5. Chapter 5
Chapter 5
S hit. 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?”
“First, I didn’t say it was offensive. I said it was completely out of character for you. Big difference.” He grabbed a baseball cap off the shelf in the hall closet and slapped it on his head. “And two. I look fucking hot sweaty.” He winked at her cockily as he held open the door and gestured for her to lead the way outside.
She hated the fact that he was right. He did look hot all sweaty. How that was possible was beyond her. Somehow he had this who gives a fuck cocky air of appearance and she felt like a thief in the night slumping off to the store. It wasn’t fair. Bailey huffed out a sigh. “I’m really not ready to talk about everything with Brad yet.”
At the elevator door he pushed the button then said, “I don’t give a fuck, Bay. How many times did you badger me into talking about shit when we were kids?”
“A few,” she mumbled.
“Yeah,” he scoffed. “And what did you always tell me?”
“It’s not healthy to keep stuff bottled up,” she grumbled.
He stepped into the elevator and leaned against the wall so he was facing her. “Right. So talk.”
“There’s nothing to say. We broke up. What more do you need?”
“Why did you break up? And don’t give me that bullshit about timing being wrong and you realized you weren’t right for each other. We both know that’s a load of garbage.”
They stepped off the elevator and into the vacant lobby. Desperate to avoid the subject, she glanced over at him as they walked out of the building. How long did she have before he started in on her? Knowing Gonzo, it wouldn’t be long.
Lord knows she did not want to talk about this. She was humiliated enough already without rehashing things. Just thinking about everything made her feel sick. How could she have been so stupid?
He nudged her with his shoulder. “Come on, Bay, talk to me.”
Her breath stuck in her throat, and she pushed it out in a loud, deep sigh. “What am I supposed to say? That the guy I was going to marry was cheating on me with my best friend for months.” She angrily wiped her hand across her face. “How could I be so stupid?”
He grabbed her arm to stop her from walking. Stepping in front of her so they were facing each other, he asked, “How are you stupid? Because you trusted him?”
“I trusted both of them.” She sniffed. “I thought she was my friend. I was all excited that she was coming to San Diego as his assistant because I was going to have a girlfriend here to do stuff with. How stupid am I?”
“He cheated on you with his assistant?”
“Yeah, what a cliche, huh?” She shook her head sadly.
“So they decided they wanted to be together here?”
“Now? Maybe, I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, now? That’s not why you broke up?”
“Sort of. I mean, we broke up because he cheated. But that was more my decision than his.” Once she’d found out he cheated, there’d been zero chance she was sticking around.
Gonzo’s eyes widened. “Hang on. He planned to move here with you and still have his piece on the side?”
“Apparently.” The humiliation of the entire thing sat like a weight in her gut. Thank god she’d caught them, otherwise she would have moved with the jerk and blissfully continued to have his little side piece as her freaking maid of honor. She could just imagine what a good laugh they’d both been having at her expense.
Gonzo’s jaw clenched. “What the fuck?”
Bailey looked down and pulled at her baggy T-shirt. “Maybe he was right and if I hadn’t gotten so disgusting, he wouldn’t have been so tempted.”
“What?” He yelled so loud the woman walking past them scurried to the edge of the sidewalk to get away from them. “What kind of piece of shit were you planning on marrying? Who says something like that?”
Afraid of the pity she’d see in his eyes if she looked up, Bailey refused to look at him. She just continued to twist her fingers in the hem of her shirt. Gonzo stepped closer to her. “Bay, look at me.”
She shook her head, no. He didn’t move. She could feel him staring at her, but she refused to look up. He pressed his finger to the underside of her chin and forced her head up.
“Bailey, look at me.”
Tears burned in her eyes. Forcing herself to look up made her blink and the damn tears broke free.
Gonzo’s face softened in sympathy. “There is absolutely nothing disgusting about you.”
“You’ve never seen me naked,” she muttered.
“I don’t need to see you naked to know you’re beautiful, Bay. He’s a fucking idiot and a piece of shit if he blamed you for him cheating.”
“He’s not wrong about me putting on weight the past year. You even said I’d let myself go.”
“Whoa.” He reared back and held up his hands. “That is definitely not what I said.”
“It’s what you meant,” she muttered.
