“Nope.” She made sure to inject sunshine into her tone. That was what everyone expected of her.
“You’re a shitty liar, Weber,” he said with a chuckle.
God, she loved when he laughed. It was a rusty sound that she didn’t hear nearly enough, but when she did, it made her insides light up.
Rafe pulled the truck to a stop in front of the house, directly behind Seth’s Ford Explorer.
“Your boyfriend home?” Rafe asked, nodding toward the porch with his chin.
“Yup,” she said, glaring at the SUV in the driveway.
Bailey had asked Seth if she could borrow the Explorer to go to work, but he always told her no. Said he wasn’t going to be stuck at home while she was running amok in town. While she didn’t consider working to be the same as running amok, it never benefited her to argue with him.
“He asleep?”
Bailey shrugged. She doubted it. Since it was Wednesday, Seth didn’t have to work tomorrow, so he was probably getting drunk on the couch, waiting for her to come home and cook him dinner. Didn’t matter that it was almost midnight. He was still expecting her to do her girlfriend duties which included cooking and cleaning for him. He claimed it was her contribution to the household since he didn’t expect her to pay half of the utilities, only half of the rent.
“Why are you still with him?” Rafe asked after several heartrending seconds of silence.
Bailey shifted to look at the handsome cowboy. He was wearing his favorite Astros baseball cap tonight. Backward. As usual. For some reason, it gave him a playful, bad-boy vibe. Not to mention, it made the dark stubble on his jaw stand out. The man was insanely attractive. In ways Bailey sometimes felt overwhelmed by.
“Truth?”
“Always.”
Bailey was ashamed to admit it but let the words come out anyway. “Because I have nowhere else to go.”
“That’swhy you’re with him?” Rafe did not sound pleased by that. “Well, shit, Bailey, that’s a stupid fuckin’ reason.”
“That’s a crappy thing to say, Rafe Sharpe,” she countered hotly, fidgeting her fingers in her lap. Defending her relationship with Seth had become a natural part of her life, even if she didn’t believe half the crap that came out of her mouth. It was easy enough to tell people they’d hit a rough patch; however, with Rafe, she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him. “It wasn’t the reason in the beginning.”
At first, she’d thought she was in love with Seth. Turned out, it was a passing fancy. Slight infatuation would better describe it. Now that the honeymoon period of their relationship was over, Bailey realized she didn’t love him. Sometimes she didn’t even like him. But she’d made her bed which meant…
When she first met Seth, he made her feel things. Good things. Like making her heart go pitter-patter and her palms sweat whenever he was near. Those were the same things she felt whenever she was around Rafe, so she knew what they meant. And since Rafe hadn’t been receptive to any of her flirting, she embraced the emotional security she had received from Seth and pegged him as a safe bet.
Ha!Safe, my ass.
Unfortunately, she’d learned the hard way that not all men were what they pretended to be. Looking back, she realized she should’ve spent more time with Seth before deciding to take their relationship to the next level. Since she didn’t, she was stuck. At least until she could end things with him the right way. Even though he didn’t deserve it, she was loyal and faithful. Physically, at least. As for emotionally … well, that was another story. Did she consider her deep-seated infatuation with Rafe cheating? Maybe. But there was nothing she could do about it. During the three years since she’d befriended Rafe, she had fallen in love with him a little at a time.
Not that he knew how she felt. Oh, no. She’d never told him. In fact, she’d pretended otherwise and set out to fall in love with someone who wanted her back. Enter Seth.
Even if Seth hadn’t been an asshole of the highest order, Bailey knew there was no future for them. Back when they’d first started dating nine months ago, back when he swept her off her feet with sweet gestures and even sweeter words, Seth had said he wanted to one day get married, settle down, have children, and live happily ever after. Those were all things Bailey wanted. But evidently, Seth had only been pretending.
Turned out Seth was a liar. That’s what he was. He had snowed her, made her believe he was something he wasn’t, and now she was stuck with him because she had nowhere else to go.
That would change one day, though. And getting the job at the Double R would be a step in the right direction.
“Does he hit you?”
Bailey frowned and cast a sideways glance at Rafe. “Why would you ask me that?”
He adjusted his hat on his head and his eyes narrowed. “Does he?”
“No,” she said adamantly. “And if he did, he’d only do it once; I promise you that.”
Rafe’s gaze shifted out the window. He seemed somewhat interested in the little house she lived in. Bailey doubted he was curious about the crooked shutter or the hole in the rotten floorboards of the porch. More than likely, he was wondering what Seth was doing on the other side of that door.
Bailey didn’t care what Seth was doing. If she had her way, she would be living there alone. Except the house belonged to Seth’s godfather—or maybe he was an uncle, she couldn’t remember—so there was no option of flipping a coin to see who got to stay. Bailey had moved in with Seth roughly three weeks after they’d started dating. As she was prone to do, she’d jumped in with both feet without gauging the temperature of the water. And here she was, just eight months later, wishing Rafe had been man enough to call her to the carpet before she leaped.
