The F-Word: A Sexy Romantic Comedy

by Sandra Marton

  Bailey’s not going to get even with her cousin, she’s going to be humiliated.

  I have never hit a woman in my life. Never even imagined wanting to. Right now, it takes all that’s in me not to nail Vicious Violet right on the chin.

  Instead, I look at Chester. The expression on his face is pretty much a synonym for confused.

  “It’s not too late,” I tell him. “Do yourself a favor and walk away before it gets worse.”

  Then I take off and barrel through the place until I’m out the front door.

  At first I don’t see Bailey.

  Then I do.

  It’s raining again and she’s standing right out in it, except this isn’t simply rain, it’s a deluge. She’s already soaked. One of the parking attendants runs up with an umbrella, but she waves him off.

  “All I need is a taxi,” I hear her say.

  “She doesn’t need a taxi,” I tell the kid. I hand him my parking stub and a fifty. “The red Corvette,” I snap. “And make it fast.” Then I whip off my tux jacket and wrap it around Bailey. She tries to shove it away, but I won’t let her. I hang onto her until the kid pulls up in my car. He gets out, comes around to the passenger side and opens the door. Bailey doesn’t move and I grab her and damn near stuff her into the seat. Then I slam the door, run around to the driver’s side and get behind the wheel.

  We pull out of the driveway and onto the road.

  “What kind of stunt was that?” I demand. “You want to get pneumonia?”

  “What you mean is, did I want to spoil the act?”

  I take my eyes off the rain-slicked road long enough to glare at her.

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  She lifts her chin and folds her arms over her chest. “At least you’re not trying to deny it.”

  “Deny what?” I say, if only to give myself time to think because I know damn well what she’s talking about.

  “Are you sure you were a finance major? Because you missed your calling, Mr. O’Malley. You should have gone on the stage.”

  Jesus!

  “Bailey. That’s not fair.”

  “You’re right. It’s not. I was the one who started this.”

  “You didn’t start anything. I offered to come with you this weekend, remember?”

  “You offered to pretend to be my boyfriend, but only because you heard me tell my mother a lie about having a boyfriend in the first place.”

  “Let’s not play Who Said What When, okay?” I shoot another look at her. Shit. She’s shaking. I reach out and turn on the heat. “Pull the jacket around you.”

  “Don’t give me orders.”

  “I’m not giving you orders. I’m trying to keep you from getting sick. Pull the fucking jacket around you.”

  “There’s no need to curse.”

  “Goddammit!” I snarl.

  And then I shut up.

  The next time I look over, Bailey is still sitting bolt upright, but at least she’s drawn my jacket close around her.

  “Look,” I say, “this will all blow over.”

  Bailey’s laugh is not a jocular sound.

  It is only later, when I replay this conversation in my head for the thousandth time, that I realize how truly stupid I was to say such a thing. At this moment, however, it strikes me as a way to calm her.

  Evidently not.

  “I wanted to get even with Violet,” she says. “Instead, I’m never going to be able to face her again. And my mother…When she finds out we were only pretending…”

  My thoughts skitter back to my mother. By the time I get to her, she’ll have rented a hall, hired a band and ordered flowers.

  “Okay,” I say, “all right. This is going to be a little more complicated than we figured…Hey!” Bailey has punched me in the arm. “Watch that! You want us to skid?”

  “I want never to have laid eyes on you, Matthew O’Malley. That’s what I want. We made—I made a spectacle of myself in front of all those people. How come I didn’t realize that was what would happen?”

  Here we go again. She means the kissing. The touching. The being focused on each other whether we were dancing or talking or just sitting side by side.

  “We didn’t do anything two people who enjoy being together wouldn’t do.”

  “We appeared…intimate.”

  The anger has drained from her voice. That should be a good sign. Somehow, it isn’t.

  She is silent as we turn off the main road and head for our inn. In fact she is silent until we’re parked outside the place. Then she says, in a tremulous whisper, “We were intimate.”