“That is absolutely not what I meant.” He grabbed the front of her T-shirt and pulled it away from her body. “I meant you were going in public with this freaking pepperoni stain on your shirt. That has nothing to do with the body underneath. Don’t put words in my mouth, Bay.” He looked her in the eye and didn’t look away. “And don’t compare me to your piece of shit ex.”
“Sorry.” She broke their eye contact.
“Him cheating on you says more about what a douche he is than anything about you.”
“Maybe.”
“No, not maybe. If he wasn’t happy, he could have broken up with you. He didn’t have to cheat.”
“I guess.”
“There’s no guessing about it, Bay. He’s a fucking grown up. He made a choice. It’s not like she slipped and fell on his dick. He fucked someone else. That’s not on you, that’s on him. I don’t care if you put on a hundred pounds. That’s not a reason to cheat.”
She shifted uncomfortably. “He can’t help it if he doesn’t find me attractive anymore.” The way Brad had talked about her body was cruel, but it hurt more because it was what she’d already been thinking about herself. It was like he’d been inside her head and said every mean, hateful thing she’d thought.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Gonzo’s voice rose in annoyance. “If he didn’t find you attractive anymore, then he should have broken up with you. Not fucked someone else. He could have talked to you, not fucked around.”
“He talked to me about my weight. I just…” Tears welled in her eyes again, the effort to hold them in made the back of her throat burn.
“You just what?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just felt shittier about myself and—” she sighed.
“So when you say he talked to you about your weight, what did he say?”
Bailey’s cheeks grew hot. God, they were probably bright red. How was she supposed to admit to Gonzo that she hated the woman she’d allowed herself to become when she’d been with Brad? Before him, she never would have allowed a man to speak to her the way he had. Just thinking about it made her feel sick.
“What did that asshole say?” Gonzo growled.
She could practically feel the anger radiating off of Gonzo in her defense.
“I don’t know the usual stuff guys say about a woman.” She flapped her hand. “How I shouldn’t wear something because I can’t pull it off, talking about what I ate, that kind of thing.”
God, this was so humiliating to admit. She claimed to be an expert about the misogyny of the patriarchy and when push came to shove, she fell victim to it just like everyone else and allowed a man to make her feel like shit about herself for months. “It was more the look on his face and—” She clamped her lips together to keep them from quivering as she fought back this wave of anger and tears. “Lately, he never wanted to touch me because—” She looked up at the sky. “Ugh, do we have to keep doing this? I disgusted him. He cheated. End of story.” Pissed off, she angrily rubbed her hands against her face to wipe her eyes.
“I want to fucking kill him,” Gonzo muttered.
“What? Why?” Bailey blinked back at him. Why did he sound so angry?
“Are you serious?” He gaped at her. “Bailey, listen to me and I need you to hear this. There is not a goddamn thing wrong with you. You’re a fucking knock out. You always have been. A couple pounds doesn’t change that.”
She chewed her bottom lip and dropped her eyes. He crouched down so they were eye to eye. “Brad is a piece of shit. That’s 100% on him, not you. Got it?”
Bailey could feel him staring at her. Knowing Gonzo, he wasn't going to move until she answered. Peeking up, she met his eyes and sucked in a breath at the intensity of his stare. Finally she nodded.
“Good. Now let’s go eat.”
“Thanks, Gonz.”
Bailey began walking and he fell into step beside her. “Anytime, babe,” he said and gave her a bump with his hip. “You want a full sit-down breakfast or something fast, like coffee and a bagel?”
“I know it’s game day for you and you probably have a full day, so something quick is fine. Then I need to hit the pharmacy. I only had a lone tampon in my purse.”
Gonzo cringed. “Kay, I didn’t really need to know that.”
Bailey glanced over at him with a raised eyebrow. “Are you kidding me? I just spilled my guts about Brad not wanting to have sex with me and somehow talking about tampons is an over-share.”
“Come on, tampons? Gross. Sex? Always gonna be a subject I want to talk about.”
“There is nothing gross about a tampon.” Bailey rolled her eyes. “You’re such a guy.”
“Guilty as charged.” He threw his arm around her shoulder. “You still eat a vat of rocky road when you’re cruising the red highway?”
“The red highway? My god you’re such a child.” She shoved him in the side, and he stumbled. With a laugh, he squeezed her tighter against him and she felt the tension leave her body. How did Gonzo always make her feel so at home? She didn’t remember feeling like that with Brad, ever. Maybe that should have told her something.
“So I’ll take that as a yes on the vat of ice cream?”
