Page 15 of Hitting the Gap

Their eyes met. Bailey gasped and held still, like she was holding her breath. Fuck. Instantly, he dropped his arms and jumped back, putting as much space between them as possible.

The awkward silence hung in the air. Should he say something? But what? Sorry, my dick’s a fucking perv and doesn’t have boundaries. Jesus. First, his mind took a dirty turn this afternoon when he saw her toy collection, and now he fucking molested her in the goddamn hot tub. Yeah, great friend he was turning out to be.

“I think I’m just gonna—” Bailey flicked her wrist and pointed toward the stairs.

Cool, so looked like she wanted to just pretend that didn’t happen. That sure as hell worked for him. “Yeah, sure, of course. I’m gonna soak a little longer.” He dropped back onto the chair and sunk deeply into the water.

“So, I’ll see you tomorrow?” Bailey asked.

Trying to feign a nonchalance he definitely wasn’t feeling, he tilted his head back and closed his eyes like he didn’t have a care in the world. “Yep, see you in the morning.”

The water sloshed as Bailey moved out of the tub. He forced himself to keep his eyes closed. After that shit show, the last thing he needed to do was get caught checking out her ass as she climbed out of the tub.

When he was sure he was alone on the rooftop, he banged his head against the tub, hoping it would knock some fucking sense into him. “This is Bailey, dude,” he mumbled, like somehow if he said it out loud it would make it feel like less of an issue.

He’d had a warm, curvy woman’s body in his arms, rubbing against his dick and he’d had a physical response, that was all. It didn’t need to mean anything. It wasn’t the first time he’d had a woody in front of Bailey. Shit, when puberty hit, he pretty much lived at half-mast. Bailey had bought him a package of socks as a joke, for Christ’s sake. He relaxed his shoulders. It was fine. She probably barely would have noticed if he hadn’t freaked out and made shit all awkward.

He groaned. Who was he kidding? His dick has pushed against her ass. Of course, she would have noticed. He bashed his head against the tub again. Fuck.

What was wrong with him? Lately he just hadn’t been feeling the whole one-night stand thing for some reason. Probably because his friends were all partnered up and he saw what that looked like.

And now Bailey was here, in his apartment. Even all rumpled from moving, she was sexy as shit and his brain just fucking short circuited for a minute. That’s all. What he needed to do was just pick up some random girl. Reset the wires and he’d be back to normal. Bailey was here to get back on her feet. She had shit to figure out and that didn’t include whatever the fuck was going on with him.

Chapter 5

Shit. Bailey’s pulse jumped as she tried to decide if she had enough time to dart back to the bedroom before Gonzo finished unlocking the front door to let himself into the apartment. Before she had a chance to decide, the front door snicked open and Gonzo stepped in. She took in the sneakers and sweaty workout gear. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You worked out already. It’s like 7:30 in the morning.”

“I like to get an early start on game day.” He raised an eyebrow as he watched her tie up her shoelaces. “Where you off to?” he asked.

“I’m just running to the store.”

“Like that?” he asked.

She looked down at her T-shirt from yesterday and fought the urge to touch her hair. She hadn’t bothered to pull it out of the messy bun she’d put it in last night to sleep, so she could just imagine what it must look like. But when a girl needed tampons, she needed tampons. She shrugged. “Yeah.”

He wrinkled his nose as he looked her up and down. “As one of your oldest friends, I’m just going to be brutally honest. You kind of look like you’re just coming off a weeklong bender. I know you didn’t really want to talk about all this, but clearly you need to.”

She raised one eyebrow in challenge. “Why do I clearly need to?”

“Bay, come on, you’ve let yourself go a bit and I have to wonder why.”

She reared back. “Oh my god, did you just call me fat to my face?”

Gonzo’s eyes widened in shock. “Jesus. No. Fuck. I would never say that. I was talking about your hair and the way you dress. You used to spend half the day fucking around in the mirror, playing with hairstyles and makeup and shit. The Bailey I knew would never leave the house without making sure she was fully decked. Now you’re going to the grocery store in your pajama pants.”

“I was moving. Not going to the freaking opera.”

“I know that, Bay, but you have to admit not that long ago, even moving you would have had some outfit all planned out. Now you don’t seem to care. The sunny girl I knew seems gone.”

“Well, that sunny girl woke up to her period, so you get what you get.” But he wasn’t wrong. Before all this shit with Brad, she would never have left the house looking like this, even in a tampon emergency. Normally, she’d have at least combed her hair and thrown on a pair of cute yoga pants or something. But this morning, she honestly just couldn’t be bothered. What was the point?

“I’m coming with you and we’re grabbing breakfast and you’re gonna fucking talk about what happened with Brad, whether you’re ready or not.”

“And if I don’t want to talk?”

“I’ll just hold your caffeine hostage. You’ll be singing within minutes.”

Bailey huffed out a breath, then looked him up and down. “How is it okay for you to go out in public all sweaty and gross and that’s fine, but me going out like this is somehow offensive?”

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