  My gut knots. I don’t want her to regret the hours we spent in bed, in each other’s arms; I don’t want her to regret our making love all through the night and through the day.

  I don’t want her to regret the precious gift she gave me.

  I turn off the engine and turn to her. I reach for her, but she pulls back.

  “Bailey,” I say softly, “we didn’t do anything wrong. We made love, and making love is a good thing.”

  She has stopped shaking. That, at least, is positive. But the way she avoids looking at me and instead studies her hands, which are folded in her lap…

  Not so positive.

  “We lied,” she says softly.

  I almost deny that, but how can I? We did lie when we let people think we were a couple.

  “I lied,” she says, even more softly.

  I take her hands in mine. “We both did.”

  She bends her head. Her hair, rain-soaked and tangled, falls around her face.

  “My lie was worse.”

  Okay. I’m sure I know what she means. She lied to her mother. She figures that makes hers the bigger lie. But it was a game. Make believe. And for a good cause.

  “Matthew?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like to go home now.”

  “We are home, honey. We pulled into the driveway five minutes ago.”

  She looks at me. “Home,” she says. “To the city.”

  “You mean, you want to go back to Manhattan?”

  She nods. “Yes.”

  It’s almost midnight. The rain is coming down so hard I wouldn’t be surprised to see an ark sail past.

  I think of the big bed waiting in our suite. The fire in the fireplace. I think of undressing my woman, taking her to that big bed and warming her with my body…

  “Please,” she whispers.

  I nod. Somehow, I know she doesn’t want to go inside the inn at all. I lean over, kiss the tip of her nose.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say.

  I use the inn’s key to unlock the front door. The lobby is empty. I run up the stairs to our room, open the door, step inside and look around.

  I don’t want to be here either, not without Bailey.

  I find a pen and pad beside the telephone and scribble a note asking if someone would be so kind as to pack our things and ship them to my address. It’s an emergency, I add. There’s a soft woolen afghan draped over the back of the love seat that stands before the fire and I write that management should add the cost of the little blanket to my bill, along with charges for packing and shipping.

  I sign my name, leave the keys and a fifty on top of the note—it’s a good weekend for spare fifties, I think with a sudden tightness in my throat. Then I pick up the afghan and hurry down to the car.

  Bailey is sitting as I left her, hands folded, eyes fixed on the rain-flooded windshield.

  “Hey,” I say softly as I open her door. I drape the afghan over her. “We’ll be home in no time. Why don’t you close your eyes and get some sleep?”

  We are home in just a little more than no time.

  I don’t know if she sleeps or not, only that she keeps her face turned away and she doesn’t speak. When I pull up in front of her apartment building, I shut off the car and turn towards her.

  She is pushing the blanket aside.

  “I’m coming up with you,” I say.

 
; She looks at me and puts her hand on my arm. “I’m fine.”

  “Bailey. Everything about this weekend was wonderful. Being with you. Making love with you. Being happy together. None of that was a lie. Will you remember that?”

  She leans in and cups my face with her hands.

  “You were never the liar, Matthew,” she says quietly. “It was always me.”

  Then she kisses me. It’s a soft kiss, the mere whisper of her lips against mine, and the sad sweetness of it almost undoes me.

  “No,” I say. “Wait…”

  Her door opens. Shuts. She runs to her building…

  And just that quickly, I am alone.

  17

  I spend Sunday in a funk.

  I leaf through the Sports section of the Sunday New York Times, but after I toss it aside I can’t recall anything I read.

  I watch football, but I have no idea who wins or loses the games.

  I phone out for a pizza. Walter hears me say the word when I place the order. “Woof,” he says happily, and starts slobbering. When the pizza arrives, I look at it, remember the pizza Bailey and I shared just yesterday, and suddenly my appetite is gone.

  Walter lucks out.

  Instead of sharing the pie with me, he gets all of it.