Bailey tensed. Unfortunately, yes. But no more. “If I’m gonna lose any of this weight, I should probably skip it.”
“Do you want to lose weight?”
“What kind of question is that? Of course I do.”
“What? It’s a valid question. If you’re happy in your body, who cares what anyone else says?”
“Easy for you to say,” she muttered.
“Why’s that easy for me to say?”
“Come on, Gonz, look at you. Your biceps are the size of most people’s thigh.”
“Yeah, because I lift a shit ton of weights.”
“It’s just different for guys.”
“True, but just because I’m a guy doesn’t mean people don’t say shit about my body. They do.” He absently ran a hand across his abdomen. “People love to talk shit. It doesn’t mean you have to listen.”
Memories of her parting fight with Brad instantly swarmed back to her. “Hard not to listen when it’s people you care about who say it.”
“For sure. But we all get insecure, Bailey. I get it. I can run a little soft, and the locker room can be brutal.” He sighed and rubbed his hand over his mouth. “Especially since one of my best friends does fucking underwear ads.”
Bailey snorted. “Oh my god, there is nothing soft about you Gonzo.” They had very different definitions of soft if he wanted to compare the two.
He shrugged. “In my world, not being cut is soft. I’m one of the strongest guys on my team, but I’m not doing fucking underwear ads. And that’s okay because I’ll take my batting stats over a sixpack any day of the week. And no one says shit to me anymore.” He winked at her.
“Mmm.” Easy for him to say. His legs were like muscular tree trunks, while hers were more like table legs.
“For what it’s worth, from where I’m standing your body looks fine,” he told her.
Bailey snorted. Fine. Now that was what every woman wanted to hear about her body. “I know what I look like, Gonzo.”
He raised his eyebrow and looked back at her. “Do you?”
Unfortunately, Brad had made it painfully clear that what she saw and what he saw were the same thing.
“The apartment has a pretty good gym if you want to use it or not. Makes no difference to me,” Gonzo said. “You’re the one that has to like what you see in the mirror, not me.”
Damn, he was coming at her with the straight talk before she’d even had her first cup of coffee. And almost like he could read her mind, Gonzo pivoted. “This place makes the best coffee in the city,” he said, pulling open the door to the cafe.
“The best? That’s a bold statement.” Bailey inhaled the fragrant aroma of coffee. If the smell was anything to go by, it just might be up to the challenge.
“And I stand by that statement.” He eased into the line behind a group of women. The blonde in front of them smiled. Gonzo flashed her a quick smile back, then turned to Bailey. “What are you having?”
Bailey chewed her bottom lip as she studied the menu board. When she glanced over at Gonzo, she could swear he’d been staring at her mouth. He cleared his throat. “They make a mean breakfast sandwich if you’re into that.”
She peered around the girls to look at the display, then looked at him. “Breakfast sandwich sounds good and a non-fat, sugar free vanilla latte.”
Gonzo wrinkled his nose. “Why the hell would you want to ruin a beautiful coffee with that fake sugar-free crap?”
Bailey rolled her eyes. “If I’m going to start eating better, it would probably be smart not to drink my daily allotment of calories.”
“If you’re drinking crap coffee, I get it, but good coffee doesn’t need all that other shit.”
“Well, I haven’t tried the coffee here to know if it’s good. How do I know you have good coffee taste buds? I seem to remember you thinking condiment sandwiches were the bomb, so—”
He winced. “Okay, yep, those were kind of gross.”
Bailey laughed as she remembered the disgusting mustard, mayo, and ketchup sandwiches on Wonder bread he used to make. He swore the Wonder bread was the secret ingredient that took them to another level and made them gourmet. It wasn’t. Not even close. Nothing could have saved those sandwiches.
Gonzo stepped up to the counter and placed their order. Bailey reached into her purse to pull out her wallet and he stopped her. “I got it,” he told her.
“You won’t let me pay you any rent. The least I can do is pay for your breakfast.”
He shrugged. “You can pay next time.”
Bailey wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly. “Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”
She tried to ignore how good it felt to have his big arms automatically wrapped around her, even briefly. He’d always given great hugs. But now that he’d been working out so much, it actually felt like he could pick her up with no problem. And she kind of liked it. Not that she would ever admit that out loud.
He gave her a tight squeeze and released her hold. “What are friends for?”
The barista called their order. “Let’s eat.”