She hated that he’d had to comb through Facebook and Twitter for any glimpse into why his wife had killed herself. And with the shitshow that was Twitter, she couldn’t imagine how cruel people might’ve been. She said, “Smart move.”
“What about you? I see you on your phone a lot.”
“I review strategy and first-person-shooter games for a buddy who started designing them while he was still in the military. He sold the first three apps but now he’s developing his own and other people’s with his new company, so he retains the rights. He sends me mock-ups for gear and weaponry add-ons. He thinks since I’m a chick and a soldier I’ll have a better idea of what female customers want in their battle rattle.” She snorted. “Definitely not goddamned pink shit like he’d originally designed.” She glanced up and saw Streeter’s jaw hanging open. “What?”
“How didn’t I know this about you?”
“Well, lots of people don’t like violent video games, especially ones where skill with firearms is the focus of winning.” She poked at the pink pickled ginger with her chopsticks. “And given your history, I didn’t want to bring it up.”
He remained quiet.
“I’ve seen your Netflix recommendations, Streeter. No true-crime dramas, no women-in-peril-type shows, no police procedurals, and no horror. You watch comedies. The occasional musical. Kids’ shows. How was I supposed to slip it into conversation that when the store isn’t busy, or when I’m home, I get paid as a consultant to figure out how to make futuristic weapons more appealing to female consumers, so they’ll look cool online when they’re blowing away their competition?”
Her lungs tightened because she was holding her breath. Forgetting to breathe . . . first sign of a panic attack.
Please. Not here, not now.
Bailey scooted out of the booth with a mumbled “Excuse me” and booked it to the bathroom before he could stop her.
She locked herself in a stall and sat on the toilet, flattening her palms on the metal walls and pushing against them, in an attempt to turn her focus outward. No head-between-her-knees for her. No, she had to treat her panic like a movable force. Like lifting weights. Or doing a handstand in yoga. Giving her body the power, not the panic.
Once she felt calmer, she exited the stall, washed her hands in cold water and dampened a paper towel to press against the back of her neck. She had no idea how much time had passed. The first lesson she’d learned in dealing with these panic attacks was each one was different. It was more important to get control of the panic than to put a time on how much or little time it took for it to be over.
Bailey wasn’t surprised to see Streeter leaning against the wall across from the restrooms, waiting for her.
Before she said a word, his hands were framing her face. “Are you all right?”
Not really. She cleared her throat. “I’m fine. Bad-tasting piece of sushi.”
“Bailey. Don’t.”
She closed her eyes and leaned against him. Just for a moment. “What I do hurts you.” If you knew who I am, what I’ve done, you wouldn’t be here with me now because it wouldn’t merely hurt you; it’d devastate you.
“Baby. Look at me.”
Like he gave her a choice when he tipped her head back. She opened her eyes.
“It doesn’t hurt me. It surprised me, that’s all.” He pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “I won’t download the app, but you can talk about your work with me.”
“You sure?”
“Yep. But you do realize what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. I’m gonna be tellin’ you all sorts of stuff you never wanted to know about cows and bulls.”
She smiled.
“There’s that beautiful smile from my beautiful girl.”
When Streeter kissed her this time, it wasn’t a sweet peck. He packed it with the heat and passion she’d come to expect from the man who acted on his lust and affection without hesitation.
“Streeter?”
He ended the kiss and faced the interrupter. But not before he slid his arm around Bailey’s waist and pulled her closer.
“Hello, Deenie.”
The woman gave her a once-over. Then she said, “Who is this?” to Streeter.
No one talked over her or as if she weren’t there. “I’m Sergeant Bailey Masterson. Who are you?”
“Deenie Joyce. Streeter’s wife’s mother.”
“Oh, you’re Danica’s mother,” Bailey corrected her. “Since technically, Streeter is a widower.”
“Where’s my granddaughter?” she demanded of Streeter. “Did you leave her alone at the table so you could make out by the bathroom?”
“My daughter is with my family tonight.”
“How long has this been going on?” She paused to narrow her eyes and look down her nose at them. “Is she why you’ve finally allowed me to spend weekends with my only grandchild? So you had free time to cruise the bars and find a—”
“Not another word, Deenie. My life is not your concern.”
“It is if it affects my daughter’s child.”
“Olivia is my child.”
His arm tightened around her back, and Bailey sensed his struggle to keep this conversation from deteriorating further.
“Yes, as you so gleefully point that out at every opportunity, don’t you? Tell you what, Streeter. I’ll let you have as much time as you want with your daughter.” She stepped back. “You can forget about me taking care of her every weekend so you can screw around without a care in the world.”
Streeter inhaled and exhaled before he spoke. “That is your choice, Deenie. I believe it’s the wrong one, but I ain’t gonna argue with you.” He took Bailey’s hand and led her around the woman, who was still fuming.
They had to stop at the hostess stand to pay the check.