  I consider calling my folks. Sooner or later, I have to deal with Mrs. Simms and what she’s eager to tell my mother, but I revert to what I did when I was in trouble as a kid. I put off the problem in hopes it will go away. After a while, when my mother doesn’t call me, I decide it has gone away.

  Pathetic, right?

  And, of course, I try phoning Bailey.

  My calls go to voice mail each and every time.

  I leave messages that range from light-hearted—Hey, the Patriots are playing the Jets. How about I come by and we laugh at what New York calls football? all the way to pleading—Bailey. I never meant for you to get hurt. Please pick up. We have to talk.

  In mid-afternoon, my phone rings. I forget such niceties as Caller ID and grab the phone.

  “Bailey?”

  “Matt. This is your mother.”

  I bite back a groan. “Mom. Look, if this is about the weekend…”

  It’s about the weekend, all right. And me. And Bailey, and what a wonderful girl she is and how I made her cry by pretending I cared for her and how could I ever have treated her so badly…

  And, and, and.

  It’s clear that my mother has heard a garbled version of what happened. I wait until she runs out of breath. Then I tell her the truth. Well, most of it. How Bailey’s been mistreated all her life by her cousin. How she just couldn’t face turning up at that cousin’s wedding without a date.

  How I offered to help.

  The only thing I don’t tell her is that Bailey and I spent most of the weekend in bed. That’s much too private. Besides, it wasn’t part of the plan and the truth is, I don’t regret it.

  Making love with Bailey was…It was incredible. I am not going to talk about it with anyone, and I sure as hell am not going to forget it.

  “Matt?”

  “Yeah. I’m here.”

  “Bailey is one in a million.”

  I agree.

  “I know you meant well, son, but you should have realized this scheme would backfire.”

  I rub my forehead. “I didn’t think it would or I’d never have suggested it.”

  My mother sighs. “Didn’t you know Bailey had feelings for you?”

  “Mom. You’re reading stuff into this.”

  “Matt, I love you—but like all men, you’re dense when it comes to women.”

  That hurts. I pride myself on my relationships with my mother and my sister.

  “Not with your sister and me,” my mother says. Did I mention she’s good at mind-reading? “You just don’t think like a woman.”

  How can I argue with that?

  “You don’t see into them. And before you tell me I’m wrong, let me clarify my meaning.”

  Jesus. Mom’s in teaching mode. If it’s possible, things are about to go from bad to worse.

  “I’m sure you can tell when a woman is trying to impress you. Or turn your head. But when it comes to reading a real woman’s real emotions…”

  “Mom. Do us both a favor. Just say it, okay?”

  My mother sighs. “There’s no artifice about Bailey, son. What you see is what you get.”

  “I know that.”

  “She has feelings for you, Matt. Deep feelings.”

  That’s ridiculous. It’s drama-laden. It’s overblown. It’s typically female…

  If you knew anything at all about me, you’d know I’ve wanted you forever.

  I blink. I can hear Bailey saying those words as if she were in the room with me.

  Yeah, but we were talking about sex. About fucking.

  “Matt?” Mom’s voice softens. “I’m sorry things turned out the way they did.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  After the call ends I realize how bad things really are. What I should have said was So am I, but I didn’t. And my mother didn’t correct me.

  Shit.

  I reach for the phone to try to call Bailey again, but it rings. This time, I glance at the caller ID.

  It’s my sister.

  Better to take the call or not?

  Or not.

  Four rings, and it goes to voice mail. “Matt, you big fat turd…”

  Man. News travels fast.

  Casey finishes leaving her sisterly message. And the damn phone rings again.

  It’s Coop. I decide to play it safe and let him go to voice mail too.

  “Hey, dude,” he says cheerfully, “I hear your weekend bombed.” He chuckles. “I can almost hear you saying ‘How does he know that?’ Well, you remember my cousin Shirley? Her brother-in-law plays cards with a guy named Simms and Simms has an aunt Jessica…” Coop’s tone softens. “Dude. You need a shoulder, gimme a call.”

