The F-Word

Her tone is pure innocence, but there’s laughter in her eyes. I open her door; she slips inside the Corvette and I go around to the driver’s side.

“He was on T

he Street for several years,’” I say, trying—and failing—to mimic her voice.

“Well, you were.”

“Did you ever hear me call it that?”

Bailey snaps her seat belt shut. “No.”

I turn on the engine, step on the gas. The car moves forward.

“And the sex thing…”

“What about it?”

I look at her. She’s blushing.

“I cannot believe you talked about us. Having sex.”

I say it solemnly. No smile. No hint that what I really want to do is laugh.

“I didn’t. I talked about sex. Its benefits. In general.”

I check for traffic and turn onto the road—and suddenly, Bailey gasps. Then she makes a little moaning sound. “Ohmygod,” she says. “I did, didn’t I? Talked about us. Having, you know, sex…”

“The newest diet craze,” I say. “By tomorrow, it’ll be all over the internet. How to Lose Weight and Keep it Off, by Bailey Abrams.”

She buries her face in her hands. “I must have lost my mind! But Violet was always so awful…Talking endlessly about boys and doing it…That’s what she called sex. Doing it. And she never missed the chance to tell me I needed to lose weight.”

I reach for Bailey’s hand.

“You don’t need to lose a thing,” I tell her. “Not an ounce. And definitely not that new attitude.”

“But I lied. I mean, I made it sound as if you and I have been having sex for months and months and—”

I lift her hand to my lips and kiss it. “The only lie you told was when you said we were having sex. We’re making love. And there’s a difference.”

She stares at me.

Jesus H. Christ, if I could, I’d stare at myself. We’re making love? Wasn’t it a couple of hours ago I reminded myself that what we’re doing is fucking?

Okay. Words are just words. That’s what my mother would say. Except my mother must never know about this. Not that I’m fucking Bailey. Shit. Of course she mustn’t know that. For one thing, the last conversation my Mom and I had about sex was when I was seven and I asked her where babies came from.

For another, Mom wouldn’t approve of this. Of my involvement with Bailey. Same as Coop and Casey, she’d point out that Bailey was my friend, my employee, that I would surely be stepping into a mess if I tried to pass myself off as her boyfriend no matter how valid the cause.

And she’d be right.

They were all right.

I am not just involved with Bailey, I am sleeping with her.

Fucking her.

Dammit.

I am making love with her, and when she looks at me and says, very softly, that she knows she did the wrong thing, the only way I can think of assuring her that she didn’t is to get her back to the inn, out of the ’Vette, into our room and into my arms.