Bailey felt Deenie’s glare burning into the back of her neck, but she refused to turn around. As much as she’d wanted to defend Streeter and demand why he should be expected to live a miserable existence that her daughter’s actions had caused . . . she kept quiet. She had no permanence in his life. And she doubted this had been the first time he’d battled with his former mother-in-law.
Outside in the parking lot, the night air was warm, but she shivered nonetheless.
Streeter noticed. He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “Cold?”
“A little. I’m sorry I forgot a jacket.”
“I’m sorry this date sucked.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“But it is.” He kissed her forehead and opened her car door.
She looked at the brooding set to his jaw and the distance in his eyes. “Streeter. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
When they were five miles out of Rawlins and Streeter hadn’t said another word, she knew he’d be so lost in his own thoughts during the rest of the drive that he wouldn’t notice the silence between them.
But she did.
She turned on the radio, flipping past a Kanye song and an Eagles tune, stopping when she heard the Wright Brothers Band singing “Fine Is Just Another 4-Letter Word.”
How apt.
Streeter didn’t even notice when the announcer cued up Devin McClain’s newest song, “Richest Man in Town,” nor did he notice when she softly sang along.
He parked in his spot and turned the car off. Without looking at her, he said, “I don’t know if I have the right to ask, given the shitshow I subjected you to, but can I stay with you tonight?”
Say no. Say you’re tired. Say you need to spend time on the weapons apparel app.
But when she opened her mouth, “Of course” tumbled out instead.
Chapter Eighteen
Streeter had Bailey pinned against the wall of his shower.
Naked, wet and squirming against the wall as he slowly pumped his cock into her
.
“Streeter. Please.”
“Please what?” he demanded, scraping his teeth across the slope of her shoulder, then sucking the water droplets from her skin.
She shivered.
She moaned.
He fucking loved how she responded to him. Every. Single. Time.
In the weeks they’d been together, he’d become better acquainted with her body than with his own. He’d earned every kiss, every sigh, every bite mark, every nail gouge, every sting of sweat dripping into his eyes as he learned how to be the lover she craved.
He attended to his daily studies religiously.
The rewards of being an eager pupil were the stuff wet dreams were made of.
Like this.
Her clawing, ripping need as he took her ass.
He’d never done that particular act—Danica had outright refused. She’d recoiled at the idea of ass play of any kind.
Not Bailey.
She’d reveled in initiating him into the pleasures of anal sex.
And what a fucking rush it was, from the extra time and care he used preparing her, to the mind-blowing sensation of slowly pushing into that unbelievably tight channel as he drove in hard and pulled all the way out.
Weeks of nearly daily fucking had given him the stamina and sexual confidence he’d lacked.
She’d given him that confidence.
And she’d benefited from his stamina.
Win-win all around.
Her cries echoed louder than the water pouring over them, loud enough to drown out the buzzing of the small vibrator resting against her clit. She couldn’t come from anal penetration alone, so he’d found a way to make her come.
“Don’t . . . please . . . don’t change. Move just like that,” she panted, her fingers clutching his hair so tightly his scalp stung.
“I got you, darlin’. You’re almost there.” He pressed his mouth next to her ear. “Even when I’m buried in your ass, I can feel your sweet pussy contracting when you come. It’s the sexiest thing ever, baby. Give it to me.” Then he sank his teeth into the magic spot below her jaw and she absolutely unraveled.
She whimpered as her clit pulsed and her pussy clenched, stopping movement entirely to feel the full force of her orgasm.
As soon as the tension in her body eased, she rested her forehead on his shoulder with a heavy sigh of satisfaction and said, “Ready.”
Streeter hammered into her without pause. Plunging deeper, straining his neck, his abs, his ass cheeks tightened to get to that point . . . and motherfuck, there it was. White-hot pleasure that rolled through him like a blast furnace.
He’d gone completely nonverbal, grunting and groaning as his dick jerked and pulsed against those viselike walls; his vision had gone hazy and he tried to stay upright.
After the last heated burst of come released, he lost his balance. When he tried to catch himself, his hips moved and his cock slipped out in one fast jerk.
Bailey shouted, “Ow, goddammit, that hurt!”
“Sorry.”
Four rapid knocks sounded on the door.
They both froze. They’d gotten so used to having the place to themselves on the weekend that they’d gotten carried away.
“Daddy?”
Shit. Fuck. “Uh, yeah?”
“Is Bailey in there with you?”
His gaze met Bailey’s—her eyes were round with shock. She mouthed, “Answer her.”
“Yes, she’s in here.”
“Why?”
Shit. Fuck. “I’m helpin’ her wash her hair. It’s kind of a mess.”
Bailey slapped his ass hard and hissed, “Seriously?”
A brief pause outside the door and then Olivia said, “I’m hungry.”
“I’ll be right out.”
“Okay.”
Before Bailey could chew his ass, he kissed her. Then he whispered, “Ain’t really a lie. I fucked your hair up pretty good this morning when you blew me.”
That earned him another slap on the ass.
Totally worth it, though.
