Chapter Eleven #2
“It wasn’t easy,” she admitted, watching the landscape through the window, a green and brown blur.
“It took me five years to find someone who would even consider it, another year to convince them I wasn’t going to change my mind, and six more months to wade through the bureaucratic bullshit and actually have the surgery. ”
“Six and a half years? Jesus.”
“And I had to pay for it out of pocket,” she continued.
“You didn’t have insurance?”
“They wouldn’t pay for it,” she corrected. “I didn’t have cancer or fibroids or endometriosis, or any of the other conditions they deem terrible enough to justify getting rid of your uterus, so it was deemed ‘not medically necessary’. And not covered.”
His eyebrows jerked together in a scowl. “That’s fucked up.”
“Yep,” she agreed.
“How much was it?”
“Too much,” she said drily. “But I had them go through my vagina instead of my abdomen, and that actually made it cheaper.”
“Ow.”
His instinctive flinch made her laugh. “Healing was quicker that way, too. I was back at work in a week.”
“Jesus, why?” He signaled left, zipped around a slow-moving minivan, then slipped back into the right lane. “If I had an internal organ removed, I’d stay in bed for a month.”
“I’m self-employed,” she reminded him. “Not a luxury I have.”
“Still. A week? Weren’t you still in pain? Bleeding?”
“A little, but it wasn’t any worse than a shitty period at that point.”
“I’d stay in bed for those, too.”
She snickered. “Mom stayed with me after surgery, drove me to work for about a week, and that was it.”
“She was supportive of the surgery? Your mom?”
Bailey waggled her hand back and forth. “Yes, because she knew it was what I wanted. But there was some mourning, there.”
“Sure.”
“She got over it, and since my cousins are popping out kids left and right, she can get a baby fix pretty much any time she wants.” She looked at him. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“Is Lori bugging you for grandbabies?” she teased, referring to his mother.
“She was, until I told her I’d booked a vasectomy.”
She blinked in surprise. “You got snipped?”
“I was going to.” He shot her a sheepish glance. “I chickened out.”
“Wuss.”
“Oh, yeah,” he agreed. “Mom thinks I went through with it though, and that’s for the best. And now that Keely’s engaged, she’s focused all her gimme-grandkids energy there.”
His sister was engaged? “Keely’s not old enough to get married.”
He laughed. “She’s twenty-four.”
Bailey grimaced. “Shit, I feel old. The last time I saw her she’d just gotten her driver’s license.”
“Eight years is a long time.”
She started to answer, then jerked when her phone buzzed. She grabbed for it, nearly dropping it, and swiped open the message.
She scanned the text, holding her breath, then let it out in a woosh.
“I assume that means it’s good news?”
“It is. And I don’t have to beat anybody up.”
That got her a curious glance, but all he said was, “That’s good. You look terrible in orange.”
“I look amazing in orange,” she corrected and, with relief making her giddy, laughed. “And you know it.”
“Nobody looks ‘amazing’ in orange,” he argued, then relented. “But you look pretty good.”
“Amazing,” she repeated. She typed out a quick response in the group chat, sent a separate message to Gwen, then set her phone down with a sigh.
“You still want me to take you by Gwen’s?”
Bailey hesitated, then shook her head. “No need to now.”
“Okay, then. What do you want to do with the rest of the day?”
“I don’t know.” She grimaced. The house had been closed up all day, and the heat was going to be miserable. “It’s too early for dinner, and I’m not hungry anyway.”
He snorted. “Small wonder.”
“Don’t judge.” She’d taken full and shameless advantage of the wide variety of junk food available at the park, and had zero regrets.
“It’s not judgement, it’s admiration. I’ve never seen anyone eat an elephant ear that fast.”
“Shut up,” she said, but she was laughing. “We have to think of some place to go that doesn’t serve food, has air conditioning, and won’t kick us out.”
“How about a movie?”
“They serve food.”
“We don’t have to buy it,” he pointed out reasonably.
“Yes, we do.” Genuinely appalled, she stared at him. “You can’t go to a movie and not get popcorn, Nash. That’s unconscionable.”
“It’s stale, overpriced, and gives me the farts.”
“Then we definitely can’t go to a movie.”
“We could find another museum.”
“Absolutely not. One museum a day is my limit.”
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Arcade?”
“Talk about overpriced,” she said with a snort, but the idea had appeal. “I haven’t been to an arcade in years. Think they still have foosball?”
“Only one way to find out.”
* * * *
“I still say you cheated.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Bailey climbed the steps of home with a spring in her step. The sun had set, taking with it the blazing heat of the day, and she’d kicked Nash’s ass at foosball. “How can you cheat at foosball?”
“I don’t know, but you did.” Behind her, Nash juggled his armful of park souvenirs with the bag of leftovers from dinner. “Why aren’t you carrying anything?”
“I am.” She held up the little carved wooden carousel horse. “See?”
“That’s still mine,” he reminded her.
She aimed an innocent smile over her shoulder. “Absolutely.”
He scowled. “I know that look.”
“No idea what you’re talking about,” she said blithely and punched the code into the lock. Braced for the blast of heat, she stepped into the house. “Ugh.”
He walked in behind her. “It’s actually not too bad.”
It wasn’t a sauna, but it was still uncomfortably hot. Especially after the arcade and the restaurant, both of which had their AC set to Arctic Blast. “Yes, it is.”
“If we get some air moving, it won’t be.” Nash walked past her, skirted the mattress in the middle of the floor to dump everything onto the sofa, then moved to the front windows. “Go turn the fan on.”
Deciding it couldn’t hurt, she crossed the room to switch it on, then plucked the bag of food from the jumble on the sofa. “I’m putting this away. Want a water?”
He was struggling with the window. The wood had swelled in the heat, and the old rope and pulley that operated the window was stubborn at the best of times. “Yes. Jesus, are these things glued shut?”
Leaving him to it, she stashed the leftovers and came back with two bottles of water. She’d had the foresight to stock the fridge before they’d left for the museum, so they were icy cold.
He was opening on the second window when she walked in. “Here.”
He grunted, nudging the sash up inch by inch. “Hang on, I’ve almost got it.”
She waited until he had it open, then passed him the water. “Nicely done.”
“Fuck, I actually worked up a sweat doing that.” He took the water and swiped the cool, condensation-covered plastic over his forehead. “You need new windows.”
“They’re original to the house,” she told him. “They have charm.”
He twisted the cap off the water. “They’re a pain in the ass.”
She shrugged while he guzzled. “Only if you have to open them.”
He lowered the bottle. “They weren’t that bad yesterday.”