Damaged and the Outlaw (Damaged #4)

With a new fuck buddy out of the question, I decided to do a lot of girl bonding. Bailey was game since she was back to feeling lonely and insecure.

“Maybe celibacy isn’t working for you?” I suggested as we sat on her bed.

Bailey leaned her head against my shoulder and stared at our freshly pedicured toes. Along with Sawyer, we went out early for muffins and decided to get mani/pedis. My hands were a mess from fighting, cracked and bruised. They looked vastly better with my pretty pink nails.

“I’m missing the hope of finding someone special more than I miss the fucking,” Bailey finally muttered. “I don’t want a fuck buddy. I want a real boyfriend.”

“School will start up and a new crop of guys will show up. You’ll find the best one and he’ll fall for your hot body and great laugh. You two will be a match made in heaven then I’ll secretly hate you because I’m jealous.”

Bailey grinned. “I’m surprised more people aren’t jealous of me. I’m really hot.”

“True.”

“I wish I had bigger boobs.”

As usual, I was torn between being Bailey’s honest friend and her protective big sister. Honesty won out.

“This is where I should say big boobs don’t matter, but I actually like my girls. They made me look curvier than I am.”

Bailey rolled on her stomach and studied my boobs. It was weird, but I knew she was just evaluating and didn’t plan to make a horny move.

“I kept hoping my tits would kick in before I was finished with puberty. I’ve been in denial about finishing for a while. It’s time to accept these are as good as I’m getting.”

“You’re still hot, Bailey. If I was a guy, I’d bang you sideways.”

Laughing, she rested her head on the pillow. “You’d be a hot guy too. Too bad I’m so shallow. If I could fuck an ugly guy, maybe I’d be in love already.”

“Maybe, but you can’t force these things. The right guy, ugly or hot, is waiting for you. He’s probably wondering why he can’t find his special chick and here you are lowering your standards. It’ll happen.”

“You miss Vaughn, don’t you?”

I nodded. “He was really great in bed.”

“I bet. He has big hands.”

Giggling, we rested in bed without speaking for a long time. I was thinking about Vaughn while hopefully Bailey wasn’t thinking about him. I would hate to have to punch her.

“I think I messed up,” Bailey whispered. “I think I was too much of a bitch and I scared off all the good guys already. Now, I’m stuck with losers.”

“You’re not too much of a bitch. You’re the right amount of bitch.”

“Now, but you didn’t know me before. I was pretty bitchy. I think I’ve ruined my chance at love.”

Frowning at her, I sat up against the headboard. “You’re nineteen. You have a long time to find your man and make him worship you.”

Bailey gave me a weak smile. “I just don’t want to have messed up and ruined things.”

“Are we talking about a particular guy?”

“No.”

I couldn’t tell when Bailey was lying. Well, when she was mouthing off loudly I could tell. In these quiet moments, she was harder to read.

“When I was a kid,” I told her as she rested her head on my leg and I played with her hair, “I wanted to be on a softball team. We had just moved to a new neighborhood and there was a girl on our street that was into softball. I thought she was cool and wanted to be like her. I asked my mom for a glove, ball, and bat for my birthday. She used to do these stupid nod things like she was stoned or something. She wasn’t, but she liked to have people think she was. People don’t ask much from you if they think you’re dumb or stoned. Anyway, I asked and she said yes.”

Wrapping a lock of Bailey’s soft hair around my finger, I remembered how Vaughn played with my hair as we dozed off in bed. When he said my hair smelled like peaches, he would smile. I missed his smile.

“Anyway, my mom got me roller skates instead. When I asked why, she said she couldn’t find a pink glove. She saw the cute skates and thought I’d like them more. Why would I like it more? Because they’re pink? Because girls have to like pink?”

“I like pink.”

“Me too. It’s my favorite color, but that’s not the damn point. It’s that my mom made assumptions and never paid attention to who I was,” I said then glanced around Bailey’s room. “Of course, I ended up getting into roller derby which is way better than stupid softball.”

“You can’t knock people down in softball.”

“No, you can’t,” I said, smiling. “I guess, the point is sometimes fucked up shit can end up working out. You just never know until the end of the story.”