earned the title.
I share a glance with her. Here we are, both single mothers, doing the best we can, but even I have to admit we both have great children.