All I respond with is a low hum. I don’t know Bailey all that well, but I know the agreement we reached. Still, I find myself agitated by the word fake.
But I’m easily agitated these days.
Sleep would help.
“Can I touch them?”
I start, yanked out of my spiraling train of thought. “Touch what?”
Bailey juts her chin at the step below us. “Your feet.”
I gaze down. Next to each other, my feet look so fucked-up where hers are so … perfect. Aesthetically, I don’t care. Kinda figured being a soldier would scar me along the way.
It’s the contrast that strikes me, though. And it’s more than just our skin.
“You want to touch them?”
“Yeah.” Her dainty fingers brush over the tops of her own feet, and it’s like she’s too nervous to even look at me. Sometimes I wonder what goes on in her head. What she keeps locked up tight, followed by the things she blurts out.
“Okay.”
It takes her a few beats to gather the courage, and I wonder if she’ll back down. Decide they’re gross. Laugh and tell me she was just kidding.
But she doesn’t.
Her left hand moves off her foot and hovers over mine before the pad of her finger trails over the raised ridges and puckered skin. Hunched over, she traces the scars—every line, every divot.
She doesn’t seem at all put off. In fact, she seems almost entranced.
I hiss when she hits a tender spot.
“I’m sorry, did that hurt?”
“Got rubbed there,” I bite out, annoyed because doing the things I used to has become a different sort of challenge.
She leans down, peering closer, hand drawn away. “Rubbed how?”
My jaw works. “When I couldn’t sleep the other night, I just stuffed my bare feet into my sneakers like I would have before the injuries. But everything chafes and rubs now. They were already sore from wearing dress shoes at the wedding. Can’t even wear sandals. Walking through the water didn’t help.”
“That sucks,” Bailey replies matter-of-factly.
I almost want to laugh. It does suck. And it’s refreshing to have someone admit that rather than tell me it will get better. Or tell me how sorry they are.
Little things she does—without even trying—make me feel like it’s okay to not be okay in her presence.
“Yeah.” I don’t want to be a martyr. I know things could be worse. But admitting this sucks feels good. Being allowed to admit it sucks without everyone rushing to patch me up is a weight off my shoulders.
A second and third finger join in her exploration of my damage. What I’d normally register as a slight touch feels electric. The newly healed skin is more sensitive, and I know she’s not trying, but the sensation of someone touching me in a way that isn’t medical has my dick swelling.
“Have you ever had a threesome?”
Yep. That’ll do it.
A strangled noise lodges in my throat, and she finally turns her face up to mine. She is so damn pretty, eyes twinkling in the dark, the warm light of the back porch shining on her dark hair.
“What?” I ask.
Her fingers pause as I stare back at her. “A threesome. Sex with two other people. Have you ever had one?”
“I know what a threesome is, Bailey. I’m having trouble figuring out why this moment is connected to that thought for you.”
Her eyes blink down to her hand. “The three fingers, I guess?”
“Three fingers on melted skin made you think about a threesome. Life is certainly never boring in your head, is it?”
“Well, no. I was thinking about sex.” When she blurts the last part out, she finally looks a little embarrassed. But not that embarrassed.
“You were touching my feet … and thinking about sex?” Disbelief bleeds into every syllable. She’s the most entertaining blend of innocent and curious.
“Yeah. I mean,”—her head wobbles—“to be fair, I think about sex a lot.”
I scrub a hand over my face, covering my eyes. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ.”
She scoffs playfully as she traces my feet again, not the least bit uncomfortable touching me. “Don’t be such a prude, Beau.”
A laugh lurches from my chest. God, I am so unprepared for this woman. “I just don’t know how I ended up engaged to a girl with a foot fetish who blurts out personal sex questions at the drop of a hat.”
“Well, you are my fiancé. Maybe I should ask another guy instead,” she muses, the tips of her fingers now twirling over my skin as though dancing across the scar tissue.