* * *
Olivia was finishing her bowl of Frosted Flakes when Bailey entered the kitchen.
And for once, Olivia didn’t ignore her. She scrutinized her.
Bailey sent a WTF? look at Streeter standing near the coffeepot.
He shrugged.
“Your hair don’t look messy to me,” Olivia said.
“Well, that’s . . . because your dad did a good job of fixing it.”
And that was that.
Bailey shouldered her gym bag and headed for the exit.
Before she opened the door, she turned around and said, “Aren’t you forgetting something this morning, Olivia?”
Her eyes lit up. “May I please have my drums back, Sergeant B?”
“Not today, girlie, but I’ll let you play them later.”
“Yay!”
Bailey blew him a kiss and walked out.
Streeter glanced at the clock, then at his daughter. “After you make your bed and brush your teeth, we’ve gotta get movin’.”
“Where are we goin’?”
“To meet Grandpa Steve.” He paused. “At Trampoline World.”
The kid was so pumped she bounced all the way to her room.
Streeter wasn’t as thrilled, even when he’d called Steve for the meet-up.
Two hours later, Olivia was happily supervised, bouncing on every trampoline and bouncy castle imaginable.
He and Steve grabbed a seat in the parental observation area.
Danica’s father had always been a quiet man, but it’d been hard for him to get a word in with his overly chatty wife.
Streeter didn’t really know Steve well, despite being married to his daughter for a decade. He had nothing in common with the man; Steve was an accountant at a private firm. He didn’t hunt or fish. He golfed. He read. He did lawn care and household repairs. He hadn’t seemed particularly close to his daughter, but he was at every family gathering, dinner, holiday and party arranged by his wife.
Within two years of Danica’s death, Steve Joyce’s life had imploded. He quit his lucrative job to head up a nonprofit in Rock Springs. He left his wife. He bought a maintenance-free condo. He traded in his new Mercedes for an older-model Jeep. No longer was Steve the clean-cut guy in a suit; he wore jeans and T-shirts. He’d grown out his salt-and-pepper hair. And he looked old, much older than when Streeter had met him twenty years ago.
“I was surprised to hear from you, Streeter. Happy, but surprised.”
“I’m sorry for that. I’ve stayed out of the pass-off between you and Deenie on the weekends.”
“I’d stay out of it too, if I could.” He picked at the edge of his foam coffee cup. “What’s she done now?”
No need to clarify who “she” was. “About a month and a half ago I started seein’ a woman. It’s been low-key”—such a lie—“so I didn’t mention it.”
“And to be blunt, why would you?” Steve said. “It’s your life. But go on.”
“Bailey, the woman I’m seein’, and I were out for dinner this week and we ran into Deenie. It was an ugly scene, not as ugly as it could’ve been, but it ended with Deenie sayin’ she was done spendin’ weekends with Olivia so I could be with Bailey.”
“Goddamn woman.”
“Not to be a smart-ass, but it ain’t like Olivia’s gonna care if Deenie cuts her out.”
“Olivia didn’t ask why she wasn’t going to her grandma’s this weekend?”
Streeter shook his head. “I ain’t gonna beg her to spend time with her granddaughter. And I won’t apologize for livin’ my life.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“So what’s the best thing to do?”
“Where Deenie is concerned? Who the fuck knows.” He p
aused and rubbed his beard. “Sorry. Uncalled-for.”
“No worries.”
Steve sighed before he spoke. “Danica left us all in a helluva mess. I loved my daughter, and it pains me to admit I didn’t know her. I don’t think anyone knew her, and that’s where Deenie has always disagreed with me. She couldn’t accept that she didn’t see the signs for postpartum depression. Or she blamed you for not seeing them. Or she blamed you for hiding them from us. Every week she had a different theory on what ‘really happened.’ So for the first six months, I didn’t get to mourn my daughter. Deenie acted as if, if she could solve the mystery of Danica’s suicide, then we’d be allowed to grieve.” He sent Streeter a sideways glance. “You know some of this, but not all. She refused to go to counseling. For a while I had to lie to her about where I was going because she didn’t want me going either. We were a team with a capital ‘T’. And Team ‘figure out why our daughter killed herself’ did everything together. Bear in mind, we’d had separate interests the whole of our married life.
“I went along with all of it at first, figuring at some point the finality of the loss of our child would kick in. Then we could grieve together. Maybe learn new things about ourselves in the process. Because there are some serious fucking questions that arise about who you are privately and the public face you show to the world when everyone is looking at you like if you would’ve been a better father, your daughter would still be alive. Like you must’ve failed her. Like her life had to have been truly awful to end it in such a gruesome manner. A piece of myself will always take part of the blame for her suicide. Isn’t that what parents are supposed to do? Absorb the guilt? Was I so self-involved her entire childhood that I’d created that disconnect in her that didn’t allow her to bond to her child? What could I have done differently? And then the next day I’d be pissed off because I’d been the best father I knew how to be. I’d worked my ass off to give her a decent life. And it hadn’t been enough.”
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