Summer shrugs and leans back in her seat. “I know. I asked you.”
My brows furrow. “Did Beau put you up to this?”
“You kidding me? Beau works all day and then rushes home or to the bar to hang out with you. I barely see him, let alone talk to him. He doesn’t even bring you around to the main house that often. He’s hogging you, if you ask me. This will be fun. We’re going to be sisters-in-law. We stick together now.”
A pang of guilt hits me hard and fast. She might not be singing this tune when Beau and I come to an end.
Come to an end.
That has a twinge of pain landing straight in my gut.
But I ignore every sensation and forge ahead with a cheerful smile. “I would love that.”
Summer smiles brightly, holding her champagne flute up to cheers me. “You’re hired!”
I need this. I need this to get out. I need this to survive, and I’ll get over the guilt eventually.
Leaving Beau behind, though?
It feels like I’ll never get over that.
25
Beau
Beau: Just got home. Where are you?
Bailey: How do most guys like a girl to have her pubic hair?
Beau: Bailey, honest to god. You can’t just lead with things like this.
Bailey: Can you just tell me? It’s hard to know. In porn, it’s nothing at all. But I know porn isn’t real life. So like, what am I supposed to do? What’s the norm out there?
Beau: Whatever you like best. Any guy who holds a strong opinion on how you style your pubic hair doesn’t deserve to be between your legs.
Bailey: So maybe a triangle or a strip? I can’t decide.
Beau: Decide some other time. When it doesn’t involve me.
Bailey: It’s the final hour over here. I’m in the bath. Razor in hand.
Beau: Why do you insist on asking me things like this?
Bailey: Because you’ve presumably seen a lot of pussies.
Beau: Bailey, just stop.
I thought I was tired when I walked in the door. A sleepless night of mending Peaches followed by a very real kiss with my very fake fiancée means I slept like shit. Then I got up early to work with my very grumpy brother all fucking day.
I’m wrung out. Fried, if I’m being honest. Delirious maybe. I’ve never been as tired as I am at this moment, and that’s saying something for someone who was stranded in a cave in Afghanistan for several days.
But knowing Bailey is naked in my bath, asking for my input on how she shaves?
I pace my house, trying not to think about it. I go to the fridge and eye up a beer because I know it will take the edge off. But I don’t know if I can handle it. I thought 2:11 was wigging me out, but I think Bailey might be fucking with my head more than anything else.
I grab a can of kombucha instead. It’s beer-like—that’s what I keep telling myself—and healthy. The popping sound of it opening is satisfying, but the first sip is not. I’m still jittery.
I need a shower after a long day moving cattle from one quarter to the next. Yes, a shower. I head upstairs and go straight past the door where I know Bailey is in the bath.
“Hi. I’m home. Going to have a shower,” I call out loud enough that she can hear.
“Okay.” Her voice is crystal clear, so feminine as it echoes back.
Yeah. This shower will have to be cold. And it is. I leave it freezing as I step into the glass box. I take my can of kombucha with me, a million times less satisfying than a shower beer. In fact, almost everything about my life right now feels unsatisfying.
Everything except for Bailey.
She’s a breath of fresh air. She’s excitement, and innocence, and a purpose all wrapped up in one. I missed her today. I couldn’t wait to get home and see her. I spent all day sitting on the back of a horse plotting out ways to kiss her again.
And she’s down the hall. Asking me how to shave her pubic hair after recently telling me there is so much we can do that isn’t sex.
I lather and scrub the dirt from the day off my body. The only contact I make with my dick is to wash it quickly. If I linger there too long, I know what I’ll end up doing. And I don’t want to be the weird guy who jerks off while the younger girl he’s supposed to help is having a bath just a couple of doors down.
Shaving her pubic hair.
Before I have time to overthink it, I’m out of the shower, the can of shitty replacement beer forgotten on the tiled shelf, wrapping a towel around my waist.
Before I have time to talk myself out of it, I’m standing at the door of her bathroom, knocking lightly.
“Yeah?”