Page 13 of Bailey

“No,” Reeves said.

“Of course, I can’t drink them here,” Bailey said. “As cannabis is illegal in Wyoming, but I drank them for a while in Montana.” She sighed, her muscles relaxing slightly back into the cushions beneath her. “I mean, it feels like a lifetime ago, but there was nothing as relaxing as that, and I could sleep for hours after drinking one of those.”

“So it’s a drink with cannabis in it?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “I used to live a very different life.” She heard the ghosts of such a past wafting through the words she’d spoken, and she wondered if he had too.

Flashes of Bailey’s past—her with dyed-black hair and partying every night of the week—flashed through her mind in short, clipped scenes.

“I wouldn’t drink them now, even if they were legal,” she said. “I don’t drink at all anymore.”

“Good for you,” he said softly, and it sounded like he genuinely meant it.

“Now I just take a simple, over-the-counter sleep aid,” she said. “If I’m really tired and just need to shut off my brain for a few hours. I have a hard time doing that sometimes, as my mind just goes a mile a minute.”

“I understand that,” Reeves said.

She supposed he might. Just because he lived in a million-dollar mountain mansion didn’t mean he was immune to such things. Her phone on the armrest beside her buzzed, but Bailey made no move to pick it up. She quite enjoyed the comfortable silence between them, even as the seconds ticked by, piling on top of one another.

“Bailey?” He phrased her name as a question, and she lifted her head and opened her eyes to look at him.

He held her gaze, his expression soft, open, and vulnerable for only a moment before it hardened and he hid behind the tough cowboy mask he’d perfected. She didn’t have time to analyze and categorize it, but she got the distinct feeling that there was more to Reeves than he let anyone see.

“I’d go to your friend’s wedding if you’d like me to,” he said.

“Really?” Bailey hadn’t meant to put so much hope in her voice, but she heard it ring through the room between them.

“If you’d like,” he said. “Why do you want me to?”

Bailey swallowed, trying to find the right thing to say that wouldn’t make her look pathetic, or lonely, or afraid.

“It’s just so hard to go somewhere alone when everyone else has someone with them,” she finally said.

“I wouldn’t really know,” he said. “I don’t go places.”

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I said. I don’t really go out much.” He dropped his head and focused on Pansy, stroking her in a way that told Bailey the dog calmed him.

“You don’t go out at all?” she asked.

Reeves shook his head. “No, not really.” He looked up at her again, a new challenge in his expression that Bailey definitely recognized.

“How do you get groceries?”

“Delivery.”

“Gas?” she asked.

“You don’t have to talk to anyone to fill your car up with gas.” He gave her a smile that lifted the right side of his mouth more than his left.

“So you’re a recluse,” she said.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said with a quiet chuckle. “I like the hermit lifestyle.”

Somehow, the word “hermit” was softer than “recluse,” and actually made her feel better, even while it would make getting to know him harder. While Bailey had started off this day saying she’d like to be friends with Reeves, the humming in her belly told her that she’d actually like to be more than that.

“I haven’t dated in a long time,” she blurted out, having no idea where that confession had come from.