  I need more than a shoulder. I need a payloader to dig out from the mess I’ve made. Not for me. For Bailey. I’ll deal with the gossip, but I can’t stand by and let her get hurt.

  I call her.

  No answer, of course.

  The message I leave is half plea, half demand. I tell her she has to talk to me. That we’re not going to leave things this way. When she doesn’t pick up or respond I grab my jacket. I’m going to go uptown and—

  And what?

  Bang on her door? Camp outside it?

  I toss the jacket aside and slump down on the sofa. Walter jumps up and crams himself into the too-small space next to me. He jams his muzzle into my armpit and whines.

  I rub his ears.

  “I know,” I say. “But maybe what she needs is time to herself.”

  And I’ll give it to her—until I get to the office tomorrow morning.

  * * *

  I get to the office an hour earlier than usual. Everybody else comes in at nine. Not Bailey. She’s not due in at eight, but that’s when she prefers to get there.

  Except, she isn’t. She isn’t there.

  Yes—but is there a faint scent of lemon in the air?

  “Bailey?” I hurry through the place, checking as I go. The copy room. The accounting office. The design studio. The conference room. There’s no sign of Bailey, but the scent stays with me. “Bailey?” I say as I retrace my steps, hurry past her desk and into my office.

  That’s when I see the envelope.

  It has my name on it in Bailey’s familiar handwriting. I rip it open. The note inside is short and polite and to the point. She writes that today is the last day in which she can accept or reject a new position.

  A new position?

  She writes that she has decided she cannot turn down a new and exciting opportunity, and that she regrets not giving me longer notice, but it slipped her mind.

  Slipped her mind? That steel-trap of a mind?

  She assures me that all her work is up to date, and that she’s taken the liberty of arranging for
a temp to come in. She includes the temp’s CV. I don’t read it, but a bunch of letters—B.A., M.A.—damn near leap off the page. That’s it. The entire note. Oh, except for the last bit.

  Sincerely yours,

  Bailey B. Abrams

  * * *

  I sink into my chair. I read the note again. She’s really done this. She’s left me. She’s gone.

  Goddammit!

  She’s left me without notice. Without giving a crap for what effect this will have on the day-to-day operation of O’Malley Design and Construction. Exactly how long has she been contemplating this? Was she head-hunted? Did she go out looking for a new job? Did she know all this when we were away together this weekend? Yes. Obviously she did. So was she composing this note when we were in bed? When we were making love?

  Shit.

  I shoot to my feet and kick my chair. Ouch! Talk about stupid moves…

  Yeah, but nothing as stupid as giving a fancy name to something as basic as good old-fashioned fucking. We fucked. Making love had nothing to do with it. Making love is female talk, a way of pretending lust isn’t lust.

  I tell myself to calm down.

  Then I read the note again.

  I must have misunderstood it the first time. I see what my PA wrote, but is it true? Maybe she left because she can’t face me after what happened between us this weekend. She’s naïve. She doesn’t know how to handle the aftermath of a simple sexual encounter.

  Of a what? a little voice inside me says, but I ignore it.

  She doesn’t know how to deal with what happened and now she’s worried that we won’t be able to continue our relationship in a businesslike manner, which is patently ridiculous. Yes, I was upset yesterday. Yes, I couldn’t get the images out of my mind. Bailey in my arms. Bailey opening her thighs to me. Bailey writhing in ecstasy as I suck her nipples and, dammit, Bailey sitting in that big bed with me, eating pizza and laughing and talking about everything and anything…

  Now I’m more than angry. I’m totally pissed.

  And it’s all her fault. She was too embarrassed to see me again. Okay. I understand that. But to walk away and leave me in the lurch…

  To walk away and leave me a note that never even hints at what we did this weekend, what we shared…

  I kick the chair again, never mind the sharp pain that radiates through